Time to Pick Out the Stones and Chaff

Imported Rice in Nigeria

While Mohammadu Buhari aimed at the Presidency of the Nigerian federation, he pledged jobs to millions of job-seeking Nigerians among other things. The agricultural sector was one of the multiple areas the eventual president was looking at.     

Rice production is extremely critical to the creation of jobs in the agro subsector.  Nigeria imported about 3 million tons of rice in the 2013-14 period. Between 2012 and 2015, about N474 billion was spent on rice importation, translating to an average revenue lost of N118.5 billion, annually.

The recent fall in the value of the naira threw to the fore the harm rice importation causes the Nigerian nation. It is good that this is happening very early in the life of the new administration. The administration, in an effort to discourage the importation of goods that Nigeria produces or can produce, has made the dollar scarce to the importers of such goods. This has led to the scarcity of the dollar and the rise in its value in the unofficial market. The end result is the 50% rise in the price of imported rice. 

Rather than allowing the Central Bank of Nigeria to loosing up channels of dollar sourcing for the affected importers, Buhari has, in keeping with his vow to create jobs, insisted with sarcasm that “if you think you cannot eat local rice, then it is up to you to source for the dollar wherever you can and use it to buy the foreign rice that you so much cherish.”

The question is: why do Nigerians find it difficult to eat their own rice, despite knowing the huge harm the practice causes our economy? The answer is not far: Local rice is badly processed. The outcomes are the stones and bits of unsorted chaff that makes local rice unattractive, despite its high taste. People don’t want to eat rice and crush stones as they do so. In addition, there are bits of chaff that must inevitably find their way into the pot. Nigerians don’t like their weird texture in the mouth.  The species of rice grown in Nigeria are a spectrum. There are some, whose grains dissolve and fuse into a huge starchy mass after boiling. Nigerians, like other nationals, prefer rice whose grains remain independent even after boiling.

Here, the eating of high quality rice is associated with status. Every Nigerian loves status and wouldn’t want to be left behind. It is the reason why Nigerians have developed shock drains that ensure they adjust to a price increase each time it occurs. There is also that thing about time being a healer. This means that, in time, Nigerians would always get over the economic pains that price increases bring. 

Wise speakers often say that problems are not solved by ignoring them. Consequently, halting rice importation and taking back rice-sector jobs from Asian nations would, no doubt, require the nation to stand up and act as against our attitude of just sitting and expecting things to just get cooked. The Asians, who export the rice we consumed, don’t just sit. They stand up and act. 

Most rice farmers in Nigeria are uneducated and process their rice using crude, and rigorous means handed down to them by unschooled traditions. They need to be told that the inferior processing methods lead to the stones and detritus that make their product unappealing. They need to be told the role they can play towards ending rice importation, and be educated and assisted on how they can play this role adequately. They also need to be told about the annual N118.5 billion that should be theirs, but which are lost to their Asian counterparts, and that they can earn this money if importation is successfully halted. Buhari and his team must also identify unpopular species of rice and encourage farmers to end their cultivation. In working to end importation, we must integrate the support for researches towards improving the quality of rice that is produced in the country. 

Problems are not solved by ignoring them. Nigeria, stand up.

Hidden Truth about Nigeria’s First Military Coup

Abubakar Tafawa Balewa

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 Picture Source: www.photoshelter.com

I have just finished listening to BBC Hausa this morning. This week, it has been marking the 50^th anniversary of the first military coup in Nigeria. This morning, it hosted the Methuselah of the Nigerian political landscape, Alhaji Maitama Sule, who was a Minister of the Federal Republic at the time.  Again, he painted those leaders as saints, unblemished by any kind of sin or crime. Then the journalist called his attention to a video he watched, in which it was said that one of the reasons why those young military officers struck was the reality that there was also corruption at the time. It was only then that Maitama Sule, confessed that there was corruption, but that it wasn’t the type that causes a storm in the heart. 

Another man, named Lili Gabari, who was a member of the opposition party, the Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU), which was led by late Alhaji Aminu Kano, told the BBC that the coup actually helped sanitized the system, that it got rid of some people who posed as hurdles on the road to a better nation.  His reasons are that Nigerians could not get agricultural loans or jobs in the Civil Service, except if they were members of the ruling party and that members of the opposition party were getting killed in cold blood, their offence being the membership to a ruling party.

