Kalakuta Musical Choppings

A Nigerian musical icon, that does not make any reference to Naija food?  Is that one too a naija musical icon?

Fela’s early work set the scene. Jeun ku o’ko was a song about that Glutton who wears out his host with constant visits around meal times. At a time when the Nigerian economy was on the rise and many families had disposal incomes with which to show hospitality to visitors, some citizens of our great country were cursed with appetites that exceeded the average host’s entertainment budget. Those were the seventies when a walk down a Lagos street meant you sailed through various ‘smell zones’ as you went past each house, for there was always a soup being cooked in every kitchen that scented the air. Sometimes the smells collided in one house as various tenants work on different recipes. Those in the boy quarters had pots on stoves also. Depending which way the wind was blowing you could smell food from all the geo-political corners of Nigeria in that Lagos. Despite the oil boom and abundance of food, some individuals were just too greedy.

Chop and quench

O de

Waki and die

O de

A forced deportation was in order with strict warnings never to visit again; they hard simply over- eaten their welcome. This was 1971 and these kamikaze lovers of food risked their lives to get that satisfaction that a stomach stretched to its limits brought. With no fear of a high cholesterol, heart attacks or strokes and with complete disregard to Diabetes, they bravely ate tunnels through mountains. Gluttony is indeed a disease of plenty. There are no gluttons in a famine after all.

Fela called them Oni gbese (perennial debtors) for as they have eaten holes in their own pockets so will they attack other peoples’ income which their virulent appetites. But this is Naija and when we talk food we mean Money. Spending money is chopping (eating) money. For visitors wey no sabi, it is politicians chopping the National wealth and plunging Nigeria into debt.

In 1972 in Lady, Fela bemoaned the new assertive African woman who when the table was set would

take meat before anybody, thereby breaking the unwritten rule that the African man must eat meat first (so long as he was not vegetarian). The second rule is that he dies first as too much meat kills but that is another story.
After the reference to ladies came Gentleman in 1973 in which the singer claimed:

I no be gentleman at all
I bi Africa man, original
Dem call you, make you come chop
You chop small
You say you belleful
you say you be gentleman
You go hungri, you go suffer, you go quench
mi i no bi gentleman like that

This was when visitors were still liberally invited to eat due to the relative prosperity of the Oil Boom. Fela poked fun at the African adopting a fake modesty by eating less than he should while in his mind he imagines that he is behaving like an European Gentleman.

The ruling elite in the seventies took people for granted. The will of the people was trampled underfoot but the great musician warned in musical parables that the people cannot be treated as enemies as they will always win in the end. The people were likened to water. Easy to use and misuse.  Water looks passive yet it is capable of drowning children. Indeed Water no get enemy (1975)

If you wan cook soup, na water you go use

There is nothing you would do, that would not need water.

The heat of the tropics meant the thirst for water was always constant. It was the biggest need of the nation. It brought life into us through our mouths. Our bodies are mainly made up of water so a war declared on water was a stupid war declared on one’s self.  

BY 1976 things were getting harder for the guys. In the song No Buredi (Bread) Fela sang

Hungry dey show im power

You no get power to fight

No buredi

Each year tightened the noose on the neck of Nigeria’s economy. In 1977 Fela’s Stalemate spoke about the reincarnation of the Jeun Ko o’ku Glutton albeit the female version

Two heavy brothers dem sidon inside sun

Dem dey sweat, dem dey share one bottle of beer between dem selves.

Den one fine lady come meet dem , say , ‘brother abeg buy mi one bottle of beer na’.

Dem go look dem selves

Look the woman

Look dem Pocket

Look dem suffer for Africa

Dem go say stalemate

The heavy brothers probably bought beer by the cartons in previous years but words fail them now. In addition, and more importantly, their pockets fail them and they are unable to entertain this Jeun ku  o’ku girl (who interestingly will upgrade to asking for money for Brazillian hair and I phones in years to come).

