NIGERIA: Downtrodden citizens of the world’s most populated black country now resort to selling blood and reproductive organs to make ends meet as President Bola Tinubu’s economic reform bites harder.
Reforms by the current All Progressive Congress administration is pushing more families deeper below the poverty line, and the citizens are finding creative, but dangerous, means to survive.
Investigations by NDN in major Nigerian cities of Abuja, Lagos, and Benin among others revealed that many Nigerians are selling their productive parts and even organs in their desperation to beat the economic down turn.
Unscrupulous health workers in private and public hospitals are encouraging young men and women to sell their bloods and other body parts by brokering deals to desperate patients, families and loved ones that are on admission.
Our reporters were told that although the hospitals’ management claimed that sales of blood are prohibited, patients are still paying exorbitant prices for blood, through deals brokered by health workers, including doctors.
At the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, a patient told our reporter that her parents paid N34,000 ($22) to get her two pints of blood.
“They told my father that I needed two pints of blood, and a family member or friend in a matching bloods group had to donate it. It is not as if the hospital does not have a blood bank, but they needed a donor or two to replace the ones they will give to me,” the now-discharged patient said.
She said staff in the facility promised to help her father get clean, proven donors if they would pay.
“What we didn’t know was that there were dozens of men and women who work with these people lurking around the premises for such opportunities. Within 30 minutes they produced someone with the right blood group, screened him and got him to donate.”
The family later paid 17,000/pint. the agent who brokered the deal reportedly took N2,000, while the ‘donor’ went away with N15,000 for a pint of blood.
Many sources reveal that blood selling is a thriving business brokered by hospital staff and agents, who have dozens of ‘clients/donors’ that can be rallied in just minutes.
“These workers have a list of sellers and their blood groups. So once blood is needed, all they need to do is place a call to them and ask them to come and pose as family or willing donors. Some donors wake up in the morning, get dressed and resume at the busy hospital waiting for ‘business’.”
HOW GIRLS ARE TAKING HORMONE INJECTION AND SELLING EGGS
Although the human eggs industry in the country is mostly unregulated, our findings have shown that it has become a money-spinner for university students and other ladies who are desperate for quick money.
A 2021 article by Qatar-based Al Jazeera raised concerns that “young women face unfavourable conditions and undergo multiple egg donations at the risk of their health,” but findings show that the business has exploded three years later.
It was gathered that the young ladies involved in the latest craze engaged in indiscriminate hormone injection to boost their fertility to enable them donate many times over a short period.
Experts say it takes up to two weeks for the eggs to be ready, while donors are encouraged to use the hormone to boost their fertility and create multiple eggs to improve the recipients’ odds of getting pregnant.
A donor who spoke to our reporter on the condition that her name would not be mentioned said she makes more than double her 180,000 ($120) per month salary as the manager of a small pharmaceutical business.
“I also get a percentage for every one of my friends that I can encourage to donate. It is a good business and I have nothing to lose. I usually wasted the eggs through, anyway, so it is not a crime and I am not doing badly,” Ese (not her real name) said.
On the other hand, many virile men are donating their sperm and making around N200,000 – 300% more than minimum wage (70,000 ($36) – for a successful ejaculation, after scaling all the pre-qualification hurdles.
The screening for qualification includes tests for HIV, Hepatitis, sickle cell, and STDs among others.
“Ideally, it is not how I want to make a living, but faced with caring for my loved ones, siblings in school and other bills that come with being a Nigerian, this is the only way out for me,” Paul, a regular sperm donor at a popular fertility centre in Lagos said.
Meanwhile, like most medical procedures, reproductive donations come with medical and psychological side effects, which are mostly hidden from black market donors like Ese and Paul
Medical experts identified many side effects including indiscriminate hormone injections, procedures, and other effects that include bleeding during egg extraction, damage to internal organs and excessive bleeding for egg donors.
“For sperm donors, is mostly psychological from not knowing where your offspring could end up or what eventually became of the sperm you donated,” a psychologist said.
