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Christopher Oji
Ugolab Manufacturing Company based in Kano State has called on the state Commissioner of Police, Wakili Mohammed and the Inspector- General of Police (IGP), Mohammed Adamu, to revisit the claims by the police that cartons of tramadol were discovered in the company premises.
The company dissociated itself from the allegation, saying that what were found in the company were not cartons of tramadol drugs but Declofenac.
The Kano State Police Command had, in May last year, claimed that its operatives recovered 303 cartons of prohibited drug, tramadol, in the company.
CP Mohammed had, while briefing newsmen at the command headquarters in Bompai, said the seizure followed a tip-off, “prompting a police special squad to rush to the scene and impounded the 303 cartons of the hard drugs at No. 157 Miller Road, Bompai in Nassarawa LGA.” The police commissioner disclosed that during the raid, the police burst a syndicate at a drug factory even as he indicted Ugolab Manufacturing Company located along Bompai, Kano, as the owners of the said illicit drug.
But in a swift reaction, the management of Ugolab Production Nigerian Limited refuted the claim by the police, saying that what was recovered was Diclofenac, not tramadol.
Production Process Manager (PPM) of Ugolab Pharmaceutical Company, Mr. Peter Eguabor, who spoke with journalists in Lagos, said that the police did not come to the company on a tip-off as it claimed.
He said: “What happened was that there was a robbery incident at the company’s warehouse at about 3.53am on that fateful day. The robbers made away with four cartons of Diclofenac sodium and Diphenhydramine HCL, among others. The company invited the police. We called the control room and the police responded.
“Trouble started when on arrival at the scene of the crime, the police officer who led the team opened a carton of Diclofenac and alleged that it was tramadol. The police took three cartons away. Then around 11am, the general manager and the quality assurance manager went to give a statement and took with them a carton of the medicine, making four cartons. The police later came back around 2pm to collect the remaining 322 cartons of the drug.”
He said the GM, Chris Metu, who called the PPM, to ascertain what really happened in the company was arrested by the police.
According to the firm, when the police were told to explain why the additional cartons were taken, they responded that “investigation is still on-going.”
