Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), has raised alarm over the agency’s acute staffing crisis, saying it is severely under-resourced to effectively oversee the safety of goods consumed by Nigeria’s more than 240 million citizens.
Speaking during a Thursday interview on Channels Television, Adeyeye highlighted the glaring disparity in regulatory capacity.
Nigeria operates with roughly 2,000 NAFDAC staff, while Indonesia a comparable nation with about 280 million people has around 20,000 regulatory personnel.
“We have been chronically short of staff in NAFDAC. We are 240 million people and we have 2,000 staff,” she stated. “That is the gap that we have been discussing in terms of closing.”
The NAFDAC boss clarified that the agency is not seeking to match Indonesia’s numbers but urgently needs at least 5,000 additional staff to strengthen operations across the country.
She noted that the current workforce is stretched thin, limiting
