Lagos seizes thirty tonnes of ponmo worth N10m

The Lagos State Ministry of Agriculture, the state task force on Special Offences and the police have confiscated thirty tonnes of poisonous cowhide popularly called ponmo worth 10 million naira.

They were seized on Saturday during a raid on a cowhide processing factory at College Road in Igando area of Lagos state.

The state Commissioner for Agriculture, Mr Oluwatoyin Suarau, confirmed this in a statement on Monday.

According to Suarau, six suspects were arrested during the raid after residents of the area raised alarm over the emission of toxic smoke and offensive odour from the factory where the cowhides were being stored.

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He added that fire made with Jamaican rubber was used for the processing of the ponmo which was harmful to the residents’ health while it emitted thick clouds of toxic smoke.

Subsequently, he said the Ministry of Agriculture, headed by the ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Dr Olayiwole Onasanya had set a monitoring and investigative committee in motion in order to extricate factories producing poisonous ponmo across the state.

Suarau said:

“We will always monitor the whole process of food handling and distribution until it gets to the final consumers.”

While calling on members of the public to stay alert and inform any local government about the suspicious sale of harmful food, the commissioner appealed to relevant Federal Government agencies in charge of border patrol to be more vigilant in preventing the entry of poisonous foods into the country.

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