Reject the NBMA amendment bill, HOMEF tell Nigerians


The director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), Dr. Nnimmo Bassey, has called on Nigerians to reject the proposed Bill for an Act to Amend the National Biosafety Management Agency Act 2015.

The Bill is seeking to enlarge the scope of the Acgt to include other evolving aspects of modern biotechnology.

HOMEF, an environmental/ecological think tank and advocacy group, in a memorandum to the House of Representatives Committee on Environment and Habitat, called on the member, and sponsor of the bill, Obinna Chidoka and others in favour of the Bill to call it off considering the risks the adoption of extreme biotechnology poses to food webs, ecosystems, biodiversity, the national economy and overall human and environmental safety.

Dr. Nnimmo said focus should be on strengthening the present biosafety system, investing in research on agricultural systems that upholds indigenous knowledge, protect livelihoods and ensures food sovereignty. 

“HOMEF calls on the House Committee on Environment and Habitat to dismiss the proposed Bill to Expand the scope of the National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA) Act to include evolving aspects of biotechnology such as gene drives, gene editing and synthetic biology 

“Nigeria should not dabble into these evolving aspects of biotechnology because we are still struggling with regulating the basic aspects of the technology – the first generation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

“Enlarging the scope of the NBMA Act to include evolving aspects of the applications of biotechnology is a tremendously dangerous proposal that would compound the risks already posed by the basic application of the first-generation technology. Including these applications in the Act indicates opening the doors to the products of these dangerous technologies,” he said.

He warned that the use of gene drive organisms has potential of wiping off whole species of organisms. 

“Gene drives are a genetic engineering tool that aim to force artificial genetic changes through entire populations of animals, insects and plants and unlike previous genetically modified organisms (GMOs) these gene drive organisms (GDOs) are deliberately designed to spread genetic pollution through generations of species. We note that this poses a severe threat to biodiversity, ecological systems and environmental sustainability,” he said 

According to him, the ethical, cultural and societal implications of gene drives are particularly complex and challenging. He explained that the ability of these new technologies to alter populations within short time frames and rapidly cause extinction, make them important biological weapons and a threat to global security.

“The Amendment Bill seeks to include in the Act, a clause on synthetic biology stating that “Synthetic biology approach in genetic engineering involves the use of re-designed existing principles of engineering molecular biology, physics, chemistry and computer science to generate a new organism with traits which does not exist in nature.” 

“By this definition, doors will be open for all sorts of synthetic organisms to be released or experimented in Nigeria  as long as they have traits that can be found in nature although these organisms themselves are in no way natural. This is a loophole that will be harnessed to bring in every kind of dangerous and artificial product,” he warned.  

He said HOMEF believes that Nigeria is ill prepared to handle these extreme technologies. The fact that CRISPR/Cas9 in the Amendment Bill is written as CRISPR/cast9 and ZFN is referred to as ZFM suggests that the promoters of this Bill and extreme technologies may not have sufficient understanding of what they are pushing for. This is the more reason we have to exercise caution. 

“We agree that the NMBA Act which was established in 2015 needs amendment but such amendment should be to protect the health, environment and economy of the Nigerian people and not to enlarge the avenue to be used for more risky experimentations.  

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