Top officials of the Abeokuta office of the NAFDAC No: officials in N1.85million bribery scandal National Agency for Food and Drug Administration Control, NAFDAC are currently enmeshed in a bribe allegation to the tune of N1.85million. The officers known as Mr. Orji and his colleague Mr. Dilo, both staff of the Abeokuta office of NAFDAC were said to have collected the sum of N1million from Mr. Taiwo Aremu to help him escape from NAFDAC.
According to Mr. Aremu, whose company Onigboho Ventures produces popular herbal drink; Doro Webo, he landed in the hands of Mr. Orgi and Mr. Dilo after his workers were arrested in Abeokuta. While talking to this Paper, Mr. Aremu stated that, before he met Orji and Dilo, he had fallen to a dubious man who pretended to be an agent of the agency. He told this Newspaper that, the earlier man collected the sum of N1.5million and ended up providing a fake NAFDAC registration number for Doro Webo.
When he met Mr. Orgi who was confirmed to be an employee of the agency, Aremu had a sigh of relieve that the dubious days were over until it turned out to be another fraud coming from within the agency.
Narrating his ordeal, Aremu said he met Orji after his workers were arrested in Abeokuta, the capital of Ogun state. “Somebody called me from Abeokuta that they need our products. I quickly sent my workers to do the supply. After almost six hours, we didn’t see them return. We became worried at the factory and set out to look for them. We went to Abeokuta and after searched the entire town, we found them at Ibara police station. They had been arrested by NAFDAC men led by Orji and I was asked to pay N1million to get my workers released. The N1million they call it ‘settlement’. Part of the bail condition was that, we must provide the man who produced the fake NAFDAC number. We set out for the man named Dele Afolabi and he was arrested. ” He said.
Speaking further, Aremu recalled how Mr. Orji later approached him with a promise to help him facilitate a genuine NAFDAC registration number, “After my workers were released, he (Orji) came to me with the promise of processing a genuine NAFDAC number for my product. He demanded for the sum of N850, 000 which I paid again. To my greatest surprise, he did not produce any NAFDAC number instead; he has been leading different groups of NAFDAC officials to harass us in the market.”
Speaking further, Aremu pointed out that, Orji may be playing out his role as a NAFDAC official contracted to frustrate the curent dominance of Doro Webo in the herbal drinks market. “He (Orji) has confessed to some of our people that he was paid by some of our competitors to frustrate the existence of our product in the market. A man who is producing Doro Carry is among those financing Orji to frustrate our product out of the market.” He siad.
Recently, a team of NAFDAC officials stormed the Nimask store and PIC store at Agege market and Trade Fair complex respectively to raid the product, Doro Webo from the said distributor’s stores on the ground that, the product is not market worthy.
Meanwhile, Aremu has since through the help of another person approached the office of the agency in Oshodi, Lagos and the product has since passed all the stages of tests. The product is at the verge of getting the NAFDAC number after the agency conducted its Acute Toxicity Test on the product. The production factory for Doro Webo also got a certificate of pest control and fumigation from LASEPA approved SOclean Nigerian Services.
We reached out to the accused person Mr Orji. After ignoring several calls to his mobile nuber, he later replied to a text message.
On his part, he didn’t confirm or deny the allegation of collecting money but denied leading his men to raid Doro Webo from the market. “Am not aware of this allegation. I have been seriously sick and just recovering. If his products are raided in the market, am just hearing it for the first time from you.”