Director General, National Agency for Food Drug Administration and
Control (NAFDAC), Dr. Paul Orhii, stated recently that Nigeria has been
given till June 16, 2016 by the European Union to put a management
system in place to reduce pesticide contaminated food products the
country exports to the region or face continued rejection of exports.
The agency noted that the recent incident threatening economy was not
far from the rejection of food items produced in the country for
international markets especially in Europe, US and recently, Japan,
where they aired some concern about the quality of some products that
were exported from Nigerian market.
Orhii hinted that these food products were rejected at the
international market because of their high pesticide residue which
actually was what Nigerians consume at home.
He disclosed this while briefing the new Comptroller General of the
Nigerian Customs Service (NCS), Col. Hameed Ali (rtd.), who paid a
working courtesy visit to NAFDAC office in Abuja.
According to him, “This high pesticide residue could explain the
increased level of cancers, kidney failures and different other diseases
in the country. The agency will henceforth deploy mobile laboratories
that will go from farm to farm and markets to identify at what point the
contaminants get into the food products. Once we identify it, we will
conduct public awareness campaign and workshops for the people growing
these foods.
“We also want to put a system in place so that before these products
leave our shores to the international markets, the NCS can inquire and
test these products to curb the incidence of rejects at the markets as
this is seriously crippling our economy. This is most especially when it
comes to agricultural products like sesame seeds and beans which
sometimes contain some contaminants like aflatoxins- pesticides
residue.”
He continued: “When we came in, Nigerian cocoa beans were being
rejected at the international market because of pesticides residue but
we held workshops with cocoa growers in Akure and since then, our cocoa
exports have improved. NAFDAC’s collaboration with the NCS has come a
long way right from the inception of the agency and we pledged our
commitment at making such collaboration grow even stronger.
“We are very happy that you talked about using technology to make our
work easier and we will continue to improve in that regard. We are also
aware of the radical reforms that are going on in the Nigerian Customs
under your command and we fully support it and assure you that we are
poised to partner with the NCS to keep Nigeria off smuggled counterfeit
and substandard regulated products,” Orhii said.
In his remarks, Col. Ali said, his coming to NAFDAC office was for the
creation of a platform, seek better ties and collaboration in so many
ways. “We work under the same atmosphere, we support each other at sea
ports, at borders and everywhere.There is no reason why today given the
technology that, we cannot create a synergy that we can from anywhere to
be able to communicate issues that concerns one another. We should be
able to communicate with the present technology and I believe we are
working for one single goal and that is to cleanse Nigeria and make sure
that Nigeria becomes a great nation.
“We have a great task because whoever is given the job of enforcement,
he has a great task in his life. Those that conduct pure administration,
they have it easy but for us, we are always in the bad book of those
bad guys. It is something that we have accepted to do and it is
something we must do if this country must be great. Like I always tell
people, if they are fortunate to be on the enforcement side, they should
not be nice guys, nobody will call you a nice guy and if you are nice,
it then means that you are not doing your duty.
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