FIC REPORT (LAGOS STATE) – Chinese counterfeiters who previously operated from China have now established production and distribution networks in Nigeria, deepening the country’s battle against fake, adulterated and substandard products, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control has revealed.
This was disclosed in Lagos on Monday by NAFDAC’s Director of Investigation and Enforcement, Martins Iluyomade, while granting interview with The PUNCH reporters.
Iluyomade said the agency’s investigations showed that some counterfeiters no longer need to import fake products from China, as they now operate directly from Nigeria.
“Before, to fake a product, you needed to go to China to bring it. Now, you don’t need to go. They are here with us,”he said.
According to him, the operators identify products with strong market demand, send details to China and subsequently reproduce and distribute the counterfeits in Nigeria.
He described the development as a “new trend”responsible for making the counterfeit-goods crisis increasingly serious.
Iluyomade further alleged that some of the Chinese operators own logistics companies used to move counterfeit products into the country.
“They own the logistics companies which they use to bring these things into the country,”he said, adding that NAFDAC had begun shutting down some of the implicated logistics firms.
The revelation comes amid growing concern among manufacturers, medical experts and economists over the proliferation of counterfeit and substandard products, which they say is threatening consumers, legitimate businesses and the wider economy.
The scale of the crackdown is reflected in NAFDAC’s destruction of regulated products worth more than N1.5tn in a coordinated operation across Lagos and the South-East between February and March 2025.
The agency’s Director-General, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, also disclosed that NAFDAC had destroyed or seized more than N1.54tn worth of fake and substandard products nationwide since 2023.
Public concern over counterfeit products intensified online at the weekend after Nigerian influencers, including Scott Iguma and Aproko Doctor, raised the alarm over suspected fake toothpaste, creams, contaminated bottled water and adulterated yoghurt drinks.
NAFDAC confirmed that it had received complaints concerning counterfeit toothpaste, particularly products resembling popular Oral-B and Colgate brands.
Iluyomade said the agency had already launched investigations, resulting in arrests and seizures in Kano, Sokoto, Delta and Onitsha, Anambra State.
“We have an intelligence report on fake toothpastes and have been working on it. We’ve made a lot of arrests and seizures,”he said.
He added that NAFDAC was prosecuting two people in court over the importation of counterfeit toothpaste brands.
Adeyeye said NAFDAC had intensified its campaign against counterfeit, falsified, substandard and unregistered products, citing the agency’s recent enforcement operation at the Upper Iweka drug market in Onitsha.
Iluyomade said the agency’s prosecution drive had also produced a record number of convictions.
“Between June 2025 and June 2026, NAFDAC hit a record of 64 convictions — the highest in its history,”he said.
He cited the conviction of an operator involved in the counterfeiting of drinks as evidence of the agency’s determination to prosecute offenders.
“In December, a judge handed five years’ imprisonment to one lab that counterfeited drinks, convicting them on all eight grounds,”Iluyomade said.
Sourced and Reported By:
IYEDEH David
CIO&PRO
8/9/2026
