Vanguard. TUESDAY~ MAY I . 2012-17
producea is why previous CCSSilVII and cocoa "revolutions" could not be sustained . I want to believe that this Cil5S4Va bre.!td paUiotism is part of the campaign to patronise Made-m-Nigerill goods. It IS therefore a fllf too serious emnomic step to be reduced to some token favour done to ourtoiling IlIl1De[5. l.oolrlng inwards is aJ.reedy too late for us to treat it WIth any coodesceostoIL Oru::e we lliIIIk.e it loolt. like the prolliem of the fanners or producers, before we k.naw It, those who can afIord it will be eating bread smuggled through Benin Republic, and thill. will be the end of the CilSSIMI transformation! And when that happens, we the patnots who kept faith with a!SSilva all our bves will be shortchanged
'T"H ERE is this story about an era In ..1 the fOltie; "'-hen an epidemic bit my village People were dying in grell! numbers. Medice1 science was very
rudimenlMy and people were sunply bewildered. lbecbun:h WMIOCOncemed and deoded to oUet spectal pmyen:. A man who '4 auld today pass as the Zeburudaya of the villoge WlI5 called out 10 p~ for \h( village. The man renunded God thlli He Il)mmanded the (alb to posy otu UZD no u:-.o iIi (one tenth. I ftSSUJlle, tithe) . They have paid one tenth, he reminded Gtd Then be queried: God, wby do ytIlI ~bll allow ow people to die, after we hINI: paKI one tenth? The President cballenged us to
demonstrate our patnotism by eating cassava bre~d and confectionaries. He threw the dJ.a lenge on Satunlay 28 April
Akpu-na-Ogwu patriot
The C hin ese WilJlted to enjoy this cassava "a:real" is to.add sugar. Then when wewanted to piay rich students we add e d condensed milk! Tell me, what could be more patnotic than gani and milk. sweetened Wlth sugar and refreshed with a cold 50ft dnnk
2Ot2whenbe laundled tbecassavat:Jced at the Aso Villa. He said be hd'l kept his
prorruse of Ellttng cassava bread eYer smce the pres3'ltation of the IntemaDOnai
Institute for ' (topical Agriculrure. lITA路 ll'WIde bre.!Ki I, him. "Let me MSUre you that I still ke. 'P faith Wllh thill! pledge of Mung ooly (IlSS4va breed m the State
House"
~lintl ytJU.
the PreOOentMls the
e_vll bJ'lMlI in the Stdte House.. and
may be ealmo/ whole wheat bre!ld when he is m OtueJ:e' In the m<!lnner of our mendicant uruformed pe~e who would SlJ'f: "Ogo am 1o)uIr- I v 'all! to say to the President that I have b1eD II patriot all my life. U ellb.ng CasillVII brelld and Its confectionsrit s LS the marlt of patnotism, I CilIl beat ~ cbest and My Ihl'lt I baY!! !JIVen otu UZI no uzo IIi! The PresIdent hllS a lot of c< tdung up to dol I grew up
when other lads were bemg cil)Qled and even lon:ed to eat
roasted chicken, rice, cake and dnnk. champagne? J remember one son of a nnnistl.!rin mydass in pnmaryschooi who was asked by the teacher to name one arumaI he knew and the chap sprang to hlS feet wtth effefVescent confidence and said: "Roasted chicken!" or course, no pnze for gues:s:mg, the class erupted IDto laughtez: The te.!cber hushed us; ''Why are you fools laugbmg1 He hilS named the animal he sees!" In another instance. a child was asked to make a sentence with "mother" iI.Ild be said. in Jgbo of course, "my mother 15 a tbiefl" Again the te.!cber could not allow us to laugh ~ be sbasply
IJl the~lt nowmg noothe.
"Staple food than ohpu, "hlCb is lulu made from cassava.! Ther ~ was y4lllalnght, but that, like rice, ",as II special deliaKy thl'lt you chcI not tnfie \ '1lh on d4ily bftsis. So akpu was 11 And i )ou thtnk e!lhr.g Cas54Va hfel!id was su :h a sacrifice Iri to qualify one iI..!i p a tn lUC, like dyln9" for your country, you try ohpu-no-oglVu. which ~ <ri
' ufu-Wlth-stumpsl
Clkay, let ID( eqllam. Puru is :Mde hom fermented ~.sava.. Fennenbng It IlJOUIld the bouse m&\I1t that oeighboulhood Wl!lS assailed by th'! pungency of the smeI.I of the deteriorat: ng fact rotten) cassava.. Or you could (erment it by thp river side. MllIlY W()mef who carnoo II home from the river wet! not the most jel.ectable SlgbL The .... lIter from the fermented cl'ISS4va dnpped over thelJ" beads and faces and mac路e them smel.llike wet dNd I"lll5J You couJ 1 choose to furUJer process Ule Cennentec. C4S5ilva by U5ng a neve in wllter to Sf p.ID.'Ite the ch~ ' from the starchy rem .n ns This rt'duced tbe pungency of lie smeU. The futi I from lhls WilS ailled 0) oro---<l}otl.
rm
Eno ugh ca isava for an award
nen.
we neither bad the lUXUry of reduClDg the sheer quantity of the fermented Ci\5sava by removing the cbaff, Dar tI e patience (~'hicb was another luxury, to embark. of makmg ayoro-ayo. So you simply removed the sku! of the ff'rmented cassava, boiled and pounded it. chaff and all This is olfpu-na-ogwu. so called because ilS you ate the fufu with. aU the stumps! U you had too many mouths to feed, alfpu-naogwu WftS your best betJ And otten there wee many mouths to feed] AllY one who could swallow alIpu-no-ogwu everyday needs DO lessnn in paIJiotism. He or she 15 a gallam painot, my fnendl Some of us have done enouab C455/IVa eating to e!Inl.1S the GCDN 1IWani. Mel" a1l. we have not been a dram on our foJeigo eu:billlge and we did not get any waive" fOl' our p6Iriobsm. Dunng the avil war; we. onOUJO'"NII, ciiscowred the specie of cassava we could cook and roast like yam! It D"IIII.y not have tasted like yam or sweet potato, but it tasted like food] Yk even prepared soup with the ie.!ves of this specie of cassava. And IC you were constanUyon the run born the vandals.
