The Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye said on Wednesday, that it raided the Kano drug market in obedience to an order of a Federal High Court to relocate the traders to another location.
According to Adeyeye, in contrast to its raid on drug markets in Lagos, Onitsha, and Aba which generated about N2.5 billion, the raid in Kano did not generate any revenue for the agency because it was ordered by the Court and had to be executed. Adeyeye disclosed this at an interactive session with the House of Representatives Committee on Food and Drug Administration and Control. The DG NAFDAC said the Kano raid was anchored on a February 16, 2024 judgment of the Federal High Court which ordered the relocation of the open drug market traders to the newly constructed Coordinated Wholesale Centre (CWC), known as the Kanawa Pharmaceutical Centre. She said the traders initially resisted the move, leading to real threats of violence, saying “we had no choice; we had to act. They padlocked their shops but we bought bigger padlocks and sealed them. To reopen, they had to agree to relocate.” According to her, no administrative charges or fines were collected during the Kano enforcement, due to the urgent and court-directed nature of the operation, but said post-marketing surveillance was carried out after relocation. “These are the lives we are trying to save. We had no funds at the time our accounts had just been shut down and reopened with zero balance at the start of January 2024. Yet, we had to carry out the court judgment and move over 1,300 shops into the regulated centre,” she said NAFDAC boss added that Kano was the only state that had built its CWC as mandated by a presidential directive, long before her tenure began, saying “In the South, Lagos, Onitsha, Aba, there was no CWC. So our approach was different. We had time to prepare, inspect, and charge offenders according to their violations,” she explained. Responding to concerns that Kano traders were treated more leniently compared to the operations in the southern part of the country, she said the agency followed due process, guided by the urgency of the court judgment and prevailing security risks. “In retrospect, yes, we could have done more inspections or collected administrative fees. But that wasn’t feasible under the circumstances. Even a legal officer was almost killed at the court premises. It was a volatile situation,” she said
