Nigeria’s cooking habits are costing millions of lives
4.3 million lives are lost globally each year to smoke from unclean cooking, and Nigeria remains one of the biggest contributors. Experts are now calling on Lagos State and beyond to act before more families pay the price.
Walk into a typical Nigerian kitchen at dusk, especially in the rural area, and you’ll hear the hiss of kerosene, the crackle of charcoal, or the smoky burst of firewood. For millions of families across Nigeria, that is dinner in the making. What most people don’t realise is that this everyday ritual carries a deadly cost.
Globally, the World Health Organisation estimates that 4.3 million people die every year from exposure to smoke caused by unclean cooking fuels. That’s more deaths than HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis combined.
In Nigeria, the problem is even more glaring. An estimated 90 million households still rely on kerosene, charcoal, or firewood. The link to poverty is impossible to ignore. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, about 133 million Nigerians live in multidimensional poverty, lacking access not just to money but also to basic needs like health, education, and clean energy.
For many of these households, clean fuels are out of reach. A gas cylinder refill can take up half of a family’s weekly earnings, while a bag of charcoal or a bottle of kerosene feels cheaper in the moment, even if the long-term health hazard is devastating.
Doctors say smoke from these fuels clogs lungs, raises blood pressure, and even damages memory over time. You hear of women who spend years bent over smoky stoves and later struggle with chronic coughs, chest tightness, or worse. Children grow up inhaling fumes before their lungs have fully formed. It is a silent crisis we have normalised.
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This week in Lagos, researchers from New York University Grossman School of Medicine, the University of Chicago, and Lagos State University College of Medicine put the problem back under the spotlight at a stakeholder sensitisation meeting.
Their project, called the Clean-Fuel, Clean Cookstove Study, is pushing for a shift away from solid fuels towards safer, high-efficiency stoves.
Professor Ololade Wright, one of the lead investigators, did not mince words.
Household air pollution from solid fuels remains one of the most critical public health issues. In Nigeria alone, 90 million households are still cooking with them.”
Wright added that the project’s focus is on community mobilisation, not just lab work, because real change happens when families see the benefits of switching first-hand.
Professor Gbenga Ogedegbe, another principal investigator, went further, saying firewood use is tied not only to lung problems but to cognitive decline, meaning years of smoke exposure could even affect how people think and process memory.
On the environmental side, Dr Babatunde Ajayi, General Manager of the Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency (LASEPA), warned that household air pollution is pulling double duty, killing people and worsening climate change.
Lagos, he said, has started measuring and controlling air quality more closely, but the real game-changer will be when households themselves ditch the smoke and adopt clean cooking.
It is clear, but what then?
Truth is, this is not the first time we have heard the warning. Campaigns about “clean cooking” have been around for years, but adoption remains painfully slow. The reason is not hard to see: poverty. Gas stoves are expensive, cylinders need refilling, and infrastructure is uneven.
For a family surviving on daily wages, a bag of charcoal or a bottle of kerosene feels easier than the upfront cost of switching. But every time that choice is made, the hidden cost is someone’s lungs, someone’s heart, someone’s shortened life.
The researchers urged the Lagos State Government to create stronger policies and incentives that would push the transition along. That could mean subsidies, financing schemes for households, or even direct distribution of clean stoves in low-income areas. The idea is simple: the more households switch, the fewer hospital beds get filled with patients suffering from smoke-induced disease.
This is not just about Lagos either. From Oyo to Kano, from Delta to the FCT, Nigerians are cooking in ways that scientists have repeatedly said are unsafe. If the country wants to cut preventable deaths, improve the quality of life, and play its part in fighting climate change, this is one battle it cannot keep postponing.
The warning is clear: smoke in the kitchen today could mean silence at the dinner table tomorrow.