Q
,
as we were, you stuffed the cassava
....,
10
the pockets of your fatigue and ate them
The Preudent also enjoweQ us to eat confectionaries from cassava. ObI Okay we ate akara (cakes) made of cassava and fried with palm oil! What else is thai if nol the mosl prominent confectionary [rom ca55lIIval Craduatrng (onn akpu-no-ogy.ru did not Ciltapult ILS out of the oroll 01 patnotIsm "-Ie kept f&lh with our polriotic bond with casscwa by "smobng" gam. I guess the President knows what "smolting" gam means. I think before Quaker (),sts, ~ and Comfla. there was gani! Ih secondary scbool, garri was the most pOpULill ~cereal" Nothing reminds me of the competitiveness 01 gani as cereal than a lew yean; ago when my townsman, a prolessor of many year.s In the United States of Arnenca. came home with hts children forOlnst.tna5_1l was the first tune the children, all grown up university (college) undergraduates. were commg bome to Afnca. One of the daughlB5 5lJW garri and "smoked" the "damn good ruureeel" with sugar; milk and bananas till her stonw:h Gched! I 4ID sure the Pn!sidenl., ilS a man who b/ld DO shoes like me, !mows many ways to "smok.e" garri. You could use palm k.erneIs the ever laitbIul dry pack of poor kids. You could use coconut. You could use bananas. You could use groundnuts. But the most popular conbination if you
example
U5t a few ye;us ago, we all saw every Chinese weming the Mao Jtunic. The Chmese Ignored the Wesl ChillJm41l
ilRd World "lliIde OrgiltUSiltion. worked and ate what they produced They produced cheap goods through the copy economy. Because there were no alternative goods coming from outstde the borders, what China produced Wd1.5 what Lhe Chinese patrornsed, before they started exporting Today. China is the most competillve economy m the world and the West IS romanang China. Tianamen Square notwithstanding . China has discarded the turuc and rebranded Chinese now strut 00 global filShion runways Chtna sent milhons of their citizens abroad to 1e4ll1 to speak perfect French, Engbsh and German lIS part of its global. export drive.. As I wnte there are no less than 10 C hmese channels on the platform of D5tv Unfortunately for us, we did not see the need to start to bulld a Nigerian economy lit the mt of the Britlsh. That 15 why our RIIilwllY lines ilJ"e still the way the Bnbsh. left them. VW! aped the British, ate their food. wore their clothes and drank their watery gm and declared our own gin as "illicit" 1 With a population estJ.roated ill t 60 Nigel1llll5 we have the market to produce and eat our rice,
Ilwe are going 10 go back 10 Made-in Nigeria goods, there has 10 be a complele economic transformation backed by a tolal cullural revolution thai gels rid of all the corrupt elements in our sodety. It should not be token cassava transformation aimed at making cassava farmers feel good
rebuked us: "00 you know if he is right7" That WilS the first time I heard that a sentence could be right while the sense is wrong! I was digressing. Anyway, the President should rest assured that we the akpu-no-ogwu patnots are still keepmg fatth with our cassava products and ronfecbonanes For oIlS long ftS N"JgeD40S can afford thear gam. they will continue to wait and bope that, one day, our cb~ and petroleum subsidy fund, PSF, patriots will see the WlSdom 10 join us to redeem our economy. The President said, 'The importance of cassava bread is that our cassava farmers and processors, most of whom toil endlessly and earn li1tIe for their efforts DOW have cause to dream again as government has begun the implementation of a cassava transformation plM.". The above statement is exactly what IS going to torpedo the "cassava I::raru:formation plan" I don't think the cassava patriotis m should be some bumanitanan overture to "our CilSsava fanners and processors", Once we see it that wtty, the b-lmsfortnation in that II.re1I will patter lIWlt'f. This presumed tokenism to our farmers, local manufacturers or
,
produce and use our own soap, assernbI拢 ilRd drive our own Beetles and Palgeol Nigena would have been a bapPleJ place if more Nigerians drove a 8eetil a few parking 10 emile SW! in their giUll!Jel With a population of 16( people, we did not need to do the ulmosl stupid thing like unportlng petrol ilRd dilShing our commonwealth to a few people for importing what we can produce! Nigerian elite lJke to sh.ow off will 4Ilything foreign. even if they acquired il with stolen money. That IS why I say thaI the Made-in N"tgeria experiment we jus" started is mtber half~bearted and late. Bu thill. is not to say thilt II cannot be done. I we are going to go back. to Made-in N"tgeriII goods. there h.as 10 be a CDmplet.. ecoDDmK: tmosfonoanon baaed by a t& cu1tuml revolution that gets rid. of all lb, cooupt e1.eme!D.ts 10 our society. It shaul. not be token ca.s.54Vil tnmsfollMtion auneo: ill making cassava fanners feel. good I.e me ask the Presldent ilS the mao in III village asked God, ifwep芦yourone tent} by eating cassava bread, what will YOI give us? Will we still be wallowing i poverty! CllI'S.
instead of