WHO IS POLICING THE POISON IN NIGERIA’S FOOD CHAIN?
Nigeria is telling consumers to be careful. But who is telling the poisoners to be afraid?
By Lanre Ogundipe
There is something deeply unsettling about being told to watch what you eat when you have no realistic means of knowing what has been put into it.
The consumer sees the colour of the fruit, the freshness of the vegetables, the clarity of the oil and the appearance of the grain.
What the consumer cannot see is the pesticide residue, the industrial dye, the chemical used to accelerate ripening, the substance used to preserve food or the contaminant introduced somewhere along the supply chain.
That invisible danger is becoming an increasingly difficult subject for Nigeria to dismiss.
In August, former Vice President Yemi Osinbajo recounted how his wife, Dolapo, switched from carbonated drinks to fresh orange juice, only for an unexplained health problem to follow.
A sample was reportedly sent to a laboratory and the result allegedly described the juice as unfit for human consumption.
The account is disturbing, but it must be treated for what it is: an anecdote.
The laboratory report, the contaminant allegedly detected, its concentration, the testing methodology and any causal connection with the reported headache have not been publicly established.
Yet the anecdote opens a much larger and more consequential question.
Who is policing what goes into Nigeria’s food?
The question has acquired greater urgency following the World Health Organisation’s latest global estimates of foodborne disease.
WHO estimates that contaminated food caused about 866 million illnesses and 1.52 million deaths globally in 2021. Chemical hazards alone accounted for roughly 73 per cent of deaths attributed to contaminated food.
These figures are global, not Nigerian figures. But they expose the scale of a threat that cannot be reduced to stomach upset or occasional food poisoning.
Some chemical contaminants can contribute to cancers, cardiovascular disease and neurological damage. Lead and arsenic are among the major contributors to chemical related deaths in the WHO estimates. Children are particularly vulnerable.
And there is an important warning buried in the WHO’s methodology. Several significant hazards, including pesticide residues, antimicrobial resistance and PFAS, could not be included in the current estimates because the available data were insufficient.
That is not evidence that these hazards are absent.
It is evidence of something more troubling: what is not measured does not cease to exist.
It becomes invisible.
Nigeria already knows that its food safety problem is substantial.
The Federal Ministry of Health said in June that the country records nearly 50 million foodborne illnesses annually, with more than 53,000 deaths and 4.26 million healthy life years lost. The figures cover the broader foodborne disease burden and should not be misrepresented as deaths from chemical poisoning.
But the Ministry separately identified chemical hazards, including lead contamination, as an emerging and serious concern.
That distinction matters.
Nigeria’s food safety crisis is not one single problem.
There is microbial contamination, poor hygiene, unsafe water, inadequate storage, improper handling, chemical misuse and deliberate adulteration.
The most disturbing cases are those in which chemicals are introduced deliberately or recklessly because somebody believes the commercial advantage is worth the risk to somebody else’s health.
There is evidence that this is not merely theoretical.
NAFDAC has repeatedly warned against the use of dichlorvos, popularly associated with products such as Sniper, to preserve food. The agency has specifically warned against its use on beans, stockfish, crayfish and other food products. Small volume dichlorvos products of 100ml or less marketed as Sniper have been banned since 2019, while larger quantities are restricted to certified agrochemical outlets.
The warning itself is revealing. A chemical dangerous enough to attract regulatory restriction does not become safe because someone sprays it on food instead of a crop.
Research has also exposed other worrying practices.
A 2024 study among fruit sellers in Ado Ekiti found that half of the 20 sellers surveyed reported using calcium carbide for fruit ripening, although all also reported natural ripening practices.
The study also found very poor knowledge of the health risks associated with the chemical. The sample was small and local, so it cannot be projected onto the entire country.
But it provides evidence of a practice that deserves serious surveillance rather than denial.
Another study involving fruit sellers in Uyo found that about a quarter had used calcium carbide at some point, although only a small proportion identified it as their principal ripening method.
In Lagos, a study of 50 fruit and vegetable retailers found that 22 reported using chemicals for preservation. The chemicals mentioned included pesticides and substances such as Gammalin 20, Sniper, aluminium phosphide, DDT, calcium carbide and brodifacum.
Again, the study does not establish that 44 per cent of all produce sold in Lagos was chemically contaminated.
It was a small survey based on reported practices.
But that is precisely the point.
A responsible state does not wait for a national catastrophe before investigating a credible warning.
There are also laboratory findings that make the matter harder to dismiss.
A 2023 study of seven palm oil samples collected from open markets in Benin City found Sudan IV in four of them, with measured quantities ranging from about 21.7 to 29.5 milligrams per litre. Sudan IV is an industrial dye and is not a legitimate food colourant.
Seven samples cannot tell us the condition of Nigeria’s palm oil market.
But seven contaminated samples are not evidence that should be ignored either.
More recently, reports from Lagos have raised allegations of palm oil being diluted with water and coloured with dyes, while a July 2026 study reported detergent residues in commercially processed fufu samples from two communities in Rivers State, alongside high microbial loads.
