The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has arrested Abdulroheem Ajao, the producer of illegal herbal products in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.
The name of the illegal herbal product is At-Taqwah Herbal Medicine.
The Agency also sealed off Ajao’s eight-room herbal outlet located behind Periscope Model College, Muslim Area of Ibadan.
The Director of NAFDAC South-West, Mrs Florence Ajayi, led her team to where the illegal herbal products were being manufactured.
She disclosed that the long arm of the law caught up with the suspect following an intelligence report from the people living in the area.
Ajayi said that immediately after members of the community informed NAFDAC of the illegal act, the Surveillance Unit of the agency swung into action and apprehended the suspect in order to put to a stop the production of harmful and illicit drugs.
“The community here tipped our agency. The aftermath of the visits shows that the environment for production is not hygienic,” Ajayi said.
Ajayi said ignorance and illiteracy have been the background of wrong herbal drug processing in the country.
Ajayi added the product had no registration with the agency.
“There are three processes to registration including documentation with payment, laboratory analysis and report for approval, but as I speak there is no application for registration at all with NAFDAC.”
While confessing to the act, Ajao said that he was surprised to have been nabbed over the alleged unhealthy production of herbal products.
The suspect said that he had been operating in the area for over five years, distributing successfully across the SouthWestern part of the country.
He added that his products serve as a cure for hypertension, fever, sex malfunctioning, and other related diseases.
Ajao claimed that he had applied for approval from NAFDAC costing a sum of N500,000, with an existing certificate from the Corporate Affairs Commission in Nigeria.
He said, “We are producing herbal products. We distribute to Jos, Lagos and other parts of the country. I have been in this business for about five years. The name of the herbal product is At-Taqwah Herbal Product. It is working for fever, body pain and hypertension. The process is going on at the NAFDAC office. I started the process over two years now, costing me N500,000.”
The Agency however faulted Ajao’s claims.
