Tosin Omoniyi
22 November 2009
analysis
Janet's (not real name) disdain for the sachet water, popularly known as 'pure water', possibly began right from her undergraduate days at the Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma.
There ,as a student staying off the campus ,she had seen firsthand, the preparation process of packaged water by a neighbor of hers. What particularly disturbed her then were the unhygienic conditions under which the water was produced and subsequently distributed.
'I was able to see how this low income family ,earned money through the venture. The whole process of packaging the water took place right in the one room apartment of the family. The water used was fetched from a well inside the compound, where we all lived. All the equipment this family had, was a rusty sealing machine, pure water sachets already bearing NAFDAC tags ,and the water which was in abundance in the compound.'
Janet recalls with revulsion how the water was filtered: 'the whole process was simple. The well water was filtered through the use of a white cloth that was wrapped around the neck of the container, used to fetch the water. The water was sieved once, packaged and then sealed with the machine, in preparation for sale. What appalled me most was the fact that the white cloth was hardly changed ,but was usually re washed and used again in the next production process. The family made considerable money from the sale of the packaged water but did not apparently care about the healthy condition of the process.'
Janet has subsequently steeled her resolve not to consume packaged water anywhere she finds herself in any part of the country, no matter how thirsty she is. She confesses , 'I am amazed when people lavishly gulp this so called pure water on a daily basis, without giving thought to whether it is produced under healthy conditions or not. People should be more wary.'
Muftau Bankole, a commercial bus driver ,plying his trade in the capital city, however sees the advent of pure water as beneficial, and probably cares less about the preparation procedure. 'The work I do is strenuous. Day in and day out I work under the hot sun trying to make a living and you know what this can do to the body. You cannot expect me to be drinking bottles of SWAN and Ragolis. How do I account for this from my meager earnings? Pure water is affordable and when it is cold it cools my system whenever I am thirsty,' he says. He accepts the fact that some of the water may not actually be prepared hygienically. But then he waxes philosophical: 'something must be the source of everyman's death. If water will be the cause of mine then, so be it, but above all I know that the kind of death one has is determined by God only.'
Unarguably the sale of pure water appears to be one business that is blossoming in Nigeria today. Hardly would one pass any street in the metropolis of any of the nation's 36 states ,including the country's capital, Abuja, and you would fail to notice the horde of pure water merchants that are virtually all over the place. In commercial nerve centers of Nigeria, they thrive most in the midst of traffic hold ups ,at times brashly thrusting their wares through the car windows of thirsty and impatient motorists,as they wait for the traffic congestion to ease. Interestingly the trade is not restricted to sex, age, religion or tribe. Virtually everyone, irrespective of these barriers engage actively in the business. Apparently the downturn in the nation's economy had also made it easier for new entrants into the business on a daily basis.
However according to Obinna Nwafor, an artisan, children especially the under aged ones appear to be more in the majority of those that sell packaged water today. This he says is unacceptable. 'It is an eyesore. Those children who ought to be in school, can now be seen everywhere on the major streets of Abuja ,carrying buckets of sachet water on their heads. One begins to wonder if this does not bother our leaders. Their lives and health are endangered every day,' he fumes.
Last year the city of Lagos was jolted out of its lassitude when the media reported the brutal death of a young girl selling pure water. She had been crushed to death by an oncoming tipper as she raced to collect payment of the water she had sold to an impatient motorist. Sadly many more have had their lives cut short as they engage in the perilous trade on the streets of the nation.
However others appear to be affected only by the positive sides of the trade. Mama Chisom, a petty trader in Jikwoyi, says that the sale of pure water has at least provided food on her table. She says that she buys the bag of pure water at the rate of N75 and sells it at N100. She notes that she makes more profits when she sells the sachets individually, at the rate of N10. A bag contains twenty sachets. Pure water ,according to her sells fast especially when chilled ,and the prime time of business for her and every other merchant in the hot afternoon.
A nurse, Mrs. A .Adesua prefers the sachet water to pipe borne water that is in abundance in her area of habitation in Iju, Lagos state. She attests to the fact that not all the products are hygienic ,which is why she settles only for the brands she is familiar with ,and which she can relatively verify its safety for consumption. She states that she buys at least 20 bags every week for her family's consumption ,and can only take pipe borne water when it is boiled. She however cautions people who take the pure water products to endeavor to verify its source and ascertain its hygienic state before settling for a particular brand.
