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By Oguntade Ismaila, Lagos
The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, collected 7,210 suspected fake, falsified, substandard and non-compliant regulated products during nationwide surveillance operations conducted between May and July 2026.
The agency further disclosed that its Post-Market Surveillance Directorate (MSD) visited 6,233 facilities across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory within a period of three months as part of intensified efforts to rid Nigeria of unsafe regulated products.
The Director General of NAFDAC, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, disclosed the data on Monday, September 7, 2027, in Lagos, in response to the recent public outcry over suspected counterfeit and substandard food products.
According to the agency, food and water accounted for the largest number of products collected, with 3,633, followed by drugs and herbal products with 2,459.
However, drugs and herbalists recorded the highest number of facilities visited, with 2,084, followed by Tood and Water with 1,808.
Surveillance operations covered food and water, drugs and herbal products, medical devices, vaccines and biological products, cosmetics and chemicals.
NAFDAC said about 80% of its post-market surveillance activities are directed at detecting and curbing counterfeit, falsified, substandard and otherwise non-compliant products.
The agency also revealed that its enforcement campaign secured 64 convictions for counterfeiting, with those sentenced to prison terms ranging from one to seven years without the possibility of a fine.
Highlighting the scale of its crackdown, NAFDAC said it has seized and destroyed more than 137 40-foot truckloads of counterfeit and substandard products worth over 1.5 trillion naira, evacuated from markets in Idumota, Onitsha and Ariaria between February and March 2025.
He added that regulated products with a market value of over 120 billion naira were destroyed nationwide in 2024, while more than 15 billion naira worth of fake, expired, counterfeit and banned medicines were destroyed in Ibadan in February 2026.
Another US$1.8 billion worth of counterfeit and banned products were destroyed in Kuje, Abuja, in March 2026.
The agency said the continued discovery of counterfeit products did not mean regulatory oversight was absent, noting that the scale and sophistication of counterfeiting requires ongoing surveillance, intelligence gathering, laboratory verification, regulatory enforcement and public engagement.
NAFDAC has urged Nigerians to report suspected violations through its official reporting channels rather than relying solely on social media allegations.
It added that credible reports would be investigated and that appropriate measures would be taken, including seizure, recall, destruction, public safety alerts and prosecution where violations were established.
