The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has ordered a total ban on the production and sale of alcoholic beverages in sachets and small-volume PET/glass bottles (below 200ml) by next month.
Consequently, the regulator has warned manufacturers, distributors and retailers to comply fully with the deadline, stating that no further extension would be entertained.
The Senate had, last week, directed NAFDAC to enforce the ban within the timeframe. NAFDAC’s Director-General, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, who issued the order yesterday in Abuja, said the decisive action underscores the agency’s statutory mandate to safeguard public health and protect vulnerable populations — particularly children, adolescents, and young adults — from the harmful use of alcohol.
The NAFDAC boss noted that the proliferation of high-alcohol content beverages in sachets and small containers had made the products easily accessible, affordable, and concealable, leading to widespread misuse and addiction among minors and commercial drivers, stating that the public health menace had been linked to increased incidence of domestic violence, road accidents, school dropouts, and social vices across communities.
She said, “Nigeria is sitting on a keg of gunpowder because the probability of children who are already addicted to taking alcohol to take on hard drugs is very high. There is data to show that. So, this is about national security, if you have a workforce that is prone to abuse of alcohol or drugs, meaning these children grow and they don’t see anything wrong, because they have been doing it since they were in elementary school, stuffing it into their pockets.”
Adeyeye recalled that in December 2018, NAFDAC, the Federal Ministry of Health, and the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) signed a five-year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Association of Food, Beverage and Tobacco Employers (AFBTE) and the Distillers and Blenders Association of Nigeria (DIBAN) to phase out sachet and small-volume alcohol packaging by January 31, 2024.
She explained that the moratorium was later extended to December 2025 to allow industry operators to exhaust old stock and reconfigure production lines.
