In the heart of Igbo society, the Umuada embody a paradox of power. They are daughters of the land who, once married out, retain the right to return and speak with a voice that often eclipses that of men. Across the Igbo landscape, their influence still resounds, sometimes as a shield for tradition, and sometimes as a sword that cuts into dignity and rights. However, as the clash between culture, law, and human rights heightens, GODFREY GEORGE asks if they are timeless custodians of identity, or have become instruments of exclusion and abuse
“A chorom ima (I don’t want to know). You will pay everything, and not one kobo will be left. Okwa onu gi na ga wa wa wa? (You have a sharp mouth, right?) We shall see who is who!”
According to Nneoma, the only surviving daughter of a retired civil servant in Ekwusigo Local Government Area of Anambra State, those were the harsh words flung at her during her father’s burial; they were uncompromising demand of the Umuada.
The Umuada, literally translated as “daughters of the land,” are not just a gathering of women but a formidable institution in Igbo culture. Bound by tradition, they return to their natal homes as custodians of customs, wielding a kind of authority that shapes both the social and spiritual fabric of their communities.
Their presence can sanctify a burial, settle festering disputes, or, as in Nneoma’s case, turn moments of grief into tense negotiations of power.
Nneoma’s eldest sister had died during childbirth, leaving her and two brothers, who work as builders in Delta State, to shoulder the weight of family responsibilities.
Years earlier, when her mother died after a brief illness, her body was taken to Ihite for burial. Some Umuada objected, insisting her marriage rites had not been fully completed and that she could not be regarded as a true wife of the community.
“I didn’t even know my mother was not fully married to my father till that day. It was both shocking and embarrassing to be referred to as ‘children whose legs have not reached the ground,” Nneoma recalled.
The group was split, their voices rising in sharp disagreement. It took relentless pleas, coupled with the payment of fines by the in-laws and the intervention of the Umunna, the male counterpart of the Umuada, before her mother’s body was finally allowed to be lowered into the ground.
Nneoma remembered the day vividly. She and her late elder sister had clashed openly with the women, their grief colliding with tradition.
Though still young, she had refused to cower. Her voice, sharp with anger, rose against the authority of the Umuada.
Looking back now, she admits she might have spoken more harshly than she intended, but at that moment, fear had no place, only defiance.
“I think they took offence and kept a record of me,” she said with a smirk on her face.
So, when her elder sister died in childbirth and was brought home, unmarried to the man who fathered her child, the Umuada again resisted.
This time, not because of family ties, but because she, being the first daughter of her family, refused to associate and identify with the Umuada.
Nneoma’s father and brothers were forced to plead and pay some fines before the burial could proceed. The women, Nneoma noted, were only forgiving because of the circumstances surrounding the young woman’s passing.
“They accused us of failing to pay dues or join in communal chores like cleaning the village square,” Nneoma said.
Living in Lagos, with her sister in Abuja, she struggled to see the relevance.
“My father and aunts mentioned it once or twice at Christmas, but honestly, these women’s practices didn’t sit well with me. I discarded the idea,” she said.
By the time her father was laid to rest, the demands of the Umuada had become relentless, almost suffocating. For two straight days, they turned the family compound into their base, expecting to be catered for at every hour. Morning began with bread and steaming tea; by midday, full meals were required; and at night, nothing less than plates of spicy isiewu would suffice.
One midnight, as the compound lay in heavy silence, they banged on doors and roused her brother from sleep, ordering him to fetch goat meat to satisfy their craving. Their preferences were non-negotiable: a specific brand of chocolate beverage for their tea, a particular malt drink at hand, and a beer brand of their choice to “step down” their pepper soup.
“They just wanted to punish us,” Nneoma said with painful recollection. “It was terrible. We kept paying fine after fine, mostly because I couldn’t hold my tongue.
“…And my father was a very popular man, and these women claimed we abandoned him till he died, alleging that it was the same way we abandoned our mother till her demise.
“That’s not true. On several occasions, we had asked our father to move to Delta State to stay with the boys, but he declined. He insisted on staying back at home after retirement. What were we supposed to do? When my elder sister was still here, we wanted to take him to Abuja, but he refused, saying he didn’t love the noise.”
