31/07/2025
On The GMO Debate: The Perspective of Dr Ify Rhodes-Vivour, Bill Gates’ $1 Million Prize Winner!
In the ongoing GMOs moot-point, I picked a profiting interest in the perspective of Dr. Ify Aniebo Rhodes-Vivour, an associate professor in the field of discourse, a “nepo baby” from a privileged background, and a beneficiary of the benevolence of Bill Gates, an avid crusader of GMOs.
A Thread!
The events of the past few days, particularly the “lapo vs nepo” drift, revived a silent debate over Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). It was as though Nigerians awoke to a new world order designed against their existence.
I observed, with soothing entertainment, the outpouring of criticisms against GM products, inimical inventions that are globally spurned, and I yearn for more attacks against the death traps.
The collective consciousness is that the adoption of GMOs puts everyone at health risk with slim escape.
Both the “lapo and nepo babies” are trapped in the pickle, with the former more exposed to suffer worse peril, especially for their inability to access and afford health care when GMO’s deadliness matures and shows.
But the rival debate against GMOs in Nigeria didn’t just start lately? In my deep dig, I stumbled on a body of tweets and campaigns from Dr Ify Aniebo Rhodes-Vivour since 2014, where she lent a vehement lone voice against the invention and I felt very impressed to share.
A bit of her background shows that Dr Ify, an Associate Professor of Genomics and Molecular Biology, is a proper “nepo baby.” The daughter of Brigadier General Augustine Aniebo (rtd) and wife to architect and politician Ghadebo Rhodes-Vivour, she ranks in the “privileged status,” now called the “nepos.”
Her background doubles with her achievement, particularly winning $1 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for her research work on Malaria which won the “Best Use of Science.”
Scions of Nigerian elites hardly show interest let alone devote to a fight against a global nabob-backed corporate cultural invention that bears far-reaching pitfalls for the unsuspecting vulnerable in the society. Not when they are favoured by the system run by such a big wheel as Bill Gates.
But Dr Ify seems to be a cut above the rest. Way back in 2019, she was a leading voice against the lethal impacts of GMOs on Nigerians and in Nigeria.
In March 2019, during the public hearing on the bill for “An Act to Amend The National Biosafety Management Agency Act, 2015,” a bill which gave legal backing to the GMO, Dr Ify made an impassioned argument against its adoption.
“Nigeria should not even have a conversation about embracing the GMO in the first place,” she appealed. Her message struck with conviction.
Also, her husband, GRV, a “nepo boy,” equally from a privileged background, made submissions that damned GMO during the public hearing. But that was a surface scratch compared to the measure of intense pushback he has given to the inimical invention.
As far back as 2015, he led awareness protests and calls for the government to outlaw GMOs. A young, exuberant returnee from the West, GRV mobilized civil society groups for a series of self-sponsored demonstrations for the purpose.
But why do they, like so many informed Nigerians, fight the use of GMOs in Nigeria?
GMO was first introduced in Nigeria in 2001, when the National Biotechnology Development Agency (NBDA) was established. But the first GM crop, Bt cotton, was not sold until 2018.
Other GM products have since been widely distributed and used in Nigeria, albeit many of the users are largely ignorant of the content and consequences.
For instance, Nigerian farmers use the carcinogenic weedkiller containing glyphosate commonly called “Wipeout”, “Touchdown”, “Sarosate”, for farming, unaware of the attendant hazards.
In Nigeria, over 20 unregulated companies market the product to rural farmers. When they are injected into the soil, the crops absorb micro quantities of the chemicals and store them in the grains and tubers, which we eat.
The results, after some time, are that the chemicals develop and manifest as cancer, kidney problems, liver diseases etc. It doesn’t come as any surprise that these diseases are festering very rapidly, especially in the last decade.
The same weedkiller inflicted widespread fatal damages in the US that a California court once ordered Monsanto, the producers of the weedkiller used alongside their GM product, to pay over $2bn to a couple that contracted cancer from it.
If allowed to grow, GM products will cause Nigeria untold losses in varying perspectives, particularly in socio-economic, health, environmental and biodiversity.
Yes, in the ongoing GMOs debate, I find Dr Ify’s and GRV’s perspectives and efforts very exhilarating. “Nigeria shouldn’t even be in the debate.” We have enough arable land to produce natural, healthy food, feed ourselves, and export to the lacking world.
More especially, it is a noble thing that both personalities, “nepo babies” from privileged backgrounds, devote to fighting a cause that pays less to them and everything to the helpless public. It is a challenge to all of us, including the “lapos” like myself.
Writer: Obiasogu David✍️
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