The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, said that if the 100 truckloads of substandard falsified and banned medicines evacuated from the three major drug markets in the country in the last six weeks were allowed in circulation, they could ruin a nation by reducing quality of life of millions of Nigeria.
The Director General, of the Agency, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye made the remarks 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.
According to her the Agency concluded the enforcement exercise in Idumota and Aba on February 28, 2025, while the exercise still lingered in Onitsha until March 8.
‘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 said, adding that ‘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 NAFDAC boss said, ‘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 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.
According to her, 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 C, 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.’
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. ‘This time, she said the Agency evacuated ten 40-foot truckloads of tramadol from the plumbing, wood plank and the fashion lines of the market, also noting 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. Unfortunately, that generally difficult to understand, she said, pointing out that if it’s a counterfeited product from a local manufacturer, that manufacturer cannot get their return on investment because somebody is already counterfeiting their product and selling it cheaper.
She further explained that if people use banned products, the better alternative that they are supposed to buy locally they will not buy 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.
