By Ken Chiwendu
The Director General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye has said that the agency seized tramadol worth over N1.1 trillion labelled as building materials at the ports of entry
The seizure she said was possible with the aid of intelligence gathered for the agency.
Fielding questions from journalists in Abuja on Tuesday, Adeyeye also announced that about N1.3 million worth of falsified, banned and counterfeited were seized in its recent raid.
She disclosed that before her administration, NAFDAC was not at the ports for seven years and as such, bad food, drugs and other products came in unchecked.
“Our mandate includes controlling importation, exportation but we were removed from the ports for seven years and Nigeria became a haven of anything bad -food, drugs and other regulated products.
“I did not know before I came that this had happened, so I knew that NAFDAC has its work cut out. We have been doing a lot since my resumption. At the point when I came in, we were swimming in Tramadol as a country.
“At that point, there were some issues with NDLEA and they also called us to action. So my first six months, I was running after Tramadol.
“We have seized over N1.7 trillion worth of Tramadol containers since that time.
“We were called by an informant at high places that we should expect 31 containers of tramadol that were labelled as building materials. It was only one out of the containers that contained building materials.
“Those containers are worth about N1.7 trillion. NDLEA has stepped up its game and I commend Brig-Gen Buba Marwa.”
Adeyeye therefore, said, there is a need for more staff to carry out its enforcement and surveillance activities
“We have stepped up our enforcement. The last raid, we got N1.3m worth of medicines falsified, banned, counterfeited”.
“We go about every time, almost every week to do one raid or the other through the public because we cannot be in every street in Nigeria. It is the citizens that will help. However, what we are realising is that we need more staff to move en mass.”
