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 money from them in the form of a bribe to come forward and make the allegation publicly.
Adeyeye spoke to journalists during an engagement with the media on Monday, where she also defended her record at the agency and highlighted the reforms undertaken since she assumed office.
News Point Nigeria reports that the NAFDAC boss’ comments came as she responded to questions about her tenure, her return to Nigeria after decades in the United States and calls questioning her continued leadership of the agency.
Adeyeye, who spoke during the media engagement in Lagos, said she returned to Nigeria after spending 34 years in the United States to serve the country and help restore the image of NAFDAC. She also challenged anyone who had accused her of demanding money from contractors to come forward with evidence.
“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 enjoyed 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 recalled the challenges she inherited when she assumed office, saying the agency had debts running into billions of naira and serious deficiencies in its operations.
“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,” she said.
According to her, the outstanding liabilities included about N1.6 billion in unpaid taxes, money owed to staff who travelled for Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) activities, and debts to contractors. Current reports similarly put the inherited liabilities at about N3.2 billion, including approximately N1.6 billion in unpaid taxes, N700 million owed to staff and N400 million owed to contractors.
She said about 70 to 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.
“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 NAFDAC had made significant progress under her leadership, moving from a low regulatory maturity level to Level 3 by March 2022.
The NAFDAC boss said the agency subsequently became an affiliate member of the International Medical Regulatory Forum in March 2023 and joined the International Council for Harmonisation in 2025.
“By March 2022, we became a maturity level 3 Agency, the third in Africa.
“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.
Adeyeye said the transformation was part of efforts to rebuild NAFDAC’s credibility and standing among regulatory agencies globally after she assumed office. She has previously explained that attaining Maturity Level 3 required major institutional reforms and enabled Nigeria to strengthen its regulatory framework, including creating the conditions for local vaccine manufacturing.
The NAFDAC Director-General maintained that her return from the United States was motivated by a desire to serve Nigeria rather than to enrich herself, insisting that the progress recorded by the agency showed that the reforms were producing results.