Get Guardian on GoogleBy Christine Amaka Ikpeme
Today, in homes, markets, and roadside stalls across Nigeria, well over 130,000 people will fall ill from something they ate or drank. That is what nearly 50 million foodborne illnesses a year looks like in daily terms, and tomorrow the figure will be much the same.
Behind every case is a chain that runs from farm or fishpond through slaughterhouse, mill, warehouse, and market stall to the plate, and a weakness at any link can make a family sick. The question before the nation is whether our institutions are built to guard that whole chain or whether it is time to reengineer the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) by unbundling food safety into a dedicated national food safety agency.
After more than 30 years in food science and food safety training, I am alarmed by the level of unsafe food available in Nigeria’s domestic food trade and by NAFDAC’s failure to address these challenges. This is not an attack on NAFDAC, whose work to protect consumers deserves acknowledgment. It is an argument about institutional design and the best use of public resources.
A public health emergency on our plates
The Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare has said that Nigeria records nearly 50 million foodborne illnesses and more than 53,000 deaths each year, based on the World Health Organisation’s updated global estimates for 2000 to 2021. About 4.26 million healthy life years are lost annually. Children under five account for more than 80 percent of the burden, and more than 40 million of the illnesses are diarrheal infections linked to pathogens such as Salmonella and E. coli.
Behind each figure is a child kept out of school, a parent kept out of work, a hospital bill a poor household cannot afford, and, too often, a funeral. A burden of this magnitude is a public health emergency, an economic drag, and a threat to national development. It deserves an institution whose sole purpose is to reduce it.
The problem is regional, and Nigeria sits at its centre. The FAO’s assessment of the food safety burden in sub-Saharan Africa identifies Nigeria as the chief contributor to the regional total, largely because of its population, in a region that already carries the world’s highest per-capita burden of foodborne disease. As Africa’s most populous nation, Nigeria moves the regional numbers more than any other country. Any continental effort to cut foodborne disease will, therefore, depend on whether Nigeria gets its own food safety system right.
One regulator, too many mandates
NAFDAC’s statutory mandate is exceptionally broad. It covers the manufacture, importation, exportation, distribution, advertising, sale, and use of food, drugs, cosmetics, medical devices, packaged water, chemicals, and detergents. Each area requires its own laboratories, scientists, inspectors, legal expertise, and enforcement strategy.
Food safety, meanwhile, is a specialised discipline. It spans microbiological hazards, chemical contaminants, pesticide and veterinary drug residues, mycotoxins, additives, allergens, fraud, hygienic processing and cold chain management. It does not begin at the supermarket shelf. It begins in the field and the farmyard. When one agency must give equal weight to antimalarials, cosmetics, medical devices and cassava flour, something competes for attention, funding and leadership time. That is no criticism of the men and women of NAFDAC. It is a structural reality, and structures can be redesigned.
Alerts are not the scorecard
NAFDAC regularly issues public alerts and recalls for food products that may be counterfeit, unwholesome, unregistered, or non-compliant. Its archive includes alerts on counterfeit milk, unwholesome mayonnaise and soft drinks, unauthorised sugar imports, and an energy drink recalled for high caffeine levels. In March 2026, Public Alert No. 018/2026 reported suspected counterfeit and unregistered infant cereal for sale in Lagos, with possible tampering with the expiration date. Surveillance officers removed it from sale.
Alerts are necessary, and an alert can show that surveillance is working. But the number of alerts is a poor measure of performance. A high count may signal better detection; a low count may signal weaker detection. What Nigerians need to know is how quickly hazards are found, how far they spread before detection, whether affected products are fully traced and withdrawn, and whether the same offenders reappear.
Registration matters, but a registration number on a pack does not guarantee that every unit sold is authentic, properly handled, and safe until its expiration date. The riskiest points are often the hand-offs, from farm to processor, processor to distributor, and distributor to retailer. A dedicated authority could manage those hand-offs as a single national program, stopping unsafe food before it reaches the consumer rather than reporting it after the fact.
The Senate’s moment
The timing of this debate matters. In July 2026, the Senate advanced two bills touching this territory. The Food, Medical Products and Other Regulated Products Act, 2026 would consolidate and replace the Food, Drug and Related Products Act and the Food and Drugs Act, giving NAFDAC modernised powers on pre-registration evaluation, post-market surveillance, traceability and mandatory recall. The Counterfeit Medical Products, Fake Drugs and Unwholesome Processed Foods (Prohibition and Control) Bill, 2026 would strengthen enforcement against counterfeiters. During the debate, the Deputy Senate President asked the committee to clearly define the relationship with the NAFDAC Act to avoid duplication.
