Who's Watching the Watchers?

Hello everyone,

Trust you had a restful night? Good morning.

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News broke on Monday that a Lagos High Court has ordered the National Agency For Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) to order the Nigerian Bottling Company (NBC) to put a written warning on Fanta and Sprite containers that it is poisonous to drink them with Vitamin C. Apparently, a Nigerian,

Dr. Emmanuel Adebo in 2007 bought large quantities of some coca-cola products he intended to retail in the UK (I don't know he decided to export as I believe they have coca-cola products there in the UK). Anyway, he got there and tests were carried out on the drinks, as oyibo people do not joke with stuff like that. They discovered that the Fanta and Sprite which the business man brought from Nigeria contained excessive levels of sunset yellow and benzoic acid, which are known to be carcinogenic, and when taken with Vitamin C, which contains ascorbic acid, the result could be poisonous.

Now, my issue is not even the fact that a combination of Fanta/Sprite and Vitamin C is poisonous, afterall a lot of drugs and other substances react negatively when combined some other drugs and substances. Also, I'm not really bothered that the coca-cola products they sell here are different from the ones they sell abroad, standards differ among countries, in everything ranging from food products, to clothes, shoes, electronics, even cars and equipments. We can't claim to be ignorant of that fact. Who to be blamed for that is another matter entirely, because my people say that if you treat yourself or your property as unimportant, everybody will treat it as such. When we lower our standards, all sorts of rubbish get imported into Nigeria or produced for our use here.

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My problem is with NAFDAC! Yes! They're supposed to carry out tests on the products to be consumed by Nigerians, declare them safe, or inform us of any issue such as this. I know the stress people go through to get NAFDAC registration and number for any product in this country, I  remember a friend of mine that imports Engine oil also had to register with NAFDAC, and I wondered why since engine oil is not food. Almost everything gets registered with NAFDAC and they claim to do thorough tests before allocating a number to the products. Why didn't they discover this when they tested Fanta and Sprite? Or, did they discover and didn't deem it fit to warn us? Or, as in most areas in Nigeria, the rules apply to the poor but not to the rich? The Court in the above case awarded 2 million naira against NAFDAC, but I feel it is small for such gross negligence and carelessness on their part. I want to believe they did not know that the combination was poisonous, because if the did and didn't warn us, then that is just pure wickedness. 

Also, this case has been in the court for almost 10 years! Ten!! While they were dilly-dallying in the court, we were still consuming the products and some combined them with vitamin C and probably had complications and died. 10 years before judgement got delivered! Why?! The tortoise moves faster than our court process here, but that is a story for another day.

We understand that these soft drinks are generally bad for us, but we also know that no matter how we get warned against consuming them, we will still do it. Fanta and Sprite however, are not poisonous on their own, I know a lot of people have blacklisted them already, it is combining them with Vitamin C that is poisonous. Sadly we cannot ascertain the number of Nigerians that have died as a result of this negligence and wickedness on the part of NAFDAC. NBC is a company out to make profit, not to save lives, because the sugar and other contents of their drinks are unhealthy, but they still sell them to us anyway. So, relying on them to the the right thing by our health here is a far-fetched idea, they won't warn you and further push you away from their products. We have someone that is supposed to watch them, but it's obvious we need someone to watch the watcher! 

Stay safe out there. It's an unkind world and nobody cares about your health more than you do.

Peace...