The Federal Operation Unit (FOU) of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Zone ‘C’ Owerri has impounded a truck loaded with 714 cartons of fake drugs along Benin Expressway.
The Customs Area Controller of the Unit, Comptroller Victor David Dimka, in a statement on Thursday said the drugs with Duty Paid Value (DPV) of N96 million are without the National Agency for Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) registration numbers, manufacturing and expiring dates.
Dimka said that other items impounded within the unit’s jurisdiction include 1,920 cartons of banned mosquito coils bearing a DPV of N38, 400,000.00.
Also impounded along the Aba/Eleme axis, according to him, were 4,480 cartons of foreign Eva soap known in local parlance as “complexion care soap” with a DPV of N23.6 million.
The comptroller, who condemned the use of soaps manufactured without NAFDAC official registration numbers as “these products usually find their way into the country with Chinese language written on the leaflets”, cautioned that any consumable item manufactured within or outside the country must not only bear English inscriptions, but also the country of origin, manufacturing and expiration dates.
He said other items impounded by the unit were 596 pieces of used tyres along the Owerri-Port Harcourt axis with a DPV of N3, 439,729.00 and seizure of six brand new Toyota Hilux vans with DPV of N57, 769,470.00 along the Asaba/Benin Expressway.
The statement quoted Dimka as saying: “We have more often than not warned on the dangers of using second-hand tyres because most of them, if not expired, they are discarded by the country of origin and Nigerians will import them and use same to kill human beings without listening to the words of reason from the government not to kill their brothers and sisters with something that is bad. The Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) is in a better position to tell us how many lives have been lost on the roads as a result of the use of second-hand tyres by motorists.”
While urging Nigerians to join hands with the NCS in the war against smuggling in line with persistent calls by the establishment, NAFDAC and the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), Dimka said the products had been handed over on behalf of the Comptroller-General of Customs, Col. Hameed Ibrahim Ali (rtd) to an official of the agency, Mrs. Esther Itua, who represented the Director-General of NAFDAC, Dr. Paul Orhi..
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