Mojisola Adeyeye, director-general of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), has received a Special African Leadership Commendation Award at the UK House of Lords, with the recognition highlighting how she transformed Nigeria’s medicines regulator from a struggling agency into one of Africa’s leading regulatory institutions.
The award was presented during the 16th African Business Leadership Awards (ABLA) at the House of Lords in London after an independent assessment of her leadership and the impact of reforms introduced since she took office in November 2017.
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The honour reflects a remarkable turnaround at NAFDAC. When Adeyeye assumed office, the agency was weighed down by more than N3.2 billion in debt, most of its laboratory equipment was unusable, inspections were hampered by a lack of vehicles, staff morale was low, and regulatory processes were largely manual. The agency was also rated below Level One on the World Health Organisation’s Global Benchmarking scale, placing it among the world’s weakest medicines regulators.
Within her first year, NAFDAC cleared more than N3.1 billion of inherited debt and uncovered N200 million in false liabilities. The agency also invested heavily in new laboratory equipment, inspection vehicles and digital infrastructure, while moving about 90 per cent of its regulatory services online.
