The Senate, on Thursday, issued a decisive order to the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), directing it to enforce a total ban on the production and sale of alcoholic beverages in sachets and small plastic bottles by December 2025, warning that no further extension of the deadline will be tolerated.
The upper chamber’s resolution followed an exhaustive debate on a motion sponsored by Senator Asuquo Ekpenyong (Cross River South), who raised the alarm over NAFDAC’s repeated extensions of the phase-out date, despite the grave health and social risks posed by sachet-packaged alcohol.
Ekpenyong reminded the Senate that NAFDAC had initially fixed 2023 as the deadline before shifting it to 2024, and later to 2025, a pattern he said had emboldened manufacturers to lobby for further delays.
He warned that another extension would amount to a betrayal of public trust and a violation of Nigeria’s commitment to global health standards.
Ekpenyong said: “The harmful practice of putting alcohol in sachets makes it as easy to consume as sweets, even for children.
“It promotes addiction, impairs cognitive and psychomotor development and contributes to domestic violence, road accidents and other social vices.”
