When Heineken dresses up as Trophy beer in Nigeria: Counterfeiting unites competition

By Bamidele Johnson

Things are spinning outta hand. Completely. Heineken bottle, Trophy label. The liquid content might be Goldberg, if you are lucky. Or mmiri ncha (soap wter) if you are not. Is this a duet by the two brands? Is it Heineken ft. Trophy?

Whatever this is, I have never seen its kind before. Only that I have seen something on the same street before. At a shoe shop in Tejuoso, where I accompanied a friend in 2021, the shop owner brought out a pair my friend liked.

I told him it was fake. My friend, who had been completely taken in, said it was not and proceeded to show me the label in it. It read Vernsace. I told the shop owner that even the label showed it was fake and that Versace was what existed, not Vernsace. He said Vernsace was Versace's younger brother. I shot him a deathly stare and told my friend we had to walk.

I had not seen nothing yet. We got called by a guy selling shirts. I was pissed because he wanted shoes and the plan was to take him to the guy Goodluck Ilajufi Ebelo and I bought from (I still buy from him) on the Island. He stopped and the shirt shop or "boutique" owner dragged him in.

We got shown shirts described as designer's. The one that shocked me to my nuts had a label reading "Christian Dayo". I told the chap that Dior and Dayo were not the same. He insisted they were related. I said if he had Christian Dayo, he should have Muslim Kunle and dragged my friend out like a bailiff.

I once bought what I thought was Squadron Red Rum to use as anaesthesia for a mad toothache. I gargled it, but it had no effect. My wife checked the bottle and discovered that the label, in the same colours as the real thing, read Squaron. At that point, I began to wonder whether I was buying medicine or participating in a spelling bee organised by criminals. Did they also run out alphabets?

One night when there was power outage, I thought I bought Power Plus, a multivitamin I used to take. The package was the same as what I used to buy, but the name spooked me out of my skull. "Power Pass Power" was what it bore. I went back to the shop the next day and threatened to pull down the roof. The guy said that was how they bought wares, as though helplessness was supply chain. I got my money back, walked and told anyone I was close to that the guy was selling shit.

Last year, a friend bought Jack Daniel's that tasted like petrol and I said it was Gbenga Daniel he bought. These chaps are going to kill us and in large numbers if we do not begin to think of them as having a desire for industrial-scale homicide. They are no longer merely counterfeiting products. They are conducting experiments on the human population.

I once bought a phone I thought was Nokia. After flying for about six hours on the way to Dubai, a phone I had switched off came back on and the ring was louder than a heavy metal concert. I scooted to the loo and pulled the battery. Even then, I thought it could come back on. In Dubai, I discovered I had forgotten the charger in Lagos and wanted to buy one. It was there I discovered I had Nokla, not Nokia. I had to buy a new phone.

I knew those who sold the phone did not make it, but they imported it and knew what they were importing. Last year, while buying an electric kettle for my daughter, I saw one bearing KENWEED which, if I had asked, would have been said to be a product of Kenwood's half-sibling.

At this rate, I am afraid to buy anything that carries a familiar name. You could ask for Guinness and be handed "Guinness's cousin from Apongbon". You could buy a Philips appliance and discover that it is "Phylips". You could order a Rolex and find yourself wearing "Rolake", while the seller explains, with a straight face, that it is the Swiss brand's Naija sister.

I am scared shitless. Not going to lie. The next time I buy anything, I may have to take a lawyer, a chemist and a native doctor with me. One to inspect the label, one to inspect the contents and one to determine whether the product has a legitimate ancestral connection to the brand it claims to be.