Rabi, a food vendor in Liman Katagum on the outskirts of Bauchi metropolis, arrived at her food selling point on Thursday, August 17 2023, at around 11 a.m.
She held a bucket full of plastic plates in her left hand, and a cooler full of jollof rice in the other.
Not long after her arrival, flies started to hover over the food plates, but she cared less. Her customers were already waiting.
Rabi said that she acquired cooking skills from her mother, and had never attended any formal food hygiene training.
Rabi’s situation raises concern about widespread poor sanitation and hygiene in Bauchi state, northeast Nigeria where 3000 people were hospitalised due to the cholera outbreak in 2022 with 42 incidents of death.
During a visit to various food stalls in Bauchi, WikkiTimes conducted interviews with food vendors who were observed selling food in unhygienic conditions. It was noted that many consumers seemed unaware of the risks associated with consuming food sold in such unhealthy environments.
Rabi was not the only food hawker at the stall. Next to her was another food vendor identified as Nusaiba, selling spaghetti. Her selling point was also besieged by houseflies.
Ado Sa’idu, a customer, even made a case to defend the roadside food vendor. He told WikkiTimes that he had suffered abdominal pain recently, but he could not ascertain if Rabi’s food was the cause. “My stomach disturbed me last week. I went to Bayara General Hospital. It was diarrhoea but I cannot say the cause is certainly from her food.”
He told WikkiTimes that he and some of his friends had been patronising Rabi’s food for over five months despite the obvious risks.
VENDORS NEED GOVT SUPPORT
The food vendors however attributed their condition to a lack of decent marketplaces in Bauchi where small-scale food vendors or restaurants can operate.
When interviewed, the two vendors said they could not afford to rent or own decent shops for their businesses.
Rabi told WikkiTimes that when her rent expired, she could not raise funding to renew it, and that was how she started selling by the roadside.
“If I have a place of my own, no matter how small it may be, I will try to make it look good and improve my business. But we don’t have the financial capacity to do this and the government is unconcerned about our pains,” she said.
“If the government could provide support, we would not be selling food under the harsh sun and in a dusty environment like this.”
WikkiTimes also observed that women who sell corn flour do not follow any rule of hygiene. During a visit to Liman Katagum community about 25 kilometres away from Bauchi town, the reporter saw corn flour spread on dirty ground near the gutter. Domestic animals and birds could be seen walking over the foodstuff, and the sellers of the flour did not care to drive them away.
Hafsa Musa, one of the sellers, blamed her playful children for failing to watch over the flour.
Her colleague, Ummi said they don’t deliberately allow animals to roam over the foodstuff, but they are sometimes distracted by other tasks.
She said when they detect the traces of animals on the flour, they throw away the contaminated part, though some local sellers don’t do that in order to avoid cutting down their profit.
In Dass, the headquarters of Dass LG of Bauchi State, Mararaba and other places, the story is the same. Food processes were produced in unhealthy conditions. Corn flour could be seen spread on the dirty floor.
Children in the neighbourhood said the corn flour belonged to Maman A’isha who was nowhere to be found at the time of visit.
Similarly, in Kanwaya, a community in Jama’are, a district in Toro LG, a dozen of women lined the street selling cow milk, locally called Fura da Nono.
Hali, has two rubber food bowls with cow milk which WikkiTimes understood was prepared a day earlier.
Her bowls were oily and she had them open right in front of the road as flies buzzed nonstop.
Hali and her colleagues, all lined up their wares beside a drainage. About 10 minutes later, a seller roughly identified as Ddiija attended to her defecating toddler.
After dressing up the child, she washed her hands but with the water she would use for washing plates that would later be used to serve her customers. Flies continue to buzz around her wares and the plates.
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When asked if she was concerned about the hygiene of her food, she dismissed the fear, saying “This is how our people have been preparing the food for centuries and it has never caused any problem.”
In Bununu, Tafawa Balewa local government, Khalifa, a teenager was seen selling mango fruits on the roadsides at the daily market.
He told WikkiTimes that the fruits were brought from the neighbouring state. “Our father brought them from Pankshin,” a local government in Plateau State.
Flies relentlessly buzz over the fruits that had already decayed and dotted by rotten holes – but many locals still buy them. “There is no cause for fear, just buy, let me select the better ones for you,” Khalifa said to customers showing reluctance.
The young boy was selling not only mangoes but also Irish potatoes, while a girl next to him was selling fried corns and another one was selling cake prepared with beans locally called “alale”. All of them display their wares in unhygienic places.
VICTIMS RECOUNT ORDEAL
Adamu Amadu, a victim of the cholera outbreak in 2021, recounted how he escaped an untimely death.
The 34-year-old man said he experienced the first sign of the cholera symptom while in school. “I ate several things, so I can’t ascertain what or who caused mine, but other children in the house also contracted cholera, after taking mango fruits they bought in the market,” he said. “In two or a few minutes, my condition changed and it was uncontrollable. But I was lucky enough to survive as some of the victims passed on.”
He said he became frightened when the flu got worse and he started losing strength. “I didn’t know what was wrong. I felt I was going to die because I was too weak and drained. It was like I was going to pass out my intestines. I was rushed to the hospital in the night,” he recounted.
But Abdullahi Musa, a retired Police sergeant and Amadu’s neighbour, was not so lucky. He passed on just a few hours before he was taken to the hospital, his daughter Asma’u Abdullahi told WikkiTimes.
“We noticed his condition in the night. So we decided to take him to the hospital the following day. But he died before daybreak.”
She explained that her father showed the symptoms after he ate food bought from roadside food vendors along Mararaba market.
