Senate Orders NAFDAC to Enforce Ban on Sachet Alcohol by Next Month

By Afolabi Nelson

The Senate has directed the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) to begin full enforcement of the ban on sachet and small-bottle alcoholic drinks starting next month, warning that no further deadline extensions will be allowed.

The decision followed a motion by Senator Asuquo Ekpenyong (Cross River South), who decried the repeated delays in implementing the ban despite growing health and social problems caused by cheap alcohol.

He noted that NAFDAC had postponed the phase-out from 2023 to 2024 and later to 2025 due to pressure from manufacturers, describing further delay as a breach of public trust.

Ekpenyong said sachet packaging makes alcohol easily accessible to children and fuels addiction, accidents, domestic violence, and crime.

The motion received wide support from senators, including Anthony Ani (APC, Ebonyi South), who called sachet alcohol a “social menace” destroying young lives.

Senate President Godswill Akpabio said the matter was a national health emergency and insisted the ban must take full effect, declaring, “By December 2025, sachet alcohol must be history in Nigeria.”