The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has destroyed substandard drugs seized from over 100 forty-foot trucks, with an estimated street value exceeding N1 trillion.
The drugs were confiscated during a month-long operation conducted by NAFDAC and security officials at the Head Bridge drug market in Onitsha, Anambra State, and the medicine market in Aba, Abia State. Speaking at the ASWAMA destruction site in Awka, the Director General of NAFDAC, Professor Moji Adeyeye, represented by the South East zonal director, Dr. Martins Iluyomade, expressed concern over the potential harm caused by these drugs if they had reached consumers.
The DG emphasized that NAFDAC’s actions had saved millions of Nigerian lives, highlighting that the quantity of drugs seized and destroyed in this operation was among the largest ever recorded in a single exercise globally.
She also noted that the destruction process is being coordinated by the Office of the National Security Adviser (NSA), underscoring the connection between the fight against counterfeit drugs and national security in Nigeria.
Adeyeye said: “We, as an Agency, have come to realize that time has come for us to put an end to circulation of substandard and falsified medicines in Nigeria. “People have cried and we have listened and that is why we are working in such a way that Nigerians can go to bed and sleep, knowing that whatever medicine they take are safe, certified and effective.”
According to her, medicines can be genuine, but when stored inappropriately, it can lose its potency, adding that most of the drugs destroyed in Awka fell under that category as they were virtually kept in the oven by the traders.
“We also saw medicines that had been banned and we wonder the obsession to them.
There are also in circulation, narcotic medicines, including tramadol and these are the things that promote insecurity in the country. Also, many a time, people had used different medicines only to get treatment failures, which, in turn, cause economic failures for the country,” she stated.
She announced that the exercise would be continuous and commended security operatives for their assistance during the month- long exercise.