Korede Abdullah in Lagos
The National Association of Patent and Proprietary Medicine Dealers (NAPPMED) has accused an unnamed cartel of hijacking the Lagos Coordinated Wholesale Centre (CWC), originally designed to regulate drug distribution in the state.
Chairman of NAPPMED Liberation Zone Idumota, Osita Nwajide, raised the alarm during a rally on Friday, stating, “We paid for that land as medicine dealers, and now it has been ejected by a few. We are demanding that you give back our land because nobody has come to give us a full explanation.”
According to NAPPMED, over 3,000 medicine marketers on Lagos Island are at risk of being driven out of business due to what they described as the monopolisation of the CWC by non-pharmaceutical businessmen and politically connected players.
“The project has now been monopolised by a handful of actors…with prices soaring as high as ₦93.5 million per unit,” Nwajide lamented.
He stressed that the current setup violates the original goal of the CWC, which was to provide a fair and regulated marketplace.
One of the CWC’s founding planners, Chief Dr. Gabriel Onyejamwa, disclosed that the land title was controversially transferred to City Pharmaceuticals, leaving original stakeholders sidelined.
The association is urging the Lagos and Federal Governments, PCN, and NAFDAC to intervene and approve a second, more inclusive CWC.
“Equitable drug distribution is a matter of public health and national security, not a commodity to be auctioned to the highest bidder,” Onyejamwa warned, adding that failure to act could fuel counterfeit drug sales and destabilise public health in Lagos.