By 1981 the chopping aka corruption had run into over drive and the debts stood taller than the great Killimanjaro. Original Sufferhead was a Fela song that lamented the extinction of the Kamikaze Glutton due to the harsh economic conditions. Everyone was now a long suffering Naija citizen with chronic malnutrition; an Original Sufferhead. Men were too hungry to care if the ladies took the meat before them, as meat na meat and you rejoiced when you saw it. The Owambe street parties had dried up and the family hospitality budget had been eradicated from homes.

Plenty plenty food for Africa

Food under-ground

Food on the ground

Na so-so plenty food for Africa

Ordinary food for man to chop nko?

E- no dey

The scarcity of food was the paradox that Naijaz lived through in the 80s. People felt they were created to suffer due to a curse that had been placed on their head. The singer articulated the minds and stomachs of the people eloquently.

We all know plenty food for Africa

Plenty plenty land

Plenty fertile land

Plenty plenty farm

Na so so land dey for Africa

Na the big big people dem go dey plant cocoa

If dem no plant cocoa dem go plant groundnut

Na the big big people go dey plant rubber

Operation feed the nation e plenty well well

Fertiliser scheme dey go and come

Billion billion billion Naira e dey follow am

Now we dey go buy rice from America

We dey make order rice from Brasillia

Dem dey send us rice from Thailand

Green revolution im sef im don start well

Ordinary food for men to chop for town nko?

E no dey

The importation of rice continues to shame the nation long after the singer has died and gone. The music continues to be played and the Jollof rice continues to be eaten. There is a prophetic dimension to music.

Today’s musicians will not let us rest with their plenty plenty Banana and so so Big cassava o!!! At least we don't import these two food items.

Lost Property 3

The 5^th December started well. A ex-class mate whose daughter had been missing for 6 weeks in southern Nigeria had been found. It was Christmas come early and a giant sigh of relief escaped from us all. I had been pleasantly surprised by the number of people (562)  who had shared the Missing Poster on Facebook. Many also expressed their joy that she had been found. These are people who have never met the 12 year old before. They have never heard her voice or laugh. That is the beauty of our shared humanity. We can relate and send out prayers and good wishes to strangers, and we have the ability to rejoice for others, who we may never meet in this lifetime. I have not even seen my colleague for 31 years.

But I see my young son daily and the two year old made his presence felt by flinging one of his tiny cars across the room. It landed on my laptop screen and shattered it. Now I have no I phone and no laptop!

Ha!!!!

Sunday the 9 th of December saw me on MC duties at the Mansag (Medical Association of Nigerians Across Great Britain) Christmas party. During a spare moment with one of my GP colleagues I began to moan about my lost phone, and the first question was about insurance. I said I had none.

‘What about your Bank Account?’ he asked. The question triggered something in my brain. The next day I found out that not only was I insured for lost telephones, all my household were covered under the same umbrella.

In no time all the insurance claims had been done with the corresponding paper work. I had gone to my network provider to collect a new SIM card and rang customer service to disable the lost phone. If the claim was successful, I would be paying £100 on the insurance excess (Not sure what that means), but it was still worth getting a new phone. I did feel that this Insurance company had trust issues when I read the following on the claim form:

We need to see something that tells us that the items you’re claiming for belongs to you and confirms the make, model, memory size, colour and IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity ) number of your mobile phone.

Problems really expose you. One and most important is I don’t read the small print and when I do I forget.

I am one of those that scrolls to the bottom and clicks the I Accept icon every time. Time to change? I do not think so.

My saving grace is that I tell my problems to people who I consider to have a bit of sense. You know the type who would commiserate with you, laugh at the ironies, but end the conversation with, ‘have you thought of…?’

Telling your woes to people who just say ‘Pele, Pele’ (Not the Brazillian legend), is a waste of time.

It is simple, if you will not read the small print and pontificate on every detail, then you must be humble, be a good judging of human character and be able to take action without having all the information available to you. I find that creative people find the routine things of life ‘boring’, hence the high number of them that get ripped off by accountants and managers. We are what we are. Socrates says know thyself and Sunbola says shine ya eyes.

