₦airaland Forum

Prof Mojisola Adeyeye, the Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, has revealed that over 70 per cent of food exported from Nigeria are rejected abroad which is a major concern.

Prof Adeyeye said this at the official commissioning of the New NAFDAC Office complex for the Murtala Muhammed International Airport/NAHCO in Lagos.

In a statement by the Resident Media Consultant to NAFDAC, Sayo Akintola, on Sunday, Adeyeye said the incidence of rejection of food exports from Nigeria in some European countries and the United States of America may soon become a thing of the past if collaboration between the agency and other government agencies at the ports is strengthened.

Adeyeye said the deplorable state of export trade facilitation for regulated products leaving the country has continued to be a serious cause for concern for the agency, adding that a trip to NAFDAC Export warehouses within the international airport will explain the major reason for the continuous rejection of Nigerian exports abroad.

She, however, noted that the agency is responding to the challenge by collaborating with the agencies at the Ports by ensuring that goods meet the regulatory requirements of the importing countries and destinations.

‘’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 actualised without the effective presence of NAFDAC at the ports and land borders,’ ’ she said.

Commending the Nigeria Customs Service, she said, ‘ ’Without customs, we will not be able to do a lot of what we have been able to do.

The collaboration between Customs and NAFDAC is huge. NAFDAC is a complex organisation. We are scientific.

We are police and we work with the Department of State Services. We work with Interpol and the Federal Bureau of Investigation because of the few unscrupulous stakeholders.

“NAFDAC collaborates with Nigeria Agricultural Quarantine Services to ensure that due diligence is done because over 70 per cent of the products that leave our ports get rejected.

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

‘’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’’.

CaptMarvel:
Nice colored pictures.
Are they AI generated? Or what software did that

Friends mourn Nigerian man who died today hours before his flight to the UK for his Masters programme

Friends of a Nigerian man identified as Okpani Ugochukwu, have taken to social media to mourn him after he died today May 19, hours before his flight to the UK for his Master's degree.

According to his friends, late Okpani Ugochukwu secured a scholarship for a Masters program in a UK University and was to leave Nigeria on Friday.

He shared a post on his Facebook wall on Thursday night, informing his friends that them he will be leaving for his Master's.

His friends say he slept and did not wake up today. They have taken to social media to express their sadness over hissudden demise.

Draslo:
ExAngel007, you for leave to break this piece of news

Police on the trail of singer Seun Kuti; they visited his home early this morning but met his absence

Men of the Lagos state police command are currently on the trail of singer Seun Kuti. Some officers from the command visited his Allen Avenue home this morning to arrest him but met his absence. The officers who were stationed at his Allen Avenue home were later asked to leave the area.


Recall that the Inspector General of Police, Baba Alkali, ordered for Seun's arrest after a video of him assaulting abpolice officer surfaced online. The singer was seen pushing and also slapping the police man on Third mainland bridge yesterday Saturday May13th.

Seun shared a post on his IG page last night where he stated that the officer tried to kill him.

Meanwhile, the officer he assaulted has reported to the command headquarters and has given his statement of what transpired between himself and the singer.

As many Nigerians continue to wallow in hardship, the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, state governors, and their deputies may have enjoyed about N651.2m hardship allowance in the last eight years the Buhari regime, according to findings by The PUNCH.

The type of allowance, which is 50 per cent of the annual basic salary, is also enjoyed by judges in the country.

However, The PUNCH report focuses on the amount allocated for the president, vice president, state governors, and their deputies, according to a document obtained from the website of the Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Allocation
Commission.

The RMAFC document disclosed that the president is entitled to N1.76m annually as a hardship allowance. This means that within a period of eight years, Buhari would have earned N14.08m as hardship allowance.

The Vice President is entitled to N1.52m annually, which means that in eight years, Osinbajo would have earned N12.16m as hardship allowance.

While a state governor is entitled to N1.11m annually, a deputy state governor is entitled to N1.06m.

In eight years, the hardship allowance of the 36 state governors would have gulped N319.68m while that of their deputies would have gulped N305.28m.

As Buhari spends his last days in office, labour unions recently scored the regime and state governors low, saying they pauperised workers and inflicted hardship on Nigerians.

They lamented the galloping inflation in the country, which they said had eroded the 40 per cent pay rise recently approved by the Federal Government with effect from January.

The National Treasurer of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Hakeem Ambali, submitted that the outgoing regime had inflicted heavy hardship and suffering on the Nigerian workers.

According to him, the workers have suffered job losses, insecurity, economic hardship and other calamities under Buhari.

Ambali, who is also the President of the National Union of Local Government Employees, stated, “Under Buhari’s administration, just like every other successive administration, we have witnessed so many losses of jobs. Some governors laid off so many workers in the North, East and West. There has been a loss of lives as a result of banditry and kidnapping, especially in the South-East, South-West and in the whole North.

“As for today from my union, the National Union of Local Government Employees, we reside and work within the remote part of the country; any attack on government installations and infrastructure affect our people. Most of them were kidnapped in Kaduna.

“Also, one will realise that the road network is so poor. The erratic power supply has also reduced chances of Nigerians getting their daily living.’’

The labour leader further observed the lack of social safety net in the country even as he scored the Buhari regime low in terms of fidelity to labour laws, citing the abuse of labour laws and practices by the government.

The Ogun State chapter of the Trade Union Congress and Nigeria Union of Pensioners scored the Buhari regime low in the areas of citizens’ welfare and wellbeing.

The state chairman of TUC, Akeem Lasisi, pointed out that the high cost of living had made nonsense of the minimum wage.

He said, “With the present high cost of living and hike in transportation and the rest, it seriously inflicted pains on the workers because the so-called minimum wage cannot take you anywhere. Workers are in serious pain because the salary can no longer take you anywhere.”

A report by the National Bureau of Statistics that about 133 million Nigerians live in poverty would be a recipe for a new dimension of hunger never witnessed in Nigeria, a civil society organisation under the aegis of the International Human Rights Commission recently warned.

While describing the report as a warning of a looming economic crisis in the country, the not-for-profit body stressed the need for government to empower people in the rural communities to reduce the rising poverty in Nigeria.

The Ambassador at Large and Head of Diplomatic Missions of IHRC in Nigeria, Dr Duru Hezekiah, warned that the poverty rate, if not urgently addressed, would be a recipe for disaster.

He said, “We are really in an economic crisis. And if it’s not checked, I tell you, the time is coming when will go into a fiasco, a time is coming when in fact, Nigeria will be declared a ‘hunger country’, and that is why we are still appealing to the government.”

Recently, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, said Nigerians will not die but will adjust to the economic hardships in the country.

In a statement, the minister noted that economic hardships were not peculiar to Nigeria alone but to the world at large also noted that the agitation by workers for more wages was not peculiar to Nigeria.