In the end, Nneoma and her brother had no choice but to comply. They paid the fines, served bread and tea to the women for the two mornings they camped, and ensured there was more than enough refreshment throughout the funeral.
“We were warned by my father before he passed that we must obey the traditions of the land so his spirit would be accepted by the ancestors in the other world,” she explained.
“So, we just did it as part of his dying wishes. Left to me, I would have buried my father in Lagos. Let me see how they would come and drink tea at Ikoyi Cemetery,” she blurted.
Nneoma’s experience is far from isolated. Across many Igbo communities, especially among women, punishments are meted out for alleged infractions, whether neglect, abandonment, adultery, petty crimes, or even something as simple as failing to provide every item demanded during a customary occasion.
Bathed in muddy water
Umuada women in action
One February morning in a quiet Igbo community, the air heavy with the wails of mourners, an incident unfolded that unsettled many. A woman, long accused of neglecting her mother-in-law while she was alive, had dared to show up at the funeral. Her presence sparked outrage. The Umuada swiftly intervened. They accused her openly before the crowd and declared that she must be punished.
They led her to the village stream, forced her to fetch water with a clay pot balanced precariously on her head, and marched her back along the dusty path. In front of the gathered crowd, she was made to kneel while the Umuada bathed her with the water, then smeared her skin with mud scooped from the ground. Her dignity stripped, she was publicly shamed, the Umuada insisting they were enforcing cultural rights.
Scenes like this are neither rare nor entirely hidden. They speak to the enduring power and controversial role of the Umuada, once revered as custodians of morality and peacemakers in Igbo society.
Traditionally, they stood above factional politics and were known to challenge patriarchy, step into land disputes, and intervene where men’s councils faltered. But in contemporary Nigeria, their actions have become layered with contradiction: part shield, part sword.
Social media is littered with videos of Umuada gatherings where women are doused with dirty water for allegedly neglecting family obligations, some forced to grovel for forgiveness, while others are painted with ashes or mud.
Demands for bread and tea at funerals
Three months later, another episode made the same cultural friction plain. On July 5, 2025, a burial in the South-East went viral after a Facebook post from an attendee complained that a local Umuada group allegedly behaved insensitively at the service of songs held for a 26-year-old woman. They were said to be consuming tea and bread in a way the poster described as “uncaring” and inappropriate for such a young deceased.
The post, the images and video that accompanied it produced hundreds of online reactions with debate centred on what constitutes respectful mourning and the authority of Umuada at funerals.
The incident was reported and dissected by local news sites and lifestyle blogs, framing it as a flashpoint in changing expectations of ritual behaviour.
That episode surfaced a second truth: the same institution that acts as community custodian and mediator can also be seen, by many observers, as having become ritualistic, performative, or out of step with contemporary norms—tensions now amplified and archived on social media.
The pattern on video is familiar: public shaming, forced “cleansing,” and community discipline. Since February and July, reporters, rights groups, and private users have uploaded several short clips fitting two related patterns: crisis-era rites directed at widows, and local enforcement and social sanctioning at weddings and funerals.
Blockade of a monarch’s gate
A viral video from Akokwa in Imo State showing members of the Umuada storming the residence of Eze Okachie after he allegedly locked them out of his palace and refused to grant them an audience recently sparked outrage online.
In the footage, the women, armed with sticks, hurled dirt into his compound and were even seen defecating on the premises as a form of protest. For them, this dramatic display was not just defiance but a way of enforcing their authority in a community where their role remains both revered and feared.
Commenting on the video, social commentator Dr. Uche Nworah noted that while Umuada are recognised as a powerful collective of women born into a kindred or village in Igboland, their methods are often confrontational, sometimes crude, and widely considered excessive. He explained that during burials, marriages, and other ceremonies, many Umuada still insist on practices such as sleeping over in bereaved families’ homes and being served tea in the morning, an ancient tradition that some say has been overtaken by time.
Yet, to avoid conflict, families frequently negotiate with them or pay cash settlements.
As Nworah observed, “They are a very powerful group and play varying roles in society. People don’t like to incur their wrath.”
The beginnings of Umuada in pre-colonial Igbo history
They are born into a house but summoned back to it by duty. The Umuada carry an authority that is at once intimate and public, ancestral and performative.