It is impossible to eat your cake and have it. One cannot be visionary and sweat the small stuff, and one cannot have everything planned out to perfection and expect to creatively spring the unexpected. One has to accept one’s limitations and if reading eight to twenty paged contracts are totally unpalatable, then one must humble oneself and do what the clever friends say or hint at.

Still without an I phone and a Laptop, I find myself on the 12^th of December 2018, twenty two years since the loss of my father. He never owned an I phone or laptop during his life, so I am sure he must be wondering what the fuss is. May his soul continue to rest in peace. I am now rocking my Nokia telephone and my I pod for Facebook; which I access only when at home enjoying Wifi. I have been loaned a laptop by  my wife who has two laptops and I find myself struggling with this fall from grace. Landlord Laptop ‘flexing’ to Tenant laptop living.

William Shakespeare had no Laptop and see what he wrote. Maybe God is working something great in my life.Its the Twelfth Night after all in The  Winter tale of December. Finger’s crossed for All’s well that ends well.

13^th December; I jumped into the car and gave my broken laptop to the repairer. He wondered why I was still repairing a broken screen in an old Hp when I could have gotten a younger model long ago. He obviously knows nothing about loyalty and the attachment a writer develops to the tools of his trade. He didn’t actually say anything but I read his mind. I paid the fee in full and I went back home.

I sat at my table I brought out all my forms and I  rang the insurance company, armed with Policy Numbers, Claim Numbers, and Numbers 28 verse 8 How shall I curse, whom God hath not cursed? (Desperate times, spiritual measures please).

A happy voice took all my details and asked me questions like it was a Visa interview to gain entrance into the Federal Reserve of America. After lengthy security questions he said he couldn’t see my claim on the system and and blamed the high volume postage traffic of the ‘Christmas season’. I wondered if he was really at the office in front of a Desktop and not sat on the toilet working from home. It would have been impolite to ask.

17 th December; I got a phone call from a nice sounding lady. The insurance company had received my claim and wanted to go over some details. Just for security, a few questions….I was taken aback that the contents of my breakfast plate were not asked for.

‘When last did you see your phone?’

‘When last did your use it?’

‘Where was the phone when last seen?’ on and on she went like a Sherlock Holmes’ descendant.

Then came the joker, ‘The EE letter you kindly sent showed that the phone was last used on the third of December. You lost it on the first?’ Silence. I hadn’t read that letter. The letter that started thus:

Dear Wilson Orhiunu,

This is a confirmation of the date of the supply or connection, blacklisting and last usuage of your device

And ended

Date last used: 03 december 2018

Time last used: 15:19:06

Congratulations, your claim has been accepted.

I just knew there was a catch when strangers congratulate you. Then it came up that reconditioned phones are involved!

Now who wants to share phones with strangers? The argument started.

‘Well Doctor it is written in the terms and conditions’

Ha! Do I know where the mouths of the previous owners have been?

Talk of quality assurance gave me no assurance. Neither did the talk of a twelve month guarantee.

Why pay £100 for a second hand phone when I can buy the second hand phone myself?

‘Well, if you had read the terms and conditions…’

My alarm went off by 6am on the 18 th of Demcember but I couldn’t get out of bed. The run the night before was exhilarating but come morning, the above 50 tax must be pain. No pain no gain. A high profile lost his job due to a run of losses on the pitch and I said, ‘Ehen? Over £20 Million in compensation. Is that a sack? There would be someone in Lagos sacked today and he would be owed four month’s wages.

A text message came in that my phone will be delivered by 1.57pm and in ten minutes I got a call that my laptop was ready for collecting. I drove in the rain to pick up the laptop and on the way home branched at the EE store to arrange for my Sim only contract. By the time I got home the phone had been delivered and was charging.

Lost Property 2

Lost property 2

Once something is missing and you have checked everywhere for it, and there is nothing else to do, you wait. And wait. And wait. This ushers one into that limbo land of expectation. You hear stories of people who did not wait in vain and were blessed with good news. You try as much as possible to avoid the stories that end badly; the lost but never found stories.

