How fruits ripened with carbide kill Nigerians Nigeria

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For the family of the late Emmanuel Okwuke, banana and plantain
have become forbidden fruits. No member of the family dares bring
them home. This was after Emmanuel’s life was cut short after he
consumed a bunch of his favourite fruit, banana, which he bought on
the way home.

The former Information and Communications Technology Editor of
Daily Independent Newspapers first battled a damaged liver before
giving up the ghost on December 24, 2016.

Two years after the incident, his widow, Juli, said their life
had been changed forever by the incident.

Recalling how it all started, she said, “In March 2016, he went
for an event on Victoria Island and on his way back, he bought the
banana at the Ketu market. My husband did not like late hour food
and he always told me not to prepare food for him when it was late.
So, even the food they gave him at the event, he did not taste it.
He brought everything home.

“He started eating the banana inside the BRT bus en route to the
house. On getting home around 12am, I was inside the room when my
mother, who had come to stay with us, woke me up to say my husband
had been going to the bathroom since he returned from work.

“I rushed there and he told me since he ate the banana he bought
at the market, his stomach had been troubling him. He said he was
in the office all day without feeling anything, until he took the
fruit. He was also vomiting blood.”

She said he was admitted to a general hospital for four days and
later transferred to the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital,
Ikeja, for tests.

The widow said it was there the fruit he took last was examined
and it was discovered calcium carbide was used in the ripening.

She noted that after some treatment, her husband was fine until
he relapsed in July of the same year and was in and out of
hospitals until he died on the eve of Christmas.

His liver was said to have been damaged.

Emmanuel was survived by his wife and three girls; Treasure
(12), Sharon (9) and Delightsome (3).

Our correspondent, during a visit to the family house on Unity
Estate, Igbogbo, Ikorodu, a community in the outskirts of Lagos,
sighted the late journalist’s unmarked grave.

Delightsome, the couple’s last child together, was all over this
correspondent, as she fondly called him ‘Daddy.’

The mother said the three-year-old called every male visitor to
the house, ‘daddy,’ because she had a faint idea of her father.

Juli said banana had become a forbidden fruit in the family.

“Before now, my husband bought bananas, plantains and all kinds
of fruit in the house, which we all ate. And that particular Ketu
was where he bought the fruit. We had a fridge reserved for
fruits.

“But now, everything has changed. I would rather plant fruits in
my yard than buy outside. Even my second daughter usually says,
‘Mummy, I cannot buy banana outside. It was banana that killed my
daddy.’ Even the last child, you cannot buy banana and give her;
she will not collect it. If I am not at home and any visitor brings
banana as a gift, none of my children would take it,” she
added.

While fighting back tears, Juli said since her husband’s death,
things had been hard for the family.

She said her dreams had been shattered by her husband’s most
loved fruit.

“When I pass by and see where plantains and bananas are sold, I
point at it and say, ‘See what killed my husband,’” she added.

Calcium carbide, a poisonous chemical used in artificial fruit
ripening, may be one of the silent, under-reported killers in
Nigeria.

The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control
says consumption of fruits ripened with carbide can lead to several
diseases, including cancer.

Calcium carbide contains impurities such as arsenic, lead
particles, phosphorus, which pose serious health hazards, can also
cause heart, kidney and liver failures, NAFDAC had warned.

It said acetylene produced by calcium carbide affects the
neurological system and reduces oxygen supply to the brain, which
induces prolonged hypoxia.

Experts say because consumption of fruits ripened with carbide
usually cause secondary diseases which are slow to manifest, it is
often times difficult to get an official statistics of deaths
linked to carbide.

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NAFDAC began a sensitisation programme earlier in the year to
educate traders on the dangers of using carbide to ripen
fruits.

However, findings from field and laboratory investigations by
our correspondent showed that not only is the substance still in
use in some public markets, not many traders cared about its effect
on the health of their customers.

Worse still, many Nigerians are unaware of its use and the
danger it poses to their wellbeing.

Although NAFDAC says it is criminal to ripen fruit with it, not
a single person has either been arrested or prosecuted by the
government agency.

Iso Ogede carbide market

Scene of artificial ripening at Iso Ogede
Investigations by our correspondent showed that despite several
campaigns to stop the use of the harmful chemical, some markets not
only ripen their fruit with calcium carbide, the substance is
openly sold to anyone who wishes to buy.

Our correspondent visited Iso Ogede on Ikorodu Road, in the
Kosofe Local Government Area, where people come from different
parts of Lagos to buy plantain in bulk.

On a cursory look, the market appears like an abandoned scrap
yard or a dumpsite but after moving through the dusty road, a
clearing with displays of plantain becomes visible.

There are stalls lined up on either side of the open field.

Our correspondent, during a five month survey of the market,
observed stalls with covered heaps of what appeared to be
plantain.

And indeed on several occasions, The PUNCH observed that the
wrapped heaps were open for their content to be sold to interested
buyers.

Every time a buyer enters the market, sellers approach him or
her seeking patronage.