These bills show that lawmakers recognise the weakness of decades-old laws, and they deserve support where they strengthen consumer protection. But they also sharpen the strategic choice. If the new framework is written only around NAFDAC’s existing portfolio, Nigeria will have modernised a bundled regulator without ever asking whether the bundle itself is the constraint. The cheapest moment to settle that question is before new powers are locked in.
The National Food Safety and Quality Bill, 2022, which proposed a National Food Safety Council and Management Committee, did not, on the public record, become law. Policy gives direction; a bill proposes; only an enacted law binds. Nigeria has had much direction and too little binding law on whole-chain food safety.
Six gaps a dedicated agency must close
Nigeria has policies and expertise, but it has not properly harnessed them. The 2023 National Integrated Guidelines for Foodborne Disease Surveillance and Response, the National Policy on Food Safety and Quality and its Implementation Plan launched in June 2024, and the National Food Safety Management Committee are real foundations. The question is whether they add up to a coordinated, funded, and accountable system. Six gaps suggest they do not yet: Fragmented responsibility.
Duties are spread across federal ministries, NAFDAC, the Standards Organisation of Nigeria, agriculture and livestock authorities, and state and local governments. Who leads when an outbreak crosses state lines? Who confirms a recall has reached every affected market?
Weak performance measurement. We need public indicators: time from a credible complaint to an investigation, time from a confirmed hazard to public notice, share of affected lots withdrawn, repeat violations, and laboratory turnaround.
Patchy traceability. When food moves through informal intermediaries and open markets, identifying the source of an unsafe product is slow. A national framework must be affordable for smallholders so it protects them rather than shutting them out.
Under-recognised foodborne disease. People often mistake symptoms for other conditions, and clusters are rarely linked to a common source. Hospitals, laboratories, veterinary services and inspectors must share data.
Uneven laboratory and inspection capacity. A new agency without validated testing, trained inspectors, and equipment would just be another office. Reform must come with a funded plan.
Risks in informal markets. Most Nigerians buy from open markets, roadside vendors and small processors. The goal is not to criminalise informality but to make safe practice achievable, with training first and proportionate sanctions for high-risk violations.
Re-engineering, not demolition
Unbundling does not mean dismantling NAFDAC. NAFDAC would retain its non-food mandates, and its laboratories and expertise could be transferred or shared during a phased transition, with staff offered a fair path into the new body.
Whatever it is called, the new agency should coordinate risk assessment, risk management, and risk communication; oversee controls from primary production through consumption; lead outbreak investigations, tracing, and national recalls; support small food businesses; and publish an annual performance report with independently auditable data.
The law should include seven principles rather than leaving them to goodwill. Keep risk assessment separate from risk management, so scientific advice is independent of commercial and political pressure. Define boundaries with NAFDAC, SON, the health ministry, agriculture authorities and states, naming a lead wherever responsibilities overlap. Settle grey areas such as food-contact materials, supplements, and agrochemicals, so no hazard falls between two agencies.
Retain NAFDAC’s strengths. Ring-fence funding so the new body does not inherit the same resource squeeze. Build in federalism, since states and local governments run markets and abattoirs. And mandate transparency, including an annual appearance before the National Assembly.
What other countries show
No single model guarantees food safety. After food scares eroded public trust, the United Kingdom created its Food Standards Agency in 2000 to put consumers first and separate food safety advice from agricultural promotion. Ireland has a dedicated Food Safety Authority, and India established the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India in 2006 to consolidate fragmented laws. The WHO Global Strategy for Food Safety 2022 to 2030 prescribes no single structure but calls for evidence-based, coordinated, and adequately resourced systems.
The lesson is not to copy a flag. It is to secure a clear lead authority with defined legal powers, strong scientific and laboratory capacity, reliable surveillance and traceability, rapid incident response, transparent reporting with independent oversight, and sustained funding for prevention.
A call to action
The burden of unsafe food falls hardest on infants, young children, older people and poor households, who have the least room to avoid risk or absorb the cost of illness. The Federal Government should urgently make a transparent, evidence-based decision on a dedicated agency. The National Assembly should ensure that any food safety legislation clearly defines powers, funding, coordination and oversight. Industry must take responsibility for the food it produces, imports, stores and sells. Universities, professional bodies, consumer groups and the media have their parts to play.
State and local governments must be partners from the start, because Abuja alone cannot manage food safety.
Nigeria already has policies, expertise and reform initiatives. What it lacks is a single, accountable institution whose success is measured by one thing: fewer Nigerians made sick by the food they eat. That institution should be a new agency radically empowered to regulate domestic and international food trade; hence, the decision must not be left to drift. With bills already before the Senate, the moment to decide is now.
A safe food supply is not a privilege. It is a public health necessity, and Nigeria must organise its institutions to deliver it.
Ikpeme is a rofessor of Food Science and Technology at the University of Calabar, a certified food scientist and a HACCP lead instructor.
