How Nigeria’s youth opioids abuse fuels million-dollar Indian enterprise

As street popularity of opioids abuse booms and Nigeria’s youths grapple with addiction, a quiet Indian pharmaceutical company is driving huge profits and creating jobs abroad from a factory that never sleeps.

The opioid abuse affecting over four million Nigerian youths has created West Africa’s largest market for Mumbai-based Aveo Pharmaceuticals Private Limited, according to a cross-border investigation by BBC News.

The investigation traced dangerous opioids packaged in capsules from the streets of Kano to India where Aveo pushes consignments worth millions of dollars to conniving distributors in neighbouring countries like Ghana.

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Samospharma Limited, one of such distributors supplies retailers who smuggle these opioids through Nigeria’s porous borders.

Export data revealed in the investigation shows that consignments in multiple tranches of over $200,000 and over $400, 000 were shipped by Aveo to Samospharma.

Thirsty for the profit of addiction, Aveo’s research and development unit carefully created a combination of compounds that are unapproved by any standards in the world.

They combine tapentadol with carisoprodol to create varying brands including Tafrodol, TimmaKing, and Super Royal.

These tablets are produced in 120 milligrams, 225, and 250 milligrams to drive an almost impossible type of effect for users to withdraw from.

Meanwhile, pharmaceutical regulations limit formulations of just one of these compounds to a maximum of 100 milligrams or less.

Tapentadol is a powerful opioid while carisoprodol is an addictive muscle relaxant that is banned in Europe.

In a secret footage of a discussion over a deal to supply large consignments to Nigeria, Vinod Sharma, one of Aveo’s directors, told the undercover operative disguised as a client that these drugs were highly harmful tools in the hands of abusers.

“But this is business,” he said.

He took the operative on a tour of the ever-busy factory, touting how its capacity to produce about five million tablets.

While Aveo thrives in India, the investigation simultaneously mirrors the pathetic reality of some Nigerian youths who have lost control of their health and fitness due to addiction.

Carers in one rehabilitation centre in Kano are forced to confine them in hand and leg chains to limit violent behaviours and the chance of escape.

“You can’t put these two things together. I don’t there is anywhere in the world where such a combination is accepted. Whatever one is to achieve, the other one is to triple it,” Shaba Mohammed, director of Investigation and Enforcement at the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) said during a private screening of the investigation in Victoria Island.

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He said the influx of such harmful combinations is one of the reasons driving the current onslaught on open drug markets across the country.

“The narcotics we removed are worth billions. These products are among those seized. They are imported through Ghana, and some of them find their way in through borders in the north.”

Yedunni Adenuga, NAFDAC’s director of narcotics and controlled substances said the agency is making efforts to ensure all drugs coming into the country are duly registered and efficacious.

She said enforcement efforts are also ongoing to weed these harmful products out of the market.

Oluwafemi Akinbode, executive director, Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA) urged the federal government to take up the findings of this investigation with the government of India and a conclusive end to the opioid menace.