Lawrence Nwimo, Awka
The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), on Wednesday, said its security team has recovered two riffles, live cartridges, matchete and other weapons hidden by unknown persons at drug market, Bridge Head, Onitsha, Anambra State amidst the ongoing clampdown on fake and counterfeit drugs.
The agency, it would be recalled, has been at patent medicine sections of Onitsha bridge head market since February 10, 2025, as part of ongoing nationwide campaign to strengthening public health by ensuring that fake and counterfeit drugs being peddled by cartels were push out of markets.
The Director General of NAFDAC, Professor Mojisola Christianah Adeyeye, who disclosed this while addressing journalists at the market, expressed surprise over the discovery which she viewed as an assasination attempt on the agency’s director in South-east zone, Dr Martins Iluyomade, who normally conduct debriefing at that particular spot on daily basis.
Adeyeye, represented by Iluyomade, added that their security team equally foiled two attempts made by some hoodlums to gain entrance to the stores where they parked seized drugs at Onitsha as well as arrested two suspects in the process.
She, however, assured the public that the exercise would not be brought to an end abruptly because according to her, it was not targeted at any person or groups but a national assignment for the general good of the populace.
“With prompt interventions of our security, we saw and recovered dagger, machetes, two guns and riffles. All other nights, we have arrested people who try to break in and do one things or another in this market. They are in the custody and volunteering useful information,” she added.
She, however, commended the leadership of the markets for working with them throughout the period of the operations, even as she assured that some sections of the market would be reopened this week while they begin the next aspect of the exercise.
According to her, not less than 50 trailer-load of counterfeit and substandard drugs discovered in the market have been shifted to safer place for further action.
