When Mrs. Nene Maudline Obianwu, Deputy Director of the Food and Agriculture Group at the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), rose to speak at the Training and Capacity Building Workshop for Commerce and Industry Correspondents Association of Nigeria (CICAN), she didn’t come with mere technical jargon. She came with a mission, to humanize standards and reveal how they silently shape the safety, economy, and daily lives of millions of Nigerians.
Held in Ikeja Lagos, the workshop brought together journalists, policy stakeholders, and experts in food, agriculture, and trade. But what was expected to be a routine technical presentation quickly evolved into something more, a sobering reflection on how standards are not just bureaucratic checklists but the thin line between safety and disaster.
“When you bite into a fruit, open a pack of grains, drink from a sachet of water, or buy a pack of animal feed, you are trusting that someone, somewhere, has done the work of making sure it is safe, fair, and fit for purpose. That someone is us,” Obianwu told a room that quickly grew silent with the weight of those words.
She explained that standardisation — the act of establishing and applying agreed-upon rules, is the backbone of health, trade, agriculture, and sustainability. And yet, for many Nigerians, it remains invisible. But invisibility doesn’t mean irrelevance.
The room lit up when she gave real-life examples of how poor standards can lead to contaminated food, unsafe water, rejected exports, or even environmental damage. For a country fighting to diversify its economy through agriculture and non-oil exports, the stakes couldn’t be higher.
Obianwu laid out the core principles that guide SON’s standardisation process: transparency, openness, impartiality, stakeholder engagement, and relevance. “It is not enough to write a good standard. It must be owned by the people who use it — from the farmer in Nasarawa to the exporter at Apapa Port,” she emphasized.
She gave a detailed breakdown of the Nigerian National Standard development cycle, from identifying real needs through community-driven Needs Assessment Forms, to the seven rigorous stages that turn an idea into a legally recognized national benchmark. These stages include input from diverse sectors, including academia, government agencies, NGOs, SMEs, and even trade unions.
“We’re not doing this alone,” she said. “Every standard starts with listening, to industry, to consumers, to researchers, to regulators. It’s democracy in action, but for safety and progress.”
The highlight for many journalists in attendance was discovering that even the general public has a voice in the creation of national standards through Form C of the Needs Assessment. Forms A and B are designated for NTC members and stakeholders, respectively, but Form C invites ordinary Nigerians to shape the policies that govern the food they eat and the goods they buy.
At the heart of the conversation was a recognition that standards are not abstract ideas; they are practical safeguards. And for Nigeria’s food and agriculture sectors, they are also the pathway to global competitiveness.
With over a dozen technical committees in agriculture, from cereals and grains to organic farming and water quality, SON has structured its work around national need. Each committee is led by renowned experts such as Prof. Anjorin Toba Samuel (Horticultural Produce) and Prof. Sunday Adigbo (Cereals and Legumes), ensuring that decisions are grounded in both science and practical reality.
Still, Mrs. Obianwu acknowledged the challenges, the delays in standard ratification, lack of awareness, and occasional resistance to compliance. But she was optimistic. “Capacity building like this, where the media is involved, is how we build trust. Journalists are bridges between the technical and the public. When they understand standards, the public gains clarity, and industries are held accountable.”
One journalist, visibly moved, remarked afterward, “I now see standards as human stories. Behind every rejected export or foodborne illness is a missing or ignored standard. And behind every safe product is a team like SON working quietly in the background.”
As the session ended, participants walked away with more than notes. They carried a new understanding, that standardisation is not paperwork; it is public service. And SON, through its agricultural and food safety work, is not just improving life through standards, it is protecting it.
@2025 The Ameh News: All Rights Reserved
Discover more from Ameh News
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
