The quality of life of Nigerians is dropping drastically due to the food consumed in the country. From fake milk to color dyes and additives in soft drinks as well as excessive sugar levels in baby food, it is a cause for alarm that the food consumed by Nigerians is directly behind some of the deaths encountered by children, especially.
What is even more interesting is that Nigeria has become a dumping ground for fake, fat-filled milk rejected by European Union countries due to lax regulatory laws. This brings to mind the work of the late Dora Akunyili, who served as the Director-General of NAFDAC, Nigeria’s food and drug control agency. In her tenure, she was able to actively regulate the pandemic of fake drugs and substandard and poisonous food. However, since her death, it seems as though Nigerians are experiencing drawbacks in the quality of the food consumed.
Once again, there is a pandemic of toxic food consumed by Nigerians, and the Nigerian government is not adequately responding to this. The Nigerian government is not making active steps to ensure that regulatory checks are put in place to effectively ban food industries that create substandard products for children, especially.
To give an example, in early 2025, news reports carried information that the commonly consumed Milo beverage created by Nestlé was particularly harmful to babies due to the kind of sugar placed in it. However, one would have expected the Nigerian government and health regulatory bodies to have funded nationwide campaigns focused on raising awareness about it. Although Nestlé issued a global recall of Milo products, Milo is still in Nigerian markets, and it is almost normal for it to be seen as a family beverage.
Even more, there have not been active steps taken to ensure that more mothers and fathers know from the antenatal stage of pregnancy that Milo is toxic to newborns and babies.
The problem of toxic food is however not limited to babies or newborns. In two separate reports, it was said that Nigeria is a dumping ground for rejected fat-filled milk and that popular drinks like Fanta had color dyes used on them that are harmful to Nigerian citizens. This is such that some popular Nigerian milk brands, like Kerrygold, which is used in ice cream production in Nigeria, were reported as being fat-filled abandoned milk from Europe.
The ingestion of toxic food in Nigeria also spreads to adults and affects the quality of life and longevity. With over 36.8 million litres of soda consumed daily in Nigeria, it is interesting to note that synthetic dyes such as Allura Red and Carmoisine are widely used in the production of these drinks.
These dyes, which are prohibited in several countries, have been linked to cancer and DNA damage. For dyes like Allura Red, it is warned against in children due to its ability to affect attention span and increase hyperactivity.
Unlike children who cannot take alcoholic products legally, Nigerian adults consume alcoholic goods like whiskey, beer, and vodka in high quantities. They are also prone to consuming fake alcohol due to poor regulatory standards. With alcohol touted as Nigeria’s leading invisible killer, it is necessary to note that there has been an increase in the use of heavy metals like arsenic and lead in the brewing of local gin. And there is not enough done to actively regulate this and the fact that over half of Nigerians aged 15 drink alcohol, when ideally alcohol is not to be sold to persons under the age of 18.
However, it is very important to mention that aside from the weak oversight of the government, Nigerian citizens and food producers are also complicit in the consumption of toxic and poisonous food in the country. For instance, experts have warned that over 60% of the palm oil sold in Nigerian markets has been mixed with carcinogenic dyes like Sudan III and IV, dyes meant for shoe polish and textiles.
Furthermore, to bulk up the oils after receiving them from local food processors, sellers also add fillers like paraffin, grease, and transformer oil. When this happens, Nigerians are far more likely to be at risk of cancer; one must also remember the centrality of palm oil as an ingredient in most Nigerian dishes to grasp how deadly this is.
Intentionally adding dyes to oils is not the only way food producers are complicit in the poisoning of Nigerians. Food storage is also another issue where poisoning takes place; it has widely been reported for example, that heavily poisonous insecticides like Sniper are sometimes used as preservatives for raw foods like beans.
The opportunity cost of being a Nigerian child, man, or woman is indeed one that drastically reduces the quality of health and lifespan. From babies who die, to women who report period symptoms from disorders like PCOS worsening around the consumption of soda drinks like Fanta and right down to men who carry diseases they may not know about until it is too late, our food is doing the exact opposite of what food is meant to do.
What then is the solution? The solution is simply for there to be more regulation about the kind of food that is brought into Nigeria. There must also be more regulation on food within Nigeria from local regulatory bodies like NAFDAC, FCCPC, and SON.
For example, the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) can launch awareness campaigns to inform retail vendors and consumers about the long-term damage of these practices on Nigerians and how being complicit opens space for their own health to be affected. This can and should be done in collaboration with influencers, local markets, and necessary community leaders in states like Benue and Plateau, in particular, as these states are central to food production.
In addition, the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission should ensure stricter enforcement is done. There should be tougher penalties for those caught participating in the contamination of food products. This should be done in partnership with agencies like NAFDAC and the media, such that the individuals caught would be publicly televised to serve as a deterrent.
Furthermore, Nigerians themselves should not stop raising awareness on our media platforms about the harms of these items and calling for healthier alternatives that will be in line with the wellbeing of Nigerians. Those who have been affected by fake drugs and the loss of children to fake food should also be encouraged to take legal action against anyone caught in the production of such.
There should also be stricter enforcement of the age of consent on buying alcoholic products, and schools must also collaborate with civic bodies and NGOs to spread more awareness about drug abuse and the dangers of uncontrolled alcohol use.
By doing these, we can hold the government accountable while still avoiding products that are substandard.
EDITOR’S NOTE & CLARIFICATION ON NESTLÉ NIGERIA’S MILO
Following further research and verification since publishing our original post on toxic food safety in Nigeria, MoreBranches wishes to clarify statements made regarding Nestlé’s Milo and the widely reported global recall.
While Milo does contain significant sugar levels that make it unsuitable for infants and toddlers —a position Nestlé Nigeria itself publicly states on its product FAQs, the product is designed and labelled for children from age six and above, in line with WHO nutritional guidelines.
The voluntary recall announced by Nestlé UK in early 2026 was specific to certain batches of its SMA Infant Formula and Follow-On Formula, due to the potential presence of cereulide, a heat-resistant toxin. This recall did not involve Milo in the Nigerian market, nor did it affect any Nestlé infant formula products registered and sold in Nigeria. Nigeria’s apex food and drug regulatory body, NAFDAC, has confirmed that all Nestlé infant formula products approved for the Nigerian market manufactured at Nestlé’s Tuas Factory in Singapore are safe and unaffected by the recall.
