How NAFDAC Officer, Mrs. Uba Allegedly Colluded With Skirty Brandy MD To Seize Blind Man’s Bottles

MICHAEL AKINOLA

What a blind man from Umuchu town in Aguata Local Government area of Anambra State, Mr. Samuel Ikeh, is experiencing at the moment can only be described as cruelty by the officials of NAFDAC led by one Mrs. Uba and the director of Skirt Brandy, Mr. Emeka Ikeh, in Lagos.

P.M.EXPRESS reports that investigation revealed that Samuel got blind in Lagos but still continued his business of buying and selling empty used bottles with the help of his wife by picking them from various refuse dumps and was selling to Emeka Ikeh, who use them to produce Skirt drinks.

However, Samuel had a disagreement with Emeka Ikeh over price of supplying him the used bottles. According to embittered Samuel, he was selling the bottles for N450 per bag for seven years before sometime in January, 2021, he asked Emeka to add some money and be buying it for N600 in order to cover his cost of buying and washing the bottles but Emeka refused insisting that some of the bottles he was buying from him were his products.
Hence, Samuel had a customer who offered to buy at N1000 and he loaded one truck worth about N3.5m to sell in Aba, Abia State.

Samuel said when Emeka got the information that he had loaded the bottles to sell to another customer, he reportedly arranged with armed Police officers from Adeniji Adele, Lagos and stormed his shop at Kara Market area of Ogun State. The Police alleged that they got information that Samuel loaded arms and ammunition inside the truck with the bottles to Aba.

The truck was impounded and taken to Adeniji Adele, Lagos, for investigation but the Police later found out that the information as alleged by Emeka, who was the complainant, was false and the Police released the truck with the bottles to Samuel.

Emeka then contacted Mrs. Uba at NAFDAC at Apapa and she sent some officers to Adeniji Adele and the bottles were seized and taken to their office at Mobil Road in Apapa, Lagos.

The NAFDAC boss, Mrs. Uba, then prepared documents and asked the blind Samuel to sign that he has accepted to forfeit the bottles to the Federal Government if he cannot sell it to Emeka at the amount he was buying them from him.

Samuel refused and left not knowing he was in for more troubles. Mrs. Uba was said to have become angry and sent a team of NAFDAC officials to Samuel’s shop, led by Emeka and another four truck load of bottles worth over N7m were seized and taken to an undisclosed location.

Mrs. Uba alleged that she was directed by the Director General of NAFDAC to seize the bottles because Samuel refused to sell to Emeka and he committed an offence which involved seizing the bottles in line with NAFDAC policy.

Since then, Samuel and members of his family had been helpless. And to worsen his situation, he alleged that Mrs. Uba and Emeka were mocking him over his blindness when he visited her office.

“Mrs Uba told me that it was because I am a wicked man that made me go blind while Emeka boasted he will ensure I will carry plate to beg on the road for attempting to sell the bottles to another customer” he said.

Samuel is therefore, appealing to the members of the public to come to his aid and plead with Mrs. Uba and Emeka to release his bottles to him in order to take care of his family.

On who he sells the bottles, he said he had been in the business for over 20 years and sells the bottles to groundnuts, cashew sellers and others, who use the bottles for their businesses like local medicine.

He explained that he had been in the business, got married with children before he got blind. He lamented that he was not the only person selling bottles at Kara Market but Mrs. Uba and Emeka singled him out despite over 300 people selling the same bottles at the market.

Samuel has written a petition to the Director General of NAFDAC to prevail on the matter, which the DG is yet to respond to as at the time of filing this report.