Traders Drags NAFDAC, Others to Court Over Closure of Onitsha Drug Market
Four traders at Ogbo Ogwu Bridge Head Market in Onitsha, Anambra State, have dragged the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, Standards Organisation of Nigeria, the NAFDAC Zonal Director, South-East, Dr Martins Iluyomade and the Anambra State Commandant of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps to a Federal High Court sitting in Awka, over unlawful interference in their fundamental human rights.
The four traders (applicants) are Peter Okala, Alhaji Yunusa Tanko, Prof. Samuel Anidike and C.C. Emereonwu, who are also members of the United Nigeria Group.
They have, through their counsel, Chibuike Nwabueze (Esq), prayed to the court for some reliefs against the defendants, insisting that not all the traders in the market are dealing in counterfeit drugs as claimed by the agency.
The reliefs sought in suit No PHC/AWK/CS/40/2025, include an order of the court restraining the respondents, their agents, officers, operatives, and workers from further breaking into the applicants’ shops at Ogbo Ogwu Bridge Head market in their absence without a valid court order and search warrant and confiscating their goods and carting them to an unknown destination.
They also sought an order of perpetual injunction restraining the respondents, their officers, agents, operatives, and servants from further breaking into the applicants’ shops at the said market without a valid court order and confiscating wares of the applicants to an unknown destination without a valid court order and warrant of search
They also prayed to the court for N50 million against the respondents as exemplary damages and another N50 million as general damages against the respondents as a result of the actions of the respondents.
Before heading to the court, the group had called a press conference over “the sudden invasion and sealing of the market without prior notice” by NAFDAC, describing the action as barbaric and a denial of fundamental rights of the citizenry.
They averred that the traders have incurred over N200 million loss as a result of the sealing of the market for over 10 days now, thereby forcing the traders to go hungry, having been rendered jobless by NAFDAC.
They claimed that N500 billion worth of goods were carted away by NAFDAC who, according to them, stormed the market with the fierce looking military, police and other security agencies operatives and sealed the market.
