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The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, has urged the National Assembly to enact legislation prescribing the death penalty or life imprisonment for individuals involved in the sale of fake and counterfeit drugs in Nigeria.

NAFDAC Director-General, Mojisola Adeyeye, emphasized that such stringent measures are necessary to hold perpetrators accountable for their actions, given the alarming prevalence of counterfeit products in circulation.

Speaking on recent nationwide operations, including a raid on the Onitsha Head Bridge drug market, Adeyeye revealed that the total volume of fake drugs seized so far is valued at over N1 trillion.

Addressing State House correspondents on Wednesday at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, she confirmed that the agency had successfully confiscated consignments of banned, expired, unregistered, substandard, and falsified medical products. She also stated that the seized items would be publicly destroyed in each of the locations where they were confiscated.

Adeyeye called on the National Assembly to accelerate amendments to the NAFDAC Act LFN and the Counterfeit and Fake Drugs and Unwholesome Processed Foods C34 Act to include life imprisonment and the death penalty as punitive measures for offenders.

“With the signing into law of the Proceeds of Crime Act, POCA, for the forfeiture of assets, any assets recovered from suspects will be treated as proceeds of crime after their conviction by the courts,” she stated.

She further described the ongoing enforcement operation as “purely an effort to protect public health and rid our country of falsified and substandard medical products.”

“We cannot imagine the pain these fake drug peddlers are causing us. People are dying, and many have lost their lives due to their activities,” she lamented.

Adeyeye also highlighted manpower shortages as one of the major challenges facing NAFDAC, noting that the agency has only about 2,000 staff across the country, which she described as grossly inadequate to combat the spread of counterfeit products and dismantle criminal drug cartels.

Additionally, she pointed to corruption within the drug value chain as a significant factor undermining efforts to eliminate fake and substandard products from the market.