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BREAKING: NAFDAC Bans Indomie Noodles Over Alleged “Cancer Chemical”, To Commence Testing On Tuesday

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The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) says it will investigate allegations of a cancer-causing chemical found in Indomie noodles.

Health officials in Malaysia and Taiwan said they had detected ethylene oxide, a compound, in Indomie’s special chicken flavour noodles.

Ethylene oxide is a colourless, odourless gas that is used to sterilise medical equipment and plastics. It is said to be a cancer-causing chemical.

Malaysia and Taiwan have since recalled the Indomie special chicken flavour from shelves.

In reaction, Indofood, makers of Indomie noodles, said the product was safe for consumption.

Taufik Wiraatmadja, a member of the board of directors at Indofoods, said the noodles received standard certifications and were produced in compliance with international food safety regulations.

‘NAFDAC Has Begun Investigation’

Mojisola Adeyeye, NAFDAC director-general, said the agency would begin random sample tests of the noodles and other brands from May 2.

Speaking on Monday, Adeyeye said NAFDAC started investigating once it got wind of the recall of the products by Taiwan and Malaysia authorities.

“Tomorrow, May 2, 2023, NAFDAC’s food safety and applied nutrition directorate will randomly sample Indomie noodles (including the seasoning) from the production facilities while post-marketing surveillance directorate (will) samples from the markets,” she said.

“The compound of interest is ethylene oxide, so the director, food lab services directorate, has been engaged. He is working on the methodology for the analysis.”

The DG said the product is on the prohibition list of the federal government, adding that it is not registered by the agency and had been banned from importation to Nigeria years ago.

She said NAFDAC is working to ensure that the product is not being smuggled and that the feedback from the investigations would be communicated to the public.

“It should be noted that Indomie noodles have been banned from being imported into the country for many years. It is one of the foods on the government prohibition list. It is not allowed in Nigeria, and therefore not registered by NAFDAC,” the NAFDAC DG said.

“What we are doing is an extra caution to ensure that the product is not smuggled in and if so, our post-marketing surveillance would detect it. We also want to be sure that the spices used for the Indomie and other noodles in Nigeria are tested.

“That is what NAFDAC food safety and applied nutrition (FSAN) and post-marketing surveillance (PMS) are doing this week at the production facilities and in the market respectively. The public will be duly updated with the outcomes of the investigation.”

The World Instant Noodles Association (WINA) says Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, is currently among the largest consumers of instant noodles with 1.92 million servings as of May 2020.

The country also ranked 11th in the global demand for noodles, with Indomie instant noodles being the most consumed brand in Nigeria.

BIG STORY

Victor Osimhen Grabs Brace On 100th Appearance For Napoli

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Victor Osimhen scored twice as Napoli were held to a 2-2 draw by Bologna at the Stadio Renato Dall’Ara on Sunday afternoon.

Osimhen opened the scoring for the Partenopei in the 14th minute.

The Nigeria international added the second 10 minutes after the break.

Bologna rallied to equalise afterwards, earning a share of the spoils.

The game was Osimhen’s 100th appearance across all competitions for Napoli.

The 24-year-old has scored 25 goals in 31 league appearances for Luciano Spalletti’s side this season.

Napoli will host Sampdoria in their last league game of the season next week.

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Sanwo-Olu Unveils Official Portrait For Second Term

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Executive Governor of Lagos State, Mr. Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu has unveiled his new official portrait ahead of May 29th inauguration for his second term in office.

In a statement released on Sunday and signed by his media adviser, Mr. Gboyega Akosile, the new portrait, which is expected to be hung in all government and non-government offices across the State from Monday 29th of May, shows Governor Sanwo-Olu in a traditional white Agbada, with a carton brown handmade cap with blue stripes that has become his brand identity.

The new portrait is a departure from the previous one where the Governor wears a blue suit, white shirt and blue tie.

The portrait was photographed by ace photographer Ademola Olaniran, who brought his depth of professionalism and creativity into the finished work.

The portrait can also be found on all the official social media handles of Mr. Governor, Lagos State Government and websites.

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Chronicling Tokunbo Wahab’s Home Run In Education By Adeshina Oyetayo

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Each person is a thread in the tapestry of creation but some people stand outside of the weave directing the thread and painting the pictures that become reality. Tokunbo Wahab, the immediate past Special Adviser on Education to the Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, is one of the rare latter.

Undoubtedly one of the brightest but self-effacing stars in the first term of Sanwo-Olu’s administration, Wahab covets neither paeans nor rhapsodies for his commanding tour de force in the actualisation of Governor Sanwo-Olu’s vision for the rejuvenation of tertiary education as encapsulated under the ingenious T.H.E.M.E.S Agenda. And he is forever quick to counsel folk about his ordinariness while preventing them from dressing him in what he considers spurious cloaks of a ‘messiah,’ or ‘deity’ or ‘tin god.’

Gangling and genial, generous and god-fearing, everybody seems to love the successful lawyer-turned-public servant for his humility, generosity of spirit, and fierce loyalty to the success of Governor Sanwo-Olu.

