The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has joined forces with the Nigeria Export Promotion Council (NEPC) and other stakeholders to address the issue of Nigerian exports being rejected abroad.

Speaking at a national workshop in Lagos on Monday, NAFDAC Director-General Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye explained that the agency is collaborating with NEPC, the Nigeria Customs Service, the Nigeria Agricultural Quarantine Services, and the CBN Trade & Exchange Department, which oversees the Nigerian Export Supervision Scheme, to tackle this challenge.

The workshop, titled “Achieving Sustainable Export of Regulated Products: The Imperatives,” focused on the measures needed to ensure the successful export of NAFDAC-regulated products.

Prof. Adeyeye pointed out that the recurring rejection of Nigerian exports is often due to ignorance of the regulatory requirements of importing countries and the sourcing of products from open markets without regard for their intrinsic quality. She condemned practices such as adulterating goods for weight gain, which sabotage national interests for personal gain.

World Trade Organization Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala recently highlighted that Nigeria has lost its leading position in agricultural export markets because its products do not meet the sanitary and phytosanitary standards of foreign markets.