FG Moves to Address Food Contamination, Launch Safety Manual

Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja

The federal government has initiated a strategy to tackle contamination of food materials sold in our markets by unveiling a manual that will help in controlling, regulating, and monitoring food safety practices nationwide.

The safety manual is to serve as a guide to Food Safety Desk Officers in monitoring sell of food items in the market and street shops, kiosks, restaurants, bakeries, and other places.

While launching the food safety manual produced by the Nigerian Council of Food Science and Technology (NICoST) in Abuja on Thursday, Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology, Chief Geoffrey Nnaji described loses being borne by Nigeria as a result of food contamination as enormous.

Apart from losses of life, the minister said the country loses a lot due to medical treatment, and trade limitations and productivity loss.

“The disturbing reality is that unsafe food is a silent epidemic.

According to the World Health Organization, over 600 million people globally fall ill each year due to food contamination, with Africa bearing the highest per capita burden. In Nigeria alone, an estimated 200,000 people – many of them children – lose their lives annually from food-related diseases.

“The costs are not only human but also economic, with Nigeria losing an estimated $3.6 billion annually to food-borne illnesses through productivity loss, medical treatment, and trade limitations,” he said.

The minister, represented by the Director General of the Nigeria Building and Road Research Institute, Prof. Samson Duna, said with the unveiling of the operational manual, actual enforcement against every unwholesome practice affecting food safety and distribution will begin nationwide.

He said that such acts ranging from the unethical use of paracetamol to tenderize meat, to cassava fermentation with detergents, and adulteration of red oil and pepper with industrial dyes like Sudan IV amount to breach of Section 244 of Nigeria’s Criminal Code Act.

In her address, Registrar of NICFoST, Mrs. Nkechi Veronica Eze, said the crusade against food contamination will check life-threatening and terminal illnesses like kidney failure, liver cirrhosis, cancer, diabetes, and hypertension that are increasingly linked to lifestyle choices and the consumption of unsafe food.

She explained that the launching of the food safety manual is line with chapter 8 of the Fourth Schedule of Nigerian Constitution which outlines the functions of Local Government Councils.

“Specifically, it mandates: The establishment, maintenance, and regulation of slaughterhouses, markets, and public conveniences (Section 1.e), and the control and regulation of shops, kiosks, restaurants, bakeries, and the sale of food to the public

“The manual will also equip and empower these officers with adequate knowledge to detect/identify and mitigate some unethical and fraudulent practices of food vendors that tend to put the lives of innocent and vulnerable Nigerians, especially in rural underserved communities at risk

“Today’s launch is particularly significant because this operational manual is the first of its kind in Nigeria, a comprehensive and critical missing tool that will guide the Food Safety Desk Officers in controlling, regulating, and monitoring food safety practices at all Nigerian Local Government market and street shops, kiosks, restaurants, bakeries, and other places for sale of food to the public,” she said.

Other stakeholders including Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, and Standards Organization of Nigeria, National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control expressed their readiness to partner in the effort to ride the nation’s markets of contaminated and adulterated food materials.