(ABUJA)
The Federal Government of Nigeria has denied that it had imported and flooded the country with Genetically Modified rice.
The Director-General of the National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA), Dr Rufus Ebegba, made the position of government known at a news conference on Wednesday, January 25, in Abuja.
An online news platform had made allegations that the Federal Government through a firm had flooded the country with poisonous GM rice.
Ebegba said that there was no truth to the report, noting that no GM rice had either been imported or released officially into the country.
According to him, “no GMO rice has been commercially released anywhere in the world.”
He said that the Federal Government had banned the importation of rice and there was no indication that the ban had been lifted.
Ebegba described the online report as a falsehood, saying that the writer “probably used a fake name.’’
He added that the report was intended to cause unnecessary panic in the country. He called on Nigerians to disregard it.
He said the Agency was capable of regulating all GMO products in Nigeria, promising that it would not renege on its mandate.
(Source: NAN)