IPOB PRESS RELEASE
14/03/2025

The global family and movement of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) worldwide wish to draw the attention of the public at the criminal raid by the NAFDAC officers at Onitsha’s Ogbo Ogwu (drug market) at Head Bridge Onitsha, in the name of searching for fake drugs. NAFDAC officers went to the Onitsha drug market in the middle of the night, blocked all the CCTV cameras in the market, broke into people’s shops, and carted away people’s goods and branded all of the stolen goods “fake drugs,” and claimed they were burning the fake drugs which was not seen burnt anywhere.

IPOB condemns the peddlers of fake drugs. At the same time, we condemn the criminal raids by NAFDAC on people’s shops in their absence while blackmailing all the traders as dealers of fake drugs. The action of blocking the surveillance cameras with black nylon bags is a criminal act, and in every shop at the market the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control broke into people’s stores and shops. This criminal activity by the notorious NAFDAC officers was conducted in the middle of the night. NAFDAC looted people’s shops in Onitsha and branded all the drugs they carted away as fake drugs without showing the evidence that the drugs were indeed fake. The questions that NAFDAC must answer are:
1. Why raid people’s shops in the middle of the night in the absence of the owners?
2. Why did NAFDAC criminal officers block the cameras in people’s shops in the market while conducting those raids?
3. How did NAFDAC determine whether the drugs they carted away were fake or genuine?
4. Where did NAFDAC deposit all the drugs they claimed were fake.
5. Why did NAFDAC seal the entire drug market punishing both the guilty and the innocent?

IPOB does not encourage or support the inimical activities of fake drugs peddlers in the Onitsha market, but NAFDAC must apply citizens’ rights, decorum, and professionalism and not act like a rogue agency. The Nigerian government agencies always apply a heavy hand approach at any given opportunity against the Ndigbo and the carrot approach when dealing with other ethnic groups. NAFDAC should do well to return the genuine goods their rogue staff looted from the owners at Onitsha’s Head Bridge Drugs market or Ogbo Ogwu.

Fake drugs are like cancer in every society. The effort to eradicate fake drugs should be everyone’s business. The dealers in fake drugs should be arrested and prosecuted as criminals, killers, and enemies of humanity.
Fake drugs became a lucrative business because of lust for quick wealth and weak regulatory agencies like NAFDAC in Nigeria. Regulatory agencies like NAFDAC should be professional and avoid looting and bribery. NAFDAC should build office in every drug market and must ensure that any medicine imported into the Nigerian market passes through the NAFDAC office in those markets. The action of invading markets in the middle of the night and looting people’s shops worth billions of Naira when traders are in their home is criminality and must be stopped. Doing so in the name of confiscating fake drugs is not only a rogue operation but unprofessional and can be classified as a dubious activity. If Nigeria has a functional judiciary, the traders affected by this NAFDAC looting should take the agency to court and demand repayments and compensations. NAFDAC should join hands with the Anambra State Government to relocate the drug market to the new Oba Drug Market at Oba and to ensure that only licensed and certified drug dealers are allowed into the market.

COMRADE EMMA POWERFUL, MEDIA, AND PUBLICITY SECRETARY FOR IPOB