…How to avoid food poisoning –Expert
BY YEMISI OLUSINA
Everyone eats beans as porridge, plain with fried pepper (Ewa Aganyin) or in mashed forms of Moinmoin or Akara balls. A rich source of fiber, nutrition experts say beans are essential for good health. Quite affordable and readily available too, it is one food item that is favoured by most people regardless of age and status. But with the recently circulated video of some traders lacing it with Sniper, an injurious pest control product, how famous are beans meals at dining tables currently?
For 24-year-old Okanlawon Sotubo, a resident at Fashina area of Ibogun in Ogun State, the fear of beans will for a long time be the beginning of wisdom. This was a conclusion he made following an experience he had after devouring a meal of beans on the 22nd of October this year.
Looking straight at the reporter in the eyes, Sotubo simply shook his head as he narrated his experience, “It all happened like a movie. It was one experience I don’t like to remember because it usually brings a cold shiver down my spine. I mean it was one incident that brought me very close to death. But for God, I would have been a dead man by now,” he recalled.
The day, according to Sotubo, a Saturday, broke like any other good day and being a lover of beans, he decided to treat himself to a delicacy. “I always love it as porridge because it affords me the freedom to eat it in a variety of ways. I could eat it with garri (cassava grains), soaked in water or sprinkled on the beans. I could also eat it with bread or pap (liquid or solid type). It was one of those periods I did not have enough money and my friend with whom I share the room was away on a journey. We were broke and, being a cheap commodity, beans always come to our rescue at such times. I bought just a Derica tin measurement of beans from a mallam and the ingredients to go with it,” he said.
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Unknown to him, however, he had chosen a path down the valley. Some hours after he ate the meal, he became very uncomfortable. “I began to have serious stomach pain. I had thought it was because I took the meal very hot, but when the pain persisted despite the salt and water and some antacids I took, I knew something had gone wrong somewhere. I had never experienced such a pain and it continued throughout the night. I thought I was going to die.”
At first, Sotubo and his friend, Dejare, thought he had appendicitis, so, they concluded that he visits the hospital for proper medical attention. “As the only son of my parents, I am very treasured by them. I knew I should not joke with the situation, because if anything should happen to me, it would be a calamity to my mother especially. In short, it would kill her. Besides, the pain was very unbearable, so, I went home.
“When I got home and still didn’t improve, I was rushed to the hospital. Truly, my mother thought I was going to die and I also felt the same way too,” Sotubo told The Nigerian Xpress.
But Sotubo suffered none of the suspected ailments. The doctor, from the results of the laboratory tests conducted on him, said, he had eaten a poisoned meal. His words: “My mother screamed. Her conclusion was that someone wanted to kill her son. And really, if I had not prepared the meal myself, I would have thought the person who prepared the meal laced it with poison. The only food I remembered triggered the pain was the beans. I had not eaten before then. The last time I ate was the night before and I had no problem and it was eaten by three of us. The other two travelled, leaving only me at home.”
He spent four days in the hospital, treating food poisoning.
Another victim who shared her experience with The Nigerian Xpress was Biola Gbeminiyi, a hair-dressing apprentice.
Recalling her own ordeal, Gbeminiyi who lives few houses away from Sotubo said the symptoms she had at first, were similar to those of menstrual pain, so, she had envisaged that the pains would go away in a matter of two hours. She said: “I had abdominal pains and waved it off as mere menstrual pain that won’t last long. I took two tablets of paracetamol just as I usually do at times like that, but was shocked that I did not get better.”
Her condition became alarming when she started vomiting and stooling making her suspect dysentery. “I went to the clinic around but the tablets they gave me brought no relief to me,” Gbeminiyi said.
At this point, her friend, Doris Ajua interjected. “My sister, I was very scared because she was just rolling from one side of the bed to the other, screaming and sweating and holding her stomach. Deep inside me, even when I knew she was not a wayward person, I thought she had taken some abortion pills. And I was like, we were in trouble. That night, we couldn’t sleep. We first went to a general hospital close to us. But, there, no one attended to us. They said there was no vacant bed. Even her condition did not move them. I was sure they had the same thought I had and they just wanted us to suffer for it. We left the place for a private hospital where she was attended to.”
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To everyone’s surprise, Gbeminiyi’s ailment was far from what everyone had in mind. She was neither pregnant nor had dysentery. She had eaten a poisoned food.
Unlike Sotubo, however, Gbeminiyi had a premonition of her predicament. So, when queried by the doctors on the food she suspected, she wasted no time to tell everyone present that the beans meal she took last was responsible. Explaining her suspicion to The Nigerian Xpress, she said: “While I was cooking the beans, somehow, I was not so comfortable with the smell coming from the pot. I called it a smell because it was not an aroma. It smelled as if it had been old in stock or like some chemical used to fumigate things was inside it but I just thought it was nothing dangerous, after all, beans always have all kinds of aroma and when I added the ingredients, the smell actually got better. I never knew it was a meal that would land me in the hospital.”
Even after spending about four days in the hospital, Gbeminiyi did not appear fully recovered until two weeks after. “I was not totally myself for about 14 days I really look dehydrated and was on treatment still. I had not gone any close to beans since then,” she concluded.
In March, 2017, three siblings, Faith, Chidioke and Sunday Ogbonna, trading in beans on Adenekan street, Alagbado, Lagos State, were arrested by the police for allegedly selling poisonous beans to members of the public.
The trio were prosecuted for preserving their beans with the pesticide, Sniper.
About 20 months after the incident, Lagosians are experiencing a recurrence. A video of some traders mixing beans with the same lethal chemical has gone viral, alerting everyone to the danger of poison-laden beans in the market.
