NAFDAC is doing this first for public health, secondly to foster trade, and thirdly to reduce the scourge on our country.
Idumota market in Lagos State, Onitsha market in Abia State, and Aba market in Abia State were raided by the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control ( NAFDAC) , which seized more than 100 truckloads of counterfeit, substandard, and prohibited drugs and pharmaceuticals in just six weeks.
On Sunday, the agency’s resident consultant, Sayo Akintola, signed a press statement disclosing this. Prof. Moji Adeyeye, the Director General of NAFDAC, warned that millions of Nigerians’ quality of life may be severely compromised if the prohibited and substandard medications are permitted to circulate.
During a briefing in Lagos on Friday, Adeyeye updated the audience on the results of an extraordinary enforcement operation that had taken place in three markets, seizing pharmaceuticals that were either unregistered, illegal, expired, or had other breaches. The total value of the seizures was over one trillion naira.
Adeyeye stated, “What we have found could ruin a nation. What we have found could destabilize a government. What we have found could reduce quality of life of millions of Nigerians. If you have diabetes, hypertension, which need daily treatment, such people could die easily with what we have found.
“Overall, she said over 100 40-footer truckloads were evacuated with 27 truckloads from Idumota, already destroyed while in Aba and Onitsha markets about 80 40-foot truckloads of unregistered, banned medicines and narcotics were seized and evacuated.
“For Aba and environ, she disclosed that 14 truckloads of violative medicines were evacuated from the Osisioma warehouse alone, four truckloads from the Ariara Road warehouse and ten truckloads of the medicines were seized from the markets.
“In Onitsha, there are 110 lines where they sell drugs, aside from the plumbing market, and the wood plank markets. From the plumbing section, Prof Adeyeye explained that warehouses were filled to the brim, without windows, with temperature more than 40 degrees Celsius, subjecting the medicines to degradation before the user starts to use them.
“In that plumbing section, we knew through intelligence, three or four years ago, that something was going on there, adding that we were there with our police, and our staff and police narrowly escaped death.”
To safeguard their illegal activity, she said, the merchants of death, who pretended to be medication vendors among the shop owners, surrounded the police and NAFDAC employees.
She stated that two NAFDAC personnel, who were on intelligence, nearly lost their lives at the Onitsha market seven months ago.
She bemoaned the fact that about four truckloads of syrup containing codeine, which was outlawed nearly seven years ago, and that the agency had to remove ten 40-foot truckloads of tramadol from the market’s plumbing, wood plank, and fashion lines.
“NAFDAC is doing this first for public health, secondly to foster trade, and thirdly to reduce the scourge on our country.”