The recent wave of raids by the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) across major drug markets in Nigeria has exposed an alarming reality: our country is drowning in a sea of counterfeit pharmaceuticals.
From Aba to Lagos, Onitsha to Idumota, the discovery of massive quantities of fake, expired, and adulterated drugs worth billions of naira reveals not just a thriving criminal enterprise, but a direct assault on public health and safety.
While NAFDAC’s aggressive enforcement is commendable, the sheer scale of these operations points to a systemic failure that requires more than just periodic raids.
In the considered opinion of this newspaper, the findings are nothing short of horrifying. In Aba’s Ariaria market, authorities uncovered contraband medicines worth millions. In Lagos’ Idumota market, over 3,000 shops were sealed after discovering vaccines stored in dilapidated, unventilated rooms.
The Onitsha Bridge Head Market yielded 10 trucks of fake drugs, with dealers brazen enough to offer a N135 million bribe to enforcement officials. At the notorious Cemetery Market in Aba, counterfeit products worth over N5 billion were seized, including fake versions of popular beverages and medicines. These are not mere statistics; they represent potential death sentences for unsuspecting Nigerians who rely on these medicines for their health needs.
What makes this situation particularly alarming is the sophistication of these criminal operations. The counterfeiters have evolved from simple fake drug peddling to running complex operations with machinery for repackaging and revalidating expired drugs.
They operate from seemingly legitimate business premises, use professional packaging, and have perfected the art of mimicking genuine products. When NAFDAC tested a children’s medicine being sold at a fraction of its original price, they found it contained nothing – a chilling reminder that these criminals are effectively murdering children without using guns.
The scale of this problem extends far beyond individual traders. These operations have uncovered entire networks of illegal factories disguised as regular shops, producing everything from fake antimalarial drugs to counterfeit HIV medications.
In the Cemetery Market alone, over 240 such illegal factories were discovered, producing harmful and adulterated products using unsafe chemicals and unhygienic water sources. The sophistication of their packaging means that even educated consumers might struggle to distinguish these counterfeits from genuine products.
In our view,the current regulatory framework is clearly inadequate. When the punishment for importing deadly doses of Tramadol is either five years in prison or a mere N250,000 fine, we must question our society’s commitment to protecting public health.
NAFDAC’s Director-General, Mojisola Adeyeye call for the death penalty for drug counterfeiters, while extreme, underscores the frustration with a system that treats the deliberate endangerment of human lives with kid gloves.
This disparity between the severity of the crime and its punishment has created a perverse incentive structure where the potential profits far outweigh the risks.
The persistence of open drug markets, despite NAFDAC’s target to reduce substandard and falsified medicines to not more than 5% prevalence by 2025, highlights the complexity of the challenge.
These markets continue to thrive because they serve as crucial distribution points in our pharmaceutical supply chain, albeit illegal ones. The fact that even some legitimate pharmaceutical associations, like the EKUMI Plaza Patent Medicine Dealers Association, had to surrender expired and fake medicines worth ₦50 million shows how deeply entrenched these practices are.
However, enforcement alone, no matter how severe the penalties, cannot solve this problem. We need a comprehensive overhaul of our drug distribution system. The continued existence of open drug markets, despite decades of warnings about their dangers, points to deeper systemic issues. These markets thrive because they fill a gap in our healthcare delivery system – providing accessible, albeit dangerous, alternatives to expensive genuine drugs.
Tackling this deadly trade requires decisive action across multiple fronts. Nigeria must immediately implement stricter regulations throughout the pharmaceutical supply chain, deploying cutting-edge tracking systems from manufacturer to end-user.
The root cause of this crisis lies partly in the affordability of legitimate medicines. The federal government must urgently review its import duties on essential drugs, boost support for local pharmaceutical manufacturing, and revamp the National Health Insurance Scheme. Making genuine medicines accessible and affordable to every Nigerian will naturally shrink the market for counterfeits.
Public education remains critical. NAFDAC’s mobile authentication service, while innovative, needs significant expansion and simplification.
Our judiciary can no longer treat drug counterfeiting as a minor offence. When criminals walk free after paying pittance fines, we mock the lives lost to their deadly trade. The courts must impose penalties that match the gravity of these crimes – substantial jail terms, crippling fines, and permanent blacklisting of offenders from any pharmaceutical-related business.
Every counterfeit drug in circulation represents a potential death sentence for Nigerian families. This is not merely a regulatory challenge but a national emergency demanding immediate, forceful response. Half-measures and occasional raids will not suffice. We must wage total war against this menace until every medicine sold in Nigeria is genuine, safe, and life-saving rather than life-threatening.
