Former Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo says a laboratory test on freshly squeezed orange juice prepared by his wife, Dolapo, came back as unfit for human consumption.

He told a gardeners’ seminar in Lagos that she had made daily fresh juice part of a healthier routine, then developed persistent headaches. After other explanations fell away, a batch went to a lab. The result, he said, was the opposite of what a “healthy” glass was supposed to be.

Osinbajo used the story to warn about pesticides and ripening chemicals on Nigerian fruit and vegetables. He named calcium carbide as a substance sellers use to force colour and speed ripening on bananas, mangoes, pawpaw and tomatoes, and pointed to small surveys in which some traders admitted using it.

The account is one household’s test, not a nationwide sample. Food-safety agencies have long listed carbide ripening and heavy pesticide use as problems. Enforcement is patchy, and buyers rarely know what sat on the fruit before it reached the juicer.

Osinbajo’s punchline that Coke might have been the safer bet that week was a joke with an edge. Fresh juice is only as clean as the fruit and the chain that brought it to the kitchen.