The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has seized over 10,000 cartons of unregistered tomato paste and cosmetic products at the Lagos Trade Fair Market.
The five-day operation was conducted by NAFDAC’s Investigation and Enforcement team at the cosmetics section of the market.
According to Dr. Martins Iluyomade, Director of Investigation and Enforcement, the raid was part of ongoing efforts to remove unregistered and harmful products from Nigerian markets.
In his words, he said,
“We seized over 10,000 cartons of unregistered tomato paste, as well as cosmetics such as creams, soaps, body sprays, washes, air fresheners, and toothpaste.
We cannot guarantee the safety of these seized products because they have not undergone any regulatory scrutiny.”
Iluyomade emphasized the importance of removing harmful products from markets, stating:
“One way to safeguard public health is to remove harmful products from markets before they can kill unsuspecting Nigerians.
I can say authoritatively that deaths from substandard medicines, cosmetics, and unsafe foods exceed the number of people killed by Boko Haram.”
The director reaffirmed NAFDAC’s commitment to ensuring Nigerians use only products that have passed regulatory processes, assuring safety and effectiveness.
He also announced the inauguration of a multi-agency task force to boost surveillance against substandard medicines and unsafe processed foods nationwide.
Iluyomade urged Nigerians to use NAFDAC’s decentralised registration process to verify and register their products, reaffirming the agency’s commitment to ridding the country of unregistered, substandard, and expired products.
“We are working hard to prevent falsified and unregistered items from entering the country, hence our Memorandum of Understanding with the Nigeria Customs Service.
The Nigeria Customs Service has handed over many seized fake products to us, and we have also transferred some to them.”
