Life Jail For Fake Drug Dealers

THE frightening crave for material wealth has driven some Nigerians into satanic acts, like ritual killings, armed banditry, kidnappings and adulteration of products made for human consumption.

TO this category of Nigerians, the sanctity of human life is only a literary catch-phrase, for as far as they are concerned, there is nothing too ungodly and demonic to do in the pursuit of wealth.

DISTURBED by the high incidence of drug counterfeiting, NAFDAC Boss, Prof. Dora Akunyili has called for life sentence with no option of fine for any one found guilty of this inhuman and brazen act of criminality. She also recommends the confiscation of all the property of such person.

DRUG counterfeiting is not a new phenomenon in Nigeria. Fake drugs were first noticed in Nigeria in 1968, making the multinational company, Crown Products to divest from Nigeria.

WHEN we consider the effects of fake drugs on human life, we will appreciate that existing law against drug counterfeiting and adulteration is too weak.

THE NIGERIAN OBSERVER agrees with the NAFDAC boss that the law against fake drug business is a disaster and is actually an incentive. UNDER the law, convicts get jail terms of between three months and five years and even get an option of fine of between N10,000 and N500,000.

“WHAT is N500,000 to these offenders, I am sure if there are stiffer sanctions, they will deter others”, Akunyili, who was speaking at a forum, asserted.

THERE is certainly no doubt that fake and adulterated drugs have caused considerable havoc to human lives in Nigeria. Not long ago, a female student of Lagos State University was said to have died less than ten minutes after she had swallowed three tablets of Fansidar. There are many such cases that are not reported. Drugs as chemical substances demand that their preparation must be carefully handled because any little error in chemical combinations will spell doom for the consumer.

DORA Akunyile has been doing her best to rid Nigeria of fake drugs. When she said that the sophistication in drug counterfeiting and copying of packages had reached advanced stage, we need to know that the spectacle is indeed worrisome.

AS part of her efforts to sweep fake drugs from Nigeria, she recently placed a ban on the patronage of products of 30 Indian and Chinese companies and one Pakistani company, confirmed by NAFDAC as fake drugs producers.

WE must commend Akunyili’s new strategy, the thrust of which is to pay inspection visits to production facilities of companies in their countries of operation before approving their products and subsequent importation into Nigeria.

THE truth of the matter is that fake drugs business booms in Nigeria because of local collaborators. We recall with sadness how some greedy and wealth-seeking Nigerians collaborated with an Italian company to import highly corrossive toxic waste into Koko in Delta State in the 1980s.

FAKE drugs find their ways into Nigeria through smuggling or connivance between dealers and officials at the nation’s borders.

IN order to ensure that this menace of drug counterfeiting is drastically curtailed, THE NIGERIAN OBSERVER endorses Prof. Akunyili’s recommendation of life jail for offenders even as we recommend that the security apparatus at the nation’s borders be strengthened.

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