The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) advised Nigerians against consumption of frozen poultry products and other food items preserved with formalin.
NAFDAC’s spokesman, Dr. Abubakar Jimoh, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja that unscrupulous business owners had been using formalin to preserve poultry products, chicken and turkey, in particular.
Dr Jimoh explained that formalin, a poisonous chemical popularly used to preserve corpses in mortuaries, is capable of preserving such products for weeks before they get to consumers.
“NAFDAC is alerting Nigerians to this practice. There are enough poultry products in the country than to resort to frozen chicken smuggled in [which are usually preserved with formalin], despite Federal Government’s ban,” Jimoh stated.
The NAFDAC spokesman also said that by patronising business owners who smuggle poultry products into the country, the local poultry industry is being threatened.
He noted that if such patronage continued, indigenous poultry farmers and marketers would not grow as desired, and would also negatively affect poultry feed producers as well as Nigeria’s foreign exchange reserves.