Medicine Dealers Call for a New Market in Lagos, Complain of a Hijack of Wholesale Centre

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Drug marketers at the Idumota market in Lagos state took a break on Tuesday, July 22, 2025, from there busy schedule. They did not indulge in some unnecessary celebrations, rather they did so for the sake of their business. They went on a peaceful protest against the hijack of the space earlier secured for a Coordinated Wholesale Centre, CWC in the popular market. The protest was to call the attention of the authorities, at the federal and the state levels, to the challenge that has placed them at the mercy of a few people who they claimed were on a mission to frustrate them out of the market. The marketers are therefore asking for the neutralisation of the powers of those few men or the provision of a new space for a second CWC.

Their grievances were expressed in the placards with various inscriptions such as “Return our CWC,” “Give us our land,” and “We want second CWC” among others.
Acting under the body known as Nigeria Association of Patent and Proprietary Medicine Dealers (NAPPMED, they appealed to President Bola Tinubu, through the Federal Ministry of Health, the Lagos State Government and the Pharmaceutical Council of Nigeria, PCN, to come to their rescue to approve a second Coordinated Wholesale Centre, CWC, in Lagos State.
Osita Nwajide, Chairman of NAPPMED, Liberation Zone, Lagos Island, made the call during the protest. He said that the proposed second CWC will be guided by fairness, inclusivity, and transparency in allocation of spaces and pricing. Priority, he said, must be given to genuine pharmaceutical dealers/marketers and businesses that have a track record of compliance with regulations.
Marketers appealed that the proposed second CWC be on the Island, preferably Ibeju Lekki and its environs, and the centre should have a zonal spread to ease congestion and improve access across Lagos, as well as incorporate digital traceability systems to monitor drug movement and ensure accountability throughout the supply chain.
“We are passionately appealing to His Excellency, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, President, Federal Republic of Nigeria, because he is from Lagos State and he knows what we are talking about, kindly come to our rescue, we also appeal to our amiable Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu to come to our rescue”
Nwajide said “Lagos is a mega city of over 25 million people with two seaports, Apapa and Tincan, with two airports, another one is going on. One CWC presently with just 720 shops is not enough and we have over three thousand medicine marketers in Lagos Island alone and it demands a bigger CWC.”

Nwajide further said that over 920 medicine marketers contributed between N100,000 and N1million each in 2011 to buy the land for the CWC, with the hope of operating in a regulated space. He, however, regretted that the place has been hijacked by some individuals which are not even up to 5% of the marketers.
According to him, “They are asking us to pay N93.5 million for a shop from June to December. How many of us can afford that? Many of us are small to medium-scale drug marketers. It’s an impossible demand.”

He said if the demands are not met, there would be looming threat to drug distributions in Lagos State and it will increase black-market drug distribution in Lagos. This could lead to shortage of medicine in the state.

He promised that the second CWC, if built, will be for everybody, there will be room for expansion to be a conducive environment, and we will build over three thousand shops for marketers.