The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, (NAFDAC) pursued only 40 cases over a three-year period despite conducting 5,210 investigations and 45,657 surveillance operations into counterfeit, falsified and substandard products.
BusinessDay’s analysis of the agency’s enforcement records, annual reports and regulatory disclosures showed that while thousands of investigations and surveillance operations were conducted between 2023 and 2025, the number of cases taken forward for prosecution remained low compared with the scale of violations uncovered.
Findings by this paper showed that in 2023, NAFDAC conducted 3,486 investigations and 26,453 surveillance operations across the country and destroyed counterfeit and other regulated products valued at more than N21.1bn.
However, the agency filed only four court cases during the year.
In 2024, NAFDAC conducted another 1,724 investigations and 19,204 surveillance operations. While products worth about N55.7bn were confiscated and destroyed, the agency filed only 20 cases and secured six convictions, according to its annual report.
The scale of enforcement increased in 2025 when NAFDAC simultaneously raided some of the country’s largest open drug markets in a nationwide crackdown on counterfeit, expired, unregistered and improperly stored medicines.
The operation led to the closure of more than 11,000 shops, warehouses and packing stores and the evacuation of 138 truckloads of suspected illicit medicines and other products.
The agency estimated the value of the products seized at more than N1tn, making it one of the largest anti-counterfeit enforcement exercises in the country’s history.
NAFDAC also arrested 114 suspects during the major raids, but only 16 cases were taken forward for legal action, according to enforcement records reviewed by BusinessDay.
Meanwhile, pharmaceutical industry stakeholders have called for stronger investigations, faster prosecution of suspects and greater efforts to identify importers, financiers and major distributors behind the illicit trade.
A former President of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria, Olumide Akintayo, said the recurring seizure of counterfeit medicines reflected deeper problems within Nigeria’s drug distribution system.
He said the continued operation of open drug markets and the slow implementation of the National Drug Distribution Guidelines had created opportunities for counterfeit medicines to infiltrate the supply chain.
According to him, Nigeria must move beyond periodic raids by strengthening prosecutions, implementing regulated medicine distribution centres and imposing tougher sanctions on major offenders.
The findings come against the backdrop of the continuing public health threat posed by falsified and substandard medicines.
The World Health Organisation has warned that poor-quality medicines contribute to thousands of preventable deaths across low- and middle-income countries, particularly through treatment failures involving malaria, pneumonia and other infectious diseases.
Multiple attempts to obtain NAFDAC’s response to questions on the disparity between the scale of enforcement operations and the number of cases pursued were unsuccessful as of press time.