In the pre-colonial village, according to several scholarly accounts, this authority was intensely practical: they washed the dead, asked the difficult questions, quelled feuds, and shaped the morals of a community in ways that male councils often could not. Their power was not a legal precinct so much as cultural pressure, a mobilisation of daughters that could shame, reconcile, or restructure behaviour overnight.
With the coming of colonial courts and missionary exhortations, many outward trappings of that authority shifted. Some communities saw the Umuada’s rituals curtailed by a new law; others adapted, folding their work into emerging civic roles. Where the colonial state weakened male line stability, the Umuada sometimes reasserted themselves as functioning institutions still able to move families and markets. Their survival was not merely conservatism; it was a capacity for reimagination in the face of new constraints.
The late 20th and early 21st centuries brought another transformation: institutionalisation.
Umuada chapters emerged as organised associations, engaging in education, widow advocacy, and diaspora outreach. They mounted campaigns to secure women’s inheritance rights and represented communal grievances in state fora.
Yet alongside this civic turn, a more troubling continuity persisted. The same mandate that authorised daughters to discipline, ensure a woman honoured her marital obligations, test a widow’s conduct, and regulate ritual propriety could, when unchecked, slip into humiliation and coercion. In practice, the mechanism of enforcement that once held men’s excesses to account can paradoxically become a tool that polices women’s bodies and choices.
The central question for a just modern polity is a normative one: how can customary institutions retain their conflict-resolving virtues without violating inalienable rights?
A considered answer appears in an essay by a former Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at Ebonyi State University, Dr Ngozi Emeka Nwobia. In her July 2021 piece, “Understanding Gender Complementarity in Igbo Society: The Role of Umuada and Umunna in Peacebuilding”, Emeka Nwobia, who served as the Southeast regional consultant for the Nigerian Women Trust Fund on a Ford Foundation-backed project, argues that gender roles and relations in Igbo peacebuilding are essentially complementary, though popular misconceptions have obscured this fact.
Of note is the portrayal of Igbo women by some early scholars as subservient, voiceless, and merely appendages to men. Quoting G. T. Basden, Emeka Nwobia reproduces a sentiment that has long coloured outsider accounts of Igbo life:
“Women have but few rights in any circumstances and can only hold such property as their lords permit. There is no grumbling against their lot; they accept the situation as their grandmother did before them, taking affairs philosophically; they managed to live fairly contentedly.”
Basden’s opinion, however, has been critiqued by later scholars, notably Akachi Ezeigbo, as misleading and rooted in a limited understanding of Igbo sociopolitical relations.
Barely eight years after Basden’s observations, Igbo women rose to confront colonial policies during the anti-colonial Aba Women’s Riots of 1929. That these same women, earlier represented as powerless, could mobilise so forcefully suggests they already possessed deep social clout.
Ifi Amadiume, as cited by Emeka Nwobia, captures the flexibility of gender construction among the Igbo. She notes that women can occupy roles conventionally assigned to men in particular situations, acquiring statuses such as “male daughters” and “female husbands.”
The practice of designating a “male daughter” is often adopted when a man has no male heir: a daughter may remain in her father’s household to produce male children who will carry his name. Parents may arrange or accept a lover for her, or the daughter may choose one herself. Similarly, the role of “female husband” can be assumed by a woman who is childless or widowed and who wishes to ensure the continuity of a lineage. A female husband may marry women who will bear children in her husband’s name, or she may acquire sufficient wealth and authority to assume public power akin to that exercised by men.
This explains why some Igbo names celebrate continuity. Examples include Amaefuna/Amaechina (“my compound will not go desolate”) and Ahamefula (“my name will not be forgotten”). The “female husband” status can thus be achieved either through strategic family arrangements or by amassing wealth and public influence. In both cases, the practice illustrates the adaptability of Igbo social institutions and how women have long negotiated power within customary frameworks.
Umuada vs. Ụmụnna
Emeka Nwobia notes that the dynamics of complementarity and power relations between Igbo men and women are visible in two transgenerational institutions, Ụmụada and Ụmụnna groups, whose legacies are passed from one generation to another.
She describes the term Ụmụada as derived from two Igbo words: Ụmụ (children) and Ada (a generic name for all first daughters, though it may loosely be used to refer to every female child of Igbo ancestry).
