NAFDAC seals Idumota shops, others for selling fake drugs

The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has shut down several drug shops, warehouses, and packing stores at Idumota Market in Lagos over the sale of suspected falsified and unregistered medicines.

The enforcement operation, which took place on Tuesday, targeted major distributors suspected of supplying counterfeit drugs to pharmacies and hospitals across the state.

Director General of NAFDAC, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, said the raid was part of efforts to rid the market of substandard medicines.

“The essence of this operation is to ensure that when we take medicines, they actually work. When a child is given medicine, that child doesn’t die because there is nothing inside that medicine.

“The essence of this is to control unwholesome products or those not approved. We have over 5,000 shops opened, which is not supposed to be so,” she said.

Director of Investigation and Enforcement at NAFDAC, Shaba Mohammed, said the operations were not limited to Lagos alone.

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“Today’s operation is about substandard medical products in the Nigerian market,” he said. “On Sunday night, we sealed the three major open drug markets in the country. We had all the security agencies on the ground, including the military, police, DSS, and the Pharmacy Council of Nigeria, alongside NAFDAC officials.”

Mohammed stressed that previous investigations had led to the seizure of counterfeit drugs in these markets, but more needed to be done.

“These markets are responsible for distributing over 80% of the country’s drug needs. If we don’t act now, Nigerians will continue to suffer from the circulation of fake and unregistered medicines,” he added.

Deputy Director of Investigation and Enforcement, Mrs Florence Ubah, revealed that NAFDAC operatives recovered 14 cartons of suspected counterfeit drugs from a shop in Idumota.

“We were screening a shop when we found out that the owner is also a task force head. He claimed that some individuals attempted to escape with these cartons the previous day but abandoned them when they saw the task force approaching,” Ubah explained.

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Since the products had no clear ownership, she said NAFDAC took custody of them for further verification.
Chairman of the Lagos State Medicine Association, Island Zone, Mr Innocent Ezennaya, expressed concerns over the ongoing inspection exercise.

He explained that while regulatory officials regularly monitor their activities, this particular operation was more intense, with inspectors checking shops one after the other.

He also acknowledged the economic impact of the exercise, stating that businesses would not be able to operate for a whole week.

However, he expressed optimism that by the end of the operation, regulators would help improve efforts to sanitise the business environment.

NAFDAC vowed to continue cracking down on the sale of falsified medicines in Lagos and other parts of the country.