By Sarah NEGEDU
To curb the menace of drug peddling in the country, Nigeria must look towards enacting stiffer penalties, including the death sentence, the National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control, NAFDAC, has proposed.
According to the Director General of NAFDAC, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, only stiff penalties will deter peddlers from carrying out the illicit act.
Prof Adeyeye who was a guest on Friday’s edition of Channels Television’s The Morning Brief, decried the situation where lives of Nigerians are endangered with fake and adulterated drugs especially when it leads to the death of children.
“Somebody bought children’s medicine for N13,000 or something like that, another person was selling about N3,000 in the same mall. That raised an alarm. Guess what? There was nothing inside that medicine when we tested it in our Kaduna lab. So, I want the death penalty.
“Because you don’t need to put a gun on the head of a child before you kill that child. Just give that child bad medicine,” Adeyeye said.
The DG is therefore seeking the cooperation of the judiciary and the National Assembly to make such a move a reality, saying the agency is open to partnering with lawmakers and other stakeholders on the matter.
“You cannot fight substandard, falsified medicine in isolation. The agency can do as much as it can but if there is no deterrent, there’s going to be a problem,” she said.
“Somebody brought in 225mg of Tramadol that can kill anybody, fry the brain and you give a judgment of five years in prison or an option of N250,000 fine. Who doesn’t know that that person will go to the ATM and get N250,000?
“That is part of our problem. There are no strict measures to deter [people] from repeating the same thing. We can do as much as we can but if our law is not strong enough, or the judiciary is not strong enough to stand up, we’re going to have a problem.
“So, our judiciary system must be strong enough. But we are working with the National Assembly to make our penalties very stiff. But if you kill a child by bad medicine, you deserve to die,” she said
While NAFDAC has a lot to do in stemming drug peddling, Adeyeye decried the shortage of manpower in the agency, pointing that with about 2,000 staff members nationwide and limited funding, NAFDAC is constrained in carrying out its activities.
“So, when it comes to staffing, you’re right on the point. We are short-staffed and I am hoping things will be better,” the NAFDAC DG said.
