MOVING frantically in a deliberate effort to outsmart the thick black clouds gathering overhead that evening, Maureen Ezeh, 34, made haste with the most important routine of the day as thick black smoke snaked through the soot-covered perforated holes on the 10-year-old corrugated zinc- made kitchen.

The widowed mother of three runs a mobile food restaurant popularly known as (Mama Put) at ninth miles corner, Ngwo in Udi Local Government Area of Enugu State, one of the major cities in the southeastern regions.

With a population of 50,000 people, a major commercial activity engaged by womenfolk in Ngwo is mobile restaurant- This is not limited to the preparation and sale of Okpa, a local cuisine widely associated with the town of Udi.

Cleaning her reddened eyes with the edge of a wrapper hanging above the miniature kitchen window, Maureen called to her 13- year-old daughter to move the wheeled -truck that housed the unwashed food coolers from her day’s sales toward the shade behind their one-room apartment as the first showers of rain pelted down.

Striving to survive

With 69 percent of households in the country using solid fuels as their primary source of domestic energy for cooking, women and children are at a particularly high risk of disease from exposure to household air pollution says the World Health Organisation.

As an estimated 95,300 Nigerians reportedly die annually from indoor air pollution.

“When I remember that my children are still in class because of the little profit that I make from this business, I am grateful. But, my health is not as it used to be. The smoke from the woods is hurting my eyes and chest,” Maureen narrated.

READ MORE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/women-entrepreneurs-in-nigeria-risk-their-health-pollute-environment-to-eke-out-a-living/