The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has revealed that it generated a total of N2.5 billion in fines from recent raids on open drug markets in Lagos, Onitsha, and Aba.
The agency’s Director-General, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, made the disclosure on Wednesday while appearing before a House of Representatives committee investigating regulatory agency revenues.
According to Adeyeye, the fines were levied on traders for breaching drug distribution and storage regulations, following enforcement operations that led to the shutdown of the major markets.
“These charges were not punitive but necessary,” she explained. “While the standard fine for violating Good Distribution and Storage Practice (GDSP) is N2 million, we often reduced it to N500,000 in consideration of traders’ capacity to pay.”
She said the agency collected N2.537 billion in total, all of which was paid directly into NAFDAC’s official account. However, after settling operational and regulatory expenses totaling N2.33 billion, only about N207 million remains.
“We spent approximately N996 million on enforcement in Lagos, Aba, and Onitsha alone,” she stated.
“Due to limited funding, we even had to borrow N159 million from an existing grant to execute the raids.”
Adeyeye raised concerns over the lack of funding to sustain future operations and highlighted past challenges — especially in Kano — where traders resisted enforcement efforts despite a court ruling mandating their relocation to a regulated Coordinated Wholesale Centre (CWC), the Kanawa Pharmaceutical Centre.
“The resistance in Kano was intense. Traders locked up their shops, and we had to use bigger padlocks to seal them. There were real threats of violence,” she said.
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The NAFDAC boss noted that Kano was the only state in compliance with a federal directive for the establishment of CWCs before her tenure began.
In contrast, markets in Lagos, Onitsha, and Aba had no such structures, prompting NAFDAC to adopt a more inspection-heavy, enforcement-driven approach in the southern zones.
When questioned about perceived disparities in treatment between northern and southern markets, Adeyeye pointed to legal and security realities.
“We followed the court order in Kano. It was a volatile situation — even one of our legal officers narrowly escaped harm at the court. The conditions didn’t permit broad enforcement actions,” she said.
Committee chairperson Regina Akume of Benue State requested that NAFDAC submit a detailed report showing revenue breakdowns from each market, as well as total remittances and deductions by the Accountant-General’s office.
Adeyeye concluded by stressing the importance of continued enforcement to protect public health, while calling on lawmakers to support NAFDAC with adequate resources to carry out its mandate effectively.