Beneficiaries of his exceptional humaneness in private and public offices frequently have wonderful stories to share from their encounters with him. However brief or extended the encounter is, Wahab snatches grief or gloom from acquaintances and replaces it with joy and joie de vivre because he sees a relative in everyone. He believes humanity is one large family divided along race, religion, and other bigoted lines and his response to this defies the depths of human failings and pretensions of altruism.

His first emergence on the political circuit in Lagos State was as a governorship aspirant in 2014 in the All Progressives Congress. He was 42 years old with lush, emergent grey beards that accentuated his smouldering, boyish visage.

Apart from fellow lawyers, social collaborators, and a sprinkling of media people, the Epe-born University of Benin graduate was barely known. Yet, he aspired to govern Lagos State! His mantra was – “Think Lagos for a tomorrow that works.” It was an audacious and astonishing move that generated a lot of discourse in the media space. Wahab did not get the ticket but he had already announced himself to those that matter in the political configuration of the state and the party at large.

Fast forward to 2019; Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu appointed Wahab as his Special Adviser on Education, charging him to steer and supervise his vision for tertiary institutions in Lagos State. Wahab went full gung-ho into the assignment, cutting large swaths through the convolution that is the tertiary education ecosystem while earning his principal accolades from far and near.

Until 2022, Lagos had just one university – the Lagos State University. Yet, statistics from the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board revealed that in 2020, out of 574,782 candidates that applied to sit the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination from the six states in the South-West, Lagos State alone accounted for almost half of the figure at 240,829. LASU couldn’t admit more than 5,000 at a go, yet the applications were very high. It was a ticking time bomb.

Conversely, Wahab said, “Ondo has three (higher institutions) and Ogun has two. Not until recently when Osun and Oyo states went their separate ways on the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, the two also had more than one state-owned university. The implication is that our students from Lagos continue to struggle to gain admission to universities because other states usually introduce classification based on indigeneship.”

With just a tenacity of purpose and a terrier devotion to the belief that Lagos State, with its growing youth population, deserved more than one university, Wahab worked round the clock, consulted extensively, and networked widely to ensure that the state’s bid to get two more universities accredited by the National Universities Commission was achieved.

On February 8, 2022, the NUC, the regulatory body in charge of universities in Nigeria, approved the take-off of the two new specialised universities in Lagos State. While the Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education and the Michael Otedola College of Primary Education morphed into the Lagos State University of Education; the Lagos State Polytechnic was upgraded to the Lagos State University of Science and Technology.

For Wahab, the approval and eventual take-off of the universities remains a veritable home run, the culmination of many years of hard work, and a fulfilment of one of Governor Sanwo-Olu’s cardinal promises to Lagosians to give the youths more access to affordable and qualitative varsity education.

He did not just help to birth new higher institutions, Wahab is also helping products of the state’s tertiary institutions to adequately prepare for the world of work with the Jobs Initiative Lagos which aims to fill the documented gaps in the current curriculum that is essential in the employment market and enhances the employability of graduates in Lagos.

The programme is a spin-off of the Ready-Set-Work initiative, an employability and entrepreneurship program aimed at preparing final-year students for immediate entry into the workforce as employees and employers of labour by equipping them with the knowledge, soft skills, business tools, and a mindset reorientation to the world of work.

It runs alongside the digital skills campaign, ‘Digital Skills Initiative Lagos’, launched in 2020 during the COVID-19 lockdown to empower young people in the state with digital skills that will invariably position Lagos as the Tech Hub of Africa.

Even more symbolic is the turnaround in LASU, which was infamous for its fractious transition of power. This time, a new vice-chancellor, Prof. Ibiyemi Olatunji-Bello, was appointed in a transparent and seamless, and applause-worthy process.

With the strong backing of Governor Sanwo-Olu, LASU did not join the months-long Academic Staff Union of Universities strike.

More than four decades after it was established, LASU is set to become a residential tertiary institution as the state government, under the Public-Private Partnership has signed a Build, Operate and Transfer agreement with six property developers to construct 8,272 units of hostels in the school’s premises.

Not forgetting that Wahab masterminded the collaboration between LASU and Cornell University, New York, for 16 professional certificate programmes to be run by the two institutions.

Wahab said then that the decision to collaborate with Cornell University rated as one of the leading universities globally, was borne out of the desire to keep and sustain LASU’s pedigree and high academic profile as the second-best university in Nigeria and one of the best 600 in the world.

He added that the establishment of LASU/Cornell University Postgraduate Professional Certificate Programmes was aimed at giving prospective students across the country an opportunity to gain global skills and professional expertise that will not only make them relevant and employable but globally competitive in the 21st Century digital economy.

At the risk of sounding clichéd, Wahab has redefined the tertiary education landscape of Lagos State and inadvertently written his name in gold with his robust catalogue of achievements in the all–important sector.

For Wahab, the dissolution of the Sanwo-Olu administration last Wednesday, May 24, was the end of an impactful era, but for a man who sees the hydraulic lifts on which his public career is being hoisted and the machinery that is steadily and surefootedly wheeling him to the centre stage, May 29, 2023, or the days after, will signal, ceteris paribus, the beginning of an even more impactful era. Take a bow, Toks!

Oyetayo, a Lagos-based media executive, can be reached on social media via @shynewriter

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