The Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Prof. Moji Adeyeye, has challenged any contractor who claims she demanded a bribe to come forward and make the allegation publicly.
Adeyeye spoke on Monday during a media engagement where she defended her record at the agency and outlined reforms implemented since she assumed office in 2017.
“Any contractor that I have demanded money from should come here and tell me! I came here for service. I retired happily. I was ashamed of my country! I came to remove some of the shame. And the world is seeing it! The world is seeing it!” she said.
Adeyeye, who spent 34 years in the United States before returning to Nigeria, said she had built a successful academic career abroad but chose to return to serve the country.
“I lived in the US for 34 years. I was a professor for 30 years in an all-white school. I retired happily. I came here to serve, but some Nigerians have an aversion to service. It is for what can I get!
“We have rendered Nigeria useless because of ‘what can I get’! We have rendered Nigeria useless because of ‘what is in it for my pocket?’” she said.
The NAFDAC boss also recounted the financial and operational challenges she said she inherited upon assuming office, including debts running into billions of naira.
“When I got to NAFDAC, NAFDAC had a status of minus maturity level one out of four. We had N3.2 billion debt that I inherited,” Adeyeye said.
She said the liabilities included about N1.6 billion in unpaid taxes, outstanding payments to staff who travelled for Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) activities and debts owed to contractors.
According to Adeyeye, between 70 and 80 per cent of NAFDAC’s laboratory equipment was not functioning at the time, while the agency’s information and communication technology infrastructure was also in poor condition.
“No single director had a laptop bought by NAFDAC as of 2017. The ICT was put in the deep freezer. We paid about N3.1 billion by November 2018. The other money was fictitious, and we did not pay that one. Then people asked me — why are you paying debts? We don’t pay debts here o! I said ehn ehn? But I told them I was brought up not to owe. Not to be a slave to the lender,” she said.
Adeyeye also recalled what she described as a difficult period in 2022, the final year of her first term, when staff embarked on a strike that lasted from June to November.
“In 2022, that was the last year of my first term. It was a bad year. It was a horrible year because people instigated, even our staff, to go on strike from June of 2022 to November. To paint the kettle black, but the kettle has remained white.
“Because some people wanted to become DG of NAFDAC? They are instigating a lot, behind the scene,” she said.
Despite the challenges, Adeyeye said the agency had recorded significant progress under her leadership, moving from a low regulatory maturity level to Level 3 by March 2022.
“By March 2022, we became a maturity level 3 Agency, the third in Africa,” she said.
Adeyeye said NAFDAC subsequently became an affiliate member of the International Medical Regulatory Forum in March 2023 and joined the International Council for Harmonisation in 2025.
She said the agency’s improved regulatory standing had also changed how it was perceived internationally.
“Countries now respect us. Regulatory agencies respect us. In my first two years, I was going round doing image-making, rebuilding our bad image. They were calling NAFDAC ‘good for nothing agency’. Somebody told me, ‘Oh, we used to call NAFDAC a good-for-nothing agency. Congratulations, you are now maturity level 3,’” she said.
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