A top media executive resident in Abuja is more concerned about the way people handle the products and the environmental hazard caused by the sachets when they are used by consumers. He says that, 'everywhere you go all you see are pure water packages littering our streets and the manufacturers are more concerned about making profits than helping the relevant authorities to clear the mess made by their products. On the handling of the products he has this to say: 'whenever I want to board a cab and I see the cab driver dangling a pure water sachet between his lips ,it automatically puts me off, and I do not enter such taxis. The careless attitude he displays to me, ultimately determines his overall attitude behind the wheels.'
Not a few Nigerians have called on the authorities to ban the sale of packaged water on the streets. However there are others who feel that the business is harmless ,and has ultimately helped to reduce the rate of unemployment in the country as the business is one of the highest employers of labor, probably next in line to the mobile telecommunications business. Erstwhile director general of the National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC and currently the minister of information, Mrs Dora Akunyili appears to have empathized with the latter school of thought when she held sway at the agency. At a one day seminar held in Lagos by the Consumer Protection Council, CPC during her tenure as NAFDAC's boss, she was quoted to have asserted ,' some people have constantly advised us to ban pure water ,because pure water people are littering the streets with sachets. Banning pure water is the most insensitive thing anybody can think of ,because pure water production is one of the greatest poverty alleviation programmes in the country,and has employed labor ,so its ban will end their source of livelihood.
Mrs H Keri, NAFDAC director, who presently heads the agency's unit in charge of Investigations and Establishment, however says that the agency is not relenting in its battle against fake and adulterated products, that may cause hazards to the health of consumers. She equally adds that the agency and its numerous agents spread across the length and breadth of the country,are constantly monitoring manufacturers of consumables around the country and would bring to book any defaulter. The agency also carries out sensitization programs on the ills of unhygienic water and also offers free tutorials on the production of safe drinking water.
However the environmental impact of the careless attitude to waste of the water products appears not to be receiving enough attention from the authorities. On most streets in the country ,especially in the metropolitan areas, litters of pure water sachets is a regular sight especially in the gutters, thereby arousing further fears that the poor drainage system in most states would be affected negatively.
In Abuja, the capital city the situation is getting slowly out of control ,even as the members of the Abuja Environmental Protection Board appear to be slumping under the burden of cleaning up the ever increasing refuse castles in the city. Some states have however fashioned out measures to tackle their own menace even as the FCT authorities appear confused.
In Lagos state, it has virtually become a taboo to drop an empty sachet of pure water or any other dirt on its roads. The fear of the officials of the Kick Against Indiscipline, KAI, seems to be the beginning of wisdom for most residents. The officers who appear out of the thin air would practically drag any defaulter to any of the numerous mobile courts where they would be summarily judged and made to part with a hefty sum of money. Like their counterparts in the Vehicle Inspection Organisation, VIO, the KAI officials are hardly moved by pleadings or financial inducement from members of the public. Also consistently, the Association of Table Water Producers in conjunction with the state's ministry of environment carry out massive sanitation exercises aimed specifically at ridding the state of pure water bags littering the streets. In Benue state, the nation's food basket, street laws enforced by the Benue State Environmental Sanitation Agency ensures the cleanliness of most of the streets. Defaulters are also tried at mobile courts stationed at areas like Wadata, Ushongo close and the popular High Level Park while numerous disposal boxes are provided at strategic positions across the state. Perhaps, a unique measure taken by the state is the monthly purchase of pure water sachets at the rate of N200, 000 for recycling purposes which has considerably freed the state from the eyesore of heaps of pure water sachets. Due to the inability of the state's private refuse collection companies to carry out their duties, the state also purchased 25 units of refuse disposal tractors, 150 refuse containers, 10 units of excavators, 7 units each of wet sweepers and dry sweepers from the Polish Government at the cost of N344m.
Many of course feel that the efforts at ensuring cleanliness of the surroundings should be that of every Nigerian and not just the authorities. Pa Imafidon, a retired octogenarian opines: 'I'm in my eighties and I must say that in all these years I've been living in this country, I've never seen our environment as filthy as it has been in the last fifteen years. Right, left and centre, its filth, and more filth. In my childhood, you wouldn't see any pile of rubbish on the roadside. Yet, we had only a handful of highly educated people in the country. If you had the first school leaving certificate from the primary school, it was like you had a university degree. You were enlightened enough to know that a dirty environment constituted a lot of danger to human health, and you did your best to keep your home and environment clean. That is absent today!'
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2009 Daily Trust. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
