By Ibrahim Ramalan
Abuja
Director-General and Chief Executive of the National Bio-safety Management Agency (NBMA), Sir Rufus Ebegba, has said that “Nigeria is in the process of creating more jobs, improving agricultural products and raw materials to foster industrial growth” with the passage of the National Bio-safety Management Act.
Other benefits of the law, he added, included agricultural yields, economic diversification “as well as mitigate impacts of climate change and promote the concept of sustainable development in the country.”
He explained that as a result of lack of Bio-safety Law in the country, it was backward in the area of bio-safety research and development, stressing that with the law in place, “it will foster job creation and bring about improved agricultural products and raw materials that will drive our industries.”
The DG stated this yesterday when he paid a courtesy visit to Blueprint newspapers’ corporate headquarters in Abuja as part of his familiarisation efforts to the media houses “to foster greater understanding between the agency, the media and the general public so as to amplify the benefits of bio-safety to the socio-economic development.”
He, however, said while the essence of bio-safety technology was to improve human activities in areas of agriculture and other industrial activities, proper regulation on its application and development needed to be in place “so as to curtail its risks.”
He said: “If the technology is not well regulated, it has the potentials of causing more harm than good, which is why there is need to explain and give proper information on the benefits of the technology. In essence, that is why we are in existence to regulate the science, safety and interest of Nigerian biotechnology space.”
Earlier, in his welcome address, the Executive Director (operations) of Blueprint, Salisu Umar, described the agency as “one that requires adequate publicity,” and that Blueprint was ready to collaborate with it to ensure “this goal.”
He added that publicity was key not only to Agency, but the general public that required such information.
He said: “When an organisation is new, people always make all sorts of structures about it and the public will not know which information to believe. But when you go to the media, you can be rest assured that your message is covered.”
