The National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has explained why it closed three major Open Drug Markets (ODMs) in the country.

It would be recalled that the federal agency charged with the onerous responsibility of ensuring that foods and drugs that must circulate in Nigeria for consumption and therapeutic benefits, must compulsorily meet some laid down requirements/criteria, so as to ensure the good health status of the consuming public, had closed the markets for non-compliance with laid down rules.

Consequently, and based on intelligence reports, NAFDAC's enforcement teams had recently swooped-in on the three (3) major open drugs markets (ODMs) in the country located in Idumota, (Lagos State), Aba, in (Imo State) and Onitsha, in Anambra State, for enforcement.

At the end of the exercise, products found to be banned, expired, falsified or of substandard worth more than a trillion Naira were removed and destroyed.

Irked by their loss on investments, the traders' consortium employed the services of a social media influencer who have since been flooding the social media space with one form of propaganda, accusations or the other, all aimed at disparaging NAFDAC generally.

However, in a swift reaction, NAFDAC in a Press Release dated May 27, 2025 and titled: "NAFDAC REJOINDER: Inciting Statement by a Social Media Influencer Against the Federal Government of Nigeria," signed by its Director-General, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, affirmed that all the affected complainants at the three affected markets were all in clear "violations and contravention of the pertinent extant law of the federation," hence the closure of the markets, and further submitted that their attempts at "incitement may constitute a breach of the Cybercrime Act."

In the words of NAFDAC's Director-General, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, "Between 9th February and 27th March 2025, NAFDAC conducted a raid operation to remove unregistered, expired, banned, diverted donation drugs, substandard, falsified, and illicit narcotics and controlled substances from the three major Open Drug Markets (ODM) in the country.

"All the warehouses, shops and parking stores in the three Open Drug Markets did not meet the minimum requirements of Good Storage and Distribution Practices.," she informed, hence their closures.

"More importantly, there was no proof of registration of these Open Drug Market premises by the Pharmacy Council of Nigeria (PCN) ? a clear contravention/violation of the pertinent extant law of the federation.

"For these infractions, the administrative charges that apply (as gazetted) were imposed on perpetrators," she clarified.

The imposed charges for perpetrators are:

? An Investigative charge of N5M (reduced to N200,000 after pleas) for sales of unregistered products, and

? An Investigative charge of N2M (reduced to N500,000 after much plea) for being in violation of Good Storage and Distribution (GSD) practice.

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