NAFDAC to give North-Central, Abuja, laboratories

By Ijendu Iheaka

January 26, 2017

The National Agency For Food Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has said it is planning to give the North-Central geopolitical zone and Abuja a laboratory.

NAFDAC’s Acting Director-General, Mrs Yetunde Oni, made the disclosure in an interview with our reporter on the sideline of the  ongoing MSME clinic in Aba on Friday.

Oni, however, ruled out the possibility of giving Aba a laboratory to cater for its volume of work.

According to him, NAFDAC’s initial plan is to give the six geopolitical zones a laboratory each but regretted that of all the six only the North-Central is yet to get a laboratory.

“At the onset what we proposed is to have a laboratory in each of the six geopolitical zones. That is the template for now. There is the presence of an area laboratory in Agulu that can serve the entire South-East.

“We have one in Kaduna for the North-West, Maiduguri for the North-East,  Port Harcourt to serve the South-South, and for South-West where the bulk of our activities are, we have three there.

“Now, we are seeking to put one laboratory in Abuja and one in Benue because North-Central is the only geopolitical zone that does not have laboratory but we will get there,” she said.

Oni told our reporter that she planned also to engage the Abia Government before leaving the state to give NAFDAC a befitting office accommodation in Aba to increase the productivity of its staff.

She said the current NAFDAC office in Aba was far from helping creative thinking needed to do the job.

On the MSME clinic, Oni said the agency was in Aba to support the government on the issue of the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises and to teach the entrepreneurs to do things right.

She said NAFDAC would ensure that at the end of the Aba clinic relevant stakeholder would not have issues, especially with those ones that had to do with NAFDAC when it comes to registration of their products.

“What they are promoting here is good for right attitude to work, knack for details and for the small players of today who will be the big players of tomorrow.”