Despite the widely circulated news of the reopening of the Onitsha drug market early last week, a rights group, International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) has said that the market has remained shut.
The group lamented that despite claims by National Agency for Food Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), of reopening the market, the market has remained shut and also heavily policed by armed military men numbering over a dozen.
In a press statement by the group, which was signed by the board of trustees chairman, Mr Emeka Umeagbalasi and other key members of the group, it accused NAFDAC of coming to equity with unclean hands.
Part of the statement read: “NAFDAC has continued to go to equity with unclean hands in its ongoing militarist and collective punishment operations in the Onitsha Drug Market, which was shut and kept under lock and keys since Sunday, February 9, 2025.
“NAFDAC-issued and widely circulated media reports that the Onitsha Drug Market has been unsealed and re-opened for business, with effect from Friday, March 7, 2025, but the Drug Market has remained sealed and under lock and keys till date.
“Our checks as of Saturday, March 8, 2025 showed that the six affected adjoining markets were conditionally re-opened on Friday, March 7, 2025, as against Onitsha Drug Market which remains under lock and keys and situation of militarization with over a dozen armed soldiers of the Nigerian Army and their patrol vans and armored personnel vehicle as of this day of Sunday, March 9, 2025.”
The group condemned the misinformation, saying the false claims not only add to the long list of NAFDAC’s operational illegalities in the Onitsha Drug Market and six other adjoining others, but also exposes the Agency as having failed woefully to go to equity with clean hands.
“It is therefore strongly condemnable for NAFDAC to have deliberately misinformed and misled members of the Nigerian public and generality of the world to the effect that the Onitsha Drug Market has been unsealed and re-opened for business, with effect from Friday, March 7, 2025.
“Also strongly resisted by the Intersociety are attempts by the Agency to criminalize the Onitsha Drug Market, its members and leadership by publicly portraying it as a den of fake and illicit drug dealers, assassins and vendors of illicit small arms and light weapons and their ammunition.”
