In a major legislative crackdown on pharmaceutical crime, the Senate on Wednesday passed a bill for its second reading aimed at overhauling Nigeria’s anti-counterfeit drug laws.
The proposed legislation introduces draconian penalties for offenders, including up to 15 years in prison, multi-million-naira fines, total asset forfeiture, and mandatory financial compensation for victims or their families.
Titled the Counterfeit Medical Products, Fake Drugs and Unwholesome Processed Foods (Prohibition and Control) Bill, 2026, the piece of legislation seeks to repeal and re-enact the outdated 2004 Act (Cap C34), which lawmakers argued is entirely inadequate against modern, tech-savvy smuggling rings.
Leading the debate, the bill’s sponsor, Senator Sulaiman Umar Sadiq (APC, Kwara North), described counterfeit medicines as nothing short of “weapons of mass destruction” threatening Nigeria’s national security and public health.
The lawmaker warned that the lethal trade has aggressively expanded far beyond prescription pills.
Today, open markets, motor parks, roadside shops, and illicit digital storefronts are flooded with adulterated cosmetics, contaminated packaged water and unwholesome processed foods, he said.
Recognizing that 21st-century counterfeiters use advanced manufacturing and encrypted digital sales platforms, the bill retains the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) as the apex regulator but equips it with sharper teeth. NAFDAC will receive expanded powers to deploy next-generation product tracking and tracing technologies.
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