CSOS reject GMOS in Nigeria, seek urgent review of NBMA Act

CIVIL society organisations ( CSOS) have rejected the introduction of Genetically Modified Organisms ( GMOS) crops in Nigeria, insisting that the National Biosafety Management Agency ( NBMA) Act 2015 ( as amended in 2019) should be reviewed to close the existing gaps and ensure that it protects the interests of Nigerians.

The CSOS, which comprise the GMO Free Nigeria

Alliance, Health of Mother

Earth Foundation ( HOMEF), Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa ( CAPPA), We the People and Environmental Rights Action/ Friends of the Earth Nigeria ( ERA/ FOEN), made the demand yesterday at a media briefing in Lagos.

Director of HOMEF, Nnimmo Bassey and Programmes Manager, Joyce Ebebeinwe- Brown, who spoke in company of other activists, tasked the National Assembly to review the la w, adding that HOMEF has drafted a review of the Act.

Bassey specifically lamented that Nigerians were being ambushed into accepting what they practically knew nothing about, insisting that GMOS do not necessarily guarantee increase in crops yield.

“The unrelenting push for the adoption of genetic engineering technology in crop breeding and animal production has heightened biosafety concerns with regard to human, animal and environmental health as well as the socio- economic well- being of our local food producers.

“Nigeria’s move to join the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants ( UPOV) through the hurriedly developed and the Plant V ariety Protection ( PVP) Bill further compound the problems, as provisions in the law stifle the rights of small- holder farmers, who produce the bulk of the food

in the countr y,” they said.