“Monkey Tail”: Silent Killer On The Streets, Ondo Communities In Mourning After Mass Poisoning

It began, as these things often do in Nigeria, with something ordinary: a drink, shared at different spots, on an otherwise unremarkable Saturday.

By the time the sun rose again over Araromi Obu and Odigbo town, twenty-four people who had shared that drink were dead.

A Weekend That Turned Into A Wake

ValidViewNetwork gathered that the deaths occurred between September 3 and 7, 2026, across two communities in Odigbo Local Government Area of Ondo State, after residents consumed a locally brewed herbal-and-ethanol concoction popularly known as “Monkey Tail.”

Eight people died in Araromi Obu; sixteen more died in Odigbo town.

Some victims, findings show, collapsed unconscious shortly after drinking and never recovered. Others made it home first, and simply never woke from their sleep.

By the time the scale of the tragedy became clear, entire households were mourning, and two communities that had spent a quiet weekend together were now burying their neighbours.

“We Are Yet To Confirm What Killed Them”

Checks by ValidViewNetwork confirm that Odigbo Local Government Chairman, Taiwo Adegoroye, said a preliminary verbal autopsy pointed toward a possible link between the deaths and the herbal substance, though formal medical examinations remain necessary to establish the exact cause.

Ondo State Commissioner for Health, Banji Ajaka, confirmed that investigations were underway but stopped short of naming the specific toxic agent involved.

Police in the state say a comprehensive investigation is ongoing in collaboration with the state Ministry of Health, “suspected to be connected with possible poisoning.

“Pending those results, local authorities have placed a precautionary ban on the sale and consumption of locally brewed alcoholic drinks in the affected communities, an acknowledgment that, whatever the eventual lab results confirm, something sold openly in these towns has already proven lethal.

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Grief That Turned Into Protest

The scale of loss did not stay contained to private mourning for long.

Youths in Araromi Obu marched to the palace of their traditional ruler, Oba Rufus Akinrinmade, demanding answers and urgent government action to prevent further deaths, a reminder that in communities where trust in swift official response is often thin, grief and anger tend to arrive together.

A Familiar, Unaddressed Danger

This is not the first time locally brewed herbal or ethanol-based concoctions have claimed lives in Nigeria, and unless regulation of what goes into these sachets and bottles improves, it will not be the last.

Many of these drinks are sold without any standardized quality control, mixed by hand in quantities and combinations no health authority has verified, and consumed by people who have no way of knowing what, exactly, they are trusting their bodies with.

Twenty-four families in Odigbo now know the cost of that gap in oversight in the most permanent way possible.

To Nigerian youths and adults who reach for locally brewed herbal mixtures as a cheap escape or a weekend ritual: what you cannot verify, you should not casually trust with your life, a drink with no label, no regulation and no accountable manufacturer is a gamble every single time, not just this once.

To the relevant state and federal health authorities: a preliminary ban on sales is a start, not a solution; without consistent testing, licensing and enforcement across every local brewer in every community, Odigbo’s grief will simply relocate to the next town.

And to the families still waiting on autopsy results: your right to know exactly what took your people is not a formality, it is the very least accountability this tragedy owes you.