Some people tell you bluntly that, ‘by now, if you haven’t heard anything, you will not hear anything' (looking at their watches as they speak). Others make facial expressions that tell you they think all hope is lost but their lips say hopeful things.

One waits and recalls that ‘last seen’ scene in the mind. My phone got left behind on the train by 11pm on the 1^st of December in Northampton as I travelled to Birmingham. I rang the Customer Services number by 11:19am on the 3^rd of December and was greeted by a friendly voice who took my phone number (Nokia) and promised to get back if he ‘heard anything’. He asked a description of the phone, and I said it was a Black I phone 7 in a Black protective case. The case contained my Reading ID Card for the National Archives library and my name and picture were on the card.

As soon as I put the phone down I had officially joined the group called ‘waiting for good news’. Wisdom dictates that one gets on with life and if the call came, then it came. What happened next surprised me. I made sure the ringer was on and the battery fully charged and began to look at the phone waiting for it to ring. I got on with work and suddenly I heard a vibration and jumped. It was the I phone 7 that used to be on vibrate mode. This Nokia just rang when it had something to tell me. I checked and there was no missed call. Auditory hallucinations don come o!

16:05 hours  I was on the phone again to customer services. ‘Let me check..’ I waited in anticipation for one or two minutes then the voice said,’I am sorry..’

I asked when a member of staff might have had access to the train after 11pm on the night of the 1^st of December. He said he did not know. It depends on which depot the train went to. It might have gone to the depot in Northampton to be cleaned or might have gone to Bletchley or London. If a passenger didn’t take the phone when I alighted in Northampton (unlikely anyway as I was the last to leave) then it would be members of staff that would see the phone first. There was a procedure for logging left items and since this particular carriage could be anywhere in the country, it may take time. What if the phone is under a seat? Who would find it then?

Whatever the situation, I knew that whoever saw the phone would open it up and see my ID, see my face, then make a decision. Hand it over or keep it. I started to conjure up curses on any potential thief.

Things like a double torsion of the testicles leading to gangrene and a rotten scrotum, fractures in all limbs, leprosy, penury and hard ship, I could have gone all day but I recalled that Jesus was crucified between two thieves and he did not judge them. To cheer myself I started fantasying about meeting my black I phone again. Peaches and Herbs had a slow jam we loved in the school days called Reunited.

I was a fool to ever leave your side
Me minus you is such a lonely ride
The breakup we had has made me lonesome and sad
I realize I love you 'cause I want you bad, hey, hey

Reunited, and it feels so good
Reunited 'cause we understood
There's one perfect fit
And, sugar, this one is it
We both are so excited 'cause we're reunited, hey, hey

Didn’t they sing it so well? As I finished that song in my jukebox mind Robert Flack and Donny Hathaway started all the way from 1979

Seems we've weathered
Hard times we've been through
In silence I've waited
I missed you (I missed you too)

'Cause you, you and I back together again
Got the world in a spin
You, you and I back together again
Got the world in a spin

Na so craze dey start o! Waiting for that reunion; wishing and hoping that there would be a meeting up again. I am praying for that tiny machine to be back in my pocket.  I am yearning for it to vibrate away as the notifications pour in.

One can see Bob Marley’s point; nobody wants to wait in vain for anything. Not even the death penalty (some are on death row for ten years and they still kill them. Ha!!!). I have been asked how long I would hold out for before I get a new phone. I don’t even know.

Loss is part of life. Christmas is coming, and maybe I need a Christmas present. My own is easy; this waiting for news about a phone. Some are waiting for news of survival of loved ones in the battle front or in hospitals. Some have family members who have gone missing.  I pray all the people with serious issues get their prayers answered. My own is a small matter.

Lost Property

Some losses scar for life. The pain might be glossed over quickly with a replacement but underneath, the scar eats away at the heart. A new car or job can be conjured up after a loss but that new habit of perpetually watching over one’s shoulders says it all; there is now a fear of a new lightning strike.

