A Non-Governmental Organisation(NGO), Food Hygiene Initiative of Nigeria (FHIN), has called on Nigerians to ensure proper handling and hygienic food consumption to promote food safety and healthy living in the country.
The Director-General of the organisation, Dr Jonah Karimu, made the call at the closing ceremony after a three-day training exercise for over 400 officers on food hygiene organised by the NGO.
The participants, recruited from all the states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory, would serve as food safety and hygiene surveillance corps for the organisation.
He said the organisation is not aimed at duplicating the work of NAFDAC, SON and other health agencies, but rather compliment their efforts to act as sister Agency strictly on handling raw and cooked food.
He said that food safety had become a dominant factor in governance due to its effects on public health, agriculture, trade and investment, poverty, hunger and tourism.
According to him, there is need to have a database of all food vendors in the country to enable the organisation dictate issues related to food poisoning and water diseases.
Karimu said that food-borne ailments had become a global phenomena affecting billions of people who suffered from diseases caused by contaminated and poorly cultivated, handled, processed or cooked food along the supply chain.
“This organisation has been aggressively promoting food hygiene standards and practices all over the nation with a specific mandate of ensuring good food for better health.
“Our commitment to promoting health by setting food hygiene standards and fight against food and water borne diseases in the country has indeed created a new wave of awareness among Nigerians.
“All food vendors in the country should be registered and captured in a database so that whenever there is a case of food poisoning it will be easy to dictate which vendor prepared the food.
“The World Health Organisation (WHO) manual confirms that unsafe food has been a human health problem since history first recorded food safety problems.
“Research conducted by Mead P.S in 1999 revealed that more than 200 known diseases are transmitted through food intake in the society.
“It has been estimated that over 1.8 million people die each year as a result of diarrhea and most of these cases can be attributed to contaminated food and water,” he said.
Karimu maintained that the organisation was also saddled with the responsibility of educating consumers and food handlers on the importance of food safety and hygiene in line with pronouncement from WHO.
The director-general commended the National Assembly on the moves to pass the Nigerian Food Safety and Hygiene Surveillance Corps Bill
“The importance of this training cannot be overemphasised and our organisation is dedicated to education and training of food handlers, food operators as well as food administration to apply the best hygienic in Nigeria.
“We trained them as food hygiene officers to go to the field and educate food vendors and consumers on the dangers of consuming unhygienic food.
“The opportunity has exposed the trained officers to a knowledge that would enable them assist health workers in adopting modern techniques of food preservation to reduce food poisoning in the country.
“The aim is to apply the best hygienic and safe food handling standards and practices in Nigeria,’’ he said.
He expressed satisfaction over the progress of the Bill, which has passed second reading, noting that the Bill if finally passed, would go a long way to address poor food handling especially in the rural communities.
“I really appreciate the efforts of the entire National Assembly for looking into this very important Bill, especially in the aspect of food safety and hygiene in Nigeria.
“This Bill is very important to this country; if finally passed, it will go a long way in ensuring that we have an agency that would oversee, regulate and supervise food safety hygiene practice.
“It will also regulate food safety in market places, eating places, training and issuing of licences to persons participating in food handling business to prevent food and water borne diseases in the country,” he said.
It would be recalled that the Bill, which passed second reading on July 23, 2020, was sponsored by a member of the House of Representatives, Aminu Mani (APC- Katsina).