According to her, the Ụmụada is an association of daughters of the land from the same natal community. They are ever-present forces in their natal homes, as opposed to their matrimonial homes, where their powers are limited. They assume juridical and peacemaking roles and regularly perform purification as well as funeral rites for deceased members of their lineage.
The term Ụmụnna is derived from two Igbo words: Ụmụ (children) and Nna (a generic name for all sons). It is a group of men from the same family or sharing the same ancestry.
Like in most African societies, the extended family includes parents, grandparents, children, aunties, uncles, brothers, sisters, and cousins, and even extends to their children. This has given birth to neologisms such as “cousin-sister” and “cousin-brother” to emphasise affinity and blood ties with a cousin.
According to Emeka Nwobia, these are common terms used to describe kinship relations and show endearment and closeness.
“The duties of members of the family include education, training, and the transmission of family values, legacies, skills, and knowledge systems (such as medicine, architecture, vocation, craft-making skills, apprenticeship, trades, etc.) to the younger members of the families, who in turn transfer them to their younger ones.
“Thus, the family unit in Igboland is a transgenerational platform for the conveyance of values. The elders ensure that these transgenerational knowledge systems are effectively transferred and inculcated in the younger ones. That is why skills such as traditional orthopaedics, healing/medicine, craft-making, and artistry run in certain families. These skills are learned or transferred through participant observation and Igba boyi (apprenticeship),” she noted.
Membership of Ụmụada, Emeka Nwobia noted, comprises both married and unmarried females of a particular community, though some communities in Igboland do not welcome unmarried Ụmụada into the group.
“The unmarried daughters (those who have reached marriageable age) are not as powerful or outspoken as the married ones, as they are sidelined or easily dismissed as ‘Nna ga-alụ’ (literally meaning ‘father will marry’) or ‘Ọtọ n’aka Nne’ (‘abandoned in the hands of the mother’).
“Indeed, staying unmarried as a fully grown girl in Igbo traditional societies was a burden, and such unmarried ladies were largely treated as social outcasts. That is why, though they are daughters, their married counterparts are considered more respectable. One of the primary aims of the Ụmụada association is to enable women to sustain their matrilineal ties.
“This implies that every Igbo female at birth is socialised into automatic membership in the Ụmụada and Ndi Inyom, while upon marriage she becomes a member of both Ụmụada and Ndi Inyom / Nwunye di (a group of married wives in a particular community).
As a married woman, she performs a dual function as daughter (in her natal home) and wife (in her matrimonial home),” she noted.
According to the scholar, the association is a formidable sociocultural and political organisation in Igbo communities.
Umuada as peacekeeping pillar
The powers of Umuada can be observed in their natal homes, where they exercise power and influence, as well as contribute to informal peacemaking and peacebuilding. Decisions reached by Umuada are considered final, even by the Umunna, although their domains of operation are almost the same.
Emeka-Nwobia noted that the Umuada deploy various strategies to ensure the preservation of their cultural heritage and peaceful coexistence within the community and with their neighbours.
In traditional Igbo society, family and land disputes, as well as inter- and intra-communal conflicts, are resolved or adjudicated upon by traditional institutions like the Umunna and Umuada.
She noted, “Their influence and power have survived in contemporary society, mainly because of the bias and lack of trust in inherited Western legal systems whose methods of adjudication are expensive, time-consuming, and tend to reward winners and punish losers without leaving space for reconciliation.
“Also, the courts mostly offered temporary relief, and conflicts tended to be reignited by the little provocation. Again, in the colonial era, it was common knowledge that the court clerks collected bribes to slant judgment in favour of erring parties.
“This led to a lack of trust in the colonial court system, as the Igbo people preferred settling their cases through customary law and traditions. Okechukwu Ibeanu observed that the colonial legal processes were alien to local people and took a long time, contributing to the preference and reliance on indigenous institutions where people felt free to express themselves without fear of being misrepresented or misunderstood.”
She further noted that the Umuada do not wait for crises to be reported to them before they weigh in, because their ears are always on the ground to identify conflict situations, though in some situations they may be formally invited, especially in cases that have defied the efforts of Umunna.
Thus, they are always the last resort when men fail.
