A’Ibom: NAFDAC enforces ban on alcoholic beverages, seizes products

National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has seized alcoholic beverages worth millions of naira while enforcing the ban on the products in Akwa Ibom.

The move is the agency’s effort to prohibit the sale of alcoholic beverages in sachets and PET bottles below 200ml.

The State Coordinator of NAFDAC, Mr John Naeche, disclosed this during the mop-up exercise in Uyo on Saturday.

Naeche said places where the banned products were seized included; Nyong Essien, Udo Umana and Akpan Andem markets all in the Uyo metropolis. The coordinator said the ban aims to save lives by reducing the availability of addictive and potentially harmful alcoholic beverages.

He said the NAFDAC’s Director-General, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, officially announced the ban in Feb. 2024, following a five-year notice period that ended in Dec. 2023.

“We are enforcing the ban and mopping up sachet alcoholic beverages from the market because of its effect on people, especially the young ones.

“Between 2018 and 2023, NAFDAC placed a notice for people to stop producing and selling such products, but from 2024 up, you can see these products are everywhere.

“There is a total ban on these sachet alcoholic beverages and PET bottles below 200ml by NAFDAC and the Federal Government, so that is what we are doing.

“We have gone to Nyong Essien, Udo Umana and Akpan Andem markets to mop up a sizeable quantity of these banned products,” he said.

The coordinator stressed that manufacturers were given enough time to discontinue production of these beverages, but it seems some traders and distributors continued to sell them.

“We will sustain the crackdown; it is not just a one-day-off.

“We will continue the mop-up exercise of these products wherever they are in the markets and the motor parks.

“The manufacturers of these products are aware of this because they were part of the agreement.

“The distributors are aware that these products have been banned and they are not supposed to buy the products.

“If they stop buying, of course, the manufacturers will stop producing.

“All the products we have moped up, are going to be destroyed.

“We will set out a day that we are going to destroy all these products,” he said.