NAFDAC must give account of it’s activities in Onitsha drug market – Rights Group

A rights group, International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) has called for public enquiry into the activities of officials of National Agency for Food Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) in Onitsha drug market.

The agency had closed the market for one full month, sending traders away and barricading it with soldiers, while breaking into the shops to search for fake, prohibited and counterfeit drugs.

In a protest on Wednesday, the traders lamented that even genuinely drugs in their shops were looted by the agency, while some shops that had nothing to do with drugs too were broken into and looted, including a boutique.

In a press release by Intersociety, the leader of the group, Mr Emeka Umeagbalasi called for urgent legislative Public Hearing and Judicial Commission of Enquiry to evidently ascertain various “outside-the-law roles played by deployed field operatives of the NAFDAC and its deployed security agents.”

The group said: “The two Public Hearings under demand are expected to frontally and comprehensively address five key disturbing issues.

“Hear the voices of genuine drug traders and ascertain losses incurred during the looting of their shops, hear how their shops were broken into in their absence and billions of naira worth of genuine drugs confiscated and carted away, unmask operational illegalities of NAFDAC and its deployed soldiers and police personnel.

“Also prevent looming crisis and imminent loss of lives and properties in the Market, and find short-term political solution through all-inclusive legislative public hearing to re-open the Market.”

The group said the claims by NAFDAC that the market has been reopened is false as the closure of the market is already in its 47th day.

He said: “Emerging facts have further shown that the NAFDAC blanket closure of Onitsha Drug Market has taken incalculable toll on traders and members of their nuclear and extended families as well as members of the public at large.

“The Market’s closure has also entered its 47th day today being Wednesday, March 26, 2025, owing to stringent and glaringly extortionist terms and conditions imposed on traders as conditions for re-opening of the Market.

“It is also shocking that NAFDAC has been transformed from public food and drug security regulatory and sanitizing agency of the Federation to revenue generation or extortionist agency of the Federation; brought about by the Agency’s decision to impose sundry extortionist fees on traders of Onitsha Drug Market.

“The estimated 12, 000 traders of the Market including their apprentices and salesgirls estimated at 5,000 and their market stalls numbering about 5,000 have gone through militarization and trauma from February 9 to March 9, 2025, after which their Market remained under lock and key till date; losing over 25 (40ft) containers of drugs estimated at over N800b; seized, confiscated, carted away and publicly unaccounted for till date.”

The group said many of the traders have fallen sick and other met their untimely death as a result of the closure and raiding of their markets. They called on the state government and the house of assembly to intervene.