SALES, CONSUMPTION AND THERAPEUTIC USAGE OF PEPPERS COMMONLY TRADED AT ODEA MARKET, ABEOKUTA, OGUN STATE, NIGERIA

The study was conducted to collate and asses the therapeutic relevance of commonly sold pepper in Odeda markets. Hundred (100) structured and validated questionnaire were administered on pepper sellers by purposive sampling techniques. Data were analysed by descriptive statistics such as frequency count, frequency percentage, mean and standard deviation using statistical analysis system (SAS). Majority (75.0%) of the pepper sellers were females, married (61.9%). and literates (93.0%). Fifty three (53%) of them were between 16 - 25 years, followed by (33%) between 26 - 50 years while fourteen percent (14.0%) were above 50 years. It was observed that 40.2% of the pepper sellers earned below 18,000.00 monthly, 19.6% earned between 30, 000-39, 000, 12.0% earned between 40.000-59,000 while 14.1% earned between 50,000-59,000 monthly. A total of five pepper types were collated among the pepper sellers out of which nine four percent (94.0%) claimed to know between three to five pepper species and traded with species such as hot pepper, Alligator pepper, small fruit hot pepper, sweet pepper and chilli pepper (73.1%) with hot pepper having the highest demand (80.0%). Ninety-eight percent of the pepper sellers (98%) were of the opinion that peppers provide humans with both nutritional and medicinal value and that the sales of pepper species is highly profitable as indicated by 92.9% of the respondents under the study. Also, 53.1% them consumed pepper at least twice daily, 39.8% consumed it at least once a day while 7.1% consumed it at least thrice daily either singly or in combinations. 32.4% of the pepper sellers revealed that pepper apart from its nutritional values could still be used to manage cold and catarrh, nausea (27.9%), malaria (8.8%), tooth decay (7.4%), snake bite (7.4%), sore throat (5.9%), pile (5.9%) and tongue blisters (4.4%). Air-drying (92.5%), refrigeration (4.3%) and sun-drying (3.2%) were the methods of preservation employed being used to preserve their peppers.