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By Madu Obi
The National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has condemned the invasion of AliBan De Great Industries, a beverage production company at Nkpor near Onitsha and abduction of its workers by men of Operation Clean and Healthy Anambra (OCHA), an Anambra paramilitary agency.
OCHA brigade operatives had alleged that the company was producing fake products.
Coordinator of NAFDAC, Enugu Zonal office, Dr. Martins Iluyomade, said it was not the duty of the quasi security agency to declare a production activity illegal.
According to him, only NAFDAC has the legal mandate to approve and regulate importation, exportation, manufacture, sales and distribution of drugs, cosmetics, packaged water and chemicals,
Recall that OCHA Brigade operatives invaded AliBan De Great production factory on Oct. 10 forced themselves in, destroyed their CCTV cameras before carting away documents, products and property of the company worth millions of naira without prior notice.
Seven workers of the company were taken away and locked up in OCHA Brigade detention facility for three days before moving them to State Criminal Investigation Department, Awka.
Iluyomade said OCHA Brigade, a state owned enforcement agency had no right under the law to takeover NAFDAC job to condemn food, chemical products or arrest workers of regulated products, but could draw their attention to such development.
He expressed concern that when the company presented NAFDAC certificate as evidence of compliance and approval, OCHA Brigade staff took and tore the document.
He said that before the agency makes pronouncement on any product, it would be subjected to a process where trained professionals test them in standard laboratories, contrary to what OCHA Brigade did.
"We saw a recent report that said the Anambra Taskforce, OCHA Brigade bust an illegal production factory in Onitsha.
NAFDAC is created by law to regulate importation, exportation, manufacture, sales and distribution of drug, cosmetics, packaged water and chemical products.
Government has invested so much resources in this area that we have nine functional labs that are accredited internationally for testing of samples and issuing approvals,” he said.
He said regulation of food and drugs was in the exclusive list, adding that agencies or organisations should know their limits because Nigeria is a country governed by laws.
NAFDAC does operate like that, we have processes, NAFDAC is the one which gives license, we are the only agency that can confirm whether a certificate is genuine or not,” he said
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