If you are my friend and you reside in Nigeria and you have never read anything I had written on Facebook before now, I urge you to read this piece careful.
The spate at which people are developing cancer in Nigeria concerns me. In a space of one week, THREE people very close to me at one time or the other in Nigeria passed. In the last 6 months, I have lost five people to different forms of cancer. All of them in their prime (40 – 50+ years) and all because of the same type of ailment in different forms. Advanced cancer has no treatment, early detection and proper care can save a life. However, preventive measures are better than cure.
In the last two and half decades, the rush to wealth and greed fueled by a corrupt mindset has created a system where POISON is fed to many daily and we do not know because these poisons are invisible in and on the foods that we consume daily. Many imported foods are poisoned before they reach our shores and the regulatory agencies that supposed to save our people are probably compromised because of the same greed – they collect kick-back, overlook a consignment of imported goods that supposed to be subjected to a thorough evaluation and certification; Nigerians and foreigners are importing fake or alternative goods that contains nothing but poison – some contain heavy metals that are carcinogens and buy their death with their own money unknowingly. Farmers and aggregators producing and distributing foods for the domestic market engage on all kinds of ungodly practices that endanger the lives of the consumers – over the use of pesticides and fumigants are common practices today and there is no oversight to stop these practices.
It is high time we took more care to prevent untimely death. Here are my suggestions:
1. Pure water, bottled water, if stored for too long, the chemicals (metals) in the plastic containers start to leach into the water. Many pure water bags are kept outside under the sun for so long before they are sold. That is a recipe for cancer. Buy directly from the manufacturers or sellers who do not store in the sun and provide manufacturing date. Anything more than a few weeks old, do not buy or drink. If water is running in the taps from Water corporations across the nation, there will not be a need for the proliferation of pure water business. I know it provides jobs for millions, but the danger of lack of oversight in the water production/purification process is creating a healthcare crisis in our nation.
2. Eat locally produced produce and avoid imported fruits. Buy from farmers market if possible – i.e., directly from the farmers in order to prevent unholy practices by some vendors to store their goods for a longer time looking fresh.
3. If you must eat imported fruits like apples, soak them in soda solution. It is guaranteed to remove over 99% of any heavy metal and chemical contaminants. Note that it is not only imported fruits that have chemical contaminants – some locally produced fruits and vegetables do get contaminated – sometimes because of overuse of herbicide and other agrochemicals. Soda solution treatment does magic if it will not damage the produce.
4. Freshly produced foods are better than processed foods. Make that a choice when you can.
5. Reduce intake of fried foods or any food processing that causes Maillard reaction (a chemical reaction between an amino acid and a reducing sugar at high temperature) or caramelization (pyrolysis of certain sugars). The browning in food is a called chemical called acrylamide that is reported to be carcinogenic (cancer causing). Boil instead of frying (egg, plantain, etc.)
6. Avoid all these colored bottled drinks. Many of them contain artificial colorants that predispose you to cancer.
7. Remove your generating set far away from your house. Fume produced contains cancer-causing gases.
8. Try to avoid getting stuck in traffic frequently. Leave home early and leave the office late in order to avoid traffic pollution. The exhaust from vehicles on our roads is like smoking hundreds of sticks of cigarette every day.
9. Buy your medicines only from trusted pharmacies and not mama-ologun in Mushin or Abebi. A lot of the drugs in many pharmacies in Nigeria are either fake or contain poison.
10. Be careful in the way you use all these local concoctions. Many of them are poison without any gauge. They can cause cancer. If you have an option, do not drink anything that is not certified by NAFDAC as safe.
11. When you have a feeling of uneasiness, seek medical care immediately. Do not use faith alone, add work to your faith. It is not a sin to go to the hospital for medical treatment, especially for my “jimjim” faith brethren.
12. When there is a diagnosis of any kind, rally trusted family for support. There is no shame in being sick, it is not that you have sinned nor does it mean you cannot stand alone. A good support system is very helpful to your faith in a difficult time.
Most importantly, I urge the various regulatory agencies, professional bodies and political office holders that work around Agric. production, food safety, and the environment to stand up to fight this menace. NAFDAC, Standard Organization of Nigeria, Nigeria Agricultural Quarantine Service, Nigerian Institute of Food Science and Technology, Association of Radiologist in Nigeria, National Assembly Committees on Food and Agricultural Production and Processing, it is time to stand up to our responsibility. We need to stop poisons from entering our land, we need to provide oversight to good agricultural practices, we need to influence policies on food safety, and we need to ensure radiation machine and cancer treatments clinics are well equipped for quick and proper diagnosis and treatment of cancer patients.
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