Not all losses are the same. There are losses with or without insurance. An insured ship could sink and the owners recoup their money from a begrudging insurance firm. The lives lost at sea are also covered by insurance. The families of the bereaved however only get cash payment though as insurance companies, who claim to insure life, are unable to raise the dead.

Most people no matter their age can tell you everything about what they have lost in life (obvious exceptions being those who have lost their memories). The best jokes are usually about losses and misfortune. That is just how the world goes around. A movie will never win an Oscar without the loss of lives, love or property being written into the script. If loss does not happen then the threat of loss was extremely great setting the stage for the hero who saves the day. A successful life is one that has bits of good fortune occurring in between the losses and the failures.

As Christmas approaches the mind goes to a young Joseph in the Bible losing his trust in his beloved Mary after she tells him a wonderfully mystical story about how she came to lose her period. If he thought that was bad, what was to come was even worse. They both lost this same son aged twelve years old when he was ‘forgotten’ in Jerusalem during a pilgrimage. They had to rush back and endure the looks of the people who they asked about a boy they left behind. Those stern looks that ask what kind of parent forgets their child? They found him three days later.

 They later lost the son to crucifixion at a later day, again for three days.

Some losses need divine intervention to rectify. Maybe all losses need some form of help to endure. I have met many old people who have lamented various losses in their lives and the lamentations of the elderly starts with their lost youth and strength. Next is their spouse and maybe children who have moved away.

People of all ages mourn the loss of a childhood spent in hardship; this one seems to follow people to the grave. Not knowing who the parents were is also a life- long problem for some. Parent’s dying in childhood or ‘disappearing’ means the child grows up wondering what it might have been like. There is nothing human beings have not lost; jobs, looks, height, singing voices and even the ground under their feet (earthquakes happen).

A guy once told me of how he caught his girlfriend with another man in a compromising position and ended the relationship. He soon acquired a new flame but his obsession with knowing where she was at every minute was wrecking the relationship. He had lost the ability to trust in a relationship.

So why all this Losing My Virginity talk like Richard Branson?

Ok, mek I talk true, my I phone 7 loss yesterday and e dey pain mi. No insurance sef.

On the 6^th December 2016 at precisely 12:28 hours I bought my beloved ‘chassis’ I phone 7 and was delirious with the great expectations of gratuitous selfies. It was Black and proud with a birthweight of 32G. Everyone around me knew about the purchase which had increased my family size to two (I- pod as first born).  It didn’t take long for people to start asking when the next child was due (Apple Watch) but I told them I was into family planning and had adopted a Sekonda for the time being.

I lost my beloved phone last night on the train. The London North Western line 21:28 hour’s service from Euston to Birmingham caused the problem. We got to Northampton and they announced that the train was to be split; the front four carriages were going to Birmingham while the last eight were to remain in Northampton. It made sense, because the passengers were few and there was no need to take twelve carriages down when four would have done.

I left the train and soon found out I had picked up the charger but left the phone behind. I rushed back but the doors to the last eight carriages had been shut and the train was about to move on. I rushed back to the front four carriages and that was when the mourning and lamenting started. How could this be? Perhaps I was too relaxed reading the newspapers and listening to my I pod. What if I didn’t come out to London for Tedxeuston? If only I had been more careful. Then I remembered that my car was in a multi-story car park in Birmingham and the car park ticket was in a compartment in my I phone’s protective covering. One by one different painful lashes of information began to knock on the door of my consciousness. No WhatsApp groups, no contacts, and my selfies from Tedxeuston all gone. Then I recalled all the pictures of slides I took in four different conferences.

