The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) said it destroyed over N120 billion worth of seized products from July to December 2024, in the six geo-political zones and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT)
This was as the agency assured Nigerians that adequate measures had been put in place to safeguard their health before, during and after the Yuletide season.
This was contained in the Yuletide message of the Director General of NAFDAC, Prof Mojisola Adeyeye, to Nigerians, in a statement by the agency’s Resident Media Consultant, Sayo Akintola, on Sunday.
Adeyeye emphasised the need to eat safe and stay safe during the festive period.
She reiterated the need for Nigerians to always procure food and drinks in outlets with identifiable addresses and locations to ease the agency’s track and trace obligation, adding that medicines and packaged food products that do not have NAFDAC number should be avoided. And when a product is too cheap, its most likely to be compromised.
Adeyeye said officers of the agency’s Investigation and Enforcement Directorate would continue the ongoing mop-up of substandard and falsified medicines and unwholesome food items from the markets across the country.
“Officials of the Agencys Investigation and Enforcement Directorate, Pharmacovigilance Directorate and Post-Marketing Surveillance Directorate are jointly on the field mopping up falsified medicines, fake wines and drinks and unwholesome food products that could endanger the health of the people during the festive season.
“The agency had stormed supermarkets in the big cities across the country such as Lagos, Port Harcourt, Aba, Ibadan, Kaduna, and the FCT, to apprehend manufacturers and merchants of fake drugs and unwholesome foods, while products running into billions of naira have been confiscated in the last three months of renewed enforcement.
“On Wednesday, 11 December 2024, the agency destroyed expired, unregistered drugs worth N11 billion in Ibadan, Oyo State. In November, the Agency seized N300 million worth of fake medicines during a raid of Tyre Village, Trade Fair Complex, Lagos State. Officers of the agency also busted counterfeit alcohol packaging centres and seized items worth N2 billion in Lagos. This followed reports of illegal revalidation of expired alcoholic beverages at the Trade Fair Complex in Lagos”, it noted.
It said the agency also confiscated bags of repackaged and expired rice worth N5 billion and sealed a factory and eight shops where counterfeit rice are packaged and distributed in Nasarawa State.
It added that over 1,600 bags of counterfeit rice worth N5 billion were confiscated in Wuse and Garki markets, Abuja.
Adeyeye maintained that only safe, quality, and wholesome food products should be available to Nigerians during the Yuletide and beyond.
She specifically instructed that those counterfeiting popular brands of rice should be arrested and their products removed from the market.
It stated that a total of 150 shops at Eziukwu Market in Aba, a suburb of Abia State, were shut down following an operation by the agency.
“As the mop-up operation was going on in the FCT and Nasarawa State, NAFDAC was carrying out a two-day operation in the Aba market on 16 and 17 December 2024. During the operation, the agency uncovered large-scale production and distribution of fake and expired goods, including beverages, carbonated drinks, wines, spirits, vegetable oils, and revalidated food items such as noodles, powdered milk, and yoghurt with a market value of N5 billion.
“The agency on Wednesday, 11 December 2024, also destroyed expired, unregistered, counterfeit, and smuggled products valued at N10,991,458,374.60.
The destroyed items, collected from five states in the South-West Zone (excluding Lagos) and Kwara State in the North Central Zone due to its proximity, were incinerated in Ibadan.
“In total, over N120 billion worth of seized products were destroyed by the agency in six months (July-December) in the six geo-political zones and FCT.
“The DG, however, stated that the agency would not rest on its oars until the merchants of death are forced out of operation, warning that the agency would make it hard for them to operate freely and endanger the health of innocent consumers.
“The coming year will be tough for the people that prioritise money over the well-being of their fellow human beings by compromising quality of medicines and food products in the country”, the statement noted.
