Despite the widely circulated news of the reopening of the Onitsha drug market early last week, a rights group, the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety), has said that the market has remained shut.......CONTINUE READING THE ARTICLE FROM THE SOURCE>>>>>
The group lamented that despite claims by the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) of reopening the market, it has remained shut and is also heavily policed by armed military personnel numbering over a dozen.
In a press statement by the group, signed by the Board of Trustees Chairman, Mr. Emeka Umeagbalasi, and other key members, it accused NAFDAC of coming to equity with unclean hands.
Part of the statement read: “NAFDAC has continued to go to equity with unclean hands in its ongoing militarist and collective punishment operations in the Onitsha Drug Market, which has been shut and kept under lock and key since Sunday, February 9, 2025.
“NAFDAC issued widely circulated media reports that the Onitsha Drug Market had been unsealed and reopened for business with effect from Friday, March 7, 2025, but the drug market has remained sealed and under lock and key to date.
“Our checks as of Saturday, March 8, 2025, showed that the six affected adjoining markets were conditionally reopened on Friday, March 7, 2025, while the Onitsha Drug Market remains under lock and key, with a situation of militarization involving over a dozen armed soldiers of the Nigerian Army, their patrol vans, and an armored personnel vehicle as of Sunday, March 9, 2025.”
The group condemned the misinformation, saying the false claims not only add to the long list of NAFDAC’s operational illegalities in the Onitsha Drug Market and six other adjoining markets but also expose the agency as having failed woefully to go to equity with clean hands.
“It is, therefore, strongly condemnable for NAFDAC to have deliberately misinformed and misled members of the Nigerian public and the generality of the world by claiming that the Onitsha Drug Market had been unsealed and reopened for business with effect from Friday, March 7, 2025.
“Also strongly resisted by Intersociety are attempts by the agency to criminalize the Onitsha Drug Market, its members, and its leadership by publicly portraying it as a den of fake and illicit drug dealers, assassins, and vendors of illicit small arms, light weapons, and ammunition.”
