The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has assured that adequate measures had been put in place to safeguard the people’s health before, during and after the yuletide season.
In her Christmas and New Year messages, released on Sunday, NAFDAC’s Director General, Prof Mojisola Adeyeye emphasised the need to eat safe and stay safe during the festive period.
She reiterated the need for Nigerians to always procure food and drinks in outlets with identifiable addresses and locations to ease the agency’s track and trace obligation, adding that medicines and packaged food products that do not have NAFDAC number should be avoided. “And when a product is too cheap, it’s most likely to be compromised.”, she advised.
Adeyeye, however, disclosed that officers of the agency’s Investigation and Enforcement Directorate (I&E) would continue the ongoing mop up of substandard and falsified medicines and unwholesome food items from the markets across the country.
According to NAFDAC’s spokesperson, Mr. Sayo Akintola, officials of the agency’s I&E, Pharmacovigilance Directorate, and Post-Marketing Surveillance Directorate are jointly on the field mopping up falsified medicines, fake wines and drinks and unwholesome food products that could endanger the health of the people during the festive season.
The agency had stormed supermarkets in the big cities across the country such as Lagos, Port Harcourt, Aba, Ibadan, Kaduna, and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), to apprehend manufacturers and merchants of fake drugs and unwholesome foods, while products running into billions of Naira had been confiscated in the last three months of renewed enforcement.
On Wednesday, 11 December 2024, NAFDAC destroyed expired, unregistered drugs worth N11 billion in Ibadan, Oyo State. In November, it seized N300 million worth of fake medicines during a raid of Tyre Village, Trade Fair Complex, Lagos State. Its officers also burst counterfeit alcohol packaging centres and seized items worth N2 billion in Lagos. This followed reports of illegal revalidation of expired alcoholic beverages at the Trade Fair Complex in Lagos.
The war against substandard and falsified medicines and unwholesome food and drinks moved to Nasarawa State where officers of the agency, led by the Director of the FCT Directorate, Mr. Kenneth Azikiwe stormed the Karu market situated at the border between FCT and Nasarawa State where bags of repackaged expired rice were confiscated. Products worth about N5 billion were seized during the raid.
Also, in Nasarawa State, NAFDAC sealed a factory and eight shops for packaging and distributing counterfeit rice, valued at approximately ₦5 billion. The operation, conducted on 19 December targeted a facility named Ninjur Ventures on Abacha Road, Karu.
It would seem as though these merchants of substandard and fake products are seizing the opportunity of the anticipated high level of consumer purchases and consumption during the yuletide. At Wuse and Garki markets in Abuja last Friday the agency confiscated over 1,600 bags of counterfeit rice worth about N5 billion where counterfeit rice was being repackaged in branded bags.
Adeyeye maintained that only safe, quality, and wholesome food products should be available to Nigerians during the yuletide and beyond. She specifically instructed that those counterfeiting popular brands of rice should be arrested and their products removed from the market.
Simultaneously, 150 shops at Eziukwu Market in Aba, a suburb of Abia State, were shut down following an operation by the agency.
As the mop-up operation was going on in the FCT and Nasarawa State, NAFDAC was carrying out a two-day operation in the Aba market on 16 and 17 December 2024. During the operation, the agency uncovered large-scale production and distribution of fake and expired goods including beverages, carbonated drinks, wines, spirits, vegetable oils, and revalidated food items such as noodles, powdered milk, and yoghurt with a market value of N5 billion.
On Wednesday, 11 December 2024, NAFDAC also destroyed expired, unregistered, counterfeit, and smuggled products valued at over N10.99 billion.
The destroyed items, collected from five states in the Southwest Zone (excluding Lagos) and Kwara State in the North Central Zone due to its proximity, were incinerated in Ibadan.
In total, over N120 billion worth of seized products were destroyed by the Agency in six months (October-December) in the six geo-political zones and FCT.
The Director General however, stated that the agency would not rest on its oars until the merchants of death are forced out of operation, warning that the Agency would make it hard for them to operate freely and endanger the health of innocent consumers.
“The coming year will be tough for the people that prioritize money over the wellbeing of their fellow human beings by compromising quality of medicines and food products in the country”, she said.
She urged consumers to consistently scrutinise medicines and branded drinks carefully to distinguish genuine products from counterfeits before consumption. “NAFDAC wishes to advise that the members of the public should be vigilant during this yuletide season.
‘’We are using this medium to appeal to Nigerians to buy only NAFDAC registered drinks from reputable and licenced retailers, bars and supermarkets. If the product is being sold well below its normal price, or doesn’t seem to include normal taxes on liquors, then it is probably fake. Check for poor quality packaging, spelling mistakes and unusually shaped bottles”,’ she said.
Healthcare professionals and consumers are advised to report any suspicion of substandard and falsified medicines or food to the nearest NAFDAC office, call 0800-162-3322 or send an email to sf.alert@nafdac.gov.ng.