Our correspondent observed a stall where a woman, who appeared
to be the trader, sat and instructed her assistant (mallam) to wrap
her plantain.

While our correspondent stood afar, watched and recorded the
process, a man, Usman (not real name), approached him to enquire on
his mission in the market.

Our correspondent led Usman to the trader’s stall to assist in
negotiating a good price for another set of plantain on the floor
in front of the woman.

While the haggling was on, our correspondent monitored what the
woman’s assistant was doing.

The PUNCH observed that the man lumped bunches of plantain
together, as thin smokes wafted from underneath.

The smell of the smoke was choking and intolerable, but except
for a few reactions of passersby, it appeared everyone in the
environment was used to it.

Usman later assisted our correspondent in getting a fair bargain
for the plantain from the trader, who was oblivious of our
correspondent’s real motive.

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The reporter asked Usman about what he had just witnessed the
woman’s assistant doing.

“Carbide is used to ripen plantain because some people cannot
wait for four to five days that it could take for the normal
ripening process. If you use carbide, in less than a day, the
plantain will ripen,” he said.

Prodded for more information on how our correspondent can
replicate the process, he said, “What you need to do is to get an
empty sachet of pure water and put the carbide in it. Then you put
little water. You need to be careful when doing it because it can
be dangerous. You place the sachet under and cover it up with
plantain. By the following morning, check to see what would have
happened,” he said.

Usman directed our correspondent to a stall where an elderly
woman who should be in her late 70s sold the killer chemical for
N100 per portion.

Our correspondent bought some of the chemical and later threw
them away.

During another visit, this reporter witnessed another trader
repeating the process as narrated by Usman.

However, on other occasions, some traders were observed covering
up their plantains with sacks without applying calcium carbide.

In Inu Koto, Ketu, where truckloads of banana are usually
delivered to a horde of buyers in a decrepit marshy pit, there was
no such open ripening.

Our correspondent gathered that the bananas were usually brought
from Osun, Oyo, Ondo, Ekiti, Edo, Ondo states.

Some of the traders, who insisted that the use of carbide was
not allowed in the market, said some retailers who bought from them
sometime used calcium carbide.

A market leader, Akeem Oyebanji, said traders in the market
usually covered up the unripe bananas without using calcium
carbide.

“Carbide is a poison. What we do is to cover the bananas and
after three days, they will be ripened. I don’t use carbide,” he
said.

Another trader, who identified himself only as Kamorudeen and
claimed to have been in the business of selling bananas for about
12 years, said the use of calcium carbide in the market was a
punishable offence.

Our correspondent took a random survey of 10 passersby,
including a trader, mechanic, driver, hawker, student, tricycle
rider, on their awareness of calcium carbide.

However, only two persons said they knew about it. The other
eight persons said they were not aware of it or its use in fruit
ripening.

Three others, who were spotted buying plantain at Ketu, gave
different responses when questioned on the subject.

A man, who identified himself only as Godwin, said he loved to
buy ripe plantain and did not know anything about calcium
carbide.

When our correspondent tried educating him on it, he said he did
not believe it.

Godwin said, “I am a science student by the grace of God. All
these things are just oyinbo (white men) ideas. People that have
been eating these things for a long time are fine. I don’t know
whether the traders use carbide or not, all I know is that I need
ripe plantain. If it is not ripe, my children will not like
it.”

A trader, Adesanya Funke, said she believed that frying the
plantain “detoxifies it,” adding that she tried to always wash her
fruits to avoid contaminants.

Calcium carbide experiment

Our correspondent obtained samples of two fruits – banana and
plantain – to test them for calcium carbide.

The experiment, which was done in July 2018, covered Gbagada,
Ketu, Mushin, Ikeja, CMS, Ajah and Lekki areas of Lagos.

Ten samples of fruit collected from the areas were taken to
Searchgate Laboratories Limited, an accredited analytical
laboratory services company and member of the Institute of Public
Analysts of Nigeria.

After a week of analysis and testing for ripening with calcium
carbide, the results were returned.

According to the report, seven of the 10 samples were ripened
with calcium carbide, while three were ripened through a natural
process.

“All samples that are physically suspended (x) are artificially
ripened with calcium carbide, while those not physically suspended
(-) are not artificially ripened with calcium carbide. In addition,
all samples analyzed are found containing hazardous elements:
arsenic and phosphorus are artificially ripened with calcium
carbide and those that do not contain the mentioned elements are
not ripened with calcium carbide.

“In conclusion, the results above indicate that the samples from
Ketu (banana and plantain), Ajah (plantain), Lekki (banana and
plantain), Ikeja (banana) and CMS (banana) are all ripened with
calcium carbide, while the samples from Kosofe (plantain), Mushin
(plantain) and Gbagada (plantain) are not ripened with calcium
carbide,” the report from Searchgate said.

There are, however, arguments on the two elements (phosphorus
and arsenic) highlighted by the laboratory as evidence of calcium
carbide.

A scientist, who did not want to be identified, said while
arsenic might be poisonous and injurious to health, phosphorus was
a needed nutrient present in all fruits.

