“TAKALAMIN Kano, naman Lagos” translated as “a shoe in Kano is meat in Lagos,” is a popular Hausa proverb. Food vendors make sure ponmo is always part of the delicacies they serve their customers anytime they come for their usual meals. Many of local eateries’ customers relish it, even more than fish and assorted beef.
Despite its wide acceptance, the process of making it available for consumption has continued to raise questions among experts who believe that it may be harmful to public health, especially where the burning method is used.
Traditionally, burning of cow skin to brown ponmo requires the use of firewood but due to a number of factors, such as the unavailability of firewood, increasing demand and expanding ponmo market, the urge to maximize profit, among other factors, it has become practically impossible for those in the ponmo business to continue to use firewood for its processing.
As a result, various substances such as broken plastics, disused tires, kerosene, spent engine oil, used cement sacks among others, are used as fire sources, either alone or in combination with wood, to roast the cow skin.
The roasted skin is thereafter washed several times and boiled in water for several hours to soften it. It is further subjected to a final softening by soaking it in water until it is tender enough to look appealing to consumers.
According to experts, ponmo is potentially exposed to contaminants like toxic organic and inorganic compounds (polyaromatic hydrocarbons, dioxins, furans, benzene) and toxic metals dangerous for consumption. Yet, millions of Nigerian households prefer it as ‘meat’ of choice, and sometimes due to lack of alternatives.
Thriving processing business
Findings revealed that the various ponmo processing stages is a thriving business in the abattoirs visited in Lagos and Ogun states.
When Sunday Tribune visited the Oko-Oba abattoir, Lagos State, it was discovered that a large open land was set aside for Ponmo processing. The large piece of land was an admixture of mud and cow faeces overridden by stench already dark soil depicted pollution, apparently as a result of continuous burning of harmful substances to roast the cow skin.
“We do not sell; what we do here is to help you de-hair the cow skin either by burning or with hot water,” a female worker at the section told Sunday Tribune.
“Do you want to buy? You will have to buy the fresh cow skin, then you will bring it here, we will burn it for you. It is N700 for burning,” she concluded.
Interestingly, despite several calls against burning of cow skin with tyres, plastics, etc and awareness on the implications of these for public health, the practice still persists in most abattoirs on a daily basis, thereby, polluting the air as well as the environment.
“If you don’t hurry up and leave this place, you won’t see your way out because this place would have been covered in heavy smoke,” another woman advised. Thick black smoke was already enveloping the environment.
Sunday Tribune carefully observed how the poisonous substances were used with caution, obviously for fear of being caught by the veterinary doctors attached to the abattoir.
A survey of the place, showed heavy sacks loaded in different sections. Upon closer look, it was revealed that the sacks contained broken plastics made up of mostly television sets.
The plastics were broken into smaller particles and mixed with soil perhaps to avoid suspicion.
“It is plastic! Please do not allow the doctors see it. In fact throw it away,” an elderly woman who also works in the section advised Sunday Tribune.
A young local guide who took Sunday Tribune round the abattoir, affirmed that dangerous substances were being used to process the cow hides, adding that only few of them do not engage in such.
“I will take you to where they will help you de-hair it without chemicals,” he said willingly, adding: “All those people you see there, they use substances like rubber, something like these….” pointing at used take-away packs…”but when you buy, I will take you to a better place,” the local guide assured.
Asked why the veterinary doctors assigned to the abattoirs were not monitoring the process, he said: “how many places will they be at a time? They are very few and do you know how many cows that are killed here daily? he asked, adding: …”and you know we have various sections here. So how many will they do?”
Similarly at the Lafenwa abattoir in Abeokuta, Ogun-State, same practices thrive. It was however, gathered that ponmo merchants visit the abattoir in the morning, buy the cow skin and take them to their respective locations to process.
The abattoir, though small, has sections where cows were being butchered and sold to prospective customers. However, it lacked the necessary facilities needed to pass it off as a typical abattoir.
According to a local guide, only cow-tails are burnt at this abattoir while ponmo merchants come in the wee hours of the morning to buy the skin hides, which they burn, process and sell to ready buyers.
A visit to the cow tail burning section showed that although, firewood were used, other un-ascertained substances were also used as fuel for the fire.
