The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) is ready to partner with the National Counter Terrorism Centre – Office of the National Security Adviser (NCTC-ONSA) to fight drug counterfeiting, drug abuse, unwholesome food, unauthorized handling of chemicals which are equally fuelling terrorists operations and other criminal activities in the country.
The Director-General of NAFDAC, Prof. Mojisola Christianah Adeyeye stated this in Abuja when the National Coordinator of the National Counter Terrorism Centre, Office of the National Security Adviser, Major-General Adamu Garba Laka and his team paid her a courtesy visit in her office to solicit the Agency’s support in deploying of some its officers to the Centre to operate in their Forensic, Toxicology, Biological and Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) Laboratories which are rated as the best in the country with modern and sophisticated equipment.
NAFDAC being a World Health Organisation (WHO) Maturity Level 3 Regulatory Authority is highly endowed with experts in terms of human resources, and well equipped WHO Pre-qualified Laboratories. Furthermore, the monumental achievements under Prof Adeyeye’s visionary leadership in repositioning NAFDAC in the last six years, has turned the Agency into a reference point for other Regulatory Authorities in Africa. So, this partnership between the two strategic Agencies in the country at this point is very apt to safeguard the lives our citizens.
As a Regulatory Agency, we are supposed to have twelve thousand staff but we are barely two thousand staff in a country of more than two hundred and thirty million people. Indonesian Regulatory Agency has over twenty thousand staff and the population of Indonesia is about 280 million, the NAFDAC Boss said. NAFDAC staff work around the clock. We are not just a civil service organisation but a regulatory body that is mandated to protect lives on a daily basis from food to drugs to water, precursors and chemicals that can fall into the hands of the terrorists.
Prof. Adeyeye used the occasion to thank the Office of the National Security Adviser for returning NAFDAC to the ports in 2018, a year after her assumption of office as the Director-General of NAFDAC. The DG said, NAFDAC was out of the ports for seven years from 2011 to 2018 for reasons not known to her. She shared how her passion and commitment for a better and secured country which made her to run to National Security Adviser to explain to him why NAFDAC should be returned to the Ports.
She said during this period “so many things were going wrong. Anything bad was coming to Nigeria in terms of drugs, precursors, whatever. Tramadol was reigning (rampant) in the country. At a point, I told my Ports Inspection Director if they were targeting Nigeria to erase us from the map. Our young people were getting mad. Suicide Bombing was at the peak”. I said do we really know what we are doing? NAFDAC is charge of drugs. We are in charge of chemical and NAFDAC was removed from the ports for seven years. That is part of why terrorism became big in the country. I always refer to the Office of the National Security Adviser as one of the Agencies that helped us to go back to the ports.
However, Prof Adeyeye commended the relentless efforts of the National Coordinator, National Counter Terrorism Centre in supporting NAFDAC’s return to the ports. She further stated that NAFDAC will continue to work with the Office of the National Security Adviser to ensure that sanity return to our country. “It has been a great relationship and it will continue to be better”. We want to make the partnership stronger so that the counterfeiters will know that we have people watching our back. Without the support of the Armed Forces – the Army, the Police, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, the Nigeria Customs Service, and the Department of State Services, there is no way NAFDAC can exist in carrying out her operations.
In her remarks during the visit, the Prof. Adeyeye issued a stern warning to the criminals who deal with substandard and falsified medicines, unwholesome food, and illegal manufacture and importation of chemicals into the country to desist from such practices as the full wrath of the law shall be meted out to anybody caught indulge in such nefarious activities. She said NAFDAC is currently weighing its war against counterfeiters across the country by arresting and prosecuting those involved in violating our rules.
Speaking further, the DG thanked the security agencies for their support during the recent relocation of the Open Drug Market in Kano to the Coordinated Wholesale Centre in Dangwauro and also commended Justice Simon Amobeda of the Federal High Court for the watershed judgement that affirmed the relocation of the market.
On his part, the National Coordinator, NCTC-ONSA, Maj. Gen. AG Laka said that NAFDAC is an embodiment of knowledge in the area science and research which standout the Agency in the community of World Regulatory Authorities. He pledged his continuous support to the Agency in the area of operations, research, Laboratory testing and investigation. He also sought NAFDAC’s support to the Centre in the area of operationalization of the laboratory equipment and analysis for it achieve its objective. He equally thanked the DG for releasing one of her staff to the Centre and requested for more staff from the Agency.
NOTE: Please see the Picture stories down.
The Director-General (NAFDAC), Prof. Moji Christianah Adeyeye presenting a plague of honour to the National Coordinator (NCTC-ONSA), Maj. Gen. Adamu Garba Laka during a courtesy visit her office.
From the middle: The National Coordinator (NCTC-ONSA), Maj. Gen. AG Laka, Director-General (NAFDAC), Prof Mojisola Christianah Adeyeye flanked by the members of Management Team of both Agencies.
The National Coordinator of NCTC-ONSA, Maj. Gen. AG Laka presenting a Gallantry Symbol to the DG (NAFDAC), Prof. Mojisola Christianah Adeyeye for her efforts in combating drug counterfeiters in Nigeria.
