By Zayamu Hassan
The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), has again condemned the activities of drug hawkers describing them as merchants of death.
The Director General of the agency, Professor Mojisola Christianah Adeyeye, stated this at a sensitization campaign in Awka, Anambra state.
The Director General who was represented by the Director of Chemical Evaluation and Research, Pharmacist Ngozi Onuorah, warned members of the public to desist from buying drugs from hawkers.
She insisted that hawking drug is misnomer, an aberration and an illegality that should be resisted by all Nigerians.
According to her: “NAFDAC over the years has employed a multifaceted approach including enforcement activities and pharmacovigilance, carrying out raids, arresting people and prosecuting them, but the problem of drug hawking has not abated.
“That is why this time around we are intensifying public sensitization campaign trying to approach it from another perspective of equipping Nigerians with the right and appropriate information because knowledge is power.
“To that extent, in the last one and half month, NAFDAC has embarked on effective community sensitization, market to market including motor parks to take the campaign to the grassroots.”
The key objective of the campaign, according to Prof. Adeyeye, is to change the people’s behaviour.
“Even though they say old habits die hard, but we believe that there are certain habits that are injurious to public health. So, going to buy drugs from hawkers, the person is literarily killing him or herself.
“For instance, drugs are not article of trade like other commodities that people can hawk anyhow. No. It has to be stored under a particular storage condition and temperature and it has to be sold in licenced premises, pharmacies and patent medicines stores.
“It should not be hawked, it should not be traded in motor parks or buses, it should not be taken up and down by traders,” she reiterated.
