The Director General of the National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA), Dr. Rufus Ebegba, on Tuesday said fruits and beans available in Nigerian market are not genetically modified.
Addressing the media on Tuesday at the agency’s head office in Abuja, Ebegba, however acknowledged that some of the fruits and beans in Nigerian market are either hybrids or improved varieties but certainly not GMO fortified.
The federal government through NBMA, he asserted, is always poised to protect the health of its citizens and the environment by providing case by case analysis of GMO and risk assessments.
The DG said: “The NBMA has not been resting on its oars in ensuring that only safe and approved genetically modified seed and grains for food and feed processing are allowed into the Nigerian market”.
He said the agency is constantly upgrading its GM detection and analysis laboratory facilities in addition confining field trial sites and multi-locational trial sites to ensure proper surveillance, tracking and monitoring of GMOs in Nigeria.
“In line with the mandate that has been added to the agency, on regulating new modern biotechnologies such as gene drive, gene editing, synthetic biology and ensuring biosecurity, the agency has developed a draft National Biosecurity policy which was presented to stakeholders by the Minister of State for environment last December”, he sad.
Dr. Ebegba explained that the biosafety agency has developed gene editing guidelines which major stakeholders have validated, adding however that some plants edit their genomes themselves independent of human efforts and hence cannot be expected to be regulated.
According to him, gene editing and modern biotechnology are both genetic engineering tools, explaining that it will be out of ignorance to say all gene edited products are GMOs.
A product can be termed GMO only if it contains a transgene, adding however, that gene editing does not in all cases require introduction of a new gene into the genome of an organism. It could be deletion or suppression of a gene.
The DG assured Nigerians that the Federal Government through the biosafety agency was doing everything possible to ensure that citizens are all safe.
Dr. Ebegba who appealed to the media not to disseminate falsehood and create panic, said the agency is aware of the malicious intention of a particular NGO to poison the minds of the members of the public on the application of safe modern biotechnology and the attempt to discredit the NBMA.
The agency, he asserted, has a responsibility towards the safety of Nigerians, the environment, the realization of government objectives in the diversification of the Nigerian economy towards the actualization of the green economy and the economic prosperity of Nigerians.