Umuada meeting
A typical meeting of the Umuada starts with an opening prayer, then the generic greeting of, ‘Chee che che, Umuada ekelee m’ unu’ (‘Umuada, I greet you’), which is followed by the response, ‘Hia.’
“This is given by the oldest daughter, known as ‘Isi Ada,’ who provides discourse rights to whoever wants to speak.
“The Isi Ada hails the daughter by calling her an honourific name. This is to validate her right to speak and show solidarity. The daughters take turns speaking in a session usually moderated by the Isi Ada. From time to time, the owner of the floor calls on the listeners to validate her right to the floor and their support for her opinions. She calls out in the following words: ‘Kam kwube?’ (‘Should I continue?’). The women respond in the affirmative, and then she goes on to speak,” the scholar noted.
The contributions of Umuada toward resolving domestic and communal conflicts in Igboland are noteworthy.
To give a few examples, their interventions were significant in the peace processes that culminated in the resolution of the Aguleri/Umuleri conflict in Anambra State, the Umuode/Oruku conflict in Enugu State, and many others.
In the Aguleri/Umuleri conflict, the Umuada utilised the following strategies to ensure peace: questioning and information gathering (Igba Nju), dialogue, one-on-one conversations, and reconciliation meetings with the conflicting parties.
In Mbaise and other parts of Igboland, they may go as far as staging nude protests to ensure compliance with their verdict. People are afraid of incurring the wrath of Umuada; as such, they are the final arbiters in traditional conflict resolution in Igboland. Conflicts resolved under this platform are binding on every member of the communities and are usually sealed by oath-taking (iyi) or blood covenant (iko mme), which are performed or overseen by the Umunna.
The Federal Government on Monday raised fresh concerns over the growing burden of foodborne diseases in Nigeria, revealing that unsafe food causes more than 53,000 deaths and nearly 50 million illnesses annually across the country.
Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Dr Iziaq Salako, disclosed this in Abuja during a ministerial press briefing to commemorate the 2026 World Food Safety Day, themed “From Burden to Solutions – Safe Food Everywhere.”
Salako described food safety as a critical national development and health security issue, warning that the true cost of unsafe food extended beyond sickness and death to the loss of human capital, particularly among children.
According to him, Nigeria loses an estimated 4.26 million years of healthy life annually to foodborne diseases through illness, disability and premature death.
“Nigeria records nearly 50 million foodborne illnesses every year, and unsafe food causes more than 53,000 deaths annually in our country.
“Together, these illnesses and deaths result in a staggering 4.26 million years of healthy life lost to illness, disability or early death,” the minister said.
He noted that children under five account for more than 80 per cent of the country’s foodborne disease burden.
“Most of this burden falls heavily on children under five, who account for more than 80 per cent of all foodborne disease burden in Nigeria.
“The true cost of unsafe food in Nigeria is not only measured in sickness and death, but also in the lost cognitive, physical and developmental potential of our children,” Salako added.
The minister’s remarks came on the heels of newly released estimates by the World Health Organisation showing that unsafe food causes about 866 million illnesses and 1.5 million deaths globally each year, with Africa bearing the highest per-capita burden.
According to Salako, diarrhoeal diseases remained the leading cause of foodborne illnesses in Nigeria, with more than 40 million cases linked to pathogens such as Salmonella, Escherichia coli, Campylobacter, Shigella and rotavirus.
“Over 40 million diarrhoeal illnesses in Nigeria are linked to foodborne pathogens. These infections continue to be a major cause of hospitalisation, malnutrition and mortality among our youngest citizens,” he said.
He also warned of increasing exposure to chemical contaminants.
“Chemical hazards are also emerging as a serious concern, with lead exposure responsible for tens of thousands of healthy lives lost through contaminated grains, spices and water sources. These numbers underscore the urgency of strengthening food safety systems across the entire value chain,” he stated.
Despite the challenges, Salako said Nigeria had made notable progress in building a stronger food safety system.
He said the country’s 2023 Joint External Evaluation recorded measurable improvements across all food safety indicators, while Nigeria’s 2025 State Party Annual Report score surpassed the World Health Organisation target for low- and middle-income countries.
“Nigeria is now one of the leading countries in the region in establishing functional systems for detecting, reporting and responding to foodborne disease events,” he said.
The minister, however, stressed that the latest figures should serve as a wake-up call.
