Fake drinks, greed and the festive period

It’s almost Christmas. In my home, as in many others, the decorations are up. I love the season for its joy, for its reminder that in a world full of darkness, light exists. Sometimes, it doesn’t feel like it: I have friends who are grieving the loss of close family members, and between the crisis at home and those abroad, the world feels like a really deep well full of thorns and dangerous beasts. And yet, Christmas dares us to hope. As Christians especially, it demands that hope of us. It demands it especially when times are hard. And even non-Christians can get caught up in the festiveness of the period. It seems to me that folks smile more around this time of the year, everyone is a little bit cheerier.  

However, for some people, the season is the time to indulge in criminal activities to make some easy money. A few days ago, my phone went walk-about-ing the minute I was distracted while shopping in a supermarket. Luckily, I was able to both disable and replace it relatively quickly, so the person who has it can’t sell it. And that is comforting to me, that they went to the trouble of stealing a phone they can’t use for anything more than a paperweight. No one should have to reap where they haven’t sowed.  

That is not to say that there aren’t folks who will try to reap where they haven’t sowed, no matter how high the stakes. Recently, a market in Aba was raided and shut down by NAFDAC because greedy criminals were manufacturing and selling fake liquor and spirits there. Imagine mixing nonsense in an environment as filthy as our markets are wont to be, and selling them on to unsuspecting customers who think they are buying whatever is on the label for their Christmas celebration.

Around this time last year, NAFDAC seized N8 million worth of fake drinks from a market in Lagos, including a herbal drink that had failed NAFDAC verification. And all for what? For money? At the expense of people’s health and lives (there have been reports of people dying after imbibing these fake /adulterated drinks).  

As far as I am concerned, the fact that these drinks make it to consumers is a sign that perhaps there should be more government oversight. Someone said on Twitter that since Prof. Akunyili, NAFDAC hasn’t been working well, that the agency has left Nigerians to their fate, and the only thing that isn’t fake is water. Folks posted photos of fake-seeming cooking products in their kitchens.

I can’t say how well or how poorly NAFDAC is doing, but I know that destroying a market here and there isn’t nearly enough to curb this evil. Not if these “factories” are everywhere and the drinks easily available for purchase.  A few years ago, a manager at a major retail winery in Lagos was quoted in one of the dailies as saying that he was often approached by “manufacturers” of drinks who want to give him the “opportunity” of stocking their products which had not been cleared by NAFDAC. In some cases, the manufacturers hadn’t even got a listing number. Fortunately, the manager’s reputation was worth more to him than easy money, and so he always turned them down. Not everyone is as eager to do the right thing.

In the same paper, the journalist quoted a wine trader in Auchi who was less discriminatory about where his supplies came from, and whose attitude towards possibly selling fake or adulterated drinks was more cavalier. Per the paper, the man said, “Something will kill a man one day. How would I know fake from original (sic) just by looking at the bottle or the sachet? The only way I know is through the taste and once the product is opened there is no way of returning the drink.”  

“Something must kill a man” isn’t as profound as this trader thinks it is. Death is a certainty, we all know that. Risking the lives of your fellow man, and hastening their death because enriching yourself is more important to you than doing the right thing is just plain evil.

If these retailers and manufacturers have so hardened their conscience because of greed, then the government must do all that it can to protect the consumers. Not just during the festive period, but every single day.