•  Retrenchment pushed me into it, says accused

THE National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), yesterday paraded two men, Mr. Oresanya Ademola and Mr. Olawale Nurudeen-Shittu, for allegedly engaging in what the agency termed as fraudulent acts. 

While Ademola was arrested by the agency in Abeokuta, Ogun State, for allegedly impersonating NAFDAC officials to defraud members of the public, Nurudeen-Shittu, who resides in Makurdi, Benue State, was arrested in Lagos for illegal advertisement of herbal products and making false claims. 

 NAFDAC Director General, Dr. Paul Orhii stated that some fraudulent Nigerians have established “parallel NAFDAC”, which they use to dupe unsuspecting members of the public. He therefore, urged members of the public to be wary of dupes who would want to use the name of the agency to defraud them; adding that every NAFDAC officials is expecting to for field operation with identity card and   badge. 

Orhii explained that Ademola was  “arrested in Sagamu by a team of NAFDAC officers after defrauding one Mr. Reuben of Ruben Medicine Store, Sabo, Sagamu, Ogun State, and issuing him a forged letter of recognition of his medicine store and a certificate of recognition purported to be issued by NAFDAC.”

 The NAFDAC DG added that during interrogation, Ademola confessed to have been arrested once for forgery and extortion in January, 2014 but was granted administrative bail by the police and now re-arrested at   Sabo, Sagamu, Ogun State for the same offence.”    

  Ademola, who claimed to be a former student of Kwara State Polytechnic and Federal Polytechnic, Offa, where he claimed to have studied Mass Communication, blamed his fraudulent act on frustration.  “I got a job with a microfinance bank. But in December last year, the board management was changed and later we were all asked to leave. Unfortunately, I am a family man; I have three children. I did not have anything to do again; I just decided to go to a shop; unfortunately I was caught,” Ademola said.

  Explaining why Nurudeen-Shittu was arrested, Orhii revealed that the  “suspect is being investigated for illegal advertisement of the following herbal products and for making false claims with forged documents.” He listed some of the herbal drugs the accused was arrested over to include trinity capsules, logo cleaner bitters, yoppy cleaner herbal capsules, supa clinsa capsule herbal remedy and superman capsule. “Mr. Olawale Nurudeen Shittu of 19 Railway Bye Pass High level, Makurdi, Benue State, uses this premises as clinic for diagnosis of various ailments and entice unsuspecting members of the public to patronise his products. The suspect similarly uses Abiola Nature Therapy Limited, 7, Tafawa Balewa Street, Jos, Plateau State for sale and illegal advertisement of the products. The suspect was arrested in Lagos while presenting a forged NAFDAC notification of product registration of logo cleanser bitters purported to be manufactured by Heritage International Therapy Limited of 84, Karimu Adeyemi Street, Akinyode Road, Alagbado, Lagos, and whose name and address was verified to be non-existent,” Orhii explained.     

Nurudeen-Shittu, who claimed to be a graduate of Civil Engineering of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTETH), however, told journalists that his organisation has up-to-date registration certificates from NAFDAC. 

 He agreed that he uses computer technology to diagnose his patients, but was quick to add that he usually referring his patients for medical laboratory tests on serious medical problems. “Anywhere we are, we have medical labs, we usually direct our customers to run a medical test,” he said. He added that he have on-going advert on the herbal products in a national television, explaining that all “these products NAFDAC is talking about, we are not allowed to make mention of their names on air, not to talk of what they do.”