Nigerians have spent the past week trading videos of apples that bleed green paint, toothpaste that never foams and gin bottles that smell faintly of petrol. What looked, at first, like isolated market complaints has turned out to be something far bigger. The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) says the country is dealing with an organised, foreign-linked counterfeiting operation, and the numbers behind it are staggering.
A N1.5 Trillion Wake-Up Call
Speaking on the scale of the problem, NAFDAC Director-General, Professor Mojisola Adeyeye, disclosed that a coordinated enforcement sweep across Lagos and the South-East led to the seizure and destruction of fake and substandard products worth more than N1.5 trillion. She added that between June 2025 and June 2026, the agency secured 64 convictions against counterfeiters, the highest number in its history, while suspects picked up in Kano, Sokoto, Delta and Anambra states over fake oral care products are now facing trial in federal courts.
To put that figure in context, it dwarfs NAFDAC’s previous enforcement records. The agency destroyed roughly N120 billion worth of substandard and falsified medicines and food items in the second half of 2024 alone, and a separate operation in Gombe accounted for another N10 billion in fake and expired drugs that October. The jump to N1.5 trillion in a single coordinated exercise signals not just more aggressive enforcement, but a counterfeiting economy that has grown far bigger than regulators anticipated.
The Chinese Connection
What has changed the conversation entirely is who NAFDAC says is now running large parts of this trade. According to the agency’s Director of Investigation and Enforcement, Martins Iluyomade, intelligence gathered over recent months points to Chinese-led networks that have moved their operations inside Nigeria rather than simply shipping fakes in from abroad.
“Before, to fake a product, you needed to go to China to bring it. Now, they are here with us,” Iluyomade said. He explained that these syndicates study the Nigerian market, identify products that sell fast, send samples back to China to have them replicated, and then distribute the counterfeit versions locally through logistics firms the syndicates themselves own. NAFDAC has already begun shutting down some of these logistics operations as part of the crackdown.
It is a shift that changes how the agency has to fight back. A counterfeit product coming through a port can, in theory, be intercepted at the border. A counterfeit product manufactured in a warehouse in Aba or a market in Lagos, and moved through a domestic delivery network, is a much harder target to hit.
What Nigerians Are Finding on Store Shelves
The public anger driving this story didn’t start with a NAFDAC press briefing. It started on social media, where Nigerians, including well-known voices like Scott Iguma and Aproko Doctor, began posting side-by-side comparisons of genuine and fake products. Complaints poured in about counterfeit toothpaste, particularly versions of Oral-B and Colgate, along with contaminated bottled water and yoghurt drinks that had clearly been repackaged past their expiry dates.
NAFDAC has separately flagged a list of alcoholic drinks and wines that have been widely adulterated or revalidated with fake expiry dates, including well-known names such as Seaman’s Schnapps, Hennessy, Four Cousins, Chelsea London Dry Gin, McDowell’s, Gordon’s, Martell, Campari and Smirnoff Ice. Products like Peak Milk, powdered milk, ketchup and Coca-Cola items have also turned up with tampered packaging and re-dated labels, sold to shoppers who had no reason to suspect anything was wrong.
In one of the more talked-about cases, NAFDAC officers raided a makeshift factory in Oke Arin market on Lagos Island and seized fake alcoholic drinks worth over N180 million. The suspect arrested on site admitted to refilling empty Rémy Martin bottles with a cheaper brand and reselling them as the original.
How to Spot a Fake Product Before You Buy It
NAFDAC has repeatedly broken this down into simple checks that any shopper can run through at the point of purchase, often summarised as the “four Ps.”
- Place: Buy from registered pharmacies, licensed supermarkets and reputable retailers rather than roadside stalls or unverified online sellers. A product’s origin matters as much as the product itself.
- Price: Be suspicious of anything sold well below the normal market price, especially where there’s no receipt or applicable tax. Counterfeiters undercut genuine prices to move stock quickly.
- Packaging: Look closely for blurred printing, spelling errors, mismatched fonts, crooked labels or bottle shapes that feel slightly off compared to what you’re used to. Genuine manufacturers rarely make these mistakes; counterfeiters, working from copied templates, often do.
- Product: Trust your nose and your eyes. A strong chemical smell, unusual colour, separation in liquids, or a texture that doesn’t match what you remember is a warning sign, not something to shrug off.
Beyond the four Ps, there are concrete tools worth using:
- Check the NAFDAC registration number. Every legally sold drug, food, cosmetic or regulated product should carry a NAFDAC number, usually shown as “NAFDAC Reg. No.” or “NRN.” You can verify this against NAFDAC’s Greenbook or its online verification portal, and confirm that the product name, manufacturer and strength listed match what’s printed on the pack in your hand. If a number pulls up a different product entirely, that’s a major red flag.
- Use the Mobile Authentication Service (MAS) where available. Certain high-risk products, particularly antimalarials and some antibiotics, carry a scratch panel. Scratching it off reveals a code you can text to a dedicated NAFDAC number for instant confirmation of authenticity.
- Look out for SON certification marks. For locally manufactured items covered under the Standards Organisation of Nigeria’s schemes, check for the MANCAP mark, which confirms the product met mandatory conformity requirements.
- Don’t rely on the logo alone. Counterfeiters are increasingly good at replicating branding. It’s the registration details, the batch number and the manufacturer information that tend to expose a fake, not how the label looks at a glance.
If You Suspect a Product Is Fake
NAFDAC has urged consumers not to consume or use a product once something feels wrong. Keep the item, its packaging and your receipt where possible, and report it through NAFDAC’s official complaint channels rather than simply throwing it away. Every report helps investigators trace a counterfeit batch back to its source, whether that source turns out to be a local repackaging operation or, as recent findings suggest, a syndicate with links stretching back to manufacturers in China.
For now, the message from the agency is straightforward: the counterfeit trade in Nigeria has become more organised, more local and considerably more dangerous than most shoppers realise. A few extra seconds spent checking a label, a registration number, or a seal could be the difference between a safe purchase and a serious health risk.
