NAFDAC accuses whistle-blower director of ties with drug counterfeiters

The National Agency for Food, Drug and Administration Control has accused its former finance director, Ademola Mogbojuri, of getting involved with drug counterfeiters and allowing himself to be used by them.

The allegation came in response to the probing of NAFDAC’s director general, Paul Orhii, by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, after Mr. Mogbojuri had accused him of corruption.

The agency’s director of public affairs, Abubakar Jimoh, on Tuesday denied that the NAFDAC boss was arrested by the EFCC on Monday as reported in the media. He claimed the EFCC invited Mr. Orhii to applaud him for his courage to engage his defiant subordinate.

“There’s nothing unusual about this but to applaud the DG for his courage to want to engage the recalcitrant director who has decided to dance naked in the public and become a willing tool in the hands of the counterfeiters to infiltrate derail an organized system,” Mr. Jimoh said of Mr. Mogbojuri.

He said Mr. Orhii’s visit to the EFCC was a normal and routine process – a procedure for an investigative agency like the anti-graft agency.

“There is no hue and cry about this since it was normal for anyone who is accused to respond and clear his name accordingly,” Mr. Jimoh said.

The EFCC had on Monday invited Mr. Orhii after a petition against him was written by the former finance director.

A very reliable source had on Monday told PREMIUM TIMES that Mr. Orhii was being grilled on contracts he awarded.
The source said that the NAFDAC boss was also expected to make some documents available to the commission.

His former finance director of NAFDAC, Mr. Mogbojuri, said Mr. Orhii was behind the shady deal and financial recklessness at the agency.

He said Mr. Orhii refused to remit funds meant for the federation account, and instead funneled the agency’s internally generated revenues to fund political campaign in his home Benue State.

“Some of the companies they used to carry out the deals have collected over N6bn in the last two years,” Mr. Mogbojuri told Punch in July.

“Towards the general election this year, he collected a lot of money and used it to buy vehicles, which he branded and gave to a governorship aspirant in his native Benue State. The financial recklessness of the DG has brought NAFDAC onto its knees.”