Toxic Silence: How Lead Recycling Is Poisoning Ogijo—& Nigeria’s Future

By STELLA JOHNSON OGBOVOVEH

IN Ogijo, a bustling industrial town straddling the Lagos–Ogun border, the air carries more than the usual dust of a growing community. It carries a quiet, deadly pollutant—lead—floating invisibly in the wind, settling on rooftops, on farm soil, on school desks, and ultimately in the bloodstreams of the people who call this place home.

The alarm was confirmed on 17 September, when anxious residents gathered at the Ogijo Health Centre to collect their blood lead level (BLL) test results. Months earlier, a coalition of investigative reporters and scientists had taken samples after years of complaints about toxic emissions from battery recycling factories. Now, the truth stood waiting in sealed envelopes.

For 53-year-old Thomas Ede, a single father living just 500 metres from True Metals Nigeria Limited, the confirmation was devastating. His three children—all under 11—tested positive for lead poisoning. His oldest son, Freeman, recorded a BLL of 28.47 µg/dL, five times the WHO safety limit. The boy’s persistent illnesses suddenly had an explanation.

Ogijo’s tragedy is neither isolated nor accidental. It is the predictable outcome of an industry operating with minimal oversight, inadequate safety standards, and a regulatory landscape weakened by corruption and neglect.

A joint investigation conducted by The Examination, Premium Times, Joy FM, Pambazuko and Truth Reporting Post may represent the most damning scientific evidence yet. Tests on 70 residents showed dangerously elevated lead levels across workers, children, and adults. Factory workers had an average BLL of 20 µg/dL; children averaged 12 µg/dL; even non-factory adults averaged nearly twice the WHO reference level.

Environmental samples painted an equally grim picture: soil in a primary school contained almost 1,900 ppm of lead—five times the U.S. EPA limit. Dust inside a hotel near Everest Metal recorded a staggering 18,647 ppm.

The path of this poison is clear: the burning and smelting of used lead-acid batteries releases particulates into the air, contaminating soil, water, and food. Children, whose bodies absorb lead more easily, suffer the worst damage—impaired brain development, behavioural issues, and lifelong health complications. Pregnant women and infants face risks of miscarriage, premature birth, and irreversible neurological harm.

This is not theoretical. It is happening now, in the homes of people like Sikirat Odufeso, who spends her nights coughing through thick smoke. Her echocardiogram shows heart dysfunction linked to chronic toxic exposure. She has spent over ₦3 million trying to stay alive.

It is happening to women like Mary Mike, a former cook at True Metals, who lost her husband in a furnace accident and now battles her own lead-contaminated blood—21 µg/dL—while caring for their children alone.

It is happening in classrooms, where more than 300 pupils at Fountain of the Lord’s Glory Secondary School learn under a haze of toxic fumes. Principal Adeyombo Adesoji recalls protests and visits from environmental officials—interventions that dissolved, he believes, under the weight of bribery.

It is happening, relentlessly, in Ogijo.

And yet, the greater scandal is not the pollution itself but the systemic silence that enables it. For more than a decade, residents have raised alarms, filed complaints, and staged protests. Committees were formed, investigations promised. But factories kept expanding. Emissions grew thicker. Children grew sicker.

This silence is costing lives.

Nigeria’s lead recycling industry operates in a regulatory vacuum. Laws exist on paper, but enforcement is porous, compromised, or outright absent. Companies skirt environmental standards, while communities bear the cost in poisoned blood and poisoned futures.

The Ogijo case demands national reckoning. It is a public health emergency—one that affects not just a community, but the long-term cognitive, economic, and developmental potential of the country’s next generation.

Experts like Professor Joshua Ojo warn that pregnant women and infants are the most vulnerable, silently absorbing toxins that will shape their entire lives. “This is affecting millions,” he said. “It is degrading our national potential.”

Ogijo is a mirror held up to Nigeria: a nation where economic activity often advances ahead of regulation, and where the health of the poor is weighed lightly against industrial profit.

The remedy requires more than outrage. It demands:

• Immediate medical intervention for exposed residents, especially children and pregnant women.

• Independent environmental cleanup of contaminated soil and water.

• A national audit of all lead recycling plants and strict enforcement of safety standards.

• Transparent sanctions, including shutdowns, for non-compliant factories.

• Community education on exposure risks and prevention.

• A national policy review on hazardous waste management.

Ogijo’s residents cannot fight this battle alone. Their blood carries evidence of a preventable tragedy. Their testimonies reflect the human cost of industrial negligence.

The question now is whether Nigeria will listen—or allow the toxic silence to continue.