The Scourge Of Air Pollution In Nigeria

By Kayode Ojewale

AIR is an important and vital requirement for life. Air sustains life, but it can also snuff out life. With air one survives and lives; with air one could also die. So it all boils down to the quality of that air. 

Every living organism requires air for growth and survival. There is no life without air. No air, no life on earth. Human beings need air to breathe because oxygen is the propeller that allows body cells to produce energy from the food we eat. The role air plays in human life cannot be overemphasized because it is the main reason for living. Air is life, life is air.

Can Lagos Be Free From Traffic Challenges?

By Kayode Ojewale

Some Lagosians ignorantly see public facilities as state properties belonging to people in government only; as such they fail to take care of these public facilities. Put simply, public facilities are facilities provided by the government for the benefit of the general public. These facilities include, but not limited to roads, street lights, public buildings, crude oil pipelines and recreational areas. Public facilities, in reality, belong to the people and the people are expected to take ownership of and responsibility for them.

This ought to be so because public facilities are made available and funded with the tax payers’ money. The wrong mindset that public properties belong to the government makes some people vandalise them. It is same reason people steal and sell off public properties. By so doing, they believe they are punishing and hurting the people in government alone through these acts of vandalism, whereas and of a truth, they are indirectly hurting themselves by destroying amenities which make life easier for all.

Self-Medication Is Kiss Of Death

By Kayode Ojewal

In Nigeria, the open sale of drugs – both traditional and pharmaceutical— through unregistered outlets is a major concern. It is not strange to see unregistered ‘doctors’ and ‘pharmacists’ advertising and selling medicines in commercial buses and by the roadsides.

These drug hawkers are sometimes seen selling prescription-only antibiotics and other powerful painkiller drugs. They do not only prescribe drugs, but they also go as far as recommending the dosage to be taken to these unsuspecting commuters.  Some street hawkers have their shops, stores and makeshift ‘clinics’ located in motor parks and market places where they offer ‘general body checkups’ and also display their medicines for sale.

When What We Eat Turns Poisonous!

By Kayode Ojewale

“Let your food be your medicine, and your medicine be your food.”

– Hippocrates (460 – 370BC), Greek Doctor.

Audu Ogbeh, agriculture minister, sometime ago in a piece published by a national daily titled, ‘Nigeria, Global Standard In Food Production And Trade,’ wrote “What you eat, if you eat well, will determine your state of health and your longevity as a human being.

Unfortunately, most of the time nowadays, we are actually eating poison because of the way we handle our food production.  From the seed we cultivate, to the fertilizer we use, to the chemical we spray, to the way we process the food, or even preserve the food, or package the food, we are determining whether we are eating well or eating badly.”

Checking The Menace Of Expired Drugs

By Kayode Ojewale

Lately, Nigeria has witnessed increased cases of some heartless human beings with dead conscience relabelling and revalidating dates of expired foods and drugs. The arrests of the perpetrators and confiscations of relabelled expired drugs were carried out by the officials of the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) and National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC). 

The news media has thus been awash with stories of seized expired foods and drugs. It was recently reported that N15 million worth of fake expired products was confiscated in Nasarawa State. Just last month, NCS and NAFDAC destroyed N100 million worth of expired medicaments and other items at Seme command of NSC. Some N80 million worth of expired goods were destroyed also in Abuja last month by NAFDAC. It was revealed that some of the products were voluntarily submitted by companies and individuals while others were seized through enforcement.

How To Outlaw Counterfeit Drugs In Nigeria

By Kayode Ojewale

Drugs are medicines with physiological effects when taken which are used to treat illness, relieve a symptom or modify a chemical process in the body for specific purpose. On the other hand, fake drugs are drugs with low or wrong concentration of active ingredients, and in some cases with no active ingredient, packaged and marketed in deceptive manner. In clear terms, fake drugs are drugs which do not meet regulatory standards and approvals.

Drug counterfeiters release these drugs for sale at ridiculously cheap prices. This illicit act of drug counterfeiting by some unscrupulous elements in the society is not only worrisome and disturbing to the original manufacturers of the authentic products but also of great concern to the food and drug administrator and regulator in the country. 

Dangers Of Food And Water In Plastics

By Kayode Ojewale
Many Nigerians did not understand where the Agriculture Minister Audu Ogbeh was coming from when sometime ago he warned his compatriots against the use of cellophane in their food regime. He was speaking from a scientifically informed position we should align with for the good health of society.

The minister raised an alarm that Nigerians who are eating beans pudding (‘moinmoin’) cooked in cellophane (nylon) bags risk serious health challenge as the product is poisonous. According to him, cellophane bags contain large doses of dioxin that are harmful to health. Let me also add that liquid milk tin is also dangerous for packaging ‘moinmoin’ when cooking as leaching of chemical from the milk tin into the content will still occur. The healthy alternative for packaging or wrapping ‘moinmoin’ when steaming is the use of local green leaves which do not contain poisonous substances. These leaves rather add flavor, antioxidants and aroma to the ‘moinmoin’.