I began to wonder if one can be called a human being without a phone in one’s possession. It was as if an essential organ such as the liver had been stolen. At New Street Station I collected the telephone number of Network Rail’s Customer Services and walked in the cold to the Car Park feeling despondent. Then I recalled what it was that took me to London in the first place. The 9^th edition ofTedxEuston; themed Dream Weavers. It was an opportunity to get inspired to keep weaving those dreams and ideas into reality. One of the speakers was MKO and Kudirat Abiola’s daughter, Hafsat Abiola-Costello, a human and civil rights campaigner.  She articulated the burden of responsibility on our shoulders to work for a better Nigeria. If I cannot cope with a lost phone is it Nigeria’s problems I will tackle? I had to repackage my spine and remind myself that Naija no dey come last.

It was tedious getting my car out and I had to stand around pressing buzzers and chatting with the car park night staff that were not even on site.

The story had to be re-told at home and the questions followed. Going on I cloud to find the phone yielded nothing. I woke up this morning and rang customer services and there had been no sightings of my phone.

The wake keeping was officially on. I started to tell all that my phone was gone. I got no comfort, just questions to which my answer of ‘No’ attracted strange looks.

‘Insured?’

‘Backed up on I cloud?’

‘Rang to block the phone?’

‘Heard anything positive form the train station?’

The mood threatened to dip but I heard an angel in my ear.

‘Wilson, man up and cheer up. You have used your money’s worth out of that poor phone. People had houses that contained phones burnt to the ground in the Californian fires. Stop mourning and go and type an obituary in memory of your I phone 7 (Legbegbe)’.

The Hunger Triology 3. Nothing Else

Nothing Else

I have XYZ and nothing else

A clean white plate and nothing else

The raging appetite so wonderous

The redundant cutlery so omnious

I dreamt of frothing okra embedded with dried fish

But I swallow spit as the sun rises

Healthy appetite and infirm pockets

Weighs out my hope

So many certificates

But nothing else

Cutlery arrayed for battle

But nothing else

Pots and pans for show

It’s a museum in a far away land

I am spiritual

I fast and pray but break the fasting

With salty tears.

I have water to water my hands

But nothing else

I have an empty stomach

But nothing else

I am blessed with teeth

But nothing else to show

I could crunch bone to powder

Then wash down with Gulder

A sense of smell so heightened

I smell hot dodo frying in distant streets

Great Talent for eating

But nothing else to show

The Hunger Triology 2. Empty Vessel

Empty Vessel

The machine is alive

But its tanks are empty

We drove for three hours

And passed an ocean of plants

Yet the government says there is no food

To power my machine

So how does grass grow?

Where food cannot grow

The brains all stopped working

Fine solar panels in dark caves

The creativity is starving

Generator of ideas without the diesel

No fuel no movement

No food no development

Mosquitoes say I’m edible

But I’m an empty vessel

The starving too have ideas

It is all about the food.

The hungry have big stomachs

That pine for food and drink

With trillions of seed around

The pot is an empty vessel

With some much desire for milk

The stomach stays an empty vessel

The Hunger Triology 1. Fridge Vacancy

Fridge Vacancy

A position to fill

But no one seems interested

A white clean office

Air-conditioned and well lit

In coming trays are empty

In anticipation of goodness.

The month has finally ended

But the vacancy remains

I peep through the doors

To embrace that vacant expression

Of emptiness and want

Its  penury’s storefront

My fridge my mirror

My reflection, my life

In a world of a trillion fruits

Not one has occupied mine

No eggs no bread

No milk or butter to spread

White supremacy? White everywhere

A rainbow coloured fridge

WTo douse this hunger monotomy

It is not a fridge but a morgue

The vacant enclave is

Death kept fresh, kept cold

Christmas Food

Christmas Food

In my childhood years, Christmas did not come quietly; not in the middle of an Oil Boom. There were trips to the tailors for Christmas clothes, shoes were bought, tried and then locked away because ‘they are for Christmas’.

Items of food and drink began to show up which we gazed at like that twinkling star that lead wise men to Bethlehem. Cartons of Star lager stacked in the corner surrounded by crates of Coca Cola and Fanta.  These were rows of bottles in wooden crates standing in corners.  No one went too close because they were for Christmas. We harboured wicked thoughts in our young minds about what we were going to do to those drinks. In the crates a missing bottle was obvious but come Christmas, when the migration to the fridge started, nobody could be accurate about Coke bottles census figures and that is when the drinking frenzy went into over drive.

