The Director General (DG), National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA) Dr. Rufus Ebegba has warned Federal Government (FG) not to allow foreign donors to champion funding of the safety regulations of the Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) products, just as he hailed the Federal high court judgment delivered last week Wednesday.
Dr. Rufus Ebegba speaking during the science hang-out held last week, Friday at Abuja, stressed that the FG must be highly responsive to regularly funding of the bio-safety management so as to discourage the manipulations of the process by any foreign donor who might want to take undue advantage of the GMOs technology for wrong motive.
NBMA boss pointed that the role of science and new innovations in the economic development of a nation like us should not be any way compromised with low funding of bio-safety regulation of GMO products, adding that the infiltration of the process by international donors with ulterior motives must be checkmated for our own good.
He said that the FG must not be ignorant of donors who might want to use their funding support as a means to take advantage of any nation who does not take regular finance of biosafety regulation very serious as he who pays the piper dictates the tune, saying that the repercussion might be very grievous to the entire nation economically.
Ebegba commended the role FG had played for the NBMA to get this far in terms of finance and legislation empowerment, but he emphasised the need for regular funding that will not make foreign donors get upper hands for obvious likely manipulation reason that could adversely affect our development.
NBMA boss stressed that his agency network is fortified to ensure environmental safety of the GMOs technologies application in the country, saying that all the stages of trials and fields monitoring are well professionally carried out to ensure standard and regulatory fulfilment before commercialization and release.
He advised the youths and media to be very proactive on any issue of economic national development, adding that being docile would end up giving us a very weak future in terms of commercialization and employment activities.
Meanwhile, the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja on Wednesday 20th, July 2022 trucked out a suit filed against NBMA by Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) and 16 others asking for the nullification of permits given to Monsanto to carry out confined field trials of GM maize, and to restrain the commercial release of Bt cotton to the public. The judgement was delivered by Justice D. U Okorowo
NBMA DG said the judgement is a great victory for progressive Nigerians who believed in the use of improved technologies of GMOs to drive our low agricultural productivity so as to create more job and economic stimulations for wealth creation, adding that biotechnology is a veritable science innovation that can be effectively used to drive all sectors of our economy.
Also speaking on the achievement of the GMOs in Nigeria, the Country Coordinator, Open Forum on Agricultural Biotechnology (OFAB), Dr Rose Gidado in the event disclosed that Kenya, Mozambique and Ethiopia will soon be visiting Nigeria to understudy our biotechnology development, being the first country in Africa to have officially approved an indigenous GMO food crop of Bt cowpea, saying more crops would soon be released.
Gidado noted that despite the fact that Kenya has lot of GM products already researched into since 2009, yet she has not been able to officially commercialize and release any for public use, pointed that they want to come to understudy and replicate Nigerian model of OFAB communication strategy with the media and political will of the government.
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