Deaths from substandard medicines, cosmetics, and unsafe foods exceed the number of people killed by Boko Haram.
An official of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has warned that substandard products claim more lives in Nigeria than insurgency.
Dr. Martins Iluyomade, NAFDAC’s Director of Investigation and Enforcement, made the disclosure on Tuesday after a five-day operation in which the agency seized over 10,000 cartons of unregistered tomato paste and cosmetic products at the Lagos Trade Fair Market.
“I can say authoritatively that deaths from substandard medicines, cosmetics, and unsafe foods exceed the number of people killed by Boko Haram,” Iluyomade told journalists. He reaffirmed the agency’s commitment to ensuring only safe, regulated products reach Nigerian consumers.
Nigeria, which ranked 6th on the 2025 Global Terrorism Index, has faced decades of violent insurgencies, with over 11,000 deaths since 2007, according to the Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund (GCERF). The group cited poor governance trust, limited socio-economic opportunities, and religious conflict as key drivers of extremism.
THIS WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON GUARDIAN