The National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control, NAFDAC, says it has submitted proposals seeking a review of existing laws introducing more severe penalties for counterfeit drug offences to the National Assembly.
This is to bring to further check the rising cases of Counterfeit, Fake Drugs and Unwholesome Processed Foods which had continued to pose health challenges to Nigerians.
The Director of Investigation and Enforcement, NAFDAC, Dr. Martins Iluyomade, made this known when the enforcement team of NAFDAC in company of Police Force uncovered large quantities of banned and expired malaria medicines in an abandoned four-storey building in Ojo Local Government Area of Lagos State.
Dr. Martins Iluyomade who expressed dismay that monotherapy artesunate which is no longer recognised under the World Health Organisation (WHO) malaria treatment guidelines, was found in large quantities at the site.
“According to him, counterfeit and substandard medicines contributes to rising drug resistance, worsening health indices posing a grave threat to public health and national security”.
Explaining in details, Iluyomade says, “the building, which consists of 15 flats, has been abandoned for over 15 years and was being used as a clandestine hub for the storage, revalidation and repackaging of banned and expired drugs, which includes artesunate, chloroquine and other sensitive medicines”.
He explained “What we have found out is that there are people who are worse than Boko Haram. “Nigeria has banned artesunate Worldwide, monotherapy artesunate has been banned for over 10 years because of resistance”. But some people are still insisting on selling what is already outlawed.
“Worse still, they will allow it to expire and then revalidate it. Some expired in 2022 and some 2024. So it’s a double-edged sword. It is a banned product and it is expired” Illuyomade
He noted, “They have a chemical that they use to wipe the expiry date. Only God knows the number of people that have fallen victim to this. That is why you see treatment failures, people treating malaria and dying from preventable illnesses.”
Pointing out that Investigations discovered empty drug tablets and packaging materials used to repackage and reseal medicines for resale, expressing concerns over the revalidation of highly sensitive medicines, including centrally acting drugs such as diazepam.
“They will put tablets inside empty cases, seal them and give them to people to use. A bad batch of one medicine can kill more than one million people at a time. I don’t really know how to qualify this, but it is wickedness of the highest order.” Illuyomade reacted
He recalled a 2008 operation involving fake sedatives traced to China, where the Chinese suspects were sentenced to death in their country, while the Nigerian counterpart served a jail term.
“I wish we had a law like what we have in China — death sentence straight away. Some NGOs say death sentence is not fashionable. But somebody is killing people already. We are going to go back to what we did then, working through Interpol, to ensure Nigeria is not used as a dumping ground,” he said, noting that Chinese authorities do not tolerate such crime”.
The Divisional Police Officer, DPO, Ojo, CSP Opeifa Omolola, earlier provided insight into how the abandoned building was discovered, tracing the operation to an earlier interception of expired drugs.
She said the breakthrough followed the arrest of two men in September who were conveying expired pharmaceuticals in a vehicle around the Alaba International Market adding that sustained surveillance and intelligence-gathering eventually led investigators to the location.
“ I had to employ the services of some commercial motorcycle riders Okada to know exactly where they were operating from and that lead to the arrest of another suspect at the scene, bringing the total number of arrests to three”. Omolola explained
On her part, the Chairman, Ojo Local Government Area (LGA),
Princess Muibat Rufai-Adeyemi, attributed the discovery to sustained collaboration between the local government and security agencies, noting that they had no prior knowledge of the activities in the building located in a fully occupied residential environment with active community structures.
Rufai-Adeyemi expressed concern that despite the presence of Community Leaders, Community Development Associations (CDAs) and a Community Development Committee (CDC), “No formal report was made about suspicious activities in the long-abandoned property, people working overnight and leaving in the mornings, with food vendors also serving them, yet the situation went unreported”.
“The local government has intensified efforts to prevent a recurrence by strengthening collaboration with law enforcement agencies and activating a task force to inspect abandoned buildings and locked-up shops across the area”. She promise.