Posted by By Chidi Nkwopara on
OWERRI - The Direc tor General of National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Professor Dora Akunyili.....
OWERRI - The Direc tor General of National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Professor Dora Akunyili, has raised a fresh alarm over the increasing rate of production and sale of fake and adulterated drugs in Onitsha, the commercial nerve centre of Anambra State.
Professor Akunyili who raised the alarm in an interview aired severally, equally appealed to Nigerians to stop buying drugs from Onitsha."
Traders in Onitsha are waging a fratricidal war on Nigerians. This war is very serious. The war is more dangerous than the use of machine guns and bombs. Their only target is to kill all of us, including our children with poison. Don't let them to defeat us", the NAFDAC boss pleaded.
According to her: 'These merchants of death are very desperate and prepared to do anything. The only way to defeat them is to resist the temptation of buying or selling drugs to the Onitsha traders". She traced the current but sordid activities of the merchants of death in Onitsha markets to the recent high court ruling, which suddenly realised that it had no jurisdiction and freed all those accused of planning to kill her in 2002.
"With that judgment, fake and adulterated drug merchants no longer obey NAFDAC. They have been emboldened and now attack us, especially in Onitsha", Professor Akunyili complained bitterly.
Meanwhile, the Chairman of Onitsha Main Market Amalgamated Traders Union (OMMATU), Chief Samuel Uzor, is of the view that a blanket blacklisting of the drugmarket by NAFDAC will do more harm than good to the populace." There are genuine drug distributors among the traders in Onitsha. The total ban, which NAFDAC is pursuing, would hurt everybody and will not augur well for thesystem", Uzor opined.
Vanguard recalls that officials of NAFDAC were June 3,2006, attacked by drug merchants in Onitsha and no fewer than six of their vehicles vandalized by the rampaging traders.