Concerned with the ongoing public health crisis caused by substandard medicines, Nigeria’s National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has proposed a hard-line stance on fake drug peddlers, calling for a maximum penalty of capital punishment to deter individuals from perpetrating this dangerous practice and protect the health of Nigerians.
Director-General of NAFDAC, Mojisola Adeyeye, made it clear that the only way to put an end to the illegal trade of fake drugs and safeguard the lives of Nigerian children is to impose harsh penalties, including the death sentence, on those found guilty of peddling these hazardous substances.
Adeyeye said this when she appeared on Friday’s edition of Channels Television’s The Morning Brief.
In her statement, “Somebody bought children’s medicine for N13,000 or something like that; another person was selling about N3,000 in the same mall.
“That raised an alarm. Guess what? There was nothing inside that medicine when we tested it in our Kaduna lab. So, I want the death penalty.
“Because you don’t need to put a gun on the head of a child before you kill that child. Just give that child bad medicine.”
“You cannot fight substandard, falsified medicine in isolation. The agency can do as much as it can, but if there is no deterrent, there’s going to be a problem,” she said.
Adeyeye emphasized the agency’s eagerness to collaborate with the judiciary and National Assembly to ensure that offenders receive severe penalties.
“Somebody brought in 225mg of Tramadol that can kill anybody, fry the brain and you give a judgment of five years in prison or N250,000. Who doesn’t know that that person will go to the ATM and get N250,000?
“That is part of our problem. No strict measures deter [people] from repeating the same thing. We can do as much as we can but if our law is not strong enough, or the judiciary is not strong enough to stand up, we’re going to have a problem.
“So, our judiciary system must be strong enough. But we are working with the National Assembly to make our penalties stiff. But if you kill a child by bad medicine, you deserve to die,” she asserted
The NAFDAC Boss acknowledged that NAFDAC’s efforts are restricted by limited funding and a shortfall in staffing levels.
With only 2,000 employees across the entire country, she explained that the agency’s ability to adequately enforce existing regulations and prevent the proliferation of substandard medicine is seriously hampered.
