Some food safety and nutrition experts have voiced deep concerns about the health implications of Genetically Modified Foods (GMOs).
They spoke in Abuja yesterday during a media symposium addressing global and local concerns about GMOs.
The symposium was jointly organised by the Centre for Food Safety and Agricultural Research (CEFSAR), Environmental Rights Action (Friends of the Earth), Alliance for Action on Pesticides in Nigeria (AAPN), Project Print, and HOMEF.
The executive director of CEFSAR, Professor Qrissturberg Amua, lamented that the importation of GMOs in Nigeria without government regulations is affecting the hormone system of Nigerian citizens, with an increased diabetes rate even in children.
He identified one of the health risks of GMOs as early memory decay, where young people in their 40s are losing memory and intelligence at an alarming rate.
Amua, therefore, called on security to interrogate, especially regarding the various crop science brought from the EU and imposed on citizens to eat.
“Before today, an ailment like diabetes was known or taken to be a condition for the elderly, people who were advanced in age.
“Today, it has been proven from our research that these GMOs are promoting diabetes ailments in young children, teenagers, 12-year-olds are going down with diabetes because these things are affecting the hormonal systems of people.
“Also, young people who are not even fat are going down with hypertension. They will deceive you and say it is because you sit in one place for too long or eat processed foods.
“The third one is early memory decay, where young people in their 40s begin to lose their memories. The rate at which young people are losing memory is alarming.
Also, Donald Ikenna Ofoegbu, the coordinator of the Alliance for Action on Pesticides in Nigeria, called for proper monitoring laws to control GMOs in Nigeria.
He stated that a framework is needed to help Nigeria identify GMOs in the market.