In spite of the blazing midday heat, the crowd gathered around the steaming pots remains unmoved.
A woman lifts the lid of a large pot of rice; another customer waits for beans and plantain. Nearby, two workers eat quickly before returning to their jobs.
This is the everyday rhythm of “mama put”, Nigeria’s informal food culture that feeds workers, students, traders, and travellers.
For some, it is convenient, for others, affordability. For many, it is survival.
Behind the familiar aromas and steaming pots lies a question that is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore: How safe is the food that Nigerians consume daily?
For 24-year-old Ms Amara Ugochukwu, an English student at the University of Abuja, roadside food has become a financial necessity.
Ugochukwu said she ate from her favourite roadside vendor four to five times a week.
When it comes to hygiene, hunger can sometimes silence her concerns.
“With the way prices are jumping every day, my monthly allowance can no longer touch standard fast-food restaurants; if you think too much about how the food is made, you will starve.”
Her concern became more worrisome last semester when she ended up at the school clinic with what she described as typhoid fever. Yet, after recovering, economic reality took over.
“I went back to the same woman. Unless I see a live fly inside the pot while she is serving me, I will keep buying. I simply do not have the money to look elsewhere,” she said.
For Mr Abayomi Babatunde, a security guard, roadside food is part of daily routine.
After standing at his security post all morning, he uses his one-hour lunch break to visit a nearby roadside shack.
“Man must chop to get strength to stand,” Babatunde said.
He checks to ensure that the environment is clean and the pots are properly covered. But inflation has changed what appears on his plate.
“Before, I could buy rice, beans, plantain and two pieces of meat. Now, the same money only buys rice and beans. Some days, I have to skip the meat entirely.
“If I find out a vendor uses dirty water or unsafe ingredients, I am gone. I have a family to feed; I cannot afford to collapse on duty,” he said.
For Information Technology consultant, Mr Smith Chidi, mama put is not about survival but taste.
Although Chidi said he could afford high-end restaurants but stopped at roadside food stalls about twice a month.
“There is a specific taste that only mama put can give you.”
He is, however, cautious due to a previous experience with severe food poisoning that left him hospitalised.
“If I get even a hint that a vendor’s hygiene is compromised, I will drop the plate, walk away, and tell everyone I know to avoid the place. Health is wealth,” he said.
At Garki International Market, Abuja, textile trader Mrs Blessing Obadiah, buys fufu and soup from a nearby vendor about three times a week when work prevents her from cooking.
“I look at the vendor’s appearance. If she wears a clean apron and uses clean water to wash her bowls, I will trust her.”
But rising prices are changing even that habit.
“Mama put is becoming a luxury now. It is almost cheaper for me to wake up at 4 a.m. and cook at home for my children.
“If I hear that a vendor’s food makes people sick, I stop buying immediately; medical bills will wipe out my business profit in one day. The risk is too high,” she said.
Their stories reveal a bigger reality; mama put has become an indicator of Nigeria’s changing socio-economic landscape.
Nigerians patronise street-food vendors for many reasons, including early work schedules, poverty, habit, socialisation, and the desire to enjoy traditional cuisines and specially flavoured meals.
For many, however, the attraction is simple: quantity and affordability.
The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation has estimated that billions of people worldwide consume street food daily, making informal food vending a global phenomenon.
Food-safety enthusiast, Mrs Olubunmi Adeyemi, warned that food prepared in unclean environments could become contaminated through water, air, hands, utensils, and surrounding surfaces.
Adeyemi said foodborne illnesses associated with poor handling and storage could cause serious illness, while contaminated food and water could contribute to diseases transmitted through the faecal-oral route.
“A roadside stall beside an open drain, a busy road or an accumulation of refuse can create additional risks.
“Flies, dust and vehicle pollution may settle on uncovered food.
“Where clean running water is unavailable, the same water may be reused for washing hands, utensils and plates,” she said.
The problem may begin even earlier, during processing.
Cassava traditionally undergoes soaking and fermentation before being processed into fufu.
A medical doctor and health communicator, Dr Chinonso Egemba, popularly known as Aproko Doctor, recently raised concern over allegations that some processors use detergent and paracetamol to accelerate the process.
In a video shared on Aug. 17, Egemba said cassava traditionally required several days of soaking before processing.
“Some people, because of greed and impatience, add detergent and paracetamol to the soaking water to force the cassava to ferment and soften.”
He described the alleged practice as unsafe and called on state ministries of health and the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) to increase monitoring of informal food-processing activities.
“This is a direct call to the state ministries of health and NAFDAC. Please increase inspection and monitoring in places like this,” he said.
Food-safety experts have raised concern about the adulteration of palm oil with unauthorised substances, including industrial dyes such as Sudan IV, to enhance its colour.
Sudan dyes are not approved food colourants. NAFDAC has also warned about substandard and unregistered edible oils circulating in the country.
Experimental research has found adverse liver and kidney effects in laboratory animals exposed to Sudan-IV-adulterated palm oil.
However, such findings should not be stretched into a claim that adulterated palm oil is responsible for Nigeria’s overall kidney-disease burden.
A 2025 study by Alawode and Tabit, published in Environmental Health Insights, found that 85.7 per cent of 600 street-food vending sites assessed in Oyo State had not been inspected, while 75.7 per cent recorded low compliance with food-safety regulations.
Only 11.8 per cent achieved high compliance.
Mr Odeh Agabi, a microbiologist, said street-vended foods could harbour pathogens such as Salmonella, E. coli, Staphylococcus aureus and Vibrio cholerae.
Agabi also raised concerns about cross-contamination where vendors lack reliable running water and repeatedly reuse water for washing.
Meanwhile, Mr Nurudeen Salisu, a toxicologist, warned about the potential dangers of inappropriate chemicals entering the food chain.
“Such claims must be assessed according to the substance, concentration and exposure route.
“The basic principle is clear: medicines, detergents and industrial chemicals are not food ingredients.
“Where their deliberate use is suspected, the appropriate response is laboratory investigation and enforcement,” he said.
Mrs Emily Idoko, a food vendor and restaurant owner, said the economics of compliance could not be ignored.
Idoko said clean water, protective clothing, cleaning materials, insect protection and refrigeration all cost money.
“In a hyper-inflationary market, spending extra money on disposable gloves, hairnets, insect-netting and detergents means vendors must raise their food prices.
“If a vendor spends money on premium hygiene standards and raises the price of a plate of rice by N1,700 to offset it, customers will immediately migrate to a less hygienic, cheaper vendor,” she said.
She said unreliable electricity added another problem, particularly for meat, soups and other perishable foods requiring temperature control.
According to her, for vendors operating on thin margins, discarding unsold food can mean losing the day’s profit.
Ultimately, experts say Nigeria’s street-food culture needs regular inspections, stronger environmental-health systems, access to clean water, proper waste disposal, vendor training, laboratory testing and meaningful enforcement.
The most important question for Nigeria’s food-safety system is: Who checked the food before it reached consumers?
(NANFeatures)
