On Friday, the National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC), in a strategic move to curb drug abuse in Nigeria, proposed the death penalty for drug peddlers.

The Director-General of NAFDAC, Mojisola Adeyeye who made this known while speaking on Channels Television said only stiff penalties will deter drug peddlers especially when it leads to the death of children.

The NAFDAC DG said the agency is also seeking the cooperation of the judiciary and the National Assembly to make such a move a reality and is open to partnering with lawmakers and other stakeholders on the matter.

“Somebody bought children’s medicine for N13,000 or something like that, another person was selling about N3,000 in the same mall.

“That raised an alarm. Guess what? There was nothing inside that medicine when we tested it in our Kaduna lab. So, I want the death penalty.

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“Because you don’t need to put a gun on the head of a child before you kill that child. Just give that child bad medicine.

You cannot fight substandard, falsified medicine in isolation. The agency can do as much as it can but if there is no deterrent, there’s going to be a problem.

“Somebody brought in 225mg of Tramadol that can kill anybody, fry the brain and you give a judgment of five years in prison or N250,000. Who doesn’t know that that person will go to the ATM and get N250,000?

“That is part of our problem. There are no strict measures to deter [people] from repeating the same thing. We can do as much as we can but if our law is not strong enough, or the judiciary is not strong enough to stand up, we’re going to have a problem.

“So, our judiciary system must be strong enough. But we are working with the National Assembly to make our penalties very stiff.  But if you kill a child by bad medicine, you deserve to die,” she said.