The meeting between protesting union members and representatives of the Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has ended without a resolution, as demonstrators insisted their agitation will continue.
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Union leaders presented their concerns to the DG’s representatives — a director within the agency and the Special Assistant to the Director-General — during closed-door discussions.
However, no agreement was reached at the end of the engagement.
Operations at the Lagos office of NAFDAC were disrupted on Wednesday after protesting members of the National Union of Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Employees barricaded the agency’s premises in Isolo.
The protesters are demanding that NAFDAC reconsider what they described as the strict enforcement of the ban on sachet alcohol.
Instead, the union is calling on the agency to shift its focus toward regulating access to sachet alcohol, particularly restricting sales to children, while intensifying public enlightenment campaigns on responsible consumption.
Protesters remained gathered at the agency’s premises as of the time of filing this report, vowing to sustain their action until their demands are addressed.
The protest is in response to NAFDAC’s continued enforcement of the ban on alcoholic beverages sold in sachets and PET bottles below 200 millilitres.
The union is demanding the immediate unsealing of affected factories and production lines, warning that sustained enforcement of the policy could trigger significant economic consequences across the industry.
It claimed that directives had been issued by the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation and the Office of the National Security Adviser, calling for the suspension of enforcement and the reopening of sealed production lines.
However, NAFDAC dismissed the claims, maintaining that it had not received any official instruction from the Federal Government to halt enforcement of the ban on sachet and PET-bottled alcohol.
