Mother adds fertilizer to meal, 16 kids, 6 mums dead, fathers alive

20No foul play.

Muazu Kabiru, the councillor representing Bargaja ward, could confirm that about the mother that cooked for the six households that ate, developed complications and died at Isa LGA, Sokoto, on August 10.

The cook died, too, after all. And five more women. And 18 children.

It was just the six fathers, and one other who had yet to eat of the deadly meal that were alive, according to Kabiru.

“When I was informed in the morning, I rushed with some medical personnel and anti-bacterial drugs to the house because we assumed they were suffering from cholera,” he told the Daily Trust.

While taking treatment, many of them gave some hope of beating death. Until everything changed.

Before dawn, 18 of them died. The remaining four followed later.

It called for curiosity.

“One of the family members who did not eat the food told us that they all complained of stomach ache after they had eaten.”

So took took a sample of the food and it was confirmed that it was mixed with Gishirin Lalle—a type of fertilizer.

Fertilizer grains didn’t magically show up in the broth.  The woman who cooked dinner for the family that day didn’t like its taste.

She asked one of the children to get some salt for her .

“The child mistakenly brought some gishirin lalle (fertilizer) for her which she put in the soup,” the source said.

They all died.

Sokoto Commissioner of Health, Dr. Ali Inname expressed his condolences to those alive in the compound.

He then warned the public to be more careful in separating storage sites for food items from other agricultural and cosmetic items.