These reports and studies require scrutiny, verification and, where necessary, enforcement. They should not be inflated into the claim that all palm oil, all fufu or all Nigerian food is contaminated.
But neither should they be waved away because the samples are limited.
The consumer cannot see the poison. The state must.
And Nigeria does not lack institutions.
NAFDAC exists.
The Federal Ministry of Health exists. The Standards Organisation of Nigeria exists. Agricultural and environmental authorities exist. State governments have responsibilities.
The police and prosecutors exist. Nigeria has legislation prohibiting the production, sale and distribution of unwholesome processed food.
More importantly, Nigeria has begun building the architecture required to deal with foodborne disease.
The Federal Ministry of Health says the 2023 National Integrated Guidelines for Foodborne Disease Surveillance and Response provide for surveillance, laboratory confirmation, outbreak investigation, traceback, recall and risk communication.
So the central problem is no longer simply whether Nigeria knows that unsafe food exists.
The harder question is what happens after detection.
Where was the sample collected? What exactly was detected? At what concentration? Which laboratory performed the test? Was the sample chain of custody preserved?
Where did the food come from? Who supplied it? Who processed it? Who transported it? How widely was it distributed? Was it recalled?
Were other samples taken? Was the source traced backwards through the supply chain?Were potentially affected products traced forwards to consumers and retailers?
Was anybody investigated? Was anybody prosecuted? Was anybody convicted? And did the offending practice subsequently decline?
That is where food safety becomes more than public relations. A warning is not enforcement. A press conference is not enforcement.
Seizing a few bags of contaminated food is not the end of enforcement.
The objective of regulation is not merely to discover that somebody has broken the rules.
It is to make breaking those rules sufficiently costly that the next person thinks twice.
This is where the economics of food adulteration becomes particularly ugly.
The person who introduces a cheap chemical, dilutes a product, accelerates ripening or uses an inappropriate preservative may capture the immediate commercial benefit.
The consumer carries the risk. The family may carry the medical cost. The employer may carry the productivity loss. The health system may carry the treatment burden.
The economy carries the lost human capital.
Private profit is captured privately. The consequences are socialised.
The World Bank previously estimated that foodborne disease imposed about US$6 billion in productivity losses on Nigeria in 2016. The figure is old, and Nigeria’s economy and population have changed substantially since then.
But the direction of the argument remains compelling: unsafe food is not merely a health problem. It is an economic problem.
Every lost working day, every sick child kept away from school, every preventable hospital admission and every premature death represents an economic cost.
The Federal Government therefore needs to move the conversation beyond telling Nigerians to wash their food, buy carefully and beware of suspiciously attractive products.
Consumer awareness matters. It is not enough.
A mother cannot be expected to become a food chemist before buying an orange.
A worker cannot test palm oil before cooking dinner.
A child cannot choose the chemical content of the grain served at home.
The responsibility for detecting invisible hazards belongs primarily to the regulatory system. Nigeria needs a stronger, risk based national chemical surveillance programme covering the foods and points in the supply chain where contamination risks are highest.
Sampling should be scientifically designed and geographically representative, rather than driven principally by outbreaks, media reports or public complaints.
Laboratory capacity must be strengthened and independently quality assured.
High risk supply chains should be mapped.
Traceback must become routine, not exceptional. When contaminated food is identified, recalls must be real and demonstrable, not announcements that disappear after the news cycle.
NAFDAC, health authorities, agriculture agencies, SON, customs, police, state authorities and prosecutors must work as parts of one enforcement chain rather than as separate bureaucratic islands.
And Nigerians deserve an annual public food safety enforcement report.
Let the government publish the numbers.
How many samples were tested? How many failed?
What contaminants were found? Where were they found? How much food was withdrawn? How many recalls were conducted? How many investigations commenced?
How many cases reached court? How many convictions were secured? What sentences were imposed?
And, most importantly, did the prevalence of the offending practice fall?
That is the scoreboard that would tell Nigerians whether food safety regulation is working.
There is also a legal dimension that cannot be avoided.
Not every contaminated food product represents deliberate poisoning. Some contamination is accidental. Some results from ignorance, poor handling, inadequate infrastructure or negligence.
Enforcement must distinguish among these circumstances.
But where deliberate adulteration or reckless chemical misuse is established, the response must be proportionate, certain and visible.
Nobody should be condemned without evidence. But neither should evidence disappear into the administrative machinery after the cameras leave.
Nigeria has spent years warning consumers about dangerous practices. It is time to ask a different question.
What are we doing to make the people who deliberately contaminate food afraid of the consequences?
The answer cannot be another awareness campaign alone. It must be a functioning chain from sampling to laboratory confirmation, from laboratory confirmation to traceback, from traceback to investigation, from investigation to prosecution, and from prosecution to conviction where guilt is proved.
The poison may be invisible. The failure to police it is not.
Nigeria cannot protect what it does not measure, and it cannot prosecute what it does not trace.
The consumer has done his part by trusting the food placed before him.
Now the state must do its part by ensuring that trust is not being exploited.
Ogundipe , Public Affairs Analyst, former President of Nigeria and Africa Union of Journalists writes from Abuja
