The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, and the Trade Union Congress, TUC, have jointly called for the sack of the Director General of the National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control, NAFDAC, Prof. Moji Adeyeye, over allegations of colluding with multi-national companies to kill local companies involved in alcohol production in Nigeria.
The NLC and TUC leaders in Ogun State made the call in protest against the decision of NAFDAC to stop the production of alcoholic products in sachet packages.
NAFDAC had earlier banned the production, distribution and sales of alcoholic beverages in sachets, pet and glass bottles of 200ml and below.
The agency in enforcement of the ban shut down some production factories for not complying with its directive, an action that has generated repeated protests by distillers and labour unions across the country.
Aside the two labour unions, members of the Food Beverages and Tobacco Senior Staff Association, FOBTOB, and the National Union of Food Beverages and Tobacco Employees, NUFBE, participated in the protest which took place at the Ogun State House of Assembly.
The protesters chanting solidarity songs were also armed with placards and banners with various inscriptions like:
“Sachet alcohol is not Nigeria’s problem”, “Our industries must not die of wicked policies MAN save our industries”, “NAFDAC don’t take away our work” and “Don’t create another problem, don’t make us jobless in this biting economy”, among others.
The TUC chairman, Hakeem Lasisi, while addressing the Speaker of the Assembly, Hon. Oludaisi Elemide, lamented that the ban would force over 500,000 workers out of job, while over N800 billion investment in the industry would be lost.
In his words:
“We believe this policy is anti-people, it is not welcomed by Nigerians. Drinking of alcohol is a choice, you either take it or leave it and a large quantity of sales in this industry comes from the sales of sachet alcohol.
“This ban will affect Nigerians seriously, especially the Nigerian workers. We have over 500,000 direct employees in these companies, we have over 2 million indirect employees in these companies, the direct employees will fall back into the labour market, the indirect employees will become unemployed.
“Even the Ogun State government will be affected by the ban because these companies pay billions of naira into the government account as taxes, the internally generated revenue of Ogun State will drop.
“With this ban, over N800 billion investment in these companies will go down the drain. The packaging material industries who are supplying materials to these alcoholic producing companies will also fold up.
“What we are saying is that this policy is anti-people, the Director General of NAFDAC, Prof. Moji Adeyeye should be suspended because we believe that she has colluded with multinational companies to destroy the indigenous and local industries. We will not accept this.
“Adeyeye must go. She has colluded with multinational companies to destroy the local economy. The arguments of NAFDAC to ban the production of sachet alcoholic drinks are baseless.”
The NLC chairman, Hammed Benco, in similar vein called on the lawmakers to prevail on NAFDAC to lift the ban so as to save the manufacturing sector.
The Ogun State Speaker promised that the Assembly would intervene and plead with the Federal Government to reconsider the ban.
“We are in a very critical moment in this country, though the ban is a federal government decision, but we will let them know what and what pleases us,” the Speaker said.
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