So, it is clear now that there was corruption and flaws, only that they were faint. So, the only mistake was that we failed to fight it, allowing it continued to get as intense as a rising sun.

It is an injustice to continue to hide the truth from Nigerians. There is nothing wrong in telling the truth. Telling the truth only helps in the search of a solution that opens a decent road into the future.  The fact that there was corruption at the time does not mean that we cannot fight corruption today. If those pioneer leaders had a certain level of perfection, it those not mean that we cannot find people who were absolute in their perfection.  In the United States of America, our usual model of a perfect nation, there is corruption. But the fact that they have constantly fought it explains why they are where they are today.

Nigeria is so wide, and the people are more than sand on the seashore.  It is the reason why those Nigerians, as patriotic as they were, cannot be the most perfect in the whole of Nigerian space.

We have to know where we are coming from so that we can see, clearly, where we are going to.

Tourists' Attractions or Lies

Assop Fall

On December 26, 2014 my craving for honey took me to a place called Forest, at a portion of the boundary separating Plateau and Kaduna States. I turned up at Forest and was redirected backwards to a travelers’ stop I had passed along the road to Abuja. Coincidentally, the very traveler’s stopover overlooks the Assop Fall. 

Assop Fall often gets featured on tourism discussions and listed in tourist brochures as one of the places you wouldn’t want to miss when visiting Plateau State. 

I decided to use the opportunity to go see things for myself. A small rundown shade stood as a reception. Till today, it is still the only building there. As I descended, two young men I had mistaken as straying jobless youths from the village approached me, introducing themselves as staff of Plateau State Tourism Corporation. They looked so deprived and I felt sorry for them getting stationed at a place completely lacking of any form of sophistication.  They told me that going down to see the fall wasn’t free. So, I bought a ticket and I was allowed to walk down the valley to see the fall. 

Besides the fall, there was nothing to be proud of. What makes me proud of where I come from is what we have been able to do over and above what others had done. The rundown nature of the reception was just one reason why I was moved to think deep about the carefree attitude of our leaders, leaders who kill our pride by their political actions or inactions. Other reasons were the fact that the place never attracted tourists, since nothing has been done to develop it beyond the potential that it has, and the fact that any person wishing to visit would have been turn off by the obvious fact that the place is a rendezvous of miscreants. These miscreants often meet there in the nights, in the name of partying. It was possible to see real tourist attractions in the form of human wastes littering the place.

I climbed out of the valley with my mind pregnant with thoughts. It was the only “fun” I had.
This neglect isn’t peculiar to Assop Fall, but all the “tourist resources” often quoted in tourist’s guides, the printing of which is often awarded to a girlfriend or some other close friend or relation. 

Another “attraction” is the Mado Tourist Village. The Mado Tourist Village is a collection of chalets that was meant to provide accommodation to tourists. At first, it was a novel idea that was abandoned by subsequent authorities. Eventually, sprawling slums engulfed it and homeless people occupied them, after the furnishings had been stolen. Today, crazy officials still quote the place as a tourist’s resource. 

 There is also the Jos Wild Life Park. I was there on Christmas of 2010. There were foreigners, mostly from Hill Crest School. Their faces showed a mix of desperation for recreation and the discontent of not finding one. There were wastes from the snacks visitor often brought in, a lot of the animals had died without being replaced and those still alive appeared malnourished. The scenario made me ashamed and let down.  
 The story of neglect is the same with Rayfield Resort, Rockland Hotel, Wase Rock, and many others. These are places either occupied by wild animals or homeless people, but still quoted as destinations for fun seekers.

The danger of telling lies to tourists is that it undermines their faith about what we claim to have. Back home, they tell it as it is and we get wiped off the world’s tourism maps.

This culture of incompetence has been the reason why creativity is lacking in the states in Nigeria as a whole. This has resulted in the inability of states to generate revenues, waiting only for cheap subventions that come from the central coffer, a coffer that is dependent largely on erratic oil money. 

We have to wake up and work to attract tourists, even if they are local tourists. There is the craving for recreation even at home. If the sites are good, foreigners who stray into them would tell the tale back home. Eventually, we’ll show up again in the maps again