AfricCon Blogspot - Top News
AfricCon Blogspot Covered - The Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Dr. Paul Orhii, has urged the United States government and the International Community as a whole to step up their combat against global drug trafficking.
AfricCon Blogspot Covered - The Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Dr. Paul Orhii, has urged the United States government and the International Community as a whole to step up their combat against global drug trafficking.
Speaking at the ongoing World Conference of Black Mayors in Milwaukee area of Wisconsin State yesterday, the NAFDAC boss said that he was sure that the days of drug traffickers in Nigeria would be numbered with the anticipated help of the international community in the combating the deadly and criminal acts.
Saying that it was time for the international community together with all other existing international agencies to look for a way to criminalize drug trafficking, Dr. Orhii noted that his leadership at NAFDAC had reduced the illegal use of Potassium Bromate in Bread to a minimal level through frequent surveillance, workshops, and grass root sensitization activities.
His words: "The recent global offensive against the illicit narcotic trade led by the USA and Mexico, has resulted in drug barons increasingly directing their resources into less risky and more lucrative drug counterfeiting business-creating international syndicates and making drug counterfeiting more global, sophisticated and militarized.
The Pharmaceutical Security Institutes date estimates that drug counterfeiting is a $75 billion business while the World Customs Service puts it at $200 billion business annually"
Speaking further, the NAFDAC boss who was decorated with an Award as a Honorary Citizen of Maryland State in America by the Mayor of the State, Mr. James Walls, said that the Salt Iodization Programme was a major activity that the agency was involved in, working with other stakeholders to stamp out Iodine Deficiency Disorders in Nigeria.
"A study conducted in twelve states with the support of Micronutrient Initiative in 2010 shows salt iodization level of 83.6 per cent" he noted.
He added that the agency is currently working with Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi towards local production and commercialization of an enzyme that neutralizes cyanogenic glycosides in cassava, stressing that the use of the enzyme would improve the quality, reduce the cost of producing high quality cassava flour used in production of Bread and other bakery products.
Other Nigerians that got Honorary Awards from the Congress of Black Mayors were Prof Adebowale Ibidapo Adefuye, Nigerian Ambassador to the United States, Chief Temitope Ajayi Chairman /CEO NAAEP Ltd, Alhaji Aliko Dangote. Chairman, Dangote Group, Gimba Ya'u Kumo, Managing Director/CEO Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria, Robert U. Orya, Managing Director/CEO export and import bank, Kester Ifieadi, Chairman/CEO Contemporary Group, Dauda Lawal, Executive Director, First Bank Nigeria, and the Chairman of Badagry local government, Hon. Husitode Dosu.
Others were Mrs Edoma Edjang Mbengono and Dr. Gloria B. Herndon both from Malabo, Republic of Equatorial Guinea.
