NAFDAC cracks down on fake wine factories in Abia

Officials of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) have cracked down on fake wine factories in Abia state. 

The agency also shut down several illegal markets suspected of selling adulterated beverages.

During the recent raid, 10 suspects were arrested while the markets were sealed pending the outcome of investigation.

Speaking during the raid, Martins Iluyomade, the agency’s director of the south-east zone, said the suspects, occupying over 240 shops at the Cemetery market, sold products that were often produced using unsafe ingredients and unsanitary practices.

“Every session of the shops you see here is a factory and everyone is a manufacturer of a product,” the NAFDAC director told Channels Television. 

“There are two sets of illegality going on here. Some sets of people are manufacturing products of other people in large quantities. So much so that there is little or no difference between their products. 

“And the one that is manufactured here, they are manufacturing in a very bad environment, with poor Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP), and using bad chemicals and colourings.

“Like the raw materials we saw the other time, all they do is just get the rubber, and a mixer. Some just see the regular sieve and put it into bottles for people to drink.

“My fear is that this is yuletide period, people have bought drinks in the house, and they don’t even know the source of the drinks they have bought.

“There is also a high level of increase in liver failure, and kidney failure and some of them are major results of some of the poisonous things that people have taken.”

There has been a proliferation of fake or counterfeit drinks in the Nigerian market in recent times.

Law enforcement agencies have busted a handful of the syndicates behind the harmful products. However, the crime has shown no signs of abating.