The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has uncovered and sealed a warehouse of six flats containing expired foreign drugs and supplements in Aba, Abia State.

The building is located in the serene village setting of Umummeje, Umuocheala in the Osisioma Local Government Area of the state. 

The South East Zonal Coordinator of NAFDAC, Martins Iluyomade, confirmed the discovery after taking journalists round the buildings filled with expired products.

He said, “This is a twin two storey duplex with a boy’s quarters filled with expired products to the brim and to a level I have never seen before since my days of working in NAFDAC. What we are seeing here are expired drugs that people have stocked here. I am seeing here that some of the expired products were purchased recently and in new cartons.” 

The coordinator said that some of the products had shipment markings on their packs showing that they came recently through Ikeja airport, Lagos.

Mr Iluyomade said the owners of the buildings established a system of either buying expired products or receiving expired products from importers to repackage and sell to the public.

He stated, “All the work we have been doing in Abia are important but this is massive. I don’t understand how somebody can be this evil against his own people. We are all Nigerians and we should not be this evil to ourselves.”

He said he was speechless as he was made to enter one room after the other all packed to the brim with expired products.

He said, “As we entered one room after the other, they keep telling me it has not finished, it is still remaining and the kind of drugs you see here are very expensive foreign drugs. I felt like crying seeing many anti-hypertensive medicines here because if somebody has hypertension and you went to buy foreign drugs for him and you are ‘buying death again,’ a person doing that deserves a death sentence.”

The coordinator noted that the agency could not yet quantify the volume of the foreign expensive expired medicines in the place because the building was filled and work still ongoing.

Mr Iluyomade said that the suspicion of revalidation of the expired products made more sense when they saw a machine used to revalidate expired products and heaps of unused labels.

It was gathered from a security agent in the team that three persons including the suspect’s wife had been arrested.

However, Mr Iluyomade only confirmed the arrest of ‘few persons’ including the suspect’s wife. 

The coordinator said that when the suspect who he said was on the run was told by his wife that she was in custody, the man said they should “continue to keep her.”

Mr Iluyomade promised that the agency and its allies would arrest the suspect and make him face the law.

“Regarding the house, the law will take its course because everything here including the buildings have become a scene of crime. The buildings, the vehicles and everything we are seeing here has become part of the exhibits”, he said.

 Mr Iluyomade quoting the NAFDAC director general said the agency was reviewing its laws to make it as strong as the Chinese law on fake adulterated medicines.

He added, “Our DG made that clarification some days ago that anybody caught with fake and substandard medicines should be given a death sentence.

The NAFDAC chief thanked the state governor, Alex Otti, for supporting the mopping of unregistered and expired drugs and also appreciated the police, the army and State Security Services for their assistance in making the screening successful.

He said the outing was a collaborative effort of the agencies and expressed hope that they would continue to work in synergy for the safety of Nigerians. 

(NAN)