Strangely, when The Nigerian Xpress went round the markets to make findings about the development, the traders confirmed the video recording, giving the same reason as the Ogbonna brothers.
At the Alaba Rago Market along Lagos – Badagry Expressway, a trader who simply gave his name as Abubakar said they use Sniper and other chemicals to preserve the beans. “We preserve our bags of beans by adding several tablets of Aluminium Phosphate and other fumigation chemicals to the bags. We also use Sniper, which is more effective,” he said.
Explaining the method, Abubakar told The Nigerian Xpress that “We pour out the beans on the floor and then spray Sniper, which is mixed with another liquid chemical before bagging the beans. This way, the beans is effectively preserved.”
Another trader at Alagbole market, simply identified as Sunday put up a defence, saying he adds a powdery chemical to his beans. “Madam, if we don’t preserve these beans with the chemicals, nobody will buy. The weevils will not only damage the beans but other foodstuffs that we have here.”
Although Chukwudi and some other traders do not concern themselves with bagging of the beans, because they buy in large quantity from the Northern states, they restated the need to preserve the commodity with the deadly chemical. “I buy my beans from the Northern states like Niger, Borno where the bagging is done. There, the preservation would have been done. I only sell. The fact just remains that we cannot thrive in this business without preserving these stuffs,” observed Chukwudi.
Sadly, none of the traders was concerned about the health implications of this practice. This is clear in his response to the circulated video: “Video or no video, nothing has changed. As you can see, there are over 20 bags of beans here and I must sell them. Just give me two days, they will all be sold out,” said an unruffled Chukwudi.
Closely supporting him on this was Abubakar who pointed out that the practice of using Sniper is the only option traders have to keep them in the business. “Everyone who cooks beans should know that they should parboil it before the final process of cooking. For us, if we do not adopt these methods, we will be running at a loss because our stock will be destroyed by weevils,” he told The Nigerian Xpress.
But Garba, another trader, said the traders would stop the practice if “those who are educated will come up with a better method of preserving our goods. Otherwise, we will continue to do what we are doing because it is the only way we know.”
The disposition of the traders, according to a lawyer and public affairs analyst, Mr Idris Mustapha, was condemnable. In Mr Mustapha’s opinion, government at all levels and other relevant agencies should see this as a challenge. “I am disappointed that no arrest has been made on this issue. And honestly it will be a perennial embarrassment on the federal, state and other relevant institutions to allow just anybody to endanger the lives of Nigerians with their own carelessness and selfishness. Is this not a show of the high level of corruption that we are yet to curb in the country? To say these culprits are still moving around freely and in business is nothing but a shame to the authorities concerned,” he said.
Since statistics show that beans is among the most-favoured food items in the market, The Xpress asked some people how they have been handling the situation. “I have placed a ban on its consumption in my house. No one buys or cooks beans in my house until further notice. My decision is because my wife and I are career people. We don’t come home until late in the evening and the children are at the mercy of a house-help who we all know can get careless with anything and at anytime. She won’t do anything at the right time, so, while rushing to get them done, she may cook the beans without even rinsing, thereby killing all of us. The best thing is to stop buying. We have removed beans totally from the food time-table for now. We now buy more of the alternatives to beans,” explained Mr Joseph Idowu, a banker.
Another parent, Mrs Kate Obi urged Nigerians to take necessary steps to look out for their families to keep safe. “No one should expect any government to do anything for him or her because if they do, they will regret it. For me, there is no eating of beans in my house until the situation is addressed. I will not buy it and I have told my children not to eat it outside,” she advised.
While advocating a more stringent measure to monitor and control foods and other consumables by relevant agencies, a nutritionist with the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Dr Bimpe Adegoke pointed out that if Nigerians would take their time to parboil their beans very well, consuming it would be safe.
Dr Adegoke’s advice: “We have enough agencies to control these traders and what they sell; they should just do more because this is an issue that deals with life. But for now, I will advise that everyone should parboil their beans this way: Boil with water and salt first, then throw the water away. Put fresh water with beans and let it cook. Then, add salt and other ingredients the way you want it.”
She also implored Nigerians to endeavour to check for smell of chemical in the beans before buying. “Once it has the smell of any kind of chemical, do not buy it,” she warned.
Explaining that food poisoning is self-diagnosed, Dr Adegoke highlighted some of its symptoms as abdominal cramps, vomiting, diarrhea, loss of appetite, mild fever, weakness, which of course, will lead to dehydration.
Assuring Nigerians that the intention of the traders spraying beans with pesticide was not to harm anyone was the Director General, Consumer Protection Council, CPC, Mr Babatunde Irukera who said in a statement that Sniper, by its chemical composition is not just potentially injurious to people’s health when consumed through food, it is equally dangerous when contacted by inhalation, absorption, direct skin contact or ingestion. In other words, the traders are not also free from its danger as they also have direct contact with it.
According to him, the process is not to deliberately injure the consumers but to protect and preserve the beans.
While condemning the act of subjecting food items to pesticides, Mr Irukera advised the public to imbibe the culture of washing and cooking their food items very well before eating. He promised Nigerians that the council would collaborate with other agencies to address the problem.
While, soliciting the support of Nigerians to address the situation, the National Agency For Foods and Drugs Administration and Control, NAFDAC, the agency, in a statement, said the agency was bent on checking the dangerous practice. It reads in part, “The general public is hereby assured that efforts are ongoing to address the problem and we ask consumers to be vigilant and report any suspicious activities to the nearest NAFDAC office.”
