The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, has accused a social media influencer, Martins Otse, popularly known as VeryDarkMan, VDM, of inciting traders at the Onitsha Bridge Head Market.
The anti-drug agency claimed that VDM encouraged the traders to defy federal regulatory measures following recent raids on open drug markets in Nigeria.
The Nigerian influencer alleged that NAFDAC demanded N700,000 from shop owners to reopen their shops.
In her reaction, the Director General of the Agency, Prof. Christiana Adeyeye, cautioned that the influencer’s actions, made up of sharing videos allegedly encouraging non-compliance with NAFDAC’s directives, could constitute a breach of the Cybercrime Act.
While NAFDAC did not directly address VeryDarkMan’s specific claim, it however stressed that traders who complied with regulatory requirements have been permitted to resume business.
Adeyeye called for public vigilance and urged security agencies to investigate the matter.
She also called on law enforcement agencies to investigate the influencer’s actions and assured of NAFDAC commitment to safeguarding public health.
NAFDAC had recently conducted extensive enforcement operations across major open drug markets in Aba, Idomota, and Onitsha.
During the raids, the agency removed and destroyed banned, expired, and substandard narcotics valued at over a trillion naira.
