Writing By Teddy Daniel; Editing By Yusuf Zubairu
National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, has destroyed counterfeit medicines valued at over two billion naira, warning that criminal networks involved in cloning and falsifying drugs are becoming more sophisticated and dangerous.
Director of Investigation and Enforcement at NAFDAC, Dr. Iluyomade Martins who also chairs the Federal Task Force on Counterfeit Medicines and Foods, disclosed this during the destruction exercise carried out at the dumb site in Gonin Gora kaduna state in collaboration with the Office of the National Security Adviser and the Nigeria Customs Service.
Dr.Iluyomadesaid the products were intercepted after intelligence revealed that smugglers were bringing the medicines into the country through Kano airport and other unauthorized routes and falsely declaring them to Customs officials.
According to him, the joint operation with the Nigeria Customs Service in Kano led to the seizure of about eleven million doses of counterfeit medicines packed in over five hundred cartons.
He stressed that the products would never be allowed back into circulation, noting that NAFDAC maintains a zero tolerance policy against counterfeiting.
“We are here to save the health of the nation as there is no way we are going to remove something from circulation and allow it to return through the back door,” he said.
Dr.Iluyomade explained that counterfeiters now clone original registered medicines so perfectly that consumers can hardly detect the difference through packaging alone.
He said unlike in the past, when fake medicines could easily be identified through poor packaging and spelling mistakes, criminals now reproduce products almost exactly like the originals while replacing the active ingredients with harmful or ineffective substances.
“Everything may look exactly the same except the content inside, and that is where the danger lies. They may fill the capsules with chalk or substances with no active ingredient at all,” he stated.
The NAFDAC official warned that such practices not only endanger lives but also destroy the reputation of genuine pharmaceutical brands when patients unknowingly consume counterfeit versions that fail to work.
He further cautioned Nigerians against buying medicines from hawkers and unlicensed outlets, stressing that the era of purchasing drugs carelessly from roadside vendors must end.
“The days are gone when you could simply pick medicines from anywhere and assume they are safe because the packaging looks correct. Counterfeiting has become far more sophisticated,” Dr.Iluyomade warned.
He urged distributors, pharmacies, hospitals, and members of the public to buy medicines only from accredited and licensed sources linked directly to market authorization holders.
Dr. Iluyomade also emphasized the importance of demanding receipts and verifying seller details to help authorities trace products whenever problems arise.
“If anything goes wrong, there must be a way to identify who sold the product and where it came from,” he added.
Also speaking, Director of the North-West Zone of NAFDAC,Dadi Natim- mullah said the agency continues to conduct routine inspections of manufacturing facilities, warehouses, and distribution networks to ensure that medicines remain safe from production to final distribution.
He appealed to Nigerians to stop patronizing drug hawkers, insisting that illegal medicine sales would disappear naturally if there was no public demand for them.
The crackdown forms part of broader efforts to sanitize Nigeria’s drug distribution system and eliminate unauthorized middlemen responsible for injecting counterfeit products into the supply chain.
