Among the household items used for cooking, firewood remains one of the oldest commonly used across the country. From the Stone Age till date, it has been consistently in use across rural and urban areas. In recent times, however, the practice has come under serious condemnation from environment-related organisations at local and international levels who are advocating the use of stove to mitigate the perceived danger that firewood constitutes to the lives of its users as well as the environment. Is this a genuine concern or another attempt at foisting western ideologies on Nigerians? INNOCENT DURU reports.
DOES cooking with firewood really expose the users to health challenges? The World Health Organisation (WHO) and many non-governmental organisations working on environmental issues believe it does. But not so for many locals who engage in the practice.
According to WHO, more than 93,000 Nigerian women and children die annually from firewood smoke. Globally, the organisation said that no fewer than 4.3 million people die annually from illnesses attributable to the air pollution caused by inefficient use of solid fuels for cooking. According to WHO, 12 per cent of the figure is due to pneumonia, 34 per cent from stroke, 26 per cent from ischaemic heart disease, 22 per cent from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and 6 per cent from lung cancer.
Corroborating WHO’s position, Techno Oil, a Nigerian organisation that markets a wide range of petroleum products, said: “The smoke contains complex gases and fine particles, which affects both the lungs and the heart. Firewood smoke is a great source of what scientists term fine particle pollution. The size of particles is directly linked to their potential for causing health problems. Small particles less than 10 micrometers in diameter pose the greatest problems, because they can get deep into the lungs, and some may even get into the bloodstream. Among these particles are “fine particles,” which are 2.5 micrometers in diameter and smaller.
Numerous scientific studies have linked fine particle pollution exposure to a variety of problems, including increased respiratory symptoms such as irritation of the airways, coughing or difficulty in breathing; decreased lung function; aggravated asthma; development of chronic bronchitis; irregular heartbeat; non-fatal heart attacks and premature death in people with heart or lung disease.
Convincing as the above analysis are, many people who spoke to The Nation said aside from their eyes emitting tears, they had never experienced any health challenges using firewood to cook. A respondent, who identified himself simply as Amina, wondered how WHO and other non-governmental organisations come about the figure of people that die annually cooking with firewood.
“This is totally strange and can never be true. How did they know the number of people killed? Is it that they were going from one community to another or from one state to another to get the figures? How many people have died so far this year? They should show us their pictures, tell us their names, and the communities they came from.
“If this were true, all the people in the rural areas would have died because that is what they use all the time. If you conduct a test on the people in the rural areas who are using firewood, you would find that they are healthier than many of the people using gas and stove to cook.”
Apparently trying to justify the use of firewood, Amina said: “Since people have been using firewood, have you heard of firewood explosion? But you have heard of gas and kerosene explosions. So, which one is better? They should perish the idea. If my parents and forefathers used firewood and it neither gave them health problems nor killed them, it can never happen to me.”
A food vendor, who gave her name as Mrs Agnes Abraham, said: “I have been using firewood for donkey’s years and I have never had any health problems. Before I came to Lagos, it was the same firewood we were using in the village and nothing happened to anybody.
“Unlike here in the city where you see all manner of ailments, especially on the television, people in the village who use firewood don’t have such sicknesses and they don’t die early like we have it here. Is it not this same firewood that our forefathers also used and lived above 100 years?
“Please tell those people to go and sit down if they have noting tangible to talk about. Cooking with firewood may be causing health problems for non-Africans because you know that they are not as strong. But for us here in Africa, especially Nigeria, firewood is very much okay. The common challenge with cooking with firewood is that the smoke it emits could be hurting the eyes and cause it to become red. But once you use yeast, the eyes will become clear again.”
The information about the health hazards of cooking with firewood was also strange to Mrs Bisade Oni, a fufu (local delicacy) seller.
Surprised by the information, she asked rhetorically:” When did that start? I have been using firewood for ages and nothing has happened to me. In fact, I would say that I have been using it from childhood because that was what our parents used back in the village. How do you think it is possible for me to make fufu on a stove?
“I find it convenient doing it with firewood. Many people do complain that their eyes emit tears when they cook with firewood, but I don’t experience that. It depends on how good you are at using it. It is only if you don’t use dry wood that you have smoke hurting your eyes. But if you use dry wood and put them in place properly, you will not have any problem.”
The same view was expressed by Ernest Obabiyi who said he had never heard that anybody suffered complications or died from cooking with firewood.
He said: “It is true that the smoke can hurt your eyes or disturb you when you inhale it. But I have never heard that people suffered chronic ailments or died from using firewood, though I also know that using firewood could lead to domestic accident. One of such happened back then in Ondo State when a boy that had epilepsy went to cook, and in the course of doing that, his health problem started and he had part of his body burnt by fire. That is the most that I have seen.”
Environmentalists knock users
Experts on environmental issues have described the attitude of the users as gross ignorance. The Communications Officer for International Centre for Energy Environment and Development (ICEED), Adewale Ajibade, said that firewood is a silent killer but a lot of people are not aware of it.
He said: “It has nothing to do with capitalism. A lot of wrong things have been done by our parents which we didn’t know, but with the help of science, they have been brought to the fore. For example, the killing of twins was a norm until Mary Slessor stepped in to say it is a health condition and that a woman can have more than one child. If technology brings this kind of issue to the fore, I don’t think we should shy away from it and say it is the western world that is trying to foist their capitalist tendencies on us.
