National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control, (NAFDAC) on Friday, raided shops in the popular Oke-Arin Market, Balogun and Alaba Suru, Apapa both in Lagos State, where fake liquor were being bottled and registered brands counterfeited. The agency conducted the raid following a tipoff about some wine and spirits distributors, who had local production sites where the adulteration was going on.
Apart from fake liquor, counterfeited packaging materials such as empty bottles, funnels, filtering clothes, corks of registered brands among others, were discovered in the raid which involved NAFDAC Enforcement officers and journalists who monitored the exercise. Most of the products found during the raid are contaminated and some of them have contents that shouldn’t be found inside drinks.
These have effects on the liver, which can cause liver cirrhosis, cancer, some other unusual ailments. A shop at No. 12 Issa Williams, Balogun market was among those sealed as large quantities of the fake liquor and counterfeited packaging materials were discovered there.
A sales representative at the shop who simply identified himself as Christopher however declined comments on the use of the fake packaging products. Christopher, who claimed to have been in the shop for less than two years, said, that his master, Mr. Maduewesi, who was not present in the shop at that moment, was the one to provide answers on what those materials are for
. “I am not the owner of the shop, I am only working here as a sales representative, when the owner comes you ask him what they use them for. I met everything here when I came to this shop. They have been here for a very long time,” Christopher said.
The agency also sealed a Fan Milk outfit, Alaba Suru, along Apapa road, where some of their products did not have expected labeling information such as: date markings, batch number, manufacturing date and expiry date.
The outfit also came short of a healthy environment as offensive odour was perceived around the outfit. Commenting on the raid operation, Mr. Uche Chidi Uzoma, Assistant Director, Investigation and Enforcement Directorate, NAFDAC, Lagos said that the operation was actually informed by a kind of international operation that is going on in different parts of the world.
