The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, has raised the alarm over the quantity of fake and adulterated drugs in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, saying that the town has now become the hub of such drugs in the West African sub region.

Chief Legal Officer of the agency, Umar Shamaki, made this observation during a raid of pharmaceutical stores in the Gamboru area of Maiduguri.

The raid was carried out by a NAFDAC team from Lagos State, led by Shamaki and the Chief Regulatory Officer of the agency, Waheed Agboola.

Speaking to journalists after the exercise which led to the sealing of 18 pharmaceutical shops, Shamaki noted that “It is quite unfortunate that Maiduguri has now become the new hub of fake and adulterated drugs in the West African sub-region.”

He said that every suburb of Maiduguri town has a wholesale drug market where mainly fake and adulterated drugs were being sold.

He noted that most of these drugs also end up in neighbouring countries like Cameroon, Niger and Chad.

“As a responsible agency, NAFDAC, owes it as a duty to the nation and her neighbours to ensure that fake and adulterated drugs do not get funneled through Nigeria,” Shamaki said.

He however blamed the boom in the manufacture and sales of fake and adulterated drugs in Borno State on the Boko Haram insurgency which made it almost impossible for NAFDAC to carry out routine checks in the region.

But he maintained that as the security situation in the North East improves, the agency will ensure that the clamp down on all dealers of fake and adulterated drugs.

“NAFDAC is not only out to clampdown on the wholesalers alone but we will go to the root of this illegal trade by smoking out the importers and manufacturers,” he said.