Fake drugs:  Group warns against ‘Akunyili’s treatment’, asks NAFDAC, others to sack bad officials

Following the recent sealing of over 11,000 shops and arrest of 40 individuals in an ongoing nationwide crackdown on fake and substandard medicines by the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has called on NAFDAC, the Nigeria Police Force , and the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) to root out corrupt officers enabling the importation of these dangerous products.

HURIWA emphasized that under the second schedule, legislative powers, part 1, exclusive legislative list, Article 21, drug regulation falls under federal jurisdiction.

The group stressed that federal officials complicit in the importation of fake drugs must be identified, investigated, prosecuted, and punished in full accordance with the law.

“Law enforcement agents who conspire with importers of fake drugs should face lifetime jail terms without any possibility of early release,” HURIWA stated in statement issued by its national coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko on Sunday.

“Similarly, manufacturers of fake and substandard products, if caught, should be jailed for life,” it said.

HURIWA also advised NAFDAC’s Director-General, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, to enhance her personal security measures.
“If you fight drug lords who are kingpins of the underworld, you must of necessity be many steps ahead of them in terms of your personal security,” HURIWA warned, recalling the threats and eventual death of former NAFDAC DG, Prof. Dora Akunyili, whose husband was suspiciously killed in Onitsha.

HURIWA expressed disappointment that those top-notch regulators from NAFDAC and law enforcement agents from the Nigerian Customs Service and the Nigeria Police Force deployed to the various Sea ports and Air ports in Nigeria from where fake drugs and substandard products are brought into Nigeria, have not been flushed out of the system in the country which in the group’s own words : ” Penny wise, pound foolish’ because as soon as these confiscated fake, substandard drugs and products are destroyed by NAFDAC, many more could still flood into Nigeria because the business of selling fake, and substandard drugs and products is a multi billion dollars enterprise.

“The federal government should task these regulatory bodies and the law enforcement agencies to identify the top officers who were deployed in the seaports and airports and then investigate them to ascertain their levels of involvement in the daredevil criminality of importation of fake drugs and products into Nigeria.  Aside the issue of economic sabotage, the consumption of fake medications lead to collapse of vital human organs and these are responsible for the several cases of kidney failures recorded in Nigeria.”

HURIWA stated that unlike the Anambra State Governor, Charles Soludo, who raised concerns over the influx of counterfeit drugs into Onitsha’s Ọgbọ Ogwu market, questioning how banned substances continue to evade federal scrutiny and enter Nigeria’s markets, we are definitively certain that fake drugs can’t be imported successfully and distributed to diverse markets in Nigeria without the involvement of officials of NAFDAC, officers of police and customs who work at the ports in Nigeria.