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Tucked away from
the volumes of news generated by the Nigerian media was a plaintive cry
for help by the president of the Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria
(RIFAN), Abubakar Wodi. There is nothing unusual in demands by interest
groups, especially farmers, for government support for their industry.

But Mr. Wodi has
an unusual request. He wanted government to assist members of his
association to build on their success in way that could only be
beneficial to the country itself.

The rice farmer is calling for a freeze in rice importation to save local production.

He said the need
for such a measure is necessary because of a glut in paddy rice due to
importation. Mr. Wodi said that more than 75 percent of the rice
produced locally remains unsold, adding that the latest report from Edo
State indicated that the price of the commodity had fallen drastically.

The leader of the
rice farming community further argued that, for a country, which
consumes rice more than any other staple food, concerted efforts must
be made to address the problem urgently. He urged the federal
government to review the N23 million worth of contracts for small-scale
rice processing centres, awarded in 2009, to give way to large-scale
rice processing centres.

We can but urge
government, at all levels, to hearken to the cry of the association for
the lives of thousands of people involved in the cultivation,
processing and marketing of this cereal depend on sustaining the
industry. Nigeria also stands to gain economically by keeping these
people in employment – and that is without talking about the millions
of dollars the country expends every year to import the product.

Rice, until the
oil boom of the 1970s, was not a major source of food for Nigerians. In
fact, statistics show that Nigeria had the lowest per capita annual
consumption of rice in West Africa in the 1960s. But since then, the
consumption of this cereal has literally gone through the roof,
recording an estimated growth of 10 per cent a year – and demand for
the grain is predicted to surge by almost 50% to 2013. Yet, the need,
fostered as it were by changing feeding patterns, is largely met by
foreign imports. The commodity, which is procured mostly from Asian
markets, costs the country close to $1 billion a year.

It has also
changed from being middle class fare to that eagerly consumed by all
classes. A World Bank report, which classified rice as a strategic
commodity in the country, noted poor urban households obtain over 30
percent of their caloric intake from rice. The product also constitutes
a major component of their food expenditure.

Rice has thus
become a security issue, which the government has to pay serious
attention to. Rice is grown in virtually all the states in Nigeria and
there is nothing that stops the country from becoming major net
exporter of the grain except lack of investment.

It is possible
that the perceived low quality of locally produced rice was responsible
for the low patronage of the stock. But half the job has been done with
increased cultivation and higher yielding varieties.

Surely, as Mr.
Wodi said, better and bigger processors should improve the quality of
the local product. If government recognises rice as a strategic
commodity, then it ought not to be too difficult for it to make this
happen. As countries such as India have shown, nothing exalts a nation
more than an ability to feed itself. It should also free up some more
of our foreign reserve for other products that would have bigger impact
on national development.

Unlike her husband who embodies the name Goodluck, Patience Jonathan is not so lucky.

It seems that every
time she tries to do good, misfortune attends. Some of it is due to
dumb planning of course, but mostly, it is plain bad luck.

When as a
governor’s wife she tried to move some of her money abroad like other
people, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, allegedly, caught
her: twice if you believe the accounts. As a result, she is probably
the first lady with the least money in foreign banks to have served in
Bayelsa State.

Then in May
Interpol in Dubai caught a family friend, James Ibori, and she went
there to visit, to be with him in his hour of need. Some in the media
turned the matter into a national cause célèbre, accusing her of going
on a shopping spree, lampooning her timing, even questioning the nature
of her relationship with Mr. Ibori. But she may just be the kind of
person who does not abandon her friends simply because they hit a bad
patch!

Last month, her
husband attended the 65th UN Assembly in New York and she accompanied
him, as a good wife should. Somehow, the fact emerged that she had
taken along 23 other people including her personal cook, her friends,
and her valet. All paid for by the federal government.

Perhaps the worst
example of her sheer ill luck was the Independence rice spree. Mrs.
Jonathan, aware of the breathtaking poverty in the land, sought to
distribute two million bags of rice to poor people in the federal
capital territory and a stampede ensued. In the process, people lost
their lives. The rice trucks crushed some who had abandoned the queues
to seek vantage points, and some died because the police officers, who
should keep order, were eagerly grabbing bags. Mostly, the most
abominable planning marred the whole thing.

In any case, her
attempt at helping to alleviate hunger, at bringing smiles to the faces
of her fellow citizens as the country celebrated its 50th anniversary,
turned into ash in our mouths. Only God knows how bad she must have
felt, but she is not one to rest on her oars.

A week ago, she
decided to launch her ‘pet project’, as all first ladies before her
have done, as all those after her will. Somehow, the roads to the
federal secretariat Abuja were blocked and many civil servants, who
some say wanted an excuse to stay away from work anyway, could not get
to their offices. A number of them had to return home, and crucial
(wo)man-hours were lost.