“The new WHO estimates are a call to action. We must intensify surveillance for heavy metals and chemical contaminants. We must improve food safety practices in traditional and informal markets where most Nigerians buy their food.
“We must strengthen hygiene, water and sanitation infrastructure and ensure food business operators comply with national standards,” he said.
Salako also linked food safety to the country’s growing burden of non-communicable diseases, including hypertension, stroke, diabetes and obesity.
“Food safety is not only about preventing infections; it is also about ensuring that the food we eat does not contribute to the growing burden of non-communicable diseases,” he said.
He disclosed that Nigeria had developed National Guidelines for Sodium Reduction, while the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control had finalised draft sodium reduction regulations aimed at reducing salt levels in processed foods.
According to him, the country was also implementing industrial trans-fat elimination regulations and strengthening efforts to improve the sugar-sweetened beverage tax and front-of-pack food labelling systems to encourage healthier food choices.
Salako urged food manufacturers, regulators, researchers and consumers to support efforts aimed at ensuring safer and healthier food for Nigerians.
“Food safety is everyone’s business. It saves lives, strengthens our economy and protects our children. These numbers show that food safety is not optional; it is a national health security priority,” he said.
The Director-General of NAFDAC, Prof Mojisola Adeyeye, said strengthening food safety systems remained critical to reducing the country’s burden of foodborne diseases.
Represented at the event by the Director of Food Safety and Applied Nutrition Directorate, Eva Edwards, Adeyeye described food safety as a public health, socioeconomic and development imperative.
“The theme for the 2026 World Food Safety Day, ‘From Burden to Solutions – Safe Food Everywhere,’ reminds us that food safety is not merely a technical issue; it is a public health, socioeconomic and development imperative. Behind every statistic on foodborne disease is a child, a family, a community or a business affected by preventable illness and loss,” she said.
The NAFDAC boss said the agency remained committed to reducing foodborne diseases through stronger regulation, surveillance and stakeholder engagement.
“At NAFDAC, we remain firmly committed to contributing to reducing the burden of foodborne disease through science-based regulation, effective surveillance, strengthened food control systems and robust stakeholder engagement,” she said.
She added, “Our efforts continue to focus on ensuring that foods manufactured, imported, exported, distributed, advertised, sold and consumed in Nigeria meet acceptable standards of safety and quality.”
Adeyeye stressed that safe food was central to achieving the country’s nutrition and health goals.
“We recognise World Food Safety Day as an added opportunity to situate food safety as a significant issue of public health concern, especially in the light of safe, wholesome food being important for boosting immunity and improving the body’s natural defence in fighting diseases.
“Where food is unsafe, our nutritional goals cannot be achieved,” she said.
The NAFDAC Director-General further noted that addressing food safety challenges would require stronger collaboration among government agencies, industry players, researchers, development partners and consumers.
“The challenge before us is significant, but so too is our collective capacity to address it through evidence-based policies, effective regulation, responsible industry practices and sustained public awareness,” she said.
Adeyeye reaffirmed the agency’s commitment to strengthening food safety systems nationwide.
“At NAFDAC, we remain resolute in our unwavering commitment to playing our role in strengthening the national food safety system, upholding standards and regulations, and promoting best practices within industry and across society to assure a safe food supply,” Adeyeye said.
Meanwhile, the Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa called for stronger regulatory measures to address the growing burden of diet-related diseases in Nigeria.
In a statement issued on Monday to commemorate the 2026 World Food Safety Day, CAPPA warned that millions of Nigerians were increasingly exposed to health risks associated with excessive consumption of sugar, salt, unhealthy fats and ultra-processed foods.
The organisation argued that food safety should extend beyond concerns about contamination and foodborne diseases to include protection against products that contribute to non-communicable diseases.
CAPPA Executive Director, Oluwafemi Akinbode, said, “Food safety is not only about preventing food poisoning. It is also about ensuring that the foods and drinks available to Nigerians do not slowly undermine their health and well-being.”
He warned that weak regulatory safeguards and aggressive marketing of unhealthy products were contributing to rising cases of hypertension, diabetes, obesity, stroke, kidney disease and certain cancers.
According to him, diet-related diseases were placing a growing burden on families, the healthcare system and the economy.
