By Isaac Olufemi Ojo
LAGOS — The Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Prof. Mojisola Christianah Adeyeye, has marked her ninth year in office with a fierce defense of her stewardship, declaring that she rescued the agency from being derided as a “good-for-nothing” institution.
Speaking at a media engagement in Lagos on her tenure’s trajectory, Adeyeye traced NAFDAC’s standing back to 2017 when she assumed leadership, describing the agency’s initial state as “minus Maturity Level One” out of four.
Detailing the inherited liabilities, Adeyeye revealed she met an agency weighed down by N3.2 billion in debt, which included N1.6 billion in unpaid government taxes, about N700 million in unsettled staff travel expenses linked to Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) inspections, and roughly N400 million owed to contractors.
“In 2017, there were 700 travels. And I said, no more travels until we pay our debts,” Adeyeye recalled. She noted that her administration systematically cleared legitimate obligations, paying off substantial chunks—including N1.1 billion and N1 billion installments—by November 2018, while dismissing the remainder as fictitious claims.
“People asked me, why are you paying debts? We don’t pay debts here,” she said. “I said, I was brought up not to be a slave to the lender.”
The NAFDAC boss painted a stark picture of the agency’s operational paralysis at the time, disclosing that between 70 and 80 percent of laboratory equipment was non-functional, regulated companies were forced to provide vehicles for inspectors, and not a single director possessed a laptop.
Despite these hurdles, Adeyeye highlighted a dramatic turnaround. The agency attained World Health Organization (WHO) Maturity Level 3 in March 2022—making it the third in Africa—and subsequently clinched elite international memberships. By March 2023, NAFDAC joined the International Medical Device Regulators Forum (IMDRF) by invitation only, and by 2025, it secured membership in the International Council for Harmonisation (ICH). Out of 194 regulatory agencies worldwide, NAFDAC became the 24th member of an exclusive 25-member global body, she noted.
Adeyeye recounted how international perceptions of the agency have shifted from disdain to deep respect.
“My first two years, I was going around doing image building. They were calling us a ‘good-for-nothing agency.’ Somebody actually told me that: ‘Oh, we used to call NAFDAC the good-for-nothing agency. Congratulations, you are now Maturity Level Three,'” she said.
She also shared an anecdote from an early trip to South Africa’s regulatory authority, where she was crammed into a small 14-seater bus with a modest entourage, contrasting it with past eras when predecessors traveled with bloated contingents.
Reflecting on her return to Nigeria after spending 37 years in the United States—30 of which she spent as a professor at a predominantly white institution where she retired happily—Adeyeye expressed emotional dismay at the self-serving attitudes plaguing public service.
“I came here to serve. I retired happily. I was ashamed of my country, and I came to remove some of the stench, and the world is seeing it,” she stated.
Lamenting systemic corruption and entitlement, Adeyeye added, “Some Nigerians have an aversion for service. It is about ‘what can I get from the country?’ We have rendered Nigeria useless because of what can I get.”
Confronting critics querying her prolonged stay in office, Adeyeye maintained that her monumental institutional achievements speak for themselves.
“That question: ‘When are you going to resign?’ I hope you got the answer,” she told journalists. “Tell the person that sent that question that you have gotten the answer. Don’t be afraid to deliver the answer.”
