MRS. Helen Opiah started vomiting as soon as she finished eating the egusi soup and wheat she prepared. She was afraid of her life. She was confused and bewildered, thinking that she must have been poisoned. But she quickly dismissed the thought, recalling the meal was prepared by her.

Earlier in the day, Helen has taken the pain to beat the traffic snarl at Surulere Lagos on her way back from work to buy melon, smuggled frozen chicken and other soup ingredients at Jakunde market, Ketu. Not even her husband who had gone to work was around in their two-bedroom apartment when she prepared the meal, she recalled. “ No, this could be more serious than I thought,” she said. But there was no way to confirm the cause except going to the hospital.

But she cannot drive herself to hospital for fear of giving up on the way. She put a call through to her church member, Mr Festus Oni, who stays two streets away from her home in Ajegunle along Ikorodu Expressway, Lagos.

Without wasting time, Oni took Helen to a nearby hospital, but not without informing her husband. It was at the hospital that the medical director, Dr. Imose Luckman after medical diagnosis on Helen and listening to her story confirmed her suspicion; she had bacterial infection possibly from the food she ate. “ How?” Helen asked.

But that question was too terse and enigmatic for any answer to be provided immediately, but treatment commenced immediately.

The experience continued to baffle Helen until few weeks ago when Director General, National Agency for Food And Drug Administration And Control (NAFDAC), Dr. Paul Orhii in a press briefing in Lagos announced that most smuggled poultry foods in Nigeria, including chicken, are not only smuggled in, but are deadly.

Although the alarm may have appeared flat in some quarters, people like Helen who had nasty experience eating frozen chicken, it was an answer to the puzzling question.

Imported poultry food is a popular delicacy in Nigeria. Wedding, burial and naming ceremonies as well as graduation parties are not complete without it.

NAFDAC strongly warned against the consumption of smuggled poultry foods, stressing they have been found to be causative agent for non-communicable disease (NCD), such as cancer, hypertension, diabetes and kidney diseases as well as bacterial infection.

Orhii appeared not to be talking out of the blues. A study carried out by experts from University of Ibadan titled “Prevalence, Quality and Acceptability of Frozen Poultry Meat in Major Cities in Nigeria” was a tool which the NAFDAC boss used to support his argument.

Although frozen foods have been banned by the Federal Government, some Nigerians are still in the business of smuggling the banned poultry products into the country to the ‘delight’ of those who do not know the health implications of the products.

But Orhii said patronising smuggled poultry foods would not only encourage economic sabotage, but might damage people’s health.
“Our studies discovered that most of these products might have contained contaminants because of the way they are smuggled into the country. It could be formalin and at times it could be high level of antibiotics residue and other contaminants like heavy metals. And that is why we are discouraging members of the public from consuming them. We are particularly concerned about the high level of antibiotics residue because these can cause drug resistance, resistance to antibiotics,” Orhii said.

Prof. Olumide Tewe, a nutritional toxicologist is the lead expert that discovered the harmful effects of the smuggled frozen chicken and turkey.

According to Tewe, the sample for the study on smuggled frozen poultry carcasses were obtained from wholesalers and retailers in Lagos, Ibadan, Port-Harcourt and Abuja and analysed for heavy metals, microbial status and meat quality parameters.”

Tewe said: “Consumers in the study area mostly consume chicken and turkey. Other poultry meats consumed are duck, geese, guinea fowl and quail. Sources of poultry food sold is imported or poultry meat. Sources of poultry meat sold is imported or smuggled poultry meat. A very small percentage (15.33) of the retailers sold locally produced poultry meat.

“It was discovered that the foreign poultry products contain high levels of formaldehyde, as well as high levels of metals and other substances which are lethal to the human body as against the locally bred poultry products which did not contain such substances.