Picture: Love Dooshima
Have you ever wished bread didn’t go off so fast? Well, for the shop owner and content creator who had that wish granted, it wasn't all it's cracked up to be. Love Dooshima, 52, posted a video on TikTok detailing an experiment she did where she left a particular brand of bread open on her counter for two months and documented her shock in finding it looking and smelling as fresh as the day she bought it. As a woman who experiences health issues due to menopause, Dooshima uses her platform to educate her fellow Nigerians on being mindful about food consumption.
In the video, Dooshima says that fresh bread had a very short shelf life when she was growing up, only lasting a couple of days without refrigeration before mould would begin to form. She jokingly dubs her discovery ‘everlasting bread’ and concludes, ‘whatever is in this thing, it’s not healthy.’
Others corroborated her findings, speaking in the comments about how the bread they bought had been on their shelves for weeks to months without any signs of spoiling and tried to guess the brand name of the bread she did this experiment on.
Dooshima took the precaution of hiding the name of the brand in the video and joked, ‘they don’t have a conscience, is it me they won’t come after?’ This turned out to be unfortunate foreshadowing of what was to come.
The next day, Dooshima was sent a DM from the company demanding that she take the video down, which she refused to do. Two days later, she was shocked and perplexed to receive a letter from the solicitors of Bon Bread. The company was demanding 50 million Naira for loss of revenue and reputational damage due to her video and Dooshima was invited to the Nigeria Police Force headquarters for questioning.
In a video on Instagram, the CEO of Bon Bread, Maria Umeagwukadilo, detailed her struggle as a mum of two who started the business from nothing, growing it from 3 members of staff to over 80 onsite staff members and over 100 indirect workers: ‘It pains me that after putting in 20 years of hard work, somebody on social media with a two-minute clip will cause so much damage.’
Dooshima went to the police headquarters to honour the invite but was met with prejudice and derision. ‘Everything that happened showed that my case was determined before I got there… I was treated like a criminal on arrival.’ Her phone was confiscated and she couldn't make calls without police being present.
Her recount of the questioning reveals the authorities were already heavily biased against her, with a policewoman commenting that maybe Satan made her make the video. She describes the Assistant Inspector General’s rudeness and abrasiveness, constantly interrupting her, accusing her of chasing ‘cheap popularity’ and trying to take a company down. The blatant unfairness made Dooshima feel like giving up. ‘I was meant to be silent and apologise.’
She was ordered by the general to hand over the bread to the police. When she declined to do so, she was immediately detained. Dooshima reports that her health concerns were ignored despite repeated pleas. The room she was confined to was dirty and mosquitoinfested, and her health concerns were brushed aside, with the authorities not allowing her son to bring her prescription medication: ‘I begged them not to put me in a small, smokey, airtight compartment because I am claustrophobic, hypertensive, and menopausal. I have hot flashes, but I was denied,’ she said.
She was finally released after 24 hours with the help of her son and some human rights lawyers, but being the example of Nigeria’s overpolicing of civilians took its toll. ‘Going outside, the first thing I saw was our national flag and I broke down crying. This is supposed to be our symbol of freedom. This place is supposed to be where we run to for safety… But this has become our prison, because we are helpless people.’
Unfortunately, it is not just one company's overzealousness that blew this issue out of proportion. The way this was allowed to play out was due to several systemic failures.
Nigeria, like many other African countries, has much weaker regulatory enforcement than European and American countries, which are easy for companies both in and outside Nigeria to take advantage of. Last year, Nestlé was found to be putting six times more sugar in their Cerlac Infant Cereals sold to African countries than in their European counterparts.
The overuse of preservatives in foods in Nigeria has had to be investigated numerous times over the past few years. It's not just bread, but meat and agriculture too. With unstable electricity and rising shipping for products, manufacturers are cutting corners where they can to soften the financial blow.
During the 2026 World Consumer Rights Day, Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission Executive Vice Chairman Tunji Bello warned that ‘unsafe products are undermining trust in Nigeria’s economy.’
Nigerian citizens are all too aware that reporting any of these failures will get them nowhere. As popular creator Peter Akah (@randypeterz) said on Instagram about the everlasting bread situation, ‘The fact that as a Nigerian you’re one frivolous complaint away from spending the next weeks or months of your life in prison should scare everybody.’
When asked why she didn’t go to the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) or the authorities first, Dooshima said, ‘The system did not give us the faith to believe that if we take this route, it will end in our favour and things will get better.’
Bon Bread is not the only company to wield the power of the police against concerned consumers. In 2023, Chioma Okoli made a Facebook post criticising Nagiko Tomato Mix as being ‘pure sugar’. Erisco Foods, the company that made the product, had her arrested under the Cybercrime Act. She was pregnant at the time and it was confirmed in court that she lost the pregnancy due to stress and poor medical care in detention.
Unfortunately, since the authorities are always on the side of the person with the most money and power, there is no protection for consumers speaking out against unsafe products. Those who do are hung out to dry. All we can do for now is remain vigilant of the things we put in our bodies and use any privilege we have to support those who dare to speak out. But change around food and public health is needed and must be fought for.
On 17 May 2026, Bon Bread proudly posted a press release on all their social media stating NAFDAC found that their product ‘met approved requirements, contained no objectionable substances, and remained within permissible food safety limits.’
The day before, Dooshima posted a video of the bread she had been keeping since 25 February, showing the bread had still not gone off and still smelled fresh.
Dooshima said it best: ‘It’s high time we stop standing on the sidelines when it pertains to the safety of what we ingest. It’s that serious, no one is coming to save us.’
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