From Okey Sampson, Umuahia
National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) operatives yesterday, raided the popular Ekumi Medicine Plaza, in Ariaria International Market, Aba, Abia State,seizing several unwholesome drugs worth millions of Naira.
Some of the drugs seized were hard drug suspected to be Meth (popularly known as Nkpuru mmiri), Gentamicin and other injections said to have been banned by the Agency over the years.
Speaking at the market, leader of the NAFDAC team, Omoyeni Babatunde, deputy director, Investigation and Enforcement and Federal Task Force, South East, South South, said the operation was an inter agency collaboration.
“Our operation is an inter agency collaboration. Before we were drafted into the market, a lot of work had been done by the DSS.
“We moved into the market with the assistance of the police and the army and of course the DSS personnel. Our operation was based on intelligence gathered by the DSS.”
Babatunde disclosed that the operations were carried out simultaneously in three locations in the South East and South South of the country and the drug market in Ariaria happened to be one of the locations.
“We are searching for all unregistered NAFDAC products in the market and we have been here since morning. What we have seen in the market is mind boggling.
“Some drugs, including injections which were long banned by NAFDAC, are still found in the market.”
He said no arrests were made because people were not in the market when they entered, adding that they moved from store to store, to ensure thorough work.
He said most of the products seized were without NAFDAC registration and numbers, stressing that any product without the Agency’s registration number was fake.
He the entire shops in the market were to be screened to ensure no single shop in the market harbours fake and adulterated drugs.
On whether it was not illegal for officials of the agency in the course of their duty, to break into shops when their owners were not around, Babatunde said, the law that established the agency empowered it to enter any premises,”if need be by force when it reasonably suspects that things that are in contravention of NAFDAC statutory regulations are being perpetrated in such places.
“We cannot quantify the seizure we have made in terms of naira and Kobo yet because the operation is still, it is at end we will be able to know exactly”.
He said NAFDAC would continue the operation until every shop in the market was screened.