As it is with every Ramadan period, concentrated juice drinks have again flooded the streets of Kano city, raising concerns about the hazardous products being consumed by residents.
The fear is further heightened because of the impact the adulterated and fake products had on several families during the Ramadan in 2021.
At least 10 persons were reported to have died and more than 400 hospitalised in the city during the same period last year after taking adulterated juice.
The drinks were said to have contained hydroxylamine, a chemical not fit for human consumption.
Checks by Daily Trust across strategic junctions and traffic light points across the metropolitan area confirmed that the hitherto rare concentrated juices are now being hawked all day along the streets.
There have been reports that many of the concentrated juice brands do not have legal certification by the relevant regulatory bodies such as the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC).
Why we consume concentrated juice
Some residents told Daily Trust that concentrated juice and other powdered flavour drinks are relatively cheaper especially at this time when demand for fruits and other drinks is high.
Amina Aliyu explained that for quantity and economic reasons, she opted for concentrated juicy drinks.
She said, “I am a single mother with four kids and I live together with my mother and my younger sister. With the hike in prices of everything especially during this month of Ramadan, running the house is becoming too costly and that is why I decided to find ways to cut the cost of some things we use in the house. That is why I stopped buying this bottled drink, as just a 40cl bottle is being sold at N120, and started buying the 3-litre concentrated juice which we drink for three days when diluted.”
Another customer, Bala Ado, said he didn’t believe the juice is harmful. “I have been using it for years and nothing has happened to me, and it is very affordable,” he added.
For Hajara Ahmad, who admitted knowledge of the incident that killed many people and rendered others sick last year, she insisted that most people buy the drinks because of low prices.
“I know some people died last year but they probably bought the wrong or expired ones. That is why I always check for the NAFDAC number. I buy the drink because it is cheap,” she said.
We sell to make ends meet, not aware of its dangers – Hawkers
Some hawkers of the products who spoke to Daily Trust claimed ignorance of their harmful effect.
Musa Mu’azu, who hawks at Dan Agundi Triangle, disagreed that the juice could be poisonous.
“I have been drinking it myself. Although I am not the manufacturer, it is registered with NAFDAC,” he said, pointing to the NAFDAC number on the bottle.
For Ado Abdu, the juicy drinks business is a good one, especially during the fasting period.
“This is the period when you make a lot of sales. We reach our peak of sales during the fasting month of Ramadan. Don’t forget we and our family also take it. It is not harmful because if it is harmful, we cannot take it to our houses”, he insisted.
NAFDAC seizes over 250 cartons, confirms arrest of suspects
But the Kano office of NAFDAC disagrees with the hawkers that the concentrated juice is fit for human consumption and has consistently raided several shops and “makeshift factories” where some of these products, believed to be unfit for human consumption, were confiscated.
It also arrested three persons including a manufacturer of the fake product recently.
The state director of NAFDAC, Shaba Mohammed, told newsmen that the suspects confessed to manufacturing, marketing and distributing the concentrated juice without NAFDAC certification and approval.
“We also discovered that there are some (concentrated juice) that are unregistered. There are some that are falsified. They just lean on some other people’s registered products and copy, clone and you will think they are registered products. We have instances of such,” he said.
For the arrested hawkers, the NAFDAC boss said, “They confessed to have been collecting it from somewhere in the market so we went to the market and we saw some 40 cartons and we invited the person since we saw NAFDAC number on the product. But in the office during interrogation, he confessed that some people used to bring the product to him but now they stopped, so he decided to go ahead and do it himself. We followed him to where he is doing it and incidentally, it is his house. And where he is doing this thing is very filthy, very close to a pit latrine.”
In this single raid, the regulatory agency said it confiscated over 250 cartons of the fake concentrated juice.
KSCPC seizes fake products
Similarly, Kano State Consumer Protection Council (KSCPC) has said it has seized 5,000 cartons of powdered juicy drinks in its efforts to preserve public health and prevent a repeat of last year’s incident where many lives were lost.
The Managing Director of KSCPC, Gen. Idris Dambazau (rtd.), also said the agency was engaging all critical stakeholders such as marketers, distributors and dealers to sensitise them to help in tackling fake and adulterated products in the market.
NAFDAC, KSCPC caution the general public
Meanwhile, both NAFDAC and KSCPC have cautioned the general public on buying and consuming adulterated and fake drinks during the month of Ramadan and beyond.
In their separate pleas, the agencies admitted that there is prevalence of fake products in the state; hence, the general public must be careful of what they consume even as the agencies intensify efforts to ensure public safety.
The state director of NAFDAC, Mohammed, said all concentrated juice brands and other drinks genuinely certified by the agency could be justifiably consumed.
He stated, “We monitor the production process of all concentrated juice brought to us from the raw material through to the manufacturing process to laboratory analysis and everything to ensure that everything is within limit and safe.
“For the fake ones, they are produced by people who have no knowledge of what they are doing. They don’t know the right quantity to use. It could be high or low. And it might not even be related to anything that could be consumed, that is the danger in it.
“I advise the general public to desist from buying juice at those junctions. Find the time and go to the supermarket. Of course, supermarkets are well monitored by us. And anything that goes there is registered and you are secured but anything you buy at the junction, some of them might be expired things that have been invalidated.”
In the same vein, Gen. Dambazau rtd., KSCPC Managing Director, advised that, “people should ensure that whatever product they are buying should have NAFDAC number, manufacturing and expiry date.”
