Drinking to death or life

To begin with, Nigerians like to merry. From north, south, east or west, the story is the same. We may indulge in different things but in the end we also do one thing: over-indulge. We over cook rice, over celebrate, over drink and other times don’t know when to stop. It is even worse for those whose circumstances are worse off economically speaking. From neighbourhood to neighbourhood, you find rows and rows of young men indulge in a drinking binge everyday while playing ludo. Beside them will be the now deadly locally made gins. They come in different names depending on the area or language: Sapele water, ogogoro, monkey tail, kaikai, etc. what was thought to be a local brew has notched up more chemicals, instead of the usual plant roots or bark or leaves.

It is the chemical called methanol that is mostly the harbinger of deaths spreading from Ode-Irele in Ondo state, all the way to Port Harcourt, Rivers state; packing in its trail tens of dead young men, who could have tarried while government tried to clean up the brew. But they won’t listen. Nigerians have a way of defying lawful others. They say, “na something go kill man”. But you never see them jump in front of a moving train or trailer. That is the irony of that proclamation; safe to conclude that it is indeed a defensive mechanism. When a man does not have a job, the propensity to latch up to an elixir is high. So the ubiquitous kaikai comes in handy but they never believe that the taste and efficacy of the brew has changed from what it used to be during the days of our fathers.

Our people think glibly about science, especially at the grassroots. They think it’s a White man's problem. That is why even when ogogoro was banned, majority of the people scorned. They could not wait to ascertain whether there was something in the prohibition before returning to their elixir. They just felt that since they cannot afford Scottish Whiskey and Russian Vodka that the “rich” was trying to deny them the little they can afford. But with the deaths now, local brewers are at odds understanding what has dimmed their prospects. The business is losing steam because people are dying. The safest way they can understand is by revealing what they add to the kaikai to make it more intoxicating. Just like every medicine and drug, the more frequent you use, the less efficacious it gets. And in order to stay in business, brewers have been forced to sax up their brew. Perhaps that informs the heavy methanol that is now found in the drink and that is responsible for the recorded deaths.

Decades ago, local gin was distilled from palm wine only- through strenuous fire or heating. As years rolled by, brewers began to shift to more commercially viable but health damaging alternatives. Water and chemicals became the major ingredients. The more methanol you add, the better your chances of intoxication until it became the main way of brewing local gin. So what we call “local gin” is simply water and chemical; whereas in time past, it was majorly heated palm wine. Times have indeed changed. And government agencies responsible for ensuring good public health and protecting consumers must change too. It should not stop at banning; in fact, it should begin with science too. You must use science to solve science related problems.

The National Food, Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC must employ new strategies to regulate that sub sector. It is a knee-jerk approach to ban, as a science based organisation, it must prepare unassailable system that can solve this existential problem. As a matter of fact, the deaths are a direct consequence of no regulation in that informal sector. Things were allowed to deteriorate. There was no supervision and no standards. We doubt if there is any now even as we mourn the dead. Therefore, it is our opinion that government charges NAFDAC to up their game. It is our opinion that everything about local gin brewing must be regulated. Otherwise, the ban will be a wasted exercise. This is so because the ban will only drive the business men in that sub sector underground. Then the deaths will continue. More sensitisation of the public should take pre-eminence. Just like it was with alternative medicine, that as of today, a lot of the practitioners are regulated based on standards, the same should be for local gin makers. The time to begin is now as millions of Nigerians depend on that brew to function at all, even if in self-denial.

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