NaijaAgroNet:
The Director General of the National Agency for Food andDrug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Professor Christianah Mojisola
Adeyeye, has assured Nigerians that the return of the agency to the nation’s
ports and borders will enhance the regulation of importation of narcotic drugs
and hazardous chemical substances, reports NaijaAgroNet.
This, she also said, would boost up the regulation of
hazardous substances identified to be grossly abused and consequently, posing
public health and security threats to the country.
A communique issued at the end of the National Chemical
Security Training Conference in Abuja and held under the auspices of the Officeof the National Security Adviser (ONSA) and made available to NaijaAgroNet, with the theme
“Towards a Secured Importation, Distribution, Storage and Use of Chemicals in
Nigeria.”
NAFDAC DG noted that the return to ports and borders will
once again, restore NAFDAC’s key responsibility of monitoring imports of
controlled drugs and chemical substances which come in various forms, thus
requiring expertise to monitor their industry-wide application and use.
The agency commended ONSA, the Chemical Society of Nigeria
and other key stakeholders for recognizing NAFDAC as a key player in the
national security architecture by this singular act of restoring the presence
of NAFDAC officials at all designated Ports of entry and land borders.
She recalled that the laws establishing NAFDAC empowered the
agency to statutorily operate at the ports.
“The clearance of regulated products outside of the current
legal framework poses immediate and life threatening risks to the public as
unregistered, spurious and falsified products exit the ports without recourse
to the agency’s approval for such products to be in the market,” she said.
Prof. Adeyeye further assured members of the public that
NAFDAC will continue to contribute its quota to government’s efforts in
securing lives and property by ensuring that only quality, safe, efficacious
and wholesome regulated products and are consumed by Nigerians and smuggling of
chemical weapons, harmful drugs and substances into the country is checked.
Isaac Oyimah/GEE
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