NAFDAC Officials Attacked By Touts, Drug Hawkers

Some angry drug hawkers and touts at the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja on Monday, attacked the investigation and Enforcement Directorate of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control and the mobile police attached to them.

The enforcement team of the agency were attacked during their raid of fake, unregistered, and counterfeit drugs at the Area One motor park of the FCT.

While the enforcement exercise was ongoing, the hawkers and touts at the park began to throw stones and other dangerous objects at the team and journalists.

The medium gathered that the mobile police had to throw tear gas and shot sporadically into the air to disperse them for the enforcement team and journalists escaped from the park.

However, two of the vehicles belonging to NAFDAC were vandalised.

The Assistant Chief Regulatory Officer, Investigation and Enforcement Directorate, Federal Task Force, NAFDAC, Umar Suleiman, while speaking with journalists after the raid, said the exercise followed intelligence from the Department of State Security on the activities of drug hawkers at the motor park.

Suleiman said, “This exercise that we just conducted at the Area 1 motor park was a result of the intelligence we received from the DSS since last year, a lot of hawkers were there selling their products and many people patronising them and that was why we raided the park.

“The attack is a normal thing for us in the investigation and enforcement department, that is the reason we always go with armed Mopol and Investigating Police Officers in case of any arrest.

“But to my surprise, we had not done half of the work when the drug hawkers absconded but mobilised in full force against us, throwing stones at us and destroying the glasses of the vehicles but with the gunshot and tear gas released on them by the armed Mopol, they soft pedalled and we had to leave the place to reinforce and go back next time.”

Suleiman, who led the team noted that the drugs seized during the raid were worth about N5m.

The enforcement team, he said, confiscated some controlled drugs like Rohypnol, Dizapam, Tramadol (500mg and 225mg), Cocodamol, and aphrodisiac, among others.