– In Onitsha Market, NAFDAC evacuated ten 40-foot truckloads of tramadol from the plumbing, wood plank and the fashion lines of the market – DG
(NAFDAC Director General, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye)
By Biola Lawal
Flowerbudnews: The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) successfully confiscated and evacuated over 100 truckloads of counterfeited, fake expired and banned medicines from the three major drug markets in the country in the last six weeks.
Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, the NAFDAC Director General noted that if the 100 truckloads of substandard falsified and banned medicines were allowed in circulation, they could ruin a nation by reducing quality of life of millions of Nigeria.
Flowerbudnews recall that the falsified me medicines etc, were confiscated by NAFDAC during enforcement operations
in Idumota, Onitsha and Aba Open Markets
(Truckloads of the confiscated fake drugs etc destroyed through burning in public by NAFDAC recently)
Prof Adeyeye made the disclosure on Friday while giving an update on the unprecedented enforcement exercise carried out in Idumota, Onisha and Aba drug markets in Lagos, Abia and Anambra states respectively where unregistered, banned, expired or medicines with other violations worth over a trillion naira were confiscated.
She further disclosed that the Agency concluded the enforcement exercise in Idumota and Aba on February 28, 2025, while the exercise still lingered in Onitsha until March 8, according to a statement Sayo Akintola, NAFDAC Resident Media Consultant.
(Prof Adeyeye, explaining the dangers drug counterfeiters pose to national health, security and economy)
”What we have found could ruin a nation. What we have found could destabilise a government. What we have found could reduce quality of life of millions of Nigerians.’ she stated,
Adding: ‘‘If you have diabetes, hypertension which need daily treatment, such people could die easily with what we have found.
‘’With a large population of Nigerian youth below age 40, the narcotics we found could take away life from them and fuel banditry and terrorism”.
Overall, she said over 100 40-footer truckloads were evacuated, disclosing that 27 truckloads from Idumota had already been destroyed in public burning.
Prof. Adeyeye said that 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.
The NAFDAC Boss disclosed that in Onitsha, there were 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 C, subjecting the medicines to degradation before the user starts to use them.
‘In that plumbing section, we knew through intelligence since three or four years ago that something was going on there,’ She said, adding: ‘we were there with our police, and our staff and police narrowly escaped death.’
Prof Adeyeye explained that ”the merchants of death, masquerading as medicine dealers among the shop owners, mobbed the police and NAFDAC staff to protect their illicit trade.”
She added that about seven months ago at the Onitsha market, NAFDAC staff went on intelligence again and they almost killed two of them.
‘They bloodied them, bleeding. This is the hazard that we go through every time in NAFDAC,” Prof. Adeyeye stated, adding; ‘this time, the Agency evacuated ten 40-foot truckloads of tramadol from the plumbing, wood plank and the fashion lines of the market,
The NAFDAC Boss noted with dismay that about four truckloads of syrup with codeine that was banned almost seven years ago were also evacuated.
Prof Adeyeye however, emphasised that the Agency needed to conduct the enforcement in the markets with the purpose of saving lives of Nigerians and to foster trade.
She pointed out that if a local manufacturer’s product is counterfeited, that manufacturer cannot get their return on investment because somebody is already faking their product and selling it cheaper.
The NAFDAC Boss explained that if people are exposed to banned and fake products, the better alternative that they are supposed to buy locally will not be bought, making it impossible for local manufacturers of registered products to sell.
‘NAFDAC is doing this first for public health, secondly to foster trade and thirdly to reduce the scourge on our country,” She assured.