“Public health policies must be guided by science and the public interest, not by industries whose profitability depends on unhealthy consumption patterns,” Akinbode stated.
CAPPA welcomed the recent passage by the Senate of a bill seeking to strengthen Nigeria’s Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Tax regime, describing it as a critical intervention in efforts to reduce excessive sugar consumption and curb non-communicable diseases.
The organisation also urged the Federal Government to adopt national sodium reduction targets, implement Front-of-Pack Warning Labelling on packaged foods and beverages, and strengthen restrictions on the marketing of unhealthy foods to children.
“Truly, safe food should not only be free from contamination but should also protect consumers from preventable diseases and support long-term wellbeing,” he added.
World Food Safety Day is observed annually to raise awareness and inspire action to prevent, detect and manage food-related risks. The 2026 edition marks the eighth global observance of the event.
While food safety discussions have traditionally focused on microbial contamination and foodborne disease outbreaks, public health experts are increasingly drawing attention to the role of unhealthy diets in driving non-communicable diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular diseases and certain cancers.
In Nigeria, authorities have intensified efforts to strengthen food safety governance through the National Food Safety Management Committee, the National Integrated Guidelines for Foodborne Disease Surveillance and Response, sodium reduction initiatives, industrial trans-fat elimination regulations and improved food surveillance systems.
However, health advocates continue to push for stronger nutrition-focused policies, including enhanced sugar-sweetened beverage taxes, front-of-pack warning labels and tighter restrictions on the marketing of unhealthy foods to children.
As dawn breaks over Okomu National Park in Ovia South-West Local Government Area of Edo State, an exhausted wildlife caretaker prepares milk formula for Agbaibor, a month-old orphaned forest elephant rescued after wandering out of the rainforest alone.
“The baby elephant has to take two litres of this per meal,” said Joshua Aribasoye, one of those responsible for feeding and monitoring the calf around the clock in a makeshift pen at a ranger outpost inside the park in southern Edo.
Forest elephants, smaller and more elusive than their savannah cousins, are endangered and their population has collapsed in recent decades largely because of habitat loss and poaching.
Agbaibor—named after the ranger who helped rescue him—was found near a palm oil plantation bordering the protected forest late last year after being separated from the herd.
Rangers and conservationists tried to reunite the calf with its family by taking it back into the forest, but it soon wandered out again.
Fearing it would die alone or be attacked, park authorities and conservation group African Nature Investors (ANI) launched an emergency effort to nurse the animal, flying in elephant rehabilitation specialists from Zambia and assigning caretakers to raise him.
It has become a costly operation. ANI spends between four and five million naira (about 3,600) a month on his care, including 77 kilograms of milk powder, alongside oats and nutritional supplements.
Conservationists expect the rehabilitation process to take another three to five years. They are building a new enclosure deeper inside the park, within elephant habitat, where the calf will gradually be exposed to the sounds and movements of wild herds before an eventual reintroduction.
“The calf will be cared for there… until it is integrated into a group,” said ANI project manager Peter Abanyam.
200 remain
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists forest elephants as critically endangered, with conservationists estimating only around 200 remain in the country.
Roughly 40 are believed to live in and around Okomu—one of Nigeria’s last remaining rainforest ecosystems, covering about 24,000 hectares.
“Okomu is critical for conservation in Nigeria,” said Abanyam.
“In a small ecosystem like this, housing 40 elephants is a huge number, and it needs to be protected at all costs.”
But pressure on the forest is intensifying.
Logging, poaching, farming and expanding human settlements have fragmented large parts of the reserve, shrinking elephant corridors and increasing contact between wildlife and nearby communities.
Godstime Christopher, 26, once helped transport illegally logged timber out of the forest before being recruited as a ranger by ANI.
Today, he works with the organisation’s biomonitoring team, using camera traps to track elephant movements and identify poachers.
“When I became a ranger, I thought I would use that to exploit logging,” he admitted. “But the training changed our mentality.”
‘Preserve what we have’
Conservation groups say engaging local communities is essential if endangered wildlife is to survive in one of Africa’s fastest-growing countries, where economic hardship often drives people deeper into protected forests in search of land, timber or bushmeat.
While the ranger programme appears to have helped drive down poaching in the area, hunting for other species still disturbs the elephants and degrades their habitat, Christopher warned.
