Experts have canvassed far-reaching reforms of Nigeria’s food safety system, including a reassessment of the regulatory structure of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, as well as severe penalties for those who deliberately adulterate food for profit.
The two experts, Prof Lateef Sanni, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Stored Products Research Institute, NSPRI, and environmental toxicologist, Prof Beatrice Opeolu, argued that Nigeria’s battle against fake, contaminated and adulterated food products required more than routine inspections and public warnings.
According to them, the urgency of the crisis demands a regulatory framework that brings together relevant scientific disciplines, strengthens laboratory surveillance, clarifies institutional responsibilities and holds offenders accountable for endangering public health.
Both Sanni and Opeolu advocated that deliberate food contamination should be treated as a grave offence, drawing parallels between the conduct of those who knowingly poison food for financial gain and the threat posed by terrorism.
Their positions emerged at the fifth edition of the ValidViewNetwork Monthly Global Discourse, under the theme, “Poison on the Plate: Confronting Nigeria’s Epidemic of Fake and Adulterated Food Items.”
The discourse brought together the food scientist and post-harvest management expert, Sanni, and Opeolu, an environmental toxicologist, researcher and environmental consultant, whose complementary perspectives highlighted the scientific, environmental, institutional and public health dimensions of food safety.
At the heart of their submissions was a shared concern that protecting Nigerians from unsafe food requires a more coordinated system in which scientific expertise, regulatory authority and enforcement responsibilities are properly aligned.
Sanni called for the unbundling of NAFDAC, questioning whether its existing professional composition and broad regulatory responsibilities adequately reflect the multidisciplinary demands of modern food safety management.
His intervention focused particularly on the agency’s pharmaceutical orientation and the need to reassess the representation of other professionals whose expertise is essential to food regulation.
The position, which Opeolu’s environmental toxicology perspective helped illuminate, was that food safety could not be approached exclusively through the lens of pharmaceutical regulation because contamination can occur at virtually every stage of the food supply chain.
While pharmacists have important roles in drug regulation and quality assurance, food scientists, microbiologists, environmental toxicologists, analytical chemists, nutritionists and public health professionals also possess specialised competencies required to identify hazards, investigate contamination and assess risks to consumers.
Sanni’s call for restructuring therefore raises a fundamental policy question: should Nigeria continue with its existing regulatory arrangement without examining whether specialised food safety functions would benefit from a more differentiated institutional structure?
The experts stressed that food safety begins with agricultural production and continues through harvesting, processing, preservation, storage, transportation, distribution and consumption.
To them, at each stage, different hazards may arise, ranging from microbial contamination and chemical residues to unsafe preservation methods and deliberate adulteration.
The experts’ combined perspectives underscored the need for a regulatory system capable of drawing effectively on these different disciplines.
Any restructuring, they indicated, should be guided by evidence and should strengthen rather than undermine the capacity to protect consumers.
The federal government was consequently urged to consider an independent review of NAFDAC’s professional composition, statutory responsibilities, operational effectiveness and relationship with other institutions involved in food safety.
Such a review would need to determine whether unbundling, clearer functional separation or other institutional reforms would deliver better regulatory outcomes.
The experts also drew attention to the challenge of overlapping institutional responsibilities, arguing that effective food safety regulation requires clearly defined mandates and stronger coordination among relevant agencies.
Opeolu’s expertise in environmental toxicology provided an important perspective on the need to examine the pathways through which hazardous substances enter food and ultimately expose consumers.
Sanni’s emphasis on food processing, preservation and post-harvest management complemented this perspective by highlighting the need to prevent contamination and deterioration during handling, storage and distribution.
Together, their submissions pointed to the importance of connecting environmental monitoring, agricultural practices, food processing, laboratory analysis and regulatory enforcement.
They argued that restructuring should not simply produce additional agencies. It should establish clearer responsibilities, eliminate unnecessary duplication and ensure that every institution has the expertise, resources and authority required to discharge its mandate.
The discourse, hosted by a United Kingdom-based academic icon, Dr Kayode Ogunjobi, examined reported cases and practices that illustrate the range of food safety concerns facing Nigerian consumers.
Sanni cited reports of palm oil adulteration involving azo dyes and other potentially hazardous contaminants.
He also raised concerns about cassava products, including fufu, and allegations that detergents or bleach had been used to accelerate fermentation.
He referred to a reported study in Rivers State that allegedly detected detergent residues in commercially sold fufu, highlighting the need for credible laboratory investigations and effective regulatory surveillance.
The experts also discussed concerns about pesticide misuse on food items such as beans, stockfish and crayfish, including allegations involving products such as Sniper being applied to food intended for human consumption.
On meat and fish, Sanni raised concerns about allegations that formalin had been used to prolong shelf life.
He cautioned against relying on superficial indicators to determine whether meat was fresh or safe, noting that the absence of flies around a product should not, by itself, be treated as proof of safety.
Opeolu, from the environmental toxicology and public health perspective, also highlighted concerns surrounding alcoholic beverages.
She cited a suspected counterfeit alcohol production facility reportedly discovered in the South-East and reports from Lagos involving wine bottles allegedly being refilled and relabelled with adulterated drinks.
She also referred to allegations involving expired drinks being revalidated for resale and the discovery of more than 100 sacks of empty bottles.
The examples raised at the discourse illustrated the range of potential hazards, from chemical contamination and unsafe preservation to counterfeit products and questionable handling practices.
The experts, however, emphasised the need for scientific verification and transparent reporting before individual allegations could be treated as established facts.
They cautioned against making sweeping claims about the contribution of contaminated food to cancer, liver disease, kidney disease or hypertension without adequate epidemiological evidence.
According to them, gaps in systematic surveillance and data collection make it difficult to establish the scale of particular food safety problems and determine their precise contribution to specific illnesses.
They therefore called for stronger monitoring systems, reliable laboratory testing and credible reporting to ensure that public health interventions are based on evidence.
The experts also called for stronger deterrence against individuals who knowingly compromise food safety for financial gain.
Sanni argued that people who deliberately introduce dangerous substances into food expose unsuspecting consumers to potentially serious illness or death and should face severe penalties commensurate with the gravity of their conduct.
He drew parallels between deliberate food poisoning and terrorism, arguing that both can involve the conscious endangerment of innocent lives.
Sanni expressed support for the principle of severe punishment for deliberate food contamination and stated his personal view that capital punishment should be considered in the most serious cases involving intentional conduct that causes death, subject to due process and applicable law.
The comparison with terrorism was an argument for treating deliberate food contamination with exceptional seriousness, not a claim that every food safety offence automatically constitutes terrorism under Nigerian law.
They also emphasised the role of research institutions in developing safe preservation technologies that reduce post-harvest losses without exposing consumers to harmful chemicals.
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