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Something
happened to the discourse on bread in Nigeria when Auntie Dora, whom
you know as the “NAFDAC Woman,” tried to teach some bakers that what is
used in preserving a dead body should not be used in preserving a loaf
of bread meant for human consumption. Nigerian consumers of these
loaves were praying, “Give us this day our daily bread” but ironically
the bakers were answering their prayers with “well preserved” loaves of
“dread.” For them, the transformation of bread to dread was a special
work of scientific genius, with the consumer easily crossing the
threshold of life just as in the phonemic space of the word; a “b” that
looks backwards becomes a “d.” If “b” is for “birth” and “d” for death,
then a “b” that has looked back like Lot’s wife to become a “d” has
exhibited the highly appealing condition of life-after-life. Auntie
Dora did not like this tragic discourse and so quickly banned the
production and sale of bromated bread. But that was not the end of “our
daily dread.” It is one thing to deliver bread from bromate and other
poisons and another to protect it as it makes its journey from the
bakery to the dining table. One who observes the handling of loaves of
bread in our markets and streets would in fact wonder whether it would
not have been better for us to ask God to give us our daily “akpu” or
“eba” instead of the kind of loaves that would mean greater wahala for
the consumer.

OK, here is a
playback: a bread vendor is faithfully going round, with naked loaves
on her tray, thinking, perhaps, that a naked loaf is more tempting than
a dressed one. One loaf of bread in search of adventure would roll off
the tray and fall into the gutter. The bread vendor would not tolerate
that impudence: she would pick the disobedient loaf up and then flog it
with a piece of cloth, most probably the one she had made into a pad
and had been using in balancing the tray on her head. Then, when she
has executed the punishment, she would put back the loaf on the tray.
Much later, you could see her trying to impress her customers by using
a duster that wears a serious frown on its face to “clean” the loaves.
A clean loaf needs a massage, always. That, too, is an advertisement
strategy, for someone would see the “retouching” and develop an
appetite.

As I contemplate
turning a bread experience into a S(h)ibboleth essay, a taxi pulls up,
and I can see naked loaves of bread packed in the greasy luggage
carrier and even inside the passenger area of the vehicle. The local
vendors – mostly women – rush in to be the first to buy the naked
loaves. As they say in Igbo, “Anu bu uzo na-anu mmiri oma” (The animal
that reaches the water first takes a clean draught). The women struggle
for the naked loaves and the naked loaves struggle for space on the
trays, cartons, and sacks. Some loaves fall on the ground and are
picked up again and placed on the trays or in the cartons. And each
loaf picks the smell and stain of each space it occupies on its journey
to someone’s mouth.

Minutes later, Mama
Bread-and-Butter begins to make her round, with the loaves not dressed
in transparent cellophane. She stops as a customer beckons her. She has
an itching nostril, and so digs into each nostril with her finger in a
kind of practiced scrub. With the same hand she grabs a loaf and slices
it, then butters it and hands it over to a man waiting. The man takes a
bite and then pays. I am horrified and have to pray to God not to puke.
But within my heart, a heretic prayer is already forming: give us this
day our daily dread! Auntie Dora should hear this, I swear under my
breath. When next she comes, she should inspect the nostrils of Mama
Bread-and-Butter. Auntie Dora should also interview the loaves of bread
so that they could tell her how they make their journey from the bakery
to a man’s mouth, where and how they were dressed and undressed.

As I get ready to
go to church, I have to rehearse Our Lord’s Prayer properly, for if
care is not taken, I could start uttering, “Give us this day our daily
dread” when others are saying “Give us this day our daily bread.”
Someone would think I am devilishly trying to add some bromate into the
bread the Lord is baking for His people.