Why Nigeria does not need GM foods

The disclosure by the National Agricultural Biotechnology
Development Agency (NABDA) that Nigerian government is
working to fast track the adoption of genetically modified
organisms (GMOs) at a press conference in Abuja (17 July
2014) is shocking for a number of reasons. The agency's
pitch is more or less that if the doors are not officially open
to GMOs Nigerians will be consuming them without
knowing. The truth is that there are GMO products illegally
in Nigeria and the government ought to be protecting the
citizens rather than closing the doors on the Precautionary
Principle which as the name implies urges caution in
matters of this nature.
The Agency claims the there are enough safeguards in
place for the introduction of GMOs into Nigeria. These so-
called safeguards include the following: a draft Biosafety
Bill, biosafety application guidelines, biosafety containment
facilities guidelines, and a variety of forms such as those for
accreditation, GMO import and shipment form and a host of
drafts. If forms and draft documents are listed as biosafety
readiness tools we should ne extremely suspect of such a
state of readiness.
A SHORT HISTORY: FEW CROPS COMMERCIALIZED,
NUMEROUS REJECTIONS OF GM FOOD
It was only twenty years ago that a genetically modified
crop was commercialized in the USA for human
consumption purposes for the first time. It was a GM tomato
variety called the Flavr Savr. It failed in the marketplace
and its commercialization ceased in 1997. That failure has
been followed by numerous other failures in the past two
decades.
The biotech industry has made several attempts to
commercialize a wide range of GM varieties since the
1990s. However it quickly encountered stiff opposition. For
instance in Europe strong opposition against GM foods took
root since the end of the 90s and is still strong as of today.
In 2000 field trials with a variety of GM potato in Bolivia,
centre of origin of the potato, were stopped in the face of
public opposition. That same year GM potatoes were
withdrawn in the US due to commercial failure. In 2002 a
number of African countries rejected GM food aid and in
2004 GM wheat was withdrawn from the market due to
commercial reasons. China suspended commercialization of
GM rice in 2011 and the US did not proceed with wide
commercialization either of such products. The failures to
market GE staple food in the past twenty years have been
very notorious.