The 29-year-old girl said the pains of the untimely death of her father would never fade away from her mind. “I feel it, it pains me but I can’t change fate.”
In 2022, barely 3000 people were hospitalised due to the cholera outbreak in Bauchi state – 42 of them died.
Except for Bogoro Local Government, 19 out of 20 LGs in the state recorded cholera cases in 2022.
Toro LGA followed Bauchi council, recorded 212 cases while Dass and Tafawa local government areas had about 100 cases each.
In 2021, Médecins Sans Frontières(MSF)/Doctors Without Borders, an international NGO, revealed that Bauchi State recorded the highest number of cholera cases nationwide, with nearly 15,000 cumulative cases and scores of deaths.
Besides, hundreds of locals die or get hospitalised every year due to cholera and other food-borne diseases such as typhoid. These cases often go unreported by the media and are not documented in hospital records, WikkiTimes discovered.
POOR FOOD HYGIENE CAUSES CHOLERA
Unhygienic food preparation and serving have been identified among the factors for food poisoning and death.
Cholera outbreak remained a seasonal disaster – persistently striking during the rainy season – and a greater percentage of its causes are related to contaminated food items.
Besides water, foods have been recognised as a vehicle for cholera transmission, according to a U.S.-based article, which corroborated that foods are likely to be contaminated during preparation, particularly by infected food handlers in an unhygienic environment.
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“Foodborne diseases are caused by contamination of food and occur at any stage of the food production, delivery and consumption chain. They can result from several forms of environmental contamination including pollution in water, soil or air, as well as unsafe food storage and processing,” World Health Organisation (WHO) said.
Diarrhoea is the most common symptom of cholera, with other serious consequences including kidney and liver failure, brain disorders, and in some instances, death.
The World Health Organisation says unsafe food containing harmful bacteria, viruses, parasites, or chemical substances, causes more than 200 diseases – ranging from diarrhoea to cancers.
An estimated 600 million – almost one in 10 people in the world – fall ill after eating contaminated food and 420,000 die every year, resulting in the loss of 33 million healthy life years.
WHO, on its website, reveals that $110bn is lost each year in productivity and medical expenses resulting from unsafe food in underdeveloped countries. Children under five carry 40 per cent of the food-borne disease burden, with 125,000 deaths every year.
Nigeria is currently ranked as one of the world’s largest burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases.
A publication of the College of Medicine Kaduna State University stated that the availability of safe food is a basic human right that subsequently improves the health of people when consumed.
It says the predominant means of contracting foodborne diseases is through consumption of street food which is common in many countries like Nigeria.
Foodborne disease pathogens may be transferred by street-food vendors to food either directly or by cross-contamination.
For Prof. Adewale Dipeolu, a Professor of Agricultural Management Productions, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) should begin the certification of food vendors to ensure only hygienic food is being sold to people.
He called for continuous inspection and enforcement of relevant laws, maintaining that “the government should intervene in the sector as it has been done in other developing countries in training, education, and supervision of food vendors to raise the hygiene and profit levels in the informal food sector”.
GOVT, AGENCIES REACT
Sulaiman Umar, Health Education and Promotion Officer Dass LG Health Authority told WikkiTimes that his agency has engaged in various sensitisation programs for the vendors, stressing the importance of hygiene.
“We have a ‘Mama to Mama’ programme, Cheap Agents, community volunteers and community stakeholders where we do sensitisation on unhygienic food. Similarly, at schools, and also our religious leaders like imams and pastors usually amplify our messages to the general public. We have a strong collaboration with the Bauchi State Healthcare Agency.
“You know change cannot happen overnight, but it is happening. Environmental, body and food sanitation are essential.”
Dr Rilwanu Mohammed, the Chairman Bauchi State Primary Healthcare Development Agency, said the agency in partnership with other agencies such as Bauchi State Environmental Protection Agency (BASEPA), is doing their best to address sanitation issues in the state.
However, he added that issues relating to food vendors are mostly checked by BASEPA.
BASEPA FACES CHALLENGES IN LICENCING AND MONITORING STREET VENDORS
Dr Ibrahim Kabir, the Director General of BASEPA, acknowledged his agency’s mandates in the protection of the environment – which includes people and the food they eat. He said the agency just established a hygiene unit in the food laboratory.
According to him, There are two types of food vendors; street vendors and stationary vendors, and the food vendors are the most difficult ones to control because they are mobile and cannot be found in a particular place.
The Director-General of the Bauchi State Environmental Protection Agency (BASEPA), Dr. Ibrahim Kabir, said the agency issues licences to stationary vendors strictly based on hygiene criteria such as the vendor’s location, materials used, and the health and fitness of the vendors.
He added that BASEPA regularly deploys officers to monitor vendor activities and prosecutes offenders, particularly on Tuesdays and Thursdays. In 2023 alone, the agency prosecuted 100 offenders, and some of them are currently undergoing court proceedings.
However, Kabir highlighted a key challenge facing BASEPA which includes a shortage of officers. Over the past decade, the agency’s workforce has decreased from 600 to approximately 400 due to deaths and retirements. Yet, the agency’s operation covers 20 local government areas.
He urged consumers to avoid patronising unhygienic food centres, emphasising that BASEPA plans to soon crack down on street vendors who breach health guidelines in the state.
Nevertheless, several months after he made this promise, WikkiTimes observed that unhygienic food vendors continue to operate on Bauchi streets, despite the daily threat of life-threatening diseases affecting residents.
This investigation is produced with support from the Wole Soyinka Center for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ) under the Collaborative Media Engagement for Development Inclusivity and Accountability Project (CMEDIA) and funded by MacArthur Foundation
