By Chioma Obinna

The Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, has been honoured at the UK House of Lords for her leadership in transforming Nigeria’s drug regulatory system into one of Africa’s most respected regulatory institutions.

Adeyeye received the Special African Leadership Commendation Award at the 16th African Business Leadership Awards, ABLA, held at the historic Cholmondeley Room and Terrace, House of Lords, Palace of Westminster, London.

The organisers, the African Leadership Organisation, said the honour followed a rigorous, merit-based assessment of Adeyeye’s leadership and institutional impact over several years, recognising the sweeping reforms that have repositioned NAFDAC as a globally recognised medicines regulatory agency.

When Adeyeye assumed office in November 2017, NAFDAC was grappling with over N3.2 billion in debt, dilapidated laboratories, obsolete equipment, weak digital infrastructure, inadequate inspection vehicles and poor staff morale. The agency was also rated below Level One on the World Health Organisation’s Global Benchmarking scale for national medicines regulatory authorities.

Since then, NAFDAC has undergone significant reforms. The agency cleared its inherited debt within its first year, invested more than N7 billion in laboratory equipment, procured over 150 operational vehicles and digitised about 90 per cent of its regulatory processes. It also attained ISO 9001 certification in 2019 and has maintained the quality management standard through successive recertifications.

The reforms earned international recognition in March 2022 when NAFDAC attained the WHO Global Benchmarking Maturity Level 3, a status held by only about 35 per cent of medicines regulatory authorities worldwide. The agency successfully retained the rating following a re-benchmarking exercise in June 2025.

Other milestones include the WHO Prequalification of its Central Drug Laboratory in Lagos, Nigeria’s pre-accession pre-applicant status in the Pharmaceutical Inspection and Cooperation Scheme, PIC/S, and the country’s admission in 2025 as the 24th member of the International Council for Harmonisation, ICH, one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical regulatory bodies.

NAFDAC also said its Five Plus Five Regulatory Directive has reduced the importation of medicines already produced locally by about 70 per cent, strengthening domestic pharmaceutical manufacturing and encouraging renewed investments by multinational pharmaceutical companies.

Speaking after receiving the award, Adeyeye dedicated the recognition to members of staff of the agency.
“I accept this honour not for myself alone, but on behalf of the dedicated men and women of NAFDAC whose tireless work makes every achievement attributed to my leadership possible,” she said.

She added: “When I assumed office in November 2017, NAFDAC was rated below the first rung of the WHO Global Benchmarking ladder. Today, we stand at Maturity Level 3, successfully re-benchmarked in June 2025, a distinction held by only 35 per cent of regulatory agencies worldwide. This recognition belongs to every member of the NAFDAC family.”

Beyond the award ceremony, Adeyeye delivered a keynote address at the opening of the two-day event themed, “From Vision to Velocity: Driving Africa’s Next Wave of Growth and Leadership,” where she called for African universities to align their curricula with global regulatory standards and embrace digitisation to enhance innovation and competitiveness.

NAFDAC said it is now working towards attaining WHO Maturity Level 4 and World Listed Authority status, a development expected to facilitate wider international acceptance of medicines manufactured in Nigeria and position the country as a major pharmaceutical export hub.