The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) says its operatives have seized over N1 trillion worth of banned, expired, and substandard medical products in a nationwide crackdown.
Mojisola Adeyeye, NAFDAC director-general, who spoke in Abuja on Wednesday while briefing State House correspondents, said 11,000 shops were also sealed during the exercise.
“What we are currently underestimating is a figure of N1 trillion. Yes, that’s N1 trillion,” Adeyeye said.
“This might be an underestimation for now, but once we complete the operation, we will have a clearer understanding of how these drugs are entering our country.
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“They came into the country through borders, and like I often say, it takes a village to raise a child. It doesn’t take only NAFDAC and the Pharmaceutical Council of Nigeria (PCN) to ensure that we have sanity in our drug distribution or we mitigate some standard falsified medicines.”
Adeyeye said the operation carried out in the last couple of weeks uncovered USAID and UNFPA-donated antiretroviral drugs and male condoms, which were found expired and repackaged for sale.
The NAFDAC DG said there is a need for stricter sanctions, including life imprisonment or a death sentence for counterfeit drug dealers.
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She said the agency plans to relocate open drug markets to coordinated wholesale centres within a year.
She added that NAFDAC has, in the past days, embarked on a sweeping enforcement operation across the country’s three major open drug markets of Onitsha, Aba, and Lagos.
Adeyeye said the 87 truckloads of drugs confiscated were the biggest in the agency’s history, noting that the operation was executed in Ariaria and Eziukwu markets (Aba), Bridgehead Market (Onitsha), and Idumota drug market (Lagos).
She said the exercise is part of NAFDAC’s national action plan (NAP 2.0) 2023-2027, aimed at eliminating counterfeit medicines, improving regulatory compliance, and safeguarding public health.
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