NAFDAC mops up N430m truck unwholesome drugs in Onitsha drug market

The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NAFDAC) on Monday received unwholesome drugs worth over N430 million handed over by the leadership of the Onitsha Drug (Ogbogwu) Market, Anambra State.

Omoyeni Babatunji, deputy director in charge of NAFDAC Investigation and Enforcement for the South South and South East regions, while receiving the items from the Ndubuisi Chukwuleta-led leadership, said the items were mopped up between January and June this year.

According to him, there were about 192 items from banned, voluntarily submitted expired drugs to the union by the traders themselves as well as the ones seized by the union task force.

Babatunji said the market leadership had come to its office with a letter that, over the period of January and June 2026, had told the members with expired drugs to voluntarily submit the same to the union, and they complied.

He explained that there was an agreement between the agency and the traders in last year’s raid that the drug market must be sanitized.

“If you recall, last year we were here for an open drug market raid, which we did in three major drug markets in Nigeria: Ogbogwu here, Ariara Market, Abia, and Idumota Market, Lagos.

“Nobody should have any banned product in the market. The market chairman tried to move with his team and its task force around regularly.

“From our discussions and understanding, that is what we are seeing here today,” he stressed.

Tunji said the received drugs would be destroyed alongside others from other states at a later date.

Chukwuleta, caretaker committee chairman of the Onitsha Drugs Market, said the handed-over faked, unwholesome drugs to NAFDAC were evacuated from the law, which law would not be permitted to be sold.

“Some of them were smuggled into the market by the traders and seized by its task force, while some were voluntarily submitted to the union by the traders themselves.

He said the union took the revolution to sanitize the market of unwanted drugs, even with the propaganda by some of the members working with the cartels outside the market.

“They are still troubling the union; some have also gone to court with frivolous allegations against us, but we triumph over their falsehood.

“Some of these traders fomenting troubles don’t have shops here, but they are being sponsored by drug cartels. They came here like touts.

“My primary aim in being the Chairman is to sanitize the market and, out of faith, take a revolution, and many traders are now seeing that I am not inconveniencing them,” Chukwuleta said.