The Kano State Police Command has said it will ensure that all patent medicine dealers in the state capital relocate to the new pharmaceutical market built by the state government to checkmate trading of illicit drugs.
The Commissioner of Police, Muhammed Usaini Gumel, who disclosed this during a working visit to the new market, noted that the state government had issued an ultimatum to all pharmaceutical traders in the Sabon Gari Market in Fagge LGA to relocate to the newly constructed market, Kano Economic City, in the Dangwauro area on the outskirts of the city.
He said, “We are appealing to the traders to relocate to the new site for the good of residents of Kano. In the new market, there are mechanisms in place put by authorities to checkmate counterfeit drugs and abuses to ensure sanity in the pharmaceutical business in the state.
“The coordinated wholesale centre will help in checkmating the movement and selling of illicit, fake and substandard drugs in Kano State.”
He further said that the Kano Pharmaceutical Partners had put all machinery in place to ensure the smooth take-off of the market, adding that the police as major players in internal security, had a role to play in ensuring smooth operations and improving business in the state.
The CP added that, “We will give you 100 per cent support in our efforts towards sanitising the state. On our part, the police command has embarked on intelligence gathering and already crime-mapping the state and working on how best to curtail the sale and use of illicit drugs by open market traders, including the consumption.”
Meanwhile, the leader of the new market, Husseini Zakari, who noted that the market was commissioned in February, said that some groups of pharmaceutical traders were sabotaging the plan of the government to move traders to the site for dubious reasons.
