Following a one-month closure, the Ogbo-Ogwu Drug Market in Onitsha, Anambra State, has reopened, according to the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control.
Following a meeting with state government representatives, including the Commissioner for Health, Dr. Afam Ben Obidike, and market leaders at the market premises on Thursday, NAFDAC’s South-East Zonal Director, Dr. Martins Iluyomade, made this announcement.
The market will formally reopen on Friday, according to Iluyomade. According to Iluyomade, the decision was made following a deal struck by the market leaders to stop selling phoney, out-of-date, and inferior goods as well as repeated intervention by the state governor, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo.
“The agency under my supervision discovered 50 trailer loads of counterfeit and expired drugs, a significant amount of narcotics that could destabilise the nation, and many drugs that have been prohibited since 2007 during the three-week enforcement exercise,” he said.
Reopening the market will not stop continuing enforcement measures, Iluyomade stressed, adding that 4,000 stores had been sealed for a variety of crimes and would only return following appropriate profiling.
He disclosed that the total worth of the seized counterfeit and expired medications was at least N1 trillion.
“We commend the leadership of the markets for working with the agency throughout the period of the operations,” he added, praising Soludo for his steadfast support in the battle against counterfeit and expired medications.
On behalf of the governor, state Commissioner for Health Obidike praised NAFDAC in his remarks and asked traders to rigorously follow the conditions of their contract with the organisation.