Sweet killer
To ascertain the level of contaminants and toxins in burnt ponmo, physicochemical analysis was carried out on samples of already burnt cow skin from the Oko-Oba abattoir, Lagos State. The parameters involved test for heavy metals such as lead, chromium and cadmium.
After subjecting the samples to various stages of tests, it was revealed that the samples had traces of two of the three elements which, according to experts are carcinogenic.
Speaking with Sunday Tribune on the outcome of the tests, the National President, Nigeria Veterinary Council of Nigeria, Professor Bello Agaie, said the heavy metals trace found in the samples is worrisome as this is harmful to health if taken repeatedly over a period of time.
He said this is because heavy metals are non-biodegradable, which implies that they cannot be destroyed; hence the metal components accumulate in the body and in future lead to life-threatening ailments.
“We should be worried that the samples have traces of heavy metals because the problems with those metals – lead, chromium, cadmium and some others – are the fact that these components are non-biodegradable, meaning that the body cannot destroy them. So as we eat them, they continue to build up in our body.
“That is why we have the maximum residue limit. There is what we call acceptable daily intake. Meaning that if you take a limit of that, over a lifespan, let’s say someone who has lived for 70 years, one may not get a major harm. This is done in such a way that when a human being consumes it at that level, the chances are that maybe throughout life one may not get any major harm that is why they put the maximum limit.
“We need manpower; we need equipment. Lagos abattoir for instance, is a very large place where you slaughter hundreds of animals on a daily basis. How can we have one or two doctors to go and handle what is being done there on a daily basis and they must inspect every single animal that is slaughtered in that abattoir like the law says? Then who is going to handle how the materials are being processed? When doctors visit, they hide,” he said.
Lagos denies use of plastics, tyres
Despite available proofs obtained from the Oko-Oba abattoir, Lagos State, the Permanent Secretary, Lagos State Ministry of Agriculture, Dr. Olayiwole Onasanya,when contacted, told Sunday Tribune that although all abattoirs in the state have been concessioned, the burning of cowhides with plastics and tyres, among others, has been phased out.
“In Lagos State, the use of tyres and plastics is outlawed. If you go to our abattoirs, what is used is gas. We have moved to the next level. We do not use tyres or plastics to burn cow skin because it is poisonous. It is cancerous. So we have outlawed that. You cannot see it in our abattoirs
“It is not true (what Sunday tribune saw). I tell you they use gas, they do not use even wood again. The abattoir in Oko-Oba is owned by the Lagos State government but we leased it out to the private sector. We have other abattoirs that have been built by other private sectors but approved by the ministry. We have the power to license abattoirs.
“There is a process for burning of cow skin and this has been established by the veterinary department of the ministry. So as I said, the use of gas is what is acceptable, plastics or tyres are not allowed at all because these things leave lead deposits and (lead) it is cancerous,” he said..
On his part, the Director, Veterinary Services, Ogun State, Mr. Dotun Shorunke affirmed that the practice is extremely dangerous to human health.
However, he said the menace can only be addressed through continuous sensitisation of butchers, adding that there are no standard abattoirs in the state.
“There are two issues now, the use of tyres and nylons as sources of fuel to burn cow skin and use of imported hides for ponmo. They are both abused and apart from the toxic ponmo which is poisonous, burning with tyres, nylons is very, very, dangerous.
“The only way to guard against this is to sensitise our butchers. You know in the slaughter slab, there are a lot of values within one cattle. Someone will pick the laps, legs, another person will take the intestines. So they are specialised. So we have to educate those taking the hides for burning. Apart from burning, you can scald. It is a very good alternative for the preparation of ponmo.”
NAFDAC to increase testing for foods in common market – Adeyeye
Speaking on efforts of the agency in this aspect, the Director-General (DG) National Agency for Food and Drug Administration Control ( NAFDAC), Professor Mojisola Adeyeye, told Sunday Tribune that the agency is currently working to increase testing for foods in the common market.
She said in a bid to control the spread of poisonous, toxic cow-skin, some of the agency’s staff have on several cases, received death threats.
“It is within our jurisdiction because anything that can be packaged we have to test our raw material some of our staff whose life was threatened was as a result of cow skin issue. This is to show what we are doing, if we are not controlling, there will not be death threats,” she said.