Nigeria:A Problem Like Rice!

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.

Biafra Agitation And Antics Of Divide-And-Rule

         By Nwobodo Chidiebere

“I freed a thousand slaves; I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.”— Harriet Tubman

FOR weeks now, the issue of Biafra agitation has been at the front burner in the polity. The movement is being propelled by Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and Movement for Actualisation of Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) via peaceful protests ravaging the old Eastern region. The promoters of IPOB are led by the detained Director of Radio Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu.

Agents of divide-and-rule have gone back to their age-long work of dividing the indigenous people of Biafra. Their major target is to Igbonize this present struggle of Biafra restoration using the instrumentality of the media to tag Biafra agitation Igbo “affair”. Majority of those divide-and-rule advocates are non-Biafrans, who ordinarily should not have any say in determining the future of old Eastern region.

Why is it that Hausa and Fulani which comprise major ethnic groups especially in Northern part of Nigeria are always referred to as Hausa/Fulani – as one indivisible people, instead of Hausa and Fulani? Why do we have South-South as a geo-political zone carved out of old Eastern region, but there is nothing like North-North in the Northern Nigeria? How did the creators of this South-South mantra invent this word that is not in line with known cardinal points as enshrined in the principles of geography? How come there is Niger-Delta in the South but nothing like North-Sahara in the North? Why is there one Northern Governors Forum in the North, but coming down Southern Nigeria; we have South-East, South-West and South-South Governors Forums; all in one Southern Nigeria? Why do we always hear about Northern Elders Forum and nineteen Northern states as one socio-political block and one North, but we hardly talk of Southern Elders Forum, seventeen Southern states or one South? Someone should put on his thinking cap by now.