The Director General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Prof Mojisola Adeyeye, has drummed support for the active involvement of women in governance.
The former Professor of Pharmaceutical at Roosevelt University in the United States said any country that does not embrace active women’s participation in the running of the day-to-day affairs of government is “missing big time” and “cannot grow”.
She was a guest on Inside Sources with Laolu Akande, a socio-political programme aired on Channels Television on Friday.
“First of all, I need to thank my husband because he is sacrificing a lot. That I am working this hard at this time in our lives.
“Any country that doesn’t include women in its governance is not going to grow because God has given everybody endowment, different endowments to contribute to the society,” she said.
“If it is going to be done by quota, why not? We are missing out big time if we don’t involve women.
“We are wired differently, physiologically, compared to men. We are wired differently for the purpose of a stable society. Men will go straight and they know where they are going. Women, we will think what of this, what of that. The two combined. Waoh!
“Any country that leaves women out is missing a lot and that country cannot grow because we have different ways of looking at things but when the two come together, magic happens.”
‘Public Officials Must Live By Example’
Prof Adeyeye said transparency, sacrifice, and commitment are some of her major guiding principles. She urged people in public offices to live by examples.
“We have to live by example,” she said.
Asked what she has been able to change since she assumed leadership of the agency, Adeyeye said she is trying to make all members of staff of the agency a part of the system in the real sense of it through constant training to “change the mindset” of the people.
She said upon her appointment, she met with the unions in the agency and dialogued with them on the need not to embark on strike. She said she did restructuring when she first got in and made the people feel a sense of ownership.
The NAFDAC boss said she has been able to rid the agency of corruption which was a norm among members of staff before her emergence.
“Because the DG was doing it, so they did it too. That’s what we are saying: living by example,” she said.
‘NAFDAC Short-staffed’
“We are short-staffed. We are supposed to be like five times or six times what we are now. So need to recognise their work,” she said about the need for motivation. “Communication is extremely important because that is also part of transparency,” she added.
“Financial discipline, strong (corporate) governance, motivated workforce, disciplined workforce. These are working for us. We are not there yet but we need to have the right people in the right places to do the right things,” she noted.
She said the agency met over 800 recommendations and over 200 indicators to make against a global benchmark. ”
I mentioned that we are chronically short-staffed,” she said, adding that the agency has both human and technical shortages.
She said the price for the registration of small and medium-scale ventures was significantly dropped to about N37,000, amongst other incentives.
“But all these need staff (members). It is staff members that will go to the market that will do risk-based posts, approval, or post-marketing surveillance. It is very tough,” she said.
“I am now three times busier than when we started because we are now globally recognized. When NAFDAC talks, people listen.”
More involvement of women in governance, be it through appointment or election, has been trumpeted by many gender advocates.
Nigeria’s 10th Senate and House of Representatives, which resumed in June 2023, are male-dominated, raising concerns about the lip service paid to affirmative action as well as gender and equal opportunity in the West African country.
Characteristically, of the current crop of federal lawmakers elected during the 2023 elections, less than 30 of the 469 legislative seats are women in both upper and lower chambers are women.
In July, the lower legislative house passed for a second reading, a bill to create an extra 74 seats for women in the parliament
[Channels].
