AT a recent meeting of the West African Health Organisation held to harmonise the process of medicine registration in West Africa, the Director-General of the National Agency for Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Dr Paul Orhii, said the Federal Government was mulling the imposition of both life imprisonment and the confiscation of the property of convicted fake drug manufacturers as compensation for victims. This is in further confirmation of an earlier assertion by a trained medical doctor and World Health Organisation (WHO) expert on African Traditional Medicine and the Chairman, Lagos State Board of Traditional Medicine, Dr Omoseyindemi Bunmi that the prevailing and common medical condition of kidney failure in Nigeria should be blamed on fake drugs rather than herbal medicine.IT would be Dr Orhii's umpteenth time of making a case for stiffer penalties for drug counterfeiters in Nigeria since his assumption of duties at NAFDAC. The apposite question actually seems to be; what has been stalling the passing of the bill' It is also instructive that only a few months ago, Dr Orhii's former counterpart in China was summarily executed after having been found guilty of a criminal and corrupt collusion with some Nigerian businessmen to export fake drugs to Nigeria. It is sad that, months after he had been summarily executed, his Nigerian collaborators are walking about freely since the country makes drug counterfeiting an offence for which bail is available. THERE are levels at which the counterfeiting of drugs is done. It is either the importer makes a request that the potency of the drug be reduced for a cheaper price, in order to increase the profit margin or that the drug is faked entirely. In both cases, the importer makes huge profit at the expense of the hapless, vulnerable end user who suffers endless pain and may be eventual death as the case may be. The businessman traffics in human misery, pain and death while smiling to the banks. To all intents and purposes, it is doubtless a reflection of state failure that mass murders are thus allowed to be committed in the name of business transactions.IF armed robbers and suspected assassins who kill individuals are not allowed bail, it is curious that drug counterfeiters who, by their heinous acts, kill in droves are allowed bail by a state that claims to place a high premium on human life and admits that the protection thereof is part of its essence. Although Dr Orhii ruled out the death penalty as punishment for the convicts of drug counterfeiting during that meeting, it must have been difficult for him to convince the public that the felons deserved any less on account of the many lives they had destroyed in the pursuit of profit. Even less convincing was the allusion he made to the compensation of the victims of fake drugs through the confiscation of the assets of those convicted. It might be right for the state to confiscate all ill-gotten wealth, especially assets that are accumulated through someone else's blood, using such assets to compensate their victims might, however, be a little bit troublesome, considering the country's peculiarities.FIRST, how can a human life be adequately and appropriately compensated for in pecuniary terms' Then, there is the issue of the dearth of accurate records which will make the abuse of the compensation process a virtual certainty. Truth told, the ideal thing is to eradicate fake drugs completely through effective policing and public education, apart from the stiff penalties being proposed. The suggestion of compensating the victims even smacks of levity on the part of the government in its desire to stamp out fake drugs from the Nigerian market. There can be no doubt that the battle against fake drugs will have to be fierce and desperate, and we are mindful of the fact that it once nearly cost a former Director-General of NAFDAC, Professor Dora Akunyili, her life. Yet, it is one battle any government with an iron resolve to improve the society which it governs must be more than willing to fight with determination.WE endorse the move to mete out stiffer penalties to the manufacturers and importers of fake drugs who by their heinous acts kill their victims slowly and in instalments and we think the speed to legislate appropriately against it does not even match the desperation of the problem sufficently. The felons involved in the business are stupendously wealthy and they will not yield easily. They are desperate and ready to deploy their wealth in the direction of frustrating any attempt to cut the cord which feeds them. But we are equally convinced that they can be no match for a determined and committed administration which Dr Orhii must be encouraged to build and lead for obvious reasons.
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