GMOs Campaigners‎ Engage Journalists as Misconception over GMOs Safety Continues

Adedayo‎ Akinwale in Abuja

To further sensitize and to allay the fears of the general public over the safety of Genetically Modified Organism (GMOs), GMOs Campaigners and experts have continued to engaged journalists as they strive to tackle misconception concerning the technology.

They argued that with acute hunger currently ravaging the land and the problem of climate‎ change still hanging, GMOs have being identified as one of the modest way to effectively tackle food insecurity in the country.

Speaking at a workshop organised in Abuja by the Open Forum on Agricultural ‎and Biotechnology in Africa (OFAB) in collaboration with Journalists for Social Development Initiative (JSDI) and Program for Biosafety System (PBS) for Journalists and Communicators on GMOs, the Director General, National Biosafety‎ Management Agency (NBMA), Dr. Rufus Ebegba assured that no GMOs ‎that is not safe would be allowed in the Nigerian market either for planting, consumption or for any purpose.

According to him, “the issue of the safety of GMOs have always being in question ‎by so many people particularly by activists; one thing is that it is clear globally that there is nothing in this world without one adverse impact depending on how you apply it.

“the issue of GMOs what I can assure is that with the establishment of NBMA and a law for it to implement, no GMOs that is not safe will be allowed in the Nigerian market either for planting, for consumption or for any purpose.

He said “Nigeria as a country has laws and will also have a national biosafety law, any company either individual or group coming to do business in Nigeria must comply with the Nigerian law.

“The standards in other countries may not necessarily apply in Nigeria case, we will ensure that the Nigerian standards apply and we ensure that nobody brings anything that is not useful to Nigeria, anything that will be armful to the Nigerian environment, that’s what I can assure you that anybody coming to do business in Nigeria must be ready to comply by Nigeria national laws, particularly the GMOs.”

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