He noted that it was difficult to test the use of calcium
carbide in fruit ripening.

“Phosphorus is a nutrient present in virtually all fruit.
However, arsenic is poisonous. It is a toxic heavy metal and
affects the renal system. It is not only in calcium carbide that
arsenic is found. It can come from the soil where the fruit is
planted. The fact that I see arsenic in fruit does not totally mean
calcium carbide is used to ripen it,” he said.

The World Health Organisation may have also confirmed this when
it said arsenic is naturally present at high levels in the
groundwater of many countries.

The WHO, however, said long-term exposure to arsenic could cause
cancer and skin lesions, adding that it had been associated with
cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

Sweet fruit, slow death

An emeritus professor of Food and Environmental Chemistry,
Faculty of Science, University of Lagos, Bolanle Osuntogun, said
accumulated effect of taking chemically-induced fruits might be
responsible for inexplicable cancers in the society.

She said, “The use of calcium carbide is toxic to the human
body. Arsenic is one of the heavy toxic metals released which
affects the body. It could have adverse effect on the kidney and
the liver.

“The effects are not immediate. They take time to manifest.
There are many things that cause cancer now that people simply
cannot explain. That is why cancer is endemic now. While we can say
explicitly that smoking causes cancer of the lung, there are other
forms of cancer that are hard to pin down to anything.”

The Head of Department of Family Medicine and Consultant,
LASUTH, Dr Shodipo Oluwajimi, said the case of the late journalist,
Emmanuel Okwuke, might not be isolated.

He explained that the problem most times was that unlike
Emmanuel, many patients who visited hospitals with similar symptoms
could not recall the last thing they consumed.

Oluwajimi said the diagnosis was, therefore, usually mixed
up.

“The truth is that most of the cases are under-diagnosed. Most
of the time patients present with features of gastroenteritis
(stomach flu). Maybe they have taken a meal or taken some fruits
and they developed some passage of loose stools, some abdominal
pains and fever.

“However, a lot of time, the patients may not be able to give
you an accurate history of what precipitated that. So, what we
noticed is that we have been missing a lot of the diagnosis that
have been occurring. It is therefore difficult to directly link the
use of these substances. This may also be because a lot of people
take these fruits and vegetables as part of their regular diet,” he
added.

The doctor, however, said the traders applying the chemicals
were more at risk because they had direct contact with the
substance.

NAFDAC reacts

NAFDAC DG, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye
The Director, Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, NAFDAC, Sherif
Olagunju, said the agency had also gone rounds market in the
country, including Lagos, to conduct tests on fruits, using local
and international laboratories.

He said over 2,000 samples had been collected from the six
geo-political zones.

The director noted that although the results were mixed, with
some ‘good’ and others ‘not too good’, there was nothing yet to
warrant a declaration of an emergency.

“Internationally, artificial ripening is not something that is
not permissible. It is permissible under certain conditions. In the
case of ripening of fruits like plantains and oranges, one of the
approved agents is ethylene gas. It is safe because it is
natural.

“However, when people take calcium carbide and put water into
it, it emits a gas called acetylene. Acetylene behaves the same way
as ethylene, but they are different.

“What they do locally is to put the plantain on a pallet and
then put the carbide under. They put water into the carbide and the
gas is emitted.

“When the acetylene gas touches the body of the plantain, it
ripens it. The gas, however, is not usually retained on the body of
the plantain making it difficult to test for the gas on the
plantain.

“But when they were applying the gas, some particles or dusts of
the carbide falls on the plantain. If you pick any of the plantain
that the particles fall on, then you can identify certain
contaminants that are in the carbide and then you can analyse
it.”

Olagunju said the agency had intensified efforts at public
enlightenment, adding that some markets had also been placed under
constant surveillance.

He noted that to discourage the use of calcium carbide for fruit
ripening, the importation of calcium carbide had also been placed
under restriction.

“An importer of calcium carbide is required to obtain from the
agency Permit-to-Import a certain justifiable quantity every year.
The importer is also required to obtain Permit-to-Clear any
importation any quantity within limit of approved quantity on the
permit to import. If not an end user, the importer is expected to
obtain a Local Purchase Order from a verified end user,” he
added.

The director said NAFDAC inspectors now monitors the storage,
use and distribution of calcium carbide, adding that a fraction of
the chemical used by artisans in the unorganised private sector,
especially welders and panel beaters, might be the source of leaks
leading to misuse.

The Director, Pharmaceutical Services, Lagos State Ministry of
Health, Mrs Moyo Adejumo, while saying that the use of calcium
carbide was rampant, urged residents of the state to report any use
of the substance in fruit ripening.

“The Ministry of Health and NAFDAC have been creating awareness
and encourage members of the public to make report to relevant
authorities. Where there is concrete evidence that this chemical is
being used in artificial ripening of fruit and vegetables, we
encourage prompt reporting for action,” she added.

The Iyaloja General of Lagos State, Folashade Tinubu-Ojo,
declined response despite repeated calls and test messages from our
correspondent.

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