Sachet alcoholic drinks remain on display in shops, major motor parks and garages across Nigeria and its consumers are in the glare, five years after the ban by the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC).
There have been lots of agitations for the reversal of the ban on small-sized alcoholic drinks. Those in the food and beverage subsector argued it was hurting their industry, which may lead to a loss of revenue for manufacturers and the scaling down of jobs.
But NAFDAC has stuck to its guns, claiming that the ban would stand because sachets of alcoholic drinks were encouraged to be abused, especially among underage people.
The Director-General of NAFDAC, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, stated that in December 2018, a tripartite committee comprising the Federal Ministry of Health with NAFDAC, Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, and industry players represented by the Association of Food, Beverages and Tobacco Employers and the Distillers and Blenders Association of Nigeria recommended a phase-out of sachet alcoholic drinks in five years.
According to Adeyeye, NAFDAC’s implementation of the ban on alcohol in sachets and small-volume PET and glass bottles was not hasty.
She explained it was in line with the five-year phase-out plan, which started in January 2019 and ended on January 31, 2024.
She said: “The five-year period granted to the industry stakeholders was a practical, reasonable, and sufficient time for full compliance with the phase-out of the production of alcoholic beverages in sachets and small-volume PET and glass bottles below 200ml.”
In response, the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, the broader association housing DIBAN, protested NAFDAC’s ban and said it agreed to the 2018 recommendations because it was the only option against an outright ban.
The MAN DG, Segun Ajayi-Kadir, had argued during a TV interview in February that the NAFDAC ban was counterproductive to the economy.
“We are facing a dire situation in Nigeria, as 500,000 people are going to lose their jobs for nothing,” he stated.
However, BusinessDay observed that Sachet alcoholic drinks remain on display in shops across Nigeria and its consumers are in the public eye, four months into the commencement of NAFDAC’s clampdown, five months after the agency stopped issuing registration numbers to the affected drinks, and five years after the agency said it agreed with distillers to cease production and sell any of its remaining stock.
However, the continued presence of sachet and small bottled alcoholic drinks, especially retail in street corner shops and wholesale market trading, suggests a steady economic flow of the banned products.
When the MAN DG was asked during the interview about the ban’s effect on member companies, he did not name any distiller or blender company that had been met with any punitive measures of ban enforcement by NAFDAC.
He said: “The effective implementation of the ban has been hanging in the balance because we are waiting for the directive of the National Assembly prevailing on NAFDAC. The implementation has been, in a way, hanging.”
When asked if MAN was aware of companies producing the already banned sachet alcoholic drinks that are traded on the streets, Ajayi-Kadir said: “We monitor to see that there is no irresponsible consumption and (the drinks are) not being sold to the underage whom it should not be sold to.”
Earlier in March, a month after the NAFDAC DG announced the commencement of the ban, BusinessDay reported sightings of the sale of the banned items in FCT parks across Lugbe, Area 1, Jabi, Airport Junction, Wuse, Nyanya, and Toll gate sango Otta and in Obalende under the bridge and Marina in Lagos State, where “traders ignored the ban and continued to display sachet and pet bottle alcohol in full glare.
Adeyeye had earlier mentioned that the agency planned to collaborate with the National Union of Road Transport Workers to enforce the ban after she was posed with the question of how the directive would be implemented.
Three months later, checks by BusinessDay showed sales and consumption of sachet drinks happening in multiple areas across Rivers, Edo Anambra, Cross River, Delta, Oyo, Lagos States and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, just to mention a few.
BusinessDay noticed that there was hardly any implementation on the streets, with sellers conducting their businesses and consumers making purchases without obstruction.
Traders in Lagos State, such as Mama Adugo, are aware of the NAFDAC ban but has been selling sachets of alcoholic drinks since February 1, 2024. This indicates that there is little to no impact on the alcoholic beverage industry.
Mama Adugo said she got her stock from wholesale suppliers at the Oke Arin market in Idumota area of Lagos State.
She mentioned that price adjustments happened in the businesses around April, where one roll of 10 sachets previously cost N250 but currently goes for N750 or N800, regardless of the ban.
Another seller, Iya Joke, bought a large portion of the product last year and has been selling from that stock.
There is a high demand for sachet alcoholic drinks,” a Lagos-based seller, who chose not to volunteer her name, said.
She explained that she started selling alcoholic sachet drinks in March because people began to demand them.
“These days, people like to buy things in sachets because they can no longer afford to buy the ones in tins and bottles that are very costly,” she said.
In Rivers State, BusinessDay spoke with one Madam do Good, a sachet alcoholic drink seller, who claimed that she had never been visited by NAFDAC though she heard rumours that the agency would clamp down on the sales of sachet alcoholic drinks.
Madam do Good said: “We heard rumours that NAFDAC would be visiting different locations to inspect stores and bars where drinks are sold and shut them down, but I never witnessed or heard about their visit.”
She said she had never stopped selling, regardless of the ban.
“It (sachet alcoholic drinks) is very much available in the market; only that at some point when news of the NAFDAC ban was fresh, around March to April, the sales on the drinks slowed down a bit,” she added.
Another seller, Mama Osi, said her sachet alcoholic drinks business was doing fine because it was more affordable for her customers and was not hard to purchase on the market.
BusinessDay spoke with sachet alcoholic drink consumers in Abuja, Rivers State and Lagos, who also said they go for it because of its affordability.
An Abuja-based carpenter, Solomon Adi says he huys and consumes alcoholic sachet drinks despite the ban.
“We do not have any drink to drink now, except this normal, poor drink,” he said.
However, another consumer in Abuja, who identified himself as Tolulope Oluwole, approved of the ban and listed drug abuse and counterfeiting of the alcoholic sachet drinks as major challenges that would necessitate a ban.
“I know my gauge. If I take like two or three, I am okay. I am not like those who take 10 to 20,” Oluwole said.
Interactions with consumers on the street revealed that not only were Nigerians keen on continuing to buy the banned products, they also took a cynical view of the relationship between the distillers and blenders, who were mandated to quit production of alcoholic sachets effective in 2019 and sell off old stock by the turn of 2024.
They wondered why NAFDAC had yet to address how the markets kept restocking new products after the five-year grace period had elapsed.
Nonetheless, NAFDAC, in February, said it sealed three factories that produced alcoholic drinks in Jos, for failing to adhere to good manufacturing practices and operating without NAFDAC certification.
“Our underage population needs to have a change of mindset about the consumption of alcoholic beverages,” the agency said.
