On Thursday, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) sealed two Chinese supermarkets in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The supermarkets located at No. 40 Mike Akhigbe Way, Jabi and No. 61, Ebitu Ukiwe Street, also in Jabi, were sealed for selling goods allegedly not approved in the country.
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The agency also put eight other shops on hold at the Wuse market for selling aphrodisiac sex enhancement pills.
They were also found to be selling body enlargement creams and drugs for the breasts and buttocks, including other toxic substances produced with dangerous chemicals.
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During the enforcement operation, Embugushiki-Musa Godiya, head of the NAFDAC Investigation and Enforcement unit, Abuja, said the exercise was in response to consumer complaints.
Mr Musa Godiya said the market value of the products seized during the raids is about N170 million.
He said the sellers of the products had declared themselves doctors and pharmacists prescribing drugs for unsuspecting Nigerians.
“They also have some of these products they popularly call kayanmata oil. These people formed a market in banking premises,” he said.
“The agency got the complaint, and we cannot be here and allow such a thing to happen.
“We responded to that consumer complaint; we visited the place, and we raided quite a number of shops carrying all manner of unapproved products by NAFDAC.”
On the closure of Chinese supermarkets, Mr Musa Godiya noted that the agency also acted on intelligence gathered from concerned citizens that some supermarkets belong to some foreign nationals.
He said that the foreign nationals were said to have brought into Nigeria certain items, most of which were food items, and were labelled in Chinese without any English translation.
He said the action was in violation of NAFDAC labelling regulation, adding that those supermarkets operated without approval from NAFDAC.
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“We have seized all the offending items we found in the supermarkets,” he said.
“In one of the places that we could not evacuate all the items we found we placed the whole warehouse on hold; we have invited the owner for further investigation.
“We cannot guarantee the safety and the quality of these products, NAFDAC has not evaluated, assessed or analysed them.”
Mr Musa Godiya urged Nigerians to be vigilant about what they buy and consume. (NAN)
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