A couple had cause to house a relation who had just secured a job at a medical facility in Lagos. After staying with his hosts for some months, the medical worker secured an apartment somewhere else and made the necessary preparations to move in.
But before he finally left, he went to a prominent mall in his area and bought an expensive bottle of hot drink as a mark of traditional appreciation for the generosity extended to him by the couple. He proudly presented this drink to his hosts in the customised grocery bag of the mall and thanked them for the favour done to him. His hosts were very appreciative especially given the symbolism of such gifts in their culture.
A day after he left for his new abode, the couple decided to have a taste of the hot drink gift. The husband opened it, took one or two shots, gave a shot to his wife and kept the remainder on the shelf.
After a while, the wife began to complain of stomach upset. This was soon to be accompanied by frequent and ceaseless stooling that she had to be rushed to a hospital. The husband suffered the same health challenge but the effect was not as severe as that of his wife.
One thing that continued to occupy their minds during this health encounter was the possible source of their affliction. They considered all possibilities including the food and other consumables they took in their house that day. They ruled out the ones they consumed with their children since none of them showed signs of stomach upset.
They narrowed down to the hot drink because it was the singular item of consumption their children did not take. Their suspicion was high that the hot drink may have either been faked or adulterated notwithstanding that it was bought from a reputable mall with franchise all of the major state capitals.
Buoyed by the suspicion of adulteration, the couple quickly went to the shelf, grabbed the bottle and poured its content away in the sink. They were lucky to have survived the affliction as no serious harm came their way.
Henry Ogan (not real names) was diagnosed of an illness that requires him to be taking certain daily drugs duly recommended by his doctors. He went to a nearby pharmacy and bought the drugs. After taking the therapy for a good number of days, he discovered that relief was not coming.
He was worried that the drugs were of no help in ameliorating his situation. A number of ideas began to run through his mind. After some time, he decided to see his doctor with the drugs. And on very close examination, the doctor asked him to discard those drugs because he was not just sure of their source. He then directed the patient to a particular pharmacy with samples of the brand.
Ogan did as instructed. This time he paid higher for the drugs but he got the right ones. And as he began taking them, considerable improvement in his health was noticed. Ever since, he has learnt to buy drugs from reputable pharmacies.
The two accounts denote a tip of the iceberg in the mindless faking and counterfeiting of drugs, foods and assortment of consumables that go on in this country. Sadly, innocent citizens are at the receiving end. The people in the two encounters were lucky to have survived.
For many others, the reverse is often the case as they are dispatched to their early graves by the mindless quest of criminal elements to make illicit money at the expense of human lives. The situation is so critical and challenging even as efforts by relevant enforcement agencies to tame the menace have not achieved the desired results.
The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has been raiding markets and sundry manufacturing and distribution outlets to curtail the activities of fake and adulterated drug peddlers. In the last couple of weeks, it embarked on the sealing of open drug markets across the country considered the largest source of fake, counterfeit and expired drugs.
The Ariaria open drug market Aba, Abia State, that of Onitsha, Anambra and Idumota in Lagos State were some of the ones sealed by the agency. NAFDAC justified the simultaneous enforcement exercise in the three markets on the ground that they account for 80 per cent of the drugs sold in the country. That may well be even as they do not exhaust the list of markets such drugs are regularly sold to unsuspecting customers.
Before now, the agency had severally confiscated lorry loads of fake and substandard products in various parts of the country, burning and destroying them to forestall their being pushed back into the markets. But all these efforts seem to pale into insignificance in the face of the high volume of fake drugs, foods and consumables that still flood our markets. In a clime where all manner of people seek quick wealth through cutting-corners and fraudulent manoeuvres, the challenge can be really daunting.
The enormity of this challenge especially the mortal risks it poses to human lives must have so frustrated the Director-General of NAFDAC, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye that she last week, called for death penalty for fake drugs peddlers. For her, only strict penalty can deter offenders especially when their action results in the death of children.
Hear her, “Someone bought children’s medicine for about N13, 000 while another person was selling it for around N3,000 in the same mall. That raised the alarm. Guess what? When we tested the medicine in our Kaduna lab, there was nothing inside. So, I want the death penalty”.
She succinctly captured the mortal danger posed by fake drugs when she said, “you don’t need to put a gun to a child’s head to kill them; just give them bad medicine”. That summarises the life-threatening risks fake, adulterated, expired drugs and consumables pose not just to the lives of children but the adult population as well.
Even with efforts by the relevant enforcement agencies to stem the tide, the enormity and lethality of the challenge should instruct that stricter measures be taken to discourage the quick resort to faking and adulteration for profit. The malfeasance is so pervasive that one begins to question how some of these substandard drugs and consumables get into the country. It is true that some of them are faked locally. Yet, a good number come in through our ports. The regular seizures and confiscation of such products at the ports of entry give credence to this.
Adeyeye was not unmindful of the limitations of NAFDAC in fighting the scourge. The conduct of other agencies of government at the various ports of inspection and entry must also be re-evaluated.
There is the need for stricter laws to make fake and substandard drugs’ peddling a very dangerous enterprise. The way things stand, it is clear that enforcement and extant punishment in our status books have not been able to act as sufficient deterrent. Little surprising the illegal business continues to boom.
During a recent sting operation by the agency in one of the markets sealed last week, Nigerian were shocked at the assortment of fake and substandard drugs, drinks, sachet milk products and consumable confiscated from there. Nobody is really safe as the public has no way of differentiating between the fakes and the genuine products.
It took a lab test for NAFDAC discover that the drug sold for N3,000 had practically no healing value. It remains to be imagined the number of Nigerians that would have consumed them and the harm done to their lives.
Adeyeye’s frustrations in routing for death penalty for fake drugs peddlers is understandable irrespective of its propriety as a necessary and sufficient deterrent to offenders. That prescription may also run into conflict with current concerns and diminishing lure of capital punishment. Bu the argument that those who take lives through unwholesome practices should be subjected to tame measure can only be ignored at our collective peril.
Legislations no matter how well framed, may not achieve the desired results if the judicial system is weak. That is why the integrity and independence of the judiciary comes into serious reckoning. There is the urgency to re-jig our laws to make for penalties strict enough to discourage offenders. The pervasiveness of the malfeasance suggests loopholes in extant laws and administration of justice that requires to be plugged.
It is also high time we addressed systemic and orientational dysfunctions that push our citizens to deadly trade practices in the name of making quick money. The level of moral decay in our society has become so alarming that some social re-engineering should be called into quick action to halt the slide to the precipice. But the starting point should be from the club of people the system throws up as leaders.
The scourge of fake and adulterated drugs and foods is a national emergency; a mortal threat to human life. It requires genuine action to tame the monster.