Civil society groups call for repeal of Biosafety Act

Civil society groups

·       Say with GMOs, farmers plant more, harvest less and lose more

Civil society groups in the country recently staged a rally at the National Assembly, Abuja, demanding a repeal of the National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA) Act and an end to the introduction of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) into the country’s foods and farming scheme.

The demands which were made in a petition dated June 7, 2017 and addressed to the Senate President and the House of Representatives’ Speaker stated that the Act rather than secure the biosafety of Nigerians had become a law for permitting the entry of GMOs into the country, which was regarded as unhealthy for human consumption, by the farmers.

Those who signed the petition included, Director, Home of Mother Earth Foundation Nnimmo Bassey; Convener of Nigerians Against GMOs,  Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour;  Country Representative, Bio-integrity and Natural Food Awareness Initiative, Jackie Ikotuonye; and Food Sovereignty Programme, Friends of the Earth Nigeria/Africa, Marian Bassey Orovwuje.

The group, which said the reason behind their collective protest was the complaints gotten from the various farmers, adding that “We say this because barely a year of the Act coming into existence, the National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA) issued three GMO permits to Monsanto Agriculture Nigeria Ltd, with two of those permits being obtained jointly by Monsanto and an agency of government that sits on the board of NBMA,” the activists said.

 Bassey said that the group “strongly objects to NABDA sitting on the Board of NBMA, applying for a GMO permit jointly with a commercial concern and then presiding over the issuance of such a permit. This is a classic case of conflict of interest that cannot be permitted, especially considering the sensitive issue of biosafety and related insecurity.”

= said farmers would not surrender their lands to GMO crops because they are already facing big challenges. “The farmers among us will tell you, many of the crops they plant don’t do well and those that do well, some interest are going around the country uprooting crops before they mature and we see a grand strategy to plunge Nigeria into a food famine situation, to plunge this nation into a situation that will take us to a beggar nation in terms of food and we are saying that our natural agriculture is able to feed our people”, he said. Remove this paragraph.

He noted that what the farmers needed was good agronomics practice and infrastructure so that food can come from the farm to the markets “Our farmers need extension services, officials should go to the villages and talk to them and help them in the best techniques to grow crops, we don’t need crops that are modified in foreign laboratories and forced unto Africans.”

In the petition, the activists argued that such permits issued by the NBMA were possible due to the enormous amounts of discretionary powers given the agency by the NBMA Act 2015.“In addition, the Act does not have any clarity about how this agency is subject to oversight by the parent ministry, the Federal Ministry of Environment.”

The activists however demanded the nullification of the permits issued to Monsanto and NABDA on Sunday 1st May 2016 and called for an investigation of the process and circumstances leading to the granting of the permits by NBMA to Monsanto and NABDA in disregard to complaints of millions of Nigerians. 

They warned that Nigerians should not be used as pawns or as guinea pigs in a commercial gambit to open the country to toxic technologies in furtherance of blatant commercial interests and demanded a close surveillance of the markets and farms “to halt illegal entry of GMOs into Nigeria and into our food supply.”

The other demands are:

·                    A ban on all toxic agrochemicals particularly those identified as probable carcinogens.

·         A halt to the assault on the country’s agriculture through genetic modification of staple crops including cassava, maize and beans, among others. 

Nigeria should be circumspect about technologies that aim to contaminate our environment, destroy our agriculture, culture and rupture our socio-economic fabric and assert unbridled controls over our agriculture and foods.

Mr. Gbadebo Rhodes told Food farm news, that the group had outlined the scientific studies that prove consuming GMO’s leads to endocrine destruction as well as affects the growth of cells that eventually lead to cancer.

According to him “The chemicals associated with these foods are linked to the effects listed there; there are several people that have made several studies that show that consuming GMOs affects the growth of cells that leads to cancer and endocrine destruction as well. 

The government that pushes these things did not push it for the interest of Nigerians; they pushed it for the interest of a couple of pockets. We should ask the question why France, six of the G8 countries bans the use of these foods in their country. We are talking about Russia, France, Italy even England the entire European Union have put a stop to it. You have to understand that France, Germany is powerhouse technologies that have access to good regulation and powerful science and they are saying no to GMO. What kind of regulatory agencies or science infrastructure do we have in Nigeria that we can say yes?”


 Chairman of the Nigerian Cassava Association, Chief Nicholas Chibueze disclosed that farmers were no longer comfortable with the further use of the GMOs and are demanding that the process be kicked against by Nigerians, adding that the scientific process of increasing food, has done more harm than the good it was supposed to do in the yield of their food production. 

Responding to the protester’s demands, Senator Bukar Ibrahim, a former governor of Yobe State said that the lawmakers are also concerned about the safety of GMOs.

 Sen. Ibrahim (APC, Yobe East), who was representing the Senate President Dr. Bukola Saraki, and he was accompanied to the rally ground by Sen. Abu Ibrahim. He  promised to deliver the petition to the higher authority in the upper House Chamber saying “We are all Nigerians, we are all concerned and we all believe in what is best for Nigerians and this is just the beginning of things which are likely to happen in future. We will all put our heads together, work together changing the law altogether or modifying the law altogether, we will be in contact with you as we move along, we will see what is necessary and whatever is necessary will certainly be done. So please take it easy there is no problem we are all on the same page.”

The National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA) Act was signed into law in April 2015 by President Good luck Jonathan.