My friend in Abuja
was sure that Mr. Jonathan lost more than a few votes that day as
frustrated commuters cursed him, his government, and his wife. “These
Jonathan people are doing IBB’s campaign for him,” he said.

Then today, I get
a text message that has been doing the rounds. Titled, “The bomb the
1st lady dropped during her speech at Eagle Square,” it contained half
a dozen grammatical errors, including how the October bombers made
“some children a widow.” Here is the shortlist:

1. “The people sitting before you here were once a children.” 2. “The bombers, who born them? Wasn’t it not a woman?”

3. “A good mother takes care of his children.”

I have no proof
that all that is true but my friend, a good mother herself, said she
has decided to protect her children by making sure the television is on
mute whenever Mrs. Jonathan is delivering speeches. The standard of
education is poor already as it is. True, grammatical howlers by people
who should know better are not new. The Economist Style Guide even has
one by George Bush, the former American president whose syntax is
sometimes toxic. “There is a child somewhere in Birmingham and all
across the country and needs somebody to put their arm around them and
to say: you’re a part of America.”

Yet, too many
things have happened too recently that, taken together, make Mrs.
Jonathan somewhat a liability to the president’s campaign. There are
rumours that she is a more vigorous politician than her husband is;
that she helps him take care of the basics, that she is the one who
does most of the consulting, the conjuring, and the consolidating. Now
if only she had more luck!

Still, we cannot
have everything. So, it will help the campaign, I think, if Mrs.
Jonathan will try to embody her name and be subdued, less visible:
enough of the activities already. As one newspaper editor likes to say,
she needs more ‘sobriety’.

To all intents and purposes, Patience still has virtue; but too much of her is hurting Mr. Jonathan right now.

If you knew how much of your life would be spent waiting, would you still make the trip?

Waiting for ‘oga’
to rouse himself from whatever has seized his mind at the time (heaven
forefend that he should be waiting for you); waiting for the young
ladies to finish colour coordinating, accessory matching and putting
the finishing touches to ‘the look’ of the day; waiting for that police
officer, bored out of his tiny mind, to decide whether to prolong the
pleasure he derives from wasting your time; waiting for that parking
attendant who thinks he can show you how to drive (something that would
not cross his mind if you were male); or just simply waiting because
everybody else seems to think your time is theirs.

I am sitting in my
car in the hot sun waiting for a sixteen year old. I came when I was
instructed to: 1.30 pm she said. I will have lunch with my friends
after school officially closes for half term and will be ready to be
picked up at 1.30. Of course she wasn’t, and of course she was not the
one who provided an explanation because of course she did not pick up
her cell phone when I called (why would she call me?); one of her
friends did.

I am long past
wondering about how our children manage to be so different from us. Try
anything you like at home to mould them onto the template you came
with, it does not work because they simply breathe in this free
wheeling sense of entitlement from the air around them.

Keep my mother
waiting? Certainly I would have to be ad, possessed by some alien
spirit. Infractions like that would earn you a scolding that could
reduce you to dust and remind you of your insignificance in the scheme
of things. It was not quite the equivalent of “I brought you into this
world and I can take you out”, but it was close. It implied a greater
force of nature would correct the imbalance in the universe occasioned
by your incomprehensible behaviour.

And there is little
point going down that old pot holed road, when I was a child …The
answer would come whipping back at you accompanied by gales of
laughter:” That was then Daddy, this is now. Don’t even go there!”
Which leads to another thing, smart quick thinking and eloquent today’s
children can see past the façade of do as I say not as I do.

Where we would
simply accept and keep silent even if we thought differently, they want
an explanation now and one that makes sense so they can throw it back
at you when you are least expecting it. Parenting has become a full
time job. The bulwark of those forces of nature, aunts, uncles cousins
the wider community of family has been permeated by a wild, angry and
unscrupulous world of people seeking their own progress and pleasure at
the expense of yours. This is also matched by a free wheeling media
that forces you to eternal vigilance in policing what your children
read and watch on those constantly available screens big and small.

My mother’s most
potent weapon against me was guilt. “Why do you want to put me to
shame. What wrong did I do in having you?” I used to hate it, but it
worked. Look at me today, married with children and sitting in a hot
car waiting for a teenager!

Could I try that
same tack with her? Unlikely because I do not think it would work and I
could not bring myself to do it. Each generation climbs on the
shoulders of the other and so can see ahead to a future from a
different view.

What I could not
share with my mother out of an old fashioned code of respect, I can
share with my daughter today in the confident hope that knowledge and
not luck will guide her to make the right choices and decisions in
those subjects that do not come on any school curriculum, even today.

But is still
remains a continuous circle of life when your offspring stop being
children and grow more like companions as they traverse that same road
you struggled on and come to understand so much more about what you
were trying to teach them. Daughters come to understand the particular
nature of motherly and wifely toil, and often times you find yourself
looking into a mirror of your past as you watch your children.

