A quiet Wednesday morning at the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) office in Isolo, Lagos, turned into a theatre of barricades, chants and locked gates.
Workers were stranded outside their own workplace. Placards flew. Tempers flared. Police sirens eventually pierced the tension.
But beyond the drama lies a deeper national question — one that goes far beyond factory gates and regulatory memos.
Who really pays the price when sachet alcohol disappears?
A Policy Meant to Protect — Or Punish?
NAFDAC’s enforcement against the production and sale of sachet alcohol and PET bottles below 200ml was framed as a public health intervention.
The stated goal: reduce alcohol abuse, especially among young Nigerians who can afford a ₦100 sachet more easily than a full bottle.
On paper, it sounds noble.
But in reality, sachet alcohol is not just a drink. It is an economy. It is survival.
It is a supply chain stretching from multinational beverage firms to roadside kiosks in Mushin, Aba, Kano and Yenagoa.
When members of the National Union of Food, Beverage and Tobacco Employees (NUFBTE) stormed the Lagos NAFDAC office and blocked both entrance and exit gates, they were not merely protesting policy.
They were protesting potential unemployment. Factory closures. Collapsed micro-businesses. Vanishing income.
They were protesting hunger.
The Street-Level Economics of ₦100 Alcohol
For millions of ordinary Nigerians, sachet alcohol is the only accessible format.
Not because it is glamorous.
Not because it is healthy.
But because it is affordable.
A 200ml bottle may cost several times more than a sachet. For a man earning daily wages, that difference matters.
For a market woman managing unpredictable income, that difference matters. For a roadside vendor whose entire inventory fits into a wooden box, that difference matters.
Ban the sachet, and you don’t eliminate demand.
You displace it.
And displaced demand in Nigeria often finds darker, more dangerous routes.
The Black Market Nobody Wants to Talk About
History offers a warning.
When legal access shrinks, informal supply expands.
If sachet alcohol disappears from regulated factories, what fills the vacuum? Locally brewed concoctions with zero quality control? Smuggled imports? Counterfeit spirits mixed in hidden rooms?
Ironically, a policy designed to protect public health could create a wild west of unregulated alcohol, far more dangerous than what it seeks to eliminate.
The question becomes uncomfortable: Is regulation better than prohibition?
A Government at War With Itself?
The controversy deepened when reports surfaced claiming that the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation and the Office of the National Security Adviser had ordered a halt to the ban and directed the reopening of sealed production lines.
NAFDAC swiftly dismissed the reports as false and misleading, insisting no such directive had been formally received.
That denial did not silence suspicion.
Placards at the protest accused the NAFDAC Director-General, Professor Mojisola Adeyeye, of acting against government directives.
The optics were chaotic: union workers barricading a federal agency; police restoring access; rumors of conflicting government signals.
To the ordinary Nigerian watching from afar, it looked like institutional confusion.
And confusion erodes trust.
The Human Cost: Jobs on the Line
Let’s remove the politics for a moment.
Factories have been sealed. Production lines halted. Supply chains disrupted.
Every sealed line represents:
Machine operators without shifts
Truck drivers without deliveries
Distributors without commissions
Kiosk owners without stock
The ripple effect could be seismic.
Nigeria’s fragile economy is already stretched by inflation, fuel price volatility and currency pressures.
In such a climate, even minor shocks can push households from “coping” into crisis.
For many low-income earners, the sachet alcohol industry is not a moral debate. It is a pay cheque.
Morality vs. Reality
There is a moral argument here. Cheap alcohol is easily accessible to minors.
It contributes to substance abuse. It fuels social decay in some communities.
But morality without socioeconomic cushioning becomes cruelty.
If government wants to curb abuse, should it not first:
Strengthen rehabilitation systems?
Enforce age restrictions rigorously?
Create alternative employment buffers?
Launch aggressive public health campaigns?
Policy in isolation can become policy in abstraction — disconnected from lived realities.
The Class Divide in the Debate
Here is the uncomfortable truth:
The wealthy do not drink sachet alcohol.
They drink premium brands, imported spirits, curated wines.
The sachet is the drink of the working class.
So when sachet alcohol is banned, the burden is not evenly distributed.
It lands hardest on the poor — both as consumers and as workers within the production chain.
That perception alone can ignite resentment.
And resentment, when mixed with economic strain, becomes volatile.
A Symbol of Something Bigger
This is no longer just about 200ml PET bottles.
It is about how policy is designed and enforced in a country where millions survive on the margins.
It is about communication breakdown between agencies and citizens.
It is about whether public health interventions can succeed without economic transition plans.
The protest at the Lagos NAFDAC office was dramatic. But it was also symbolic — a snapshot of a larger struggle between regulation and livelihood.
The Road Ahead
Eventually, police lifted the barricade at the Isolo premises. Staff returned to their offices. The gates reopened.
But the bigger gates — the ones between government policy and grassroots reality — remain contested.
If sachet alcohol disappears overnight, ordinary Nigerians will feel it in three immediate ways:
1. Job losses and income disruption
2. Higher prices for alcohol consumption
3. Potential rise in unregulated, unsafe alternatives
Whether the policy ultimately improves public health or deepens economic hardship depends not on enforcement alone, but on strategy, timing and empathy.
Also Read: Updated BVAS Rejects Mismatched Results, Says INEC
One thing is certain: The battle over sachet alcohol is not just about what Nigerians drink.
It is about who gets protected, who gets punished — and who gets heard.