to comply with orders from the Consumer Protection Council over two
half-empty cans of evaporating Sprite.
A consumer complained to the council, which investigated the
short-filled cans of Sprite bought at a supermarket in Abuja and
recommended legal action.
The consumer council in February warned Coca-Cola that Nigeria was not
a "dumping ground for substandard products" and said that it had also
been been inundated with complaints about rusty cans, rusty bottle
tops and foreign particles in beverages.
It said the half-filled cans continued to evaporate during its investigation.
Attorney General Mohammed Bello Adoke, who is also the justice
minister, filed the suit at the Federal High Court in Abuja against
Coca-Cola Nigeria and its chief executive, and the Nigerian Bottling
Company and its managing director for criminal breach of the Consumer
Protection Act.
He accused both companies of "deliberately failing, refusing and/or
neglecting to comply" with orders to subject their manufacturing
processes to its inspection, and filed an additional charge against
Coca-Cola for refusing to appear before the council. Nigerian Bottling
manufactures the products under the license and authority of Coca-Cola
Nigeria.
The infractions carry jail terms of three to five years. Coca-Cola did
not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Considering the wide coverage of Coca-Cola products in Nigeria,
Africa's most populous nation of some 160 million people, the council
found the development with the cans of Sprite a threat to public
health, as opposed to an isolated incident.
--ABC NEWS
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