The Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Prof Mojisola Adeyeye, has revealed that the pharmaceutical drug importation has significantly dropped to 60 per cent, as local manufacturing has taken a surge.
According to The Nation, Adeyeye spoke at the 2025 Investiture Ceremony and Lecture of Fellows of the Nigerian Academy of Pharmacy at the Old Great Hall, College of Medicine, LUTH, Lagos.
The NAFDAC DG stated that the decline is a testament to is the agency’s ongoing reforms to promote local production and ensure national self-reliance in the pharmaceutical sector.
Adeyeye delivered an impassioned address on nation building, urging Nigerians to take personal responsibility in transforming the country, revealed that the importation of pharmaceuticals has dropped from 70% to about 60%, due to the agency’s efforts to encourage local manufacturing and strengthen regulatory capacity.
“We said no, if we can make it in Nigeria, we will not continue importing after five years. Before now, only nine products were under import restriction; today, we have increased that number to 36 — because we can. Because we are building our nation,” she stated.
She added: “Our manufacturers are patriots. They make their own life. They make their own water. I challenge our manufacturers. When we are talking of innovation, we have to start from the bottom because we work. I challenge them. How come we cannot make anything except water? That everything is imported. Now we have Emzo trying to finish an active pharmaceutical ingredient plant”.
Read Also
“Before my time, Nigeria had no WHO pre-qualified medical device. Now we have Afrimedical. We also have two pre-qualified medicines. God has not created us differently; He has given us capacity. We just need to use our pain productively,” she said.
The NAFDAC boss recounted her experience upon assuming office in November 2017, describing the agency she met as “disillusioned and without focus.”
She said the agency had to undergo a total mindset overhaul — what she described as “washing of the brain” — to reorient staff on the importance of excellence, documentation, and standard operating procedures.
“Nation building starts from wherever we find ourselves. When I came into NAFDAC, the agency had almost nothing except disillusioned staff. We were at a regulatory ranking of minus one. But we made a decision — to compare ourselves not with ourselves, but with the best in the world,” she said.
