Whatever fund is generated from increased duties on antimalarial and antibiotics drugs is blood money.
Other countries are subsidising essential drugs, but you are increasing tariffs on a sick population where the average citizen lives on less than $2 a day, and millions are jobless. Even when the tariff was reasonable, we struggle with an avalanche of substandard drugs from Asia, and now that the tariff has been jerked up, you are merely inviting assassins to take over, you are about committing genocide on your own people.
It will also be naive and simplistic to justify this as a protectionist policy for a struggling pharmaceutical sector that can barely survive in a system bedevilled with extreme infrastructural inadequacies and unavailability of foreign exchange.
And how many viable pharmaceuticals companies are in Nigeria that would cater for the need of the impoverished populace in a malaria endemic country. How many antimalarial and antibiotics drugs are made in Nigeria?
And how many viable pharmaceuticals companies are in Nigeria that would cater for the need of the impoverished populace in a malaria endemic country. How many antimalarial and antibiotics drugs are made in Nigeria?
This policy is ill-advised, anti-people and criminal, and should be condemned by all well-meaning Nigerians. We should raise our voices against this criminality more than we did against the NCC increased tariff on data usage.
Written By Femi Akinwumi