NAQS boss warns dealers on the use sniper

·       Describes pesticide as weapon of ‘mass destruction’

The Coordinating Director (CD), Nigeria Agricultural Quarantine Service (NAQS) Dr. Vincent Isegbe

 The Coordinating Director (CD), Nigeria Agricultural Quarantine Service (NAQS) Dr. Vincent Isegbe has warned beans dealers against the use of a pesticide called ‘’sniper’’ as food produce preservation saying its chemical is too toxic for human consumption.

In a statement made available through the media head, Dr. Chigozie Nwodo, Dr. Isegbe lamented the increase in the use of this chemical with high toxicity in the preservation of agricultural produce in the country saying “the substance in question is an organophosphate called DDVP (2, 2-dichlorovinyl dimethyl phosphate) which is dangerous to health, if misapplied as a pesticide it is capable of causing death if inhaled or ingested in sufficient quantities. This is because the compound can bind to the lung or kidney and may become carcinogenic’’

“Sniper ought not to come in contact with any edible material that will eventually be digested by human beings. Sniper in beans is a material equivalent of death in a pot. Nigerians eat a lot of beans. It is a very popular staple food item in this part of the world. So it may not be an exaggeration to say that sniper in beans is a weapon of mass destruction.’’

He urged bean dealers to put respect for human life ahead of hunger for gain. He advised them to withdraw beans already preserved with sniper from the market and utterly destroy them.

Dr. Isegbe lamented the coming of this issue at the wrong hour when European Union (EU) is already planning to lift the ban placed on Nigerian beans from being exported to any of its members.

Isegbe who said Nigeria does not have a National Pesticide Policy called for holistic approach to ending the storage of food items with harmful chemicals

and disclosed that his agency would soon embark on random sampling of beans across the country to ascertain the level of chemical usage and that an inter-agency committee has been constituted to develop the policy.

Meanwhile, Chief Audu Ogbeh, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, has said no Nigerian is safe and exempted from contaminated food consumption occasioned by dangerous and harmful chemicals used by farmers and food dealers to preserve them.

Speaking in Abuja at the meeting with heads of agencies and stakeholders to brainstorm on the way forward on the wrong use of chemicals on agricultural produce, Ogbeh called for concerted efforts to end the menace.

He said, “We have sniper, which they said damages lungs if put in food. We have other challenges. People will go and buy frozen chickens preserved with formalin. Even when National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control [NAFDAC] confiscates and buries them, some people will still dig them up and eat. So we are in a crisis state. The big problem is how to get people to know that that is bad. The level of education and literacy is not high in Nigeria.

“Why are young people these days coming down with kidney and liver diseases? Nobody knows our misconduct that is causing all these problems.

All these are due to bad water, which many people drink. You can see why they said our life expectancy is very low. We need to work on these.

The minister who said he complained some time ago about the cellophane for wrapping of moimoi and even the grinders used in the markets, continued “They are not stainless. In the course of grinding food, particles of these metals from the grinder mix with the food. We have tried to develop a stainless grinding machine. But the prototype is a bit much for the people in the markets who grind pepper, onions and pepper. We are trying to buy and encourage people to use them. So we have a duty to do something. At the end of this meeting, we will develop a strong communication team to educate farmers, agro-dealers and everyone.

He promised that “We will use radio, television and perhaps campaign in those areas where they are using these chemicals. This is because people do not know how dangerous these chemicals are. No human being is safe in our environment now. When you buy beans, you don’t know what is used to preserve it. When you buy smoked fish, you don’t know what they used.”