By Suleiman Anyalewechi
The National Agency for Food Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, Thursday evening, July 24, 2025, announced the arrest of one of its most wanted dealers on expired and counterfeit drugs, South East Nigeria.
Lazarus Chidiebere Onwukwe, who had been on the radar of the regulatory agency for months was finally nabbed on Thursday, while trying to sneak out of his residence/expired drugs factory.
The Source reports that NAFDAC had, on February 11, 2025, in conjunction with the Nigerian Army, Police and ,
DSS operatives stormed a remotely located building of multiple flats in Umuocheala community, Osisioma, Ngwa Local Council in Abia State, allegedly being used for the repackaging and warehousing of expired drugs by Onwukwe.
Although Onwukwe managed to evade arrest, the joint security team seized and evacuated over 14 truck load of fake and expired pharmaceutical products of many hues, particularly specialized and expensive drugs for special ailments with worth several billions of Naira.
NAFDAC’s Deputy Director of Investigation and Enforcement in charge of the South-east/South- south regions, Omoyeni Babatunji, at a media briefing in Aba on Thursday, described the expired drugs recovered from Onwukwe’s residence/warehouse as the largest ever made in the entire South East.
According to Babatunji, while the suspect succeeded in evading arrest during the February operation, the agency mounted a round-the-clock surveillance in and around his residence cum factory.
“Our market surveillance and control which is a regulatory function as assigned in the global benchmarking tool, was what we were sustaining throughout the operation.
“So after the operation back in February, we mounted surveillance around his residence.
“The operatives who conducted the operation can recall that even the gate got broken, and had to fix it and put a Government seal on the residence/warehouse.
“The two vehicles we seized then – a Toyota Highlander SUV and a Camry car are still at the Police Area Command Aba.
“Going by the level of surveillance system put in place around the building, we never expected the suspect will ever make attempt to come back, because he was busy sending emissaries to our different officers. But we kept insisting that he must honour our invitation.
“However, he thought the Government had forgotten about him after some months and decided to return back to his illegal business.
“Surprisingly we later discovered that the building hitherto full of expired drugs,has now been fully occupied by people (tenants).
“However, this morning (Thursday July 24,2025) our resilient surveillance efforts, in concert with other sister- agencies, yielded result, as the suspect ( Onwukwe) was apprehended while sneaking out of the building in a Toyota Sienna vehicle , fully laden with drugs.
“So we are here to tell the world that we have finally seen ,and arrested the fleeing suspect. Now that he has been apprehended, we will begin the process of subjecting the expired and counterfeit drugs recovered from him to laboratory evaluation. Thereafter, we will take steps to arraign him appropriately before the court.”
The NAFDAC Deputy Director noted that the regulatory body had, during the February operation, collected and kept samples of the fake and expired drugs intercepted.
” Now, we are going to take part of the drug samples for scientific analysis, while the rest will be secured in our system in the event he ( suspect )will want to contest laboratory results”, Babatunji stated.
Speaking with the media on the development, Onwukwe, while admitting to the ownership of the building, insisted that he deals only on genuine and foreign legal drugs.
He categorically debunked NAFDAC’S allegations of dealing on expired and counterfeit drugs.
This is as he claimed ignorance of his residence being sealed by the NAFDAC after the operation on February 11, 2025 that culminated in the seizure of drugs in the building.
According to him, his wife rented some parts of the building to tenants because she was unaware that the property was under Government seal.
Similarly, Onwukwe blamed his inability to honour the Agency’s invitation after the operation on ill- health.
“I have been sick for over three months now . I have been very sick. Only my people have been attending to my business concerns and also going to the police and NAFDAC’S offices.
“My wife and in-law have been going to the Police Area Command Aba, as well as NAFDAC’S office in Enugu and Asaba since then, owing to my indisposition.
“Honestly, I have been very sick. I just started recovering not more than a week ago. It was my intention to honour their invitation, but my health challenges never allowed me”, Onwukwe pleaded.
On the alleged recovery of a large quantity of expired drugs in his residence, Onwukwe stated that he never knew that one of his already settled apprentices was using the building for the revalidation and repackaging of expired pharmaceutical products.
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