The Kano State chapter of the Nigerian Association of Patent Proprietary Pharmaceutical Dealers announced on Thursday that it was challenging the forceful move of its members to Kano Economic City.
The Punch reported that this statement was made by the legal advisor of the association, Abdulazeez Adam Muhammad, shortly after the NAPPMED caretaker committee’s swearing-in ceremony in Kano.
Muhammad said the association has gone to the Federal High Court in Kano and has gotten an interim injunction stopping the respondents from harassing marketers and enforcing their movement to KEC against their will.
According to him, “They threatened to use the power of law enforcement agents against the association to force them to relocate against their wish from their stand-alone business premises to what they called Coordinated Wholesale Centre under the guise of enforcement of law.”
Kano Economic City is well known for being the hub of commerce in West Africa and the cultural melting pot of Nigeria.
Mohammed emphasised that the new KEC has already been sold and not totally meant for NAPPMED as it is often implied.
He said, “They don’t want to be relocated there because first, the facility has already been sold to some people, who are not even part of the business community.
“Second, they want to force them to occupy the place at an exorbitant rate against their wish and the same law that recognizes CWC also recognizes their current places,” he added.
To the legal advisor, the organization had gone to the court because it felt marketers cannot be forced to relocate.
“They cannot be forced to relocate and that is why we approached the court which gave the injunction restraining the people that intended to force them to move to that particular place against their wish,” he said.
Jaiz Bank, Brain and Harmers, and the Pharmaceutical Council of Nigeria were among the defendants he identified in the lawsuit as respondents.
