Some rights groups in the Southeast, the Human Rights Liberty Access and Peace Defenders’ Foundation (HURIDE) and Campaign for Democracy (CD), have condemned the National Agency for Drugs Administration and Control’s ( NAFDAC) alleged exploitative and extortionist tendencies at the Onitsha Drug Market in Anambra State.
Recall that NAFDAC had on March 6, 2025, locked down the Onitsha Drug market with a combined team of security operatives, including the Nigerian Army, the DSS, the Nigerian Police, and other security forces to impound and confiscate unwholesome and adulterated drugs.
The market had remained shut down since then, despite assurances that it would be opened two months ago.
Last week, an influential social media influencer known as VeryDarkMan, VDM, had visited the market, over allegations that officials of the agency were extorting each trader about N700,000 as a penalty for illegal drug dealing.
According to the Executive Director of HURIDE and Chairman of Campaign for Democracy (CD), Dede Uzor A Uzor, who spoke with our correspondent in Enugu, the allegations of extortion were pure ethnic victimisation.
Emphasizing that they do not support any form of adulteration, fake, or substandard drugs, as according to him, drug fakers are more dangerous than armed robbers, Uzor contended that NAFDAC was not clean in its operation.
According to him, the agency did not consider the health of some citizens whose lives depended on some potent drugs from the United Kingdom (UK), the United States of America (USA) and other advanced countries whose drugs haven’t been registered with NAFDAC because of the bureaucratic bottlenecks and huge amount being demanded by the agency before such drugs would be registered.
Unfortunately, said the rights groups, these drugs, amounting to over N1.5 trillion, were said to have been impounded by NAFDAC.
They demanded that NAFDAC, as a matter of urgency, return all the money collected from traders in the name of penalty fees before such shops were reopened.
They said NAFDAC ought to have known and arrested those who were dealing in fake drugs and prosecuted them, wondering why they should impose a fine of N700,000 per individual shop.
“Does payment amount to legalisation of fake drugs if such payments are made?
“Does it mean that everyone in the market was involved in dealing with fake and unwholesome drugs?” the groups queried.
The groups called on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to immediately commence a discreet investigation into the financial dealings of NAFDAC officials during and since the market lockdown, especially monies accrued via payment by defenseless and innocent traders running into billions of naira.
“We are calling on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (BAT) to set up a special investigative team led by a retired Judge of the Supreme Court to unravel NAFDAC’s financial dealings in the last 20 years,” said the groups.
The rights groups equally urged the Federal Government to support the Anambra State Government in its efforts to establish an International Standard Drug Market (ISDM) at Oba in Idemili South Local Government Area of the State, whose construction is on-going.
Criminals investigating criminals. What will be the outcome?