Family Tragedy in Danja Local Government, Katsina State.

[Nuruddeen]

A Village Head and his 12 family members in Danja Local Government area of Katsina State died. The deceased died as a result of eating poisoned food stuff (Millet grain) bought from the market. This happened last week. The 13 body corpses were since buried according to Islamic rites. May God give their relatives the fortitude to bear the irreparable loss.

?   I think it will be good to resolve to my  normal vernacular here. So I beg your pardon dear onliners. Allah yayiwa Wani Dagaci tare da iyalansa goma sha biyu rasuwa a karamar hukumar Danja. Mamacin tare da iyalansa sun mutu gaba daya sakamakon Hatsi da suka auna a kasuwa wanda suka yi abinchi suka ci ba tare da sanin cewar akwai guba a ciki. Allah ya gafarta musu gaba ki dayan su ya ba danginsu hakuri mu kuma ya  kyautata namu karshen. Allah yasa mu gama da duniya lafiya. Domin wannan abu ne da zai iya faruwa akan kowa.
?   Sai dai masu ajiyar kayan abinchi da masu aunarwa suyi wa Allah da Annabi suji tsoronsa su bar zuba gubar da idan mutum yaci ko da ya wanke  ya wanke wannanabincin da ya saya a kasuwa kafin ya dafa zaiyi masa illa har ma yakai ga halaka. Su masu ajiye wannan kayan abinchi da masu sayarwa munsan suna zuba wadannan magunguna masu guba ne da niyyar kashe kwari dan kada su lalata masu wannan abinchi. To amma irin wadannan ajiya basai anyi amfani da magani mai guba ba. Yanzu irin wannan mai ya haifar dan ya rasulillahi. Allah yasa mu da ce

[alhaji_aminu]

Assalamu Alaikum.

This is tragic. One hopes the poison in the food wasn't put there for any malicious reasons. It will be prudent if the police will determine the root of why there is poison in food being sold in the market.

Allah ya jikan musulmi............... amin

[EMTL]

Assalamu alaikum,
inna lilLah wa inna ilaiHi rajiuwn,

Allah (SWT) Ya jikansu da gafara.

[usman11]

If this people ate food that was contaminated, I would think law enforcement should be investigating this possibility. However, if an investigation should exist, why are the people buried? The county coroner's office should have these bodies in their lab and have a toxicologist perform an autopsy to determine the exact kind of chemical substance in the blood stream of the victims. This process will help determine whether the people were poisoned deliberately (in which case, it becomes an homicide) or if death was accidental as a result of contaminated food consumed, the health department could identify the source and issue a warning to prevent any further deaths.  Is this not the direction the authorities should be going?

[Nuruddeen]

If this people ate food that was contaminated, I would think law enforcement should be investigating this possibility. However, if an investigation should exist, why are the people buried? The county coroner's office should have these bodies in their lab and have a toxicologist perform an autopsy to determine the exact kind of chemical substance in the blood stream of the victims. This process will help determine whether the people were poisoned deliberately (in which case, it becomes an homicide) or if death was accidental as a result of contaminated food consumed, the health department could identify the source and issue a warning to prevent any further deaths.  Is this not the direction the authorities should be going?

This is a very good observation Mallam Usman. You see, in Nigeria when things happened like this people are allowed to go free without tracing to logical conclusions. In my own opinion I think the government need to take serious action on these people who hoard food stuff using heavy and dangerous xmicals. This can be achieved via serious mornitoring and sanctioning of anybody found in such terrible storage bussiness. I believe there are healthy and proper way of storing food stuff better than the crook method that is in practice these days.

[usman11]

I agree with you. I guess the health department along with the govt should begin rethinking ways to ensure safety in regards to food consumption, processing, storage etc. My opinion, and I have been to many markets in Nigeria, the hygiene situation is horrible. There are no laws governing how food items are handled distributed, and sold to the public. I have seen where meat and fish are left open on tables while flies constantly feast on them.  I have see where Cows are butchered and how unhygienic the process is. The the water source is just as bad. A combination of all these unsafe food items does damage to ones immune system. It should not be until when people die in such significant number at a sitting that concern should arise. The authorities in charge of community health need to begin crafting laws to protect consumers.

I think our entire outside market structure should be scrapped completely. We should move towards an idea of indoor supermarkets where food items are already proceesed and packaged, and that included frozen foods.  In fact, there should be an entire area for frozen food sales where the stores have deep freezers in order to preserve poultry and dairy products.

That aside, we should have trained code enforcement people from the department of health who monitor and write report on the sanitation standards of these stores that handle sale of food items to the public to make sure they are in compliance of federal health codes.  When store operators fail to meet the safety standards, a violation should be issued and closed down until they take the appropriate measure to meet that standard before being allowed to operate again.

I think if these measures are adopted, and people trained properly on fod handling, we can reduce such incidents as the one above, reduce diseases like Cholera, typhod fever, etc.