By Ray Ekpu
Over the years rice has
grown into Nigeria ’s
stable food. It can be made in several ways: cooked, steamed, fried, ground.
You can have it the way you want it, as coconut rice, waterleaf rice, jollof
rice, tuo shinkafa or you can have it
in a form that those who like it call “combined honours,” that is rice and
beans.
*Ray Ekpu |
In the 50s, in the
Eastern part of Nigeria ,
rice was not the staple food. In the rural communities it is still not the main
event today, Garri and Yams still rule the roost and rice is considered a
Christmas, New Year or special occasion delicacy. But in the urban centres rice
is the king. It is the king of foods because it is easy to cook; even a
bachelor can cook it. It is kind to the tongue and kind to the stomach.
In the 50s, the rice we
ate was grown in Nigeria .
It was not polished. When it was rice day a mat would be rolled out and the
rice poured on it. We would sit around and pull the rice aside in small bits
and fish out the stones. It was fun since we knew that what we were doing was
likely to give us food that will be kind to our teeth. It would be stone-free.
We did not consider rice to be a problem.
Today,
rice is becoming a problem of a sort because of its price tag. A year or so
ago, you could buy a 50kg bag of rice for N10,000 or less. Today you may have
to buy it for N15,000 or more. There is a report that some officials of the
National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) were caught recently trying to
rebag for profit rice that was meant for internally displaced persons in the
North East. They did not know that rice, while a friendly commodity, has always
had a big hunger for trouble especially when one tampers with its price. They
may soon find out.
The Japanese government
found that out in 1918. For about two months, July to September of that year,
about 10 million people in 33 cities, 104 towns and 97 villages took part in
the most notorious rice riots in history. The problem was that the price of
rice had doubled within a few months while wages remained stagnant. This
generated a spontaneous mass uprising particularly because rice is Japan ’s staple
food. The placards read “sell rice cheap”
“down with wicked dealers.” The
workers raided rice shops and the houses of profiteers. It took huge contingents
of the police and 50,000 soldiers to quell the riots and bring the situation to
normal.
Nearer home, in Liberia , a
similar situation occurred during the regime of President William R. Tolbert
Jr. His Minister of Agriculture, Florence Chenoweth, had submitted a memo to
the cabinet recommending an increase in the price of a 100-pound bag of rice
from $22 to $26. The reason, according to the minister, was to get rice farmers
to double their production since rice was Liberia ’s number one food. However,
a young man who just returned from America ,
Gabriel Baccus Mathews, called the members of his opposition party, the
Progressive Alliance of Liberia (PAL) into the streets of Monrovia on April 14, 1979.
The protest was
supposed to be peaceful but it turned violent. Shops were looted and owners
molested. Matthews ignited the riot by telling the people that the price
increase was to benefit Chenoweth and the Tolbert family who, he claimed, were
big rice farmers. Chenoweth was fired and the price of rice was reduced to $20.
Tolbert struggled to hold the country together but the collateral damage of
that crisis-afflicted his government irreparably. A year later, he was
overthrown by Samuel Doe and Matthews was made the Foreign Minister.
Dikko
took up the job with dimpled exuberance. He it was who said that Nigerians had
not yet started to eat the remnants of food from the refuse bin. We all thought
he would not let us start eating from there. As you know, politicians’ words
are always coated with saccharine. We thought our salvation was at the door. We
did not know that we were in for a rude awakening. Dikko could not stop the
rice which was labeled “Presidential Task
Force” from performing a disappearing act and the price of rice from going
north.
I was the Editor of the
Sunday
Times at the time. Two of my staff, a reporter and photographer, had
gone to Cotonou
for an assignment. Lo and behold they found bags and bags of the Presidential
Task Force rice there on sale. They did an investigation of it and took
photographs. I thought it was a good idea to give the story good play in the Sunday
Times so that the government would know where the rice was disappearing
to. I did so dutifully. The NPN government of Shehu Shagari was livid and asked
me to publish a denial of this true story. I refused, of course.
And what happened next?
The Daily
Times which was edited by Martin Iroabuchi published a story refuting
the Sunday
Times story, a story they did not investigate, a story they did not
publish in the first instance and a story that was absolutely true. I was
shocked but I knew that from that day onwards I was a marked man. Dikko was so
powerful that he was called Deputy President behind his back even though there
was a Vice President, Alex Ekwueme, and no office of Deputy President ever
existed in our political lexicon.
Now, rice is hugging
the headlines. Its fortune is rising. So is its price. And strange things are
beginning to happen around this exotic food item that seems to have the hunger
and reputation for trouble making. A certain Yusuf Bala went to Singer Market
in Fagge LGA, Kano ,
with his five-year old son. He wanted to buy a 50kg bag of rice worth N14,000
but did not have the money. So he left his son with the rice merchant, Suleiman
Bagudu, took the rice away and promised to return soon with the money. Six
hours later, Bagudu’s restiveness could no longer be contained. He asked the
young boy to take him to his father’s house. On seeing him Bala apologised
profusely for his bad behaviour which occurred because of his impecuniosity.
Bagudu, a kind hearted merchant, the opposite of Shylock, the Merchant
of Venice, donated the rice to him and handed over his son to him as
well.
The Bala story is
evidence of the rise of rice in our food consumption narrative. Its dominance
is becoming unmistakable. The thirst for it is becoming unquenchable. Now that
it can be cooked in various ways anyone can find which variety turns him on and
he can go for it. Will rice become the nation’s main menu item? It is getting
there.
The
globalisation of its production and marketing will ensure the globalisation of
its consumption. But which one are Nigerians consuming? Uncle Ben’s or Uncle Ofada’s.
Both. But I can tell you that Uncle Ofada’s
rice is becoming more attractive to many families and party goers than
hitherto. But its critics have three things against it:
(a) They say it doesn’t taste like rice. My
view: Eat it like something other than rice, then
(b) They say its colour is not snow white.
My view: Haven’t we got enough white in our system: white garri, white soup,
white sugar, white eggs?
(c) It has sand in it. My view: Take out the
sand the way we used to do many years ago and you will be fine.
Now the good side of
Uncle Ofada’s rice:
(a) It is a foreign exchange conserver
(b) It puts our farmers in business
(c) It reduces unemployment
(d) It
is affordable
(e) Above all, it is more nutritious than the
polished, imported rice.
This is the type of
rice recommended by nutritionists for good health. Nigerians are becoming
creative in the food business. They now package suya in plastic cans. They also package soups such as okro, afang, edikang ikong etc
in ready-to-cook and ready-to-eat formats. I expect that very soon Uncle Ofada’s rice will be treated with
more dignity than just being wrapped in leaves whose hygiene you are unsure of.
Some years ago, an Ondo businessman called Jobi Fele used to package jollof
rice for sale.
It was a meal I always
attacked with razzle-dazzle enthusiasm. The man died on April 24, 2011 and the
canned jollof rice apparently died with him.
Can someone do some
interesting things with Uncle Ofada’s
rice? That is the challenge.
*Ray Ekpu, a veteran journalist, is former Chief Executive
Officer (CEO) of Newswatch Communications
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