Not less than eighteen warehouses in Bida, Niger State, have been sealed by the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) after substantial amounts of expired food and beverage goods worth over ₦100 million were found. Prof. Mojisola Christianah Adeyeye of NAFDAC said in a statement that the warehouses behind Bida Modern Market and along Minna Road near Ndazabo White House were closed after NAFDAC's Investigation and Enforcement team acted on reliable information.
She claimed that five people have already been arrested and that among the items found during the operation were pasta, Dairy Milk chocolates, bottled water, and expired non-alcoholic beverages. Some of the items were already packaged for distribution.
The agency said that during the investigation, it discovered approximately 80,000 packets of expired non-alcoholic drinks, 5,000 packets of dairy milk, 16,000 packets of bottled water, 28 cartons of pasta, and other various expired products.
When the managers of the impacted warehouses were detained for questioning, early results connected the establishments to a business known as BY Ventures. As a result, NAFDAC agents expanded their investigation to include the company's Minna supermarkets, where they allegedly discovered more expired goods and fake Goya oil.
Alhaji Yusuf Nadabo, the company's managing director, was invited for additional interrogation after both supermarkets were sealed. According to the agency, he acknowledged during questioning that he owned the expired products.
As a deterrence to others, NAFDAC said that investigations are still in progress and that suitable regulatory punishments will be applied at the end of the procedure.
