THE ATTITUDE TOWARDS GENETICALLY MODIFIED ORGANISMS (GMO’S) AND THEIR EFFECT ON HEALTH AND ENVIRONMENT IN SOUTHWESTERN NIGERIA : SCIENTISTS’ PERCEPTION

The study was carried out in South Western Nigeria to evaluate the perception of scientists at Universities and Research Institutes on the effect of GMO’s on health and environment. It is proposed that scientists’ perception would influence the on-going debate as preclude to Nigeria being a signatory to the use of GMO’s. Using a simple random sampling technique, a total of one hundred and eighty respondents were selected from a population of 760 and then interviewed. Data were collected through the use of a structured questionnaire with a reliability coefficient of 0.92 and analysis was done using frequency counts, percentages and probit regression model. Scientists were between 31 and 40 years (59.40%), were MSC holders (44.44%), got their information on GMO’s from journals (89.60%) and were male (56.70%). Majority of the scientists had low awareness of the GMO’s products (52.8%), low perception (54.5 percent). There is significant relationship between awareness, age, religion, sources of information (radio, newspaper, scientific periodicals) and their perception toward GMOs. There is no significant difference in perception and awareness between scientists at Universities and research institutes