Medicine sellers in Lagos, under a group called the Nigeria Association of Patent and Proprietary Medicine Dealers (NAPPMED), Liberation Zone, are asking the government to create a second wholesale drug market in the city. They say this will help ensure fair access to medicines and avoid problems in the drug supply system.
They sent their appeal to President Bola Tinubu and Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, complaining that many sellers are being left out, that the current process lacks transparency, and that shop spaces are too expensive at the ongoing Coordinated Wholesale Centre (CWC) project in Ijora-Badia.
The leader of the NAPPMED Liberation Zone, Mr. Osita Nwajide, said the current CWC was supposed to be a joint effort by medicine sellers, but it has now been taken over by private individuals.He said, “We medicine dealers paid for the land through our association, but now a few people have taken control of it.”
Nwajide added that they had asked for explanations and accountability, but no one has responded to their concerns.
He said there is a strong need for a second CWC in Lagos because the population is large and more than 3,000 sellers have been left out of the current system.
He explained, “Lagos has over 25 million people, yet only one CWC exists with 720 shops. That’s not enough. There are more than 3,000 genuine medicine sellers just on Lagos Island.”
Nwajide also said that the land for the current CWC was bought using pooled funds from the sellers, with hopes of building a fair, well-regulated, and affordable market for wholesale drug sales.
But he said things turned out very differently.He claimed that the project has been taken over by non-drug business people and individuals with political connections, pushing out those who originally funded it.Now, shops are being sold for as much as ₦93.5 million, he said, which small and medium-sized sellers cannot afford.
He warned that these high prices will increase inequality, give unfair advantage to a few, and damage the drug supply system in the state.
Gabriel Onyejamwa, a founding member of the medicine dealers group and one of the original planners of the CWC idea, said that the land title, which was supposed to be held in trust for the dealers, was later transferred to a private company, City Pharmaceuticals, in a questionable way.
He said, “We tried to talk with the new people managing the project, but they shut us out of all decision-making. This is not how the CWC was meant to work.”Onyejamwa asked the federal and Lagos state governments, the Pharmaceutical Council of Nigeria, and NAFDAC to step in quickly.
He said the problem must be fixed, and a second, fairly managed CWC should be approved to accommodate the over 3,000 sellers who have been pushed out.
The group is also asking the government to control the shop rental prices. They want monthly rent options that small and medium traders can afford.
They emphasized the need for transparency and government oversight in future drug market projects so that this kind of problem doesn’t happen again.
Onyejamwa concluded by saying, “This is not just about business—it affects national security. Fair access to medicines should not be based on who has the most money.”
