NAFDAC Says 70% Of Food Exported From Nigeria Gets Rejected Abroad

The Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Mojisola Adeyeye, noted that 70% of the food exported from Nigeria, gets rejected abroad resulting in "double loss" for the exporter as well as the country.

"Over 70 percent of the products that leave our ports get rejected," Adeyeye said at the official commissioning of the new NAFDAC Office for the Murtala Muhammed International Airport/NAHCO in Lagos on Sunday, TheCable reported.

She added, "Considering the money spent on getting those products out of the country, it is a double loss for both the exporter and the country."

Adeyeye explained that if the alliance between NAFDAC and other government agencies at the ports is strengthened, this kind of rejection in European countries and the United States of America can end.

"The mandate to safeguard the health of the populace through ensuring that food, medicines, cosmetics, medical devices, chemicals, and packaged water are safe, efficacious, and of the right quality in an economy that is overwhelmingly dependent on the importation of the bulk of its finished products and raw materials could never have been actualized without the effective presence of NAFDAC at the ports and land borders," she noted.

The director-general addressed the Nigeria Customs Service and shared that without customs, the agency won't be able to do a lot, suggesting that this "collaboration between Customs and NAFDAC is huge."

"NAFDAC is a complex organization. We are scientific. We are police and we work with the Department of State Services," she continued. "We work with Interpol and the Federal Bureau of Investigation because of the few unscrupulous stakeholders."

She went on to explain, "Without the police, we cannot do much in terms of investigation and enforcement. We have over 80 policemen with us in NAFDAC. They help us a lot when we are doing raids or investigations as the case may be."

NAFDAC announced earlier this month that European Union might be exporting banned Neonicotinoid pesticides to poor countries including Nigeria, noting that the agency will review and ban toxic pesticides that are harmful to not only humans but also animals and the environment.

Adeyeye's media consultant, Olusayo Akintola disclosed in a statement that the director-general has given "a directive to review and analyze the list of registered pesticides and petrochemical active ingredients in the NAFDAC Registered Product Automated Database (NARPAD) vis-à-vis actives banned, non-approved, or restricted in the European Union, other countries or by relevant international organizations."

The statement came after a non-governmental organization, Heinrich Boll Foundation claimed in a report that 40% of the pesticides used in Nigeria had been banned in Europe.