The other day
halfway through a morning schedule of juggling work, home and offspring
I was presented with two sets of requests for afternoon pick ups and
drop offs. I had already had to cancel two previous appointments with
my barber that week because of other pressures. But I was planning to
cut my hair this afternoon I moaned. ” Mummy you don’t need to cut your
hair, why are you always cutting your hair.”

I had to turn round and tell that sixteen year old: “You know you sound just like my mother!”

I have one cocoa
tree in my back garden. It is in the shade of some hoary plantain
trees. The cocoa pod is aesthetically one of my favourite fruits. I
love its sunglow gold complexion when ripe; its muscularity, the way
the pod rests on the tree like an elongated breast. Today is my first
taste of the cocoa bean. On opening the pod, one discovers the beans
wrapped in thick white pulp. I am presently sucking on the pulp, which
tastes a little like Soursop or Lychee, and also reminds me of the
smoothness and creaminess of bananas. The taste of the bean is
acquired. It is a contrasting bitter taste.

For the past two weeks,
we have been sun drying some beans. Today they will go in the oven for
about twenty minutes, the chaff surrounding the beans will be removed
and I will blend the beans to produce a bitter dark powder, which
because we have skipped the fermentation stage will not have as strong
a chocolate flavour. It is the fermentation simply carried out by
spreading the beans in wooden crates or baskets lined with banana
leaves for two to seven days that help to produce the intense flavour
of chocolate.

I have in front of
me a bar of Cameroun’s Chococam Mambo dark chocolate. Unlike the
familiar and touted best worldwide brands, its dark chocolate is only
50% cacao content. The best dark chocolate should have at least 70%
cacao content. I have also in front of me three other brands that I am
savouring and comparing; Green and Black’s organic dark chocolate
(shorter bite, light, sweet); Menier’s Chocolat Patissier (very, very
smooth texture, slight chew with a pleasant bitter aftertaste) and
Lindt Excellence’s Mint Intense (chewiest texture, spreads between the
teeth, almost too refined).

Cameroun must be highly commended for
producing any form of chocolate. They are a small country with a high
poverty rate. They are also the fourth largest producers of cocoa in
Africa after Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana and yours dearest, Nigeria. When
the packet of Mambo is opened, the smell of the chocolate is strong,
full and amazing.

Unfortunately, its
taste is disappointing and it has too much sugar in it. Nevertheless,
I wonder why Cameroun can produce chocolate as a national export and
Nigeria can’t or won’t. I consulted Mr. Anthony Ubi, special adviser
to the Cross River State government on processing marketing and
packaging, on why Cross River State as the second largest producer of
cocoa in Nigeria can’t make chocolate. Here I am after all in my
backyard, fermenting and sunning beans, roasting them, effectively
making hot chocolate.

Cacao nibs fully
fermented and dried are now being sold in developed countries as a
super food. There are all kinds of research on how healthy it is to
eat raw cacao, and how much more antioxidant flavonoids they have than
red wine and tea. Mr. Ubi claims that the international buyers’ hold
on the cocoa coming out of Nigeria and other African countries is like
that of the Mafia. West Africa produces 70% of the cocoa used to
produce chocolate in Western countries. In order to turn cocoa into
chocolate, and to break the Mafia’s monopoly, the Nigerian government
has to be willing to commit four times the cost of growing cocoa pods
into the industry. The Nigerian

government is
unwilling to do this. As usual, it head is up its backside. By the
way, the world’s processed chocolate market is worth $60 billion. When
the cocoa growers sneeze in Nigeria, it sends panic waves to the
international market. All that influence and power and potential, and
so much indifference and laziness on our part. Even our trees are said
to be old, the industry long in need of new cocoa producing trees.

One should not of course be allowed to go on and on about chocolate
in such dire terms. Chocolate is exciting, delicious, healthy, an
aphrodisiac, a guiltless replacement for sex for those whose hearts are
set against fornication. So here is my little contribution to the
moral right standing of my fellow Nigerians: My beans are brought in
from the sun and roasted in the oven till they give off a wonderful
sweetish smell almost like baking pastry. The beans out of the oven
are shelled, revealing dark soil coloured beans. To the shelled beans I
add half a teaspoon of cayenne pepper, half a dried Cameroonian pepper,
the scrapped insides of a vanilla pod and plenty of cinnamon bark. I
blend all the ingredients in my dry mill.

The end result looks like
any hot chocolate powder and smells just as good. This blend is cooked
in hot water with milk and good quality honey like the old world Aztec
would have done until a thick chocolate drink is produced. A whisk is
applied to the blend to give it a frothy appearance. More milk and
pepper is added to suit the drinker’s taste. And there’s the best,
the healthiest, the most delicious Nigerian hot chocolate made in my
own backyard, no emulsifiers, no junk and no fattening cocoa butter. I
think I need to pat myself on the back!