It is pathetic and frightening that, at the same moment Nigeria is gasping for relief from a two-decade battle with insecurity, another crisis is quietly poisoning our future. In Ogijo, an outskirt of Lagos, lead dust has settled on everything – on kitchen floors, farm beds, church compounds, classrooms, and playgrounds – according to an investigation by Peter Goodman of the New York Times (he recently spent time in Nigeria reporting on factories that recycle the batteries that go into millions of cars worldwide).
Each breath residents take pulls metallic poison deeper into their bloodstreams. Toddlers crawl across floors and place contaminated hands in their mouths, in some cases suffering irreversible brain damage before their lives have even begun.
The tragedy is not hidden in mystery. It is the direct consequence of battery-recycling factories that extract lead from used car batteries to make new products. According to the investigation, the factories do this in Nigeria because they cannot freely do it in the US or Europe, where most of the batteries end up, because tighter environmental regulations have closed the door to lead pollution. So, the industry simply shifted to nations like ours, where jobs are scarce, regulation is weak, and desperation makes exploitation possible.
This disaster in Ogijo is not an accident but the predictable outcome of global economic dynamics in which the cheapest production wins, even when it comes at the cost of human life. Nations at the bottom of the supply chain bear the toxic consequences of the comfort enjoyed in wealthier societies. In this case, we have discovered that recycled lead from Nigerian factories could be traced to a top American battery manufacturer whose products power millions of cars globally. The West is powering its clean industry with Africa’s poisoned air, soil, and children.
Nigeria would not be the first nation to bear this burden. Similar stories have emerged worldwide, from illegal timber extraction in Asia to the fashion industry in Central America to mining in Latin America. Corporations outsource risk to vulnerable communities and then shield themselves behind layers of contractors, brokers, and suppliers. The lead industry has perfected this art of collective innocence, as middlemen conduct inspections and recommend pollution-control equipment but leave enforcement optional. Manufacturers overseas accept this vague assurance and claim ignorance when disaster strikes. And local regulators look away, content with modest employment figures that cannot justify the magnitude of human suffering unfolding in silence.
Read also: Senate raises alarm over silent lead poisoning in Lagos, Ogun
The incentives are completely misaligned, especially in a market where transparency is absent, accountability becomes optional, and morality even more so. Communities like Ogijo do not stand a chance.
To make matters worse, even companies that want to do things the right way cannot survive. Green Recycling in Nigeria invested millions of dollars in pollution-control equipment and safe-processing technology. Yet it could not compete with other firms producing the same output cheaply without environmental safeguards. It could not pay high enough prices to purchase used batteries. It could not secure enough market share to repay loans, and it ultimately collapsed.
The lesson should be clear to all: in an unregulated playing field, responsible companies will die while irresponsible ones thrive.
So why should Nigeria care? After all, the conversation in our country has been dominated by inflation, food insecurity, poverty, oil theft, and terrorism. The poisoning of our land is not a separate story but part of the same crisis. Insecurity destroys communities in an instant. Lead contamination destroys them slowly, silently and permanently. A child with impaired brain development due to lead poisoning will require lifelong support (that child may struggle in school, struggle to gain employable skills, and struggle to contribute economically). Multiply that by thousands, and you have a town whose human capital has been permanently damaged.
We are already a nation losing doctors, engineers, and teachers to migration. Can we afford to lose the potential of thousands of young minds before they even begin life?
The erosion of public health weakens national productivity, and a generation of poisoned children is a generation of stunted national development.
Environmental disasters create new layers of insecurity and social instability. Sadly, foreign corporations walk away with profits while Nigerians inherit the damage. And this is not simply a public health problem but an economic, security, human capital, and sovereignty problem.
Nigeria cannot continue to pay for the world’s prosperity with the blood of its people. The solution will require coordinated, courageous action; the way forward, therefore, should include:
Immediate environmental audit and cleanup, as the government (both state and federal) must conduct a comprehensive assessment of all battery-recycling plants nationwide, with mandatory cleanup and compensation enforced on polluting firms.
Licensing and environmental compliance as operational prerequisites will go a long way to encourage only those who are environmentally friendly to do business. Factories must not operate without real, verifiable pollution-control systems, and surprise inspections must become a norm.
Protection and incentives for responsible companies should be encouraged. Firms like Green Recycling should not be punished for ethical practices. Tax breaks, subsidies and guaranteed market allocation can make safe production competitive.
Criminal liability for environmental poisoning should also be the norm. Pollution should not be a civil dispute but a crime. When children’s brains are destroyed, somebody must go to prison.
Nigeria must insist on transparency across supply chains, and foreign manufacturers must disclose and verify the origins of imported materials. Any company using Nigerian lead must prove that it was safely produced.
The truth is uncomfortable but must be told. If insecurity has taught us anything, it is that crises ignored do not disappear; they turn into monsters. Ogijo must be a turning point. Nigerians deserve jobs, industrialisation and economic growth, but not at the price of their health, their dignity and the future of their children. We have been lamenting for too long; it is time to act.
