The Maritime Command of the Nigeria Police Force has carried out training for some of its officers on how to detect fake and counterfeit drugs at the nation’s seaports.
Declaring the training open in Lagos on Friday, the Assistant-Inspector General of Maritime Command, Alkali Baba Usman said, “We as police officers are jack of all trades and master of all. It may not be our primary responsibility to regulate standard but we have the basis for suspicion and our basis is going to be more because of this kind of training. If you do not have the idea of identifying what is fake, standard, you may not be able to assist other sister agencies who have the primary responsibilities of checking standards.
“You may say we are not NAFDAC, SON, Customs but we have the authority, we have the legal backing of suspecting whatever is not of standard and subject it to proper examination by the expert.
“This training in particular is very necessary for our officers and men that are working in the port particularly because this is a point of entry of all consumable goods, cosmetics, building materials, a lot of things and this course bothers on counterfeit.
“Counterfeit means anything that is not genuine and it is being packaged as genuine. So, our officers who are working in the various desks in the port are to be educated so that their level of suspecting such goods will be widened and based on that suspicion, they can now subject such goods to examination and expert opinion will be sought.”
Usman said the training would be held regularly to keep the officers updated and current.
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