Nigeria's Food Agency Disowns a Viral Fake Products List

Nigeria's food and drug regulator has publicly disowned a viral fake products list racing across social media, saying the compilation did not come from the agency and should be disregarded. The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, known as NAFDAC, said in a statement signed by Director-General and CEO Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye that the list should not be treated as an official regulatory alert, a recall notice or a safety communication. The viral fake products list names widely consumed products — soft drinks, milk brands, rice, medicines and cosmetics — as fake, adulterated or substandard.

NAFDAC's message is blunt: the agency does not declare products fake, adulterated or unsafe without following due process — investigation, sampling and, where necessary, scientific and laboratory verification. Official alerts are specific and verifiable, published through recognized channels with details of the affected product and the regulatory action taken. As reported by The Lens NG, the agency stressed that the appearance of a product name or photograph on a social-media list is not an official finding that the product is fake or unsafe.

The agency's answer to a forwarded list

According to ThisDay, NAFDAC examined the circulating document and found it appears to weld together different regulatory actions from different years and categories. Some products on the list had genuinely been subject to counterfeit or falsification alerts; others had been recalled, found unregistered or flagged as substandard. But the viral fake products list strips away those distinctions — batch numbers, dates, specifics — and presents everything as one alarming master list.

The agency declined to name who created the list. It rejected the compilation as a whole, warning that forwarding unverified claims could cause unnecessary panic and inflict reputational and commercial damage on legitimate manufacturers, distributors and retailers. The public was urged to verify information before sharing and to rely on NAFDAC's official communication channels for product alerts, recalls and withdrawals.

Why the hoax works: a kernel of truth

Here is the uncomfortable part — the viral fake products list is persuasive because counterfeiting in Nigeria is genuinely real. In 2025, NAFDAC shut down facilities at Aba's Cemetery Market where counterfeit and adulterated drinks were allegedly being produced with cloned packaging imitating established brands. In March 2025, the agency seized more than one hundred bags of suspected counterfeit rice in Rivers State, repackaged to imitate names like Big Bull and Mama Pride. And in August 2025, NAFDAC flagged falsified batches of the emergency contraceptive Postinor-2, with packaging that differed from genuine stock.

Each of those was a real, specific enforcement action — targeted at counterfeit production operations or particular batches, never a blanket declaration against the genuine brands themselves. The viral fake products list takes those scattered, legitimate alerts and merges them into a single scary document. A counterfeit alert about one batch becomes, in the forwarded version, a verdict on the brand itself. That is precisely the distortion NAFDAC says its procedures are designed to prevent.

How to spot a real alert

Real NAFDAC alerts carry the details the viral fake products list omits: which batches, which packaging, what verification stickers look like, and what enforcement action followed. The agency maintains public alert resources for consumers, healthcare professionals and other stakeholders, and says it will continue market surveillance and enforcement — including destroying affected products — where investigations establish the need. The agency also gave out contact lines for enquiries and complaints, urging Nigerians to report suspected counterfeits through proper channels rather than through forwarded lists.

For readers, the takeaway travels beyond Nigeria. Forwarded health scares are engineered to bypass skepticism: a familiar logo, an official-sounding layout, and just enough truth to feel credible. The viral fake products list works the same way — real alerts, real brands, reassembled into fiction. Before sharing the next one, check the regulator's own channels first. If the agency never published it, the list is just a rumor with good graphic design. See more debunks of viral claims in Conspiracies, including the debunking of the heatwave phone-tower conspiracy.