Don’t ban ogogoro, distillers plead with FG

The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, had last week, announced the ban of local gin, popularly known as Ogogoro and conduct sensitization across the country, due to the death of more than 60 people who had consumed the local gin in Rivers and Ondo states. Now producers of  Ogogoro, Okwagbe Distillers Union, Delta State, have appealed to the Federal Government not to ban the production of that brand of alcohol.

Reacting to NAFDAC’s resolution, Chairman of the union, Mr. Samuel Egedegbe, said that distilled gin does not kill, stating that"
“It is the Ogogoro produced from methanol that kills.” He said that their “distilled gin” is produced from palm wine derived from raffia palm or liquefied sugar mixed with yeast and well cooked before distilling the gin.”

He added:

“In the case of methanol, they do not have factories and they do not cook before distilling their gin. Rather, they only mix the methanol with water in their houses and automatically they have produced gin inside their bedrooms. On our part, we the members of the distillers union produce our gin through a scientific distillation  process.