3rd June, 2013
The Medicine Dealers Association, Lagos Island Chapter, has assured consumers of safety on any product bought or consumed.
The Chairman of the association, Felix Ugbojiaku, said this in an exclusive interview with P.M.NEWS Business Week.
Ugbojiaku said he is confident that medicines offered for sale in the market are genuine as medicine dealers are strictly monitored by a special task force to ensure that they don’t sell adulterated drugs.
“Every member of the market is registered and screened, this is because we want to put every activity of the market under our control and avoid imitation and fake products. It is not easy to carry out operations like this because of the threat that members of the task force and I do face”.
He added that most of the members in the market are trained medical personnel and this enables them to sell the prescribed product to customers.
He affirmed that they have a good working relationship with the security agents and also with the drug law enforcement agency which has helped in the control of fake medicines in the market
“We devised several means to carry out our monitoring work and it has been working for us. Hardly will you see a shop with fake drugs in the market. What we do is that when anyone is caught, we hand them over to the police and ensure that justice is done. We involve the NAFDAC too, for them to know that we don’t tolerate such acts in the market. One of the examples of the person who was caught was popularly known as Calamity”.
Kinsley Ugbonna, one of the traders who has been in the business for over 10years said they rarely have issues of traders dealing in fake drugs and every time it happens, they usually get hold of whoever is involved.
“I have been in this market and I am proud to say that majority of us are humane enough to consider the health of others. This is where we get our daily bread, but that is not enough to put the lives of others at risk because we want to make money. I can confidently say that at least 90 per cent of the drugs in the market are genuine,” he stated.
Sekinat Owolabi, one of the consumers said she has been buying drugs from the market for years and she can confidently tell everyone that the market is safe to purchase drugs, adding that she is not speaking for other medical markets, she was only speaking for the Lagos Island chapter.
—Moturayo Idris