Benin City Declaration On Promoting Biosafety In Nigeria

At the conclusion of the One day Stakeholders meeting on Promoting Biosafety held at BAR HOUSE, Benin City, Edo State, by the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) in Collaboration with the Nigerian Bar Association Edo State, on the 22nd February, 2017,  the Stakeholders brought to the fore, critical issues and concerns of GMOs and the Nigerian Biosafety Management Act 2015. They also brainstormed on the increased aggressive push of the biotechnology companies in partnership with their local actors in Nigeria  to ensure  favourable legislations as a step towards unleashing their products and commodities on Nigerians.

Participants  Resolved as follows:

  1. The Nigerian government, in passing the Nigerian Biosafety  Act 2015 into law, did not take into account the concerns of local farmers and critical stakeholders, contrary to the provisi
  2. ons of the African Union’s Model Law on Biosafety and the Cartagena Protocol. The  Act in its current  form  lacks the legal safeguards to protect Nigerians’s  food culture, environment, ecosystems and human health.
  3. There are several fault-lines in the permissive NBMA Act requiring that the entire Act be urgently reviewed and the GMO permits issued withdrawn.
  4. The constitution of the Board of NBMA makes the agency open to conflict of interests as already seen in the case of a board member (National Bioetechnology Development Agency) teaming up with commercial interests to apply for and receive permits to introduce GMOs into Nigeria.
  5. That Institutions that are created to protect our environment and biosafety  are actually hand-in-gloves with corporations that are trying to flood our country with exotic and risky  products and merchandise.
  6. The National Biosafety  Agency (NBMA) did not take into account the objections and critical concerns submitted to its agency by key NGOs supported by over 100 groups, bothering on health, environmental, socio-economic, technical and administrative concerns before issuing permits to Monsanto Agriculture Nigeria Limited on behalf of Monsanto Company, based in St-Louis, Missouri, USA, for commercial release and placing on market of genetically modified cotton and for the confined field trial of two maize events .
  7. There is inadequate information and awareness on food sovereignty issues in the media thus shutting out critical stakeholders, deepening public ignorance and inhibiting contributions to solutions
  8. Our governments have been largely complacent about the covert activities of the biotechnology industry to undermine food sovereignty in Nigeria
  9. There is need for a local and  national paradigm-shift towards food sovereignty based on local contextual considerations, promotion of small-scale farmers, pastoralists and fisher-folk which have defined indigenous agriculture based on human rights and sustainable natural resource use.
  10. The mythical benefits of GMOs have been debunked by many experts. For instance a report issued by over 400 scientists and development practitioners from developed and developing countries, under the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), concluded that small scale farmers should be supported as modern biotechnology would have very limited contribution to the feeding of the world in the foreseeable future.
  11. Production of GMOs is a threat to our biosafety; poses great threat to human and environment health and severely impedes the attainment of  sustainable agriculture, food sovereignty/security,
  12. Promoters of GMO and their allies have deliberately ignored the importance and the peculiarities of  Nigerian  culture, environment and agriculture in their aggressive attempts to impose their products and  merchandise on Nigeria . Rather than  promoting agroecology, which works in harmony with nature, they have become tied to the apron-strings of speculators and neo-colonial powers whose objective is to exploit, subjugate and destroy food production systems in Nigeria while promoting monoculture and use of toxic agro-chemicals.

Signed

  1. Barr Ede Asenoguan – Chairman, Nigerian Bar Association, Benin Branch
  2. Nnimmo Bassey – Director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation
  3. Barr Chima Williams – President, Green Alliance of Nigeria
Share This
Select your currency
NGN Nigerian naira