NAFDAC officials return to ports after seven years

Officials of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) have returned to the nation’s ports after seven years.

Moji Adeyeye, director-general of the agency, who made this known in Abuja on Wednesday, said NAFDAC’s return to the ports is to check importation of illicit drugs.

Adeyeye said she took up the task of ensuring that NAFDAC officials returned to the various ports to prevent fake drugs and similar products from coming into the country.

“Returning NAFDAC to our ports is one of the struggles I fought when I assumed duty as the director-general in November 2017,” she said.

“We have been at the ports for the past two and half weeks; there was abuse of such opportunity in the past.

“Our officers now have change of attitude on the way they do things. Being at the ports to check and prevent entry of illicit drugs is one of our mandates taken away from us before we were reinstated recently at the ports.

“We are thinking of the safety of Nigerians; that is why we put quality management system in place for the benefit of our end users who are Nigerian populace.”

In 2011, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, former minister for finance and coordinating minister for the economy, had ordered regulatory agencies like NAFDAC, Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), Agricultural Quarantine Services to exit the ports, saying the action is aimed at reducing cost of doing business in Nigerian ports as well as eliminating delay.