Urgent need for efficient food and drugs administration in Nigeria
Recent Lagos High Court pronouncement asking the Nigerian Breweries
(NB) Plc and the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and
Control (NAFDAC) to order the Nigerian Bottling Company (NBC) Plc to
put a written warning on Fanta and Sprite bottles stating that both soft
drinks are poisonous when consumed along with Vitamin C, is a serious
cause for concern.
According to the court, presided over by Justice Adedayo Oyebanji, both
the bottling company and NAFDAC failed Nigerians by declaring, as fit
for human consumption, products which were discovered by tests in the
United Kingdom as turning poisonous when mixed with ascorbic acid
(popularly known as Vitamin C).
The judgment was handed out as the outcome of a suit filed by a
Lagos-based businessman, Dr. Emmanuel Fijabi Adebo and his company,
Fijabi Adebo Holdings Limited, against NBC Plc and NAFDAC. In the suit,
Adebo had urged the court to declare that NBC was negligent to its
consumers by bottling Fanta and Sprite with excessive levels of benzoic
acid and sunset additives.
The gravamen of the suit was that sometime in March 2007, Fijabi Adebo
Holdings Company bought large quantities of Coca-Cola, Fanta Orange,
Sprite, Fanta Lemon, Fanta Pineapple and soda water from NBC for export
to and subsequent retail in the United Kingdom. Unfortunately, when
the consignment arrived in the United Kingdom, health authorities in
that country, precisely the Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council’s
Trading Standard, Department of Environment and Economy Directorate,
raised fundamental health issues on the contents and composition of
Fanta and Sprite. They impounded the imported Nigerian beverages.
Findings by the UK health authorities which were corroborated by
similar agencies in European Union countries, were to the effect that
the products contained excessive levels of sunset yellow and benzoic
acid, which are known to be carcinogenic.
This event calls to question the efficiency of the regulatory agencies
and also the quality of product manufactured for consumption by several
food and drug manufacturing industries in the country.
Even as the NB Plc and NAFDAC still battle to extricate themselves from
public outcry resulting from the court judgement, the Standards
Organisation of Nigeria (SON), recently announced the discovery and
impounding of five billion Naira worth of expired tyres which it said
was found in 200 containers. According to the Director General of the
SON, Mr Anthony Aboloma, the seizure followed a tip-off from a
whistle-blower. The two Chinese nationals, Taolung Shen and Xu Jing Yau,
were allegedly arrested in connection with the fake tyres, described
as the largest seizure of substandard tyres in one fell swoop in the
history of Nigeria.
The tyres, according to SON, were being cloned under such brand names
as Powertrac, Aptany, Harmony, Duraturn, Bearway, City Tour, Winda,
Glory, Chachland, City Grand, Grandsonte and Sunny (for tricycle), among
others. It is instructive that the discovery of issues with the NB Plc
products and the discovery of the substandard tyres were not made at
the production factory nor at the sea port upon importation,
respectively. They were made after the two items had left the production
shelves and after the relevant authorities had cleared the products.
From available information, the issues raised on Coke and Fanta was
discovered in the UK, while the fake tyres were discovered at the
warehouses.
This raises serious questions about the integrity and efficiency of the
regulatory agencies both internally and at the ports of entry. There is
serious suspicion that the operatives rather than vote for integrity,
vote for what is derogatorily regarded as “stomach infrastructure”.
However, one might look at it, it raises fundamental questions on the
integrity of our regulatory agencies. Now that the country is passing
through economic recession with attendant hunger and economic downturn,
the urgency for the nation’s regulatory agencies to up their ante need
not be overemphasized.
When one remembers with nostalgia the era of the late Professor Dora
Nkem Akunyili, as the Director-General of NAFDAC and how she left an
indelible footprint as the numbro uno staff of the agency, one begins to
wonder if all the staff she trained while in office have all either
retired or were all transferred out of the agency. This is because it is
baffling how an agency like NAFDAC could have certified the soft
drinks that were confirmed to be carcinogenic. The consequential health
issues need not be mentioned here at all.
But The AUTHORITY states without equivocation that NAFDAC and other
agencies in the Ministry of Health should be up and doing particularly
during this economic meltdown, because any lapses on their part, could
lead to catastrophic health issues. We also condemn the speed at which
the Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole rushed to make public
statement on the NB Plc matter. For one, it portrays the minister as
having transformed to becoming the spokesman of the NB Plc, thereby
raising questions as to whether he has more than professional interest
in the matter.
Food and drugs as well as other regulatory agencies in the country
should try to be at their best to avoid a situation whereby Nigeria
becomes a dumping ground for low quality or outrightly fake products.
Nigeria can ill afford to face the twin challenges of poor productivity
ratio and at the same time, suffer the consequences of health
implications arising from dumping of fake and adulterated products. They
are twin anomaly too many which must be avoided at all costs. The Authority
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