NAFDAC impounds fake Eva soap, vegetable oil in Onitsha

Angela Onwuzoo

As part of efforts to sanitise markets in Nigeria of fake drugs and other regulated products, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), has impounded fake and adulterated products worth over N20m at the Relief and Police Officers Wives Association (POWA) Markets, all in Onitsha, the business hub of Anambra State.

The confiscated products include counterfeited Eva soap, imported Goya Extra Virgin Cooking Oil, unregistered alcoholic beverages – Baby Oku and White Mischief.

The seizures also included imported Oliva Vegetable Oil and locally made insecticides which the agency said posed a major risk to human health.

A team of NAFDAC investigation and enforcement officers working on a tip-off on Monday had stormed the market and thereafter, closed down over seven shops filled with the counterfeited products; two suspects were arrested in the raid.

Addressing newsmen after the exercise, the agency’s Director, Investigation and Enforcement Directorate, Mr. Kingsley Ejiofor, who led the operation, said the action would help curb the menace of counterfeiting of food and drug products in Nigeria.

Ejiofor who promised to clampdown on importers, distributors and marketers still stocking banned regulated products, said the impounded vegetable oil and alcoholic beverages were below standard, uncertified and not registered by NAFDAC.

“We are here because we got a report that some people are dealing in counterfeit, unregistered and adulterated products. We have arrested two persons at the moment and we are going after the rest. In one of the shops that we raided, what we saw there was colossal.

“We uncovered about 1300 cartons of Goya Extra Virgin Cooking Oil with street value of over N20m and then we got the soap and the packaginging material. We also got some unregistered alcoholic beverages which are dangerous to health. Some of the products only have email addresses without manufacturer’s address. It’s sad that we still have such elements among us who are hell bent on destroying human lives,” he said.

Ejiofor then warned that the Federal Government’s ban on commodities such as foreign juices, refined oils and fats, cocoa butter, powder and cakes, spaghetti/noodles, sweetening among others is still in force.

He vowed that his agency was determined to wipe out from the markets products which importations into the country have been banned by government.

According to him, the exercise was part of their routine jobs to checkmate all counterfeit and prohibited products, especially food and drugs, stressing that his men would smoke them out of the market no matter where they hide.

He advised Nigerians to be wary of drugs, food and other regulated products they buy and should also demand for receipt of any product they purchase to enable them to track the fakers within the markets.

Ejiofor further affirmed that importers of fake products into the country would get life sentence once the National Assembly approves a bill by the agency seeking for such punishment, urging traders and citizens to report suspicious activities to the agency.