“It has been proven that globally that over 4 million deaths occur annually due to cooking with open fire. It is not only in Nigeria; it is an epidemic that is happening in a lot of countries in the world. This smoke that is released comes with harmful toxic gases. According to a report by WHO, inhaling this toxic is like burning 400 cigarettes in one hour. Just imagine somebody cooking for the family inhaling smoke that is up to consuming 400 cigarettes in one hour.
“In Nigeria, if I want to be precise, there are about 95, 300 deaths that occur annually, all tied to smoke-related diseases. This happens unconsciously. When the woman is cooking, she inhales it. Sometimes, it causes low weight of babies. Apart from that, it also causes lung disease and pneumonia in some children. From this statistics that I gave you, it makes this practice the third highest killer after malaria and HIV/AIDS.”
Ajibade added: “There are also the issues of environmental degradation. Nigeria loses about 3 per cent of its forest annually. Deforestation is happening at an alarming rate. This is one of our projects in Katsina where we are providing 35,000 energy-efficient wood stoves to checkmate the deforestation menace and also the smoke inhalation menace.
“Even though this stove we are providing uses firewood. It reduces the quantity of firewood that they use. The clean cooking stove could make them use a quantity of firewood they would have used in one day for about five days or more. It reduces the continuous cutting down of trees.
“The project we are handling in Katsina is twofold. Oxfam is handling the tree planting aspect. They are supposed to plant about 5.5 million trees in four years, but if we don’t provide an alternative for these people. After the trees are planted, they go back to cut them for firewood.
“These people cannot afford the expensive clean fuel. We are trying as much as possible to discourage people from using kerosene because it is a dirty fuel and it is expensive in the long run. “
Asked if tests were conducted on victims to reach the conclusion that they became sick from cooking with firewood, Ajibade said: “The tests that were conducted were on the stoves and their emissions. But in a few cases, several people complained of severe respiratory problems.
“There was a cook in a school in Ebonyi State where we went to install institutional stove. Prior to that time, the woman said that she used to have reddish eyes bringing out water and that she used to feel drowsy as if she smoked Indian hemp. After the installation, she said she felt relived.
“Another thing she didn’t notice before then was that her temperature was always high in the evening after using firewood. But all that stopped after we installed the stove. The prices of the stoves vary because there are different producers.
“But we are not even the one selling them. We are training local artisans to build these stoves and become entrepreneurs themselves. The thermal efficiency is about 60 per cent.”
The Executive Director of Sustainable Waste Recycling Community of Nigeria, Adewole Taiwo, also differed with the users. According to him: “During the Stone Age, the volume of firewood used was not the same as is being used now. The environment was greener with less population and less carbon monoxide emission than we have now. There are many alternatives to burning firewood: the clean stoves, briquettes which can replace firewood/charcoal, electric cooker, among others.
“Where these alternatives are not available, every single tree fell must be replaced with a minimum of five new ones to save the environment. And health wise, it must not be used indoor at all because it causes eye and throat irritation while the long-term effects is respiratory disease and cancer.”
Like Adewale, Taiwo said: “It has a great impact on the environment because people fell tree indiscriminately all in the name of firewood without planting new ones. The same tree fell provided us with oxygen and consumed all the excess carbon monoxide pollution within the environment. So, cutting more wood for firewood without replacing it means reduction in oxygen and increase in carbon monoxide pollution within our environment.
“Health wise, it is very dangerous because it greatly affects indoor air quality. The smoke from the burning of firewood is very dangerous to those that use firewood, especially indoor. It has great health implication in terms of the quality of air inhaled. And most of the firewood used are not fully dried. They contain little moisture. It takes time to burn and release more carbon monoxide into the environment.”
Crisis in clean cooking stoves sector
Adewale denied that ICEED and other members that formed the coalition known as Nigeria Alliance for Clean Cooking Stove was not carried along when ex-President Goodluck Jonathan approved the contract of N5 billion for the Ministry of Environment to provide 20 million units of the stove for rural women.
Ajibade said: “As a matter of fact, we didn’t know anything about the process and the contract until it was in the news and people started calling us because we are the secretariat. People believed that if there should be anything happening in the clean stove sector in Nigeria, we should know. We were as shocked as anybody else.
“We are going to ensure that we get to the roots of the matter because this is a very young sector that there is a bit of resistance for people to switch to. We don’t want to be marred by corruption or scandal. From our end, we know nothing about it and we are not into partnership with them in anyway.”
Earlier in the year, precisely January, the House of Representatives, gave its committees on Anti-Corruption, Environment and Habitat six weeks to investigate the former president’s “Clean Stove for Rural Women scheme” contract of about N9.287 billion.
The resolution followed a motion by Abiodun Faleke (APC-Lagos), which was unanimously adopted by members through a voice vote.
Faleke noted that the Federal Executive Council (FEC) had approved a contract for the supply of 20 million units of clean stove and wonder bags under the clean stove scheme for rural women.
He added that the contract was at a unit cost of N464.00, amounting to about N9.287 billion. The lawmaker said that following the approval of FEC, the Federal Ministry of Finance released the sum of N5 billion to the Federal Ministry of Environment for the execution of the project.
The lawmaker expressed concern that less than 750,000 units were said to have been assembled and delivered at the velodrome of the National Stadium, Abuja, which was commissioned by former Vice President, Namadi Sambo.
He noted that there was no beneficiary present at the commissioning nor was anyone later given the stove to achieve its intended purpose.
The mandate of the committee saddled with the investigation was to find out details of the contract, number of units supplied, their mode of distribution and names of beneficiaries on state by state basis.