Great expectations gripped Lagos then, as white envelopes flooded the letter boxes (well, we didn’t have a letter box. The post man put the letters between coils of cables at the electric meter) and once opened the cards were arranged on a string that went from one end of the room to the other.

With time another string was needed and we ended up with a giant X on the ceiling. Once in a while someone forgot and switched on the ceiling fan; and the cards hit the ceiling. We just couldn’t wait for Christmas. That was the day you wore new clothes right down to underwear and socks. Complete with a plastic sun glasses and the swag was on fire.

The obligatory trip to Kingsway Stores to see Father Christmas brought us plastic pistols helping to distract from the wait for the big day. Money soon began to flood the pocket as adults grew generous as if the Harmatan air had brought some ‘good will to all men’ with it.

We had chewing gums, Goody-goody, Trebor  Refreshers and Tom Tom all day long. It was a feasting season in December. There was spare change for night action; fireworks. Every night it went Bang Bang Bang as mini explosions lit the night up. Rockets flew up and exploded into numerous diamonds and there was always the smell of festive stew in the air.

When the school finally closed for the merry holidays, a good report card secured extra rewards. One played and ate all day.

The visitors soon began to arrive and like it was in the seventies, you entertained them very well. White Horse Whisky, Cartons of Star lager and crates of ‘minerals’ were how people entertained. Music blared from the radiogram (O come all ye faithful) and a visit could soon turn into a party. With few people owning phones you never knew who was coming and it was not unusual to have three families arrive unannounced. The Christmas decorations where now up. No Christmas tree showed up in our house but there were glittering bits all over the place. We had colourful paper Bells that opened up, bright red pictures of white Santa and many images of animals in the snow (a bit confusing for us as there was no snow in Lagos).

Rice and stew very plenty was the norm. Christmas rice was enchanted and the dodo divine. The moin moin came in its original leaves and one unpeeled the botanical package with anticipation. Once delivered the moin moin was incised through the centre to find out if Father Christmas had ordained a boiled egg or corned beef in the centre. That -one child one piece of meat - ordinance was thrown out of the window. The only limitation to our eating was the size of our stomachs.

Some family friends had a carol service for the children and we all went there to sing and then eat. The party Jollof rice made us undergo growth spurts. The street hawkers did brisk business. Those were the days a driver called an orange seller and she put down her tray and gave a performance of dexterity in peeling the fruit. The question at the end of the task always amazed me.

‘How make I cut am?’

The options were to slice it across its equator or to carve out a cone at the North Pole. As one of the equatorial disposition, I never could understand those who choose a North Pole cone as it meant they had to squeeze out the juice in the South Pole right past the equator north wards to the open cone at the summit.

The kids gathered around the driver (on minimum wage) with begging eyes and the spirit of Christmas pulls his heart strings into buying oranges for us all. With senior siblings on holiday there were more people to pester when the ice cream van came along. Any hawker got called. Mangoes, Coconut, corn, Paw paw, Agbalumo and the Guguru and epa sellers who also put up a show as they threw up groundnuts in the air and blew away its skin.

Soon the bleating of goats and rams could be heard in the mornings as Christmas was coming. The chicken population in the neighbourhood rose astronomically. Like wicked Herod killed all the babies at the first Christmas, Lagosians slaughtered all the animals on Christmas Eve.

Honourable mention must be made of one Jollof rice I ate at new Estate Baptist church in the run up to one Christmas. It was a carol service followed by Christmas cheer. I believe I am what I am today  because of the jollof, dodo and moin moin that tasted like Angel Gabriel had flown by with some heavenly Maggi sauce to sprinkle over the pot (see me salivating here o!). It was truly

Joy to the world, the Jollof has come.

Bottled drinks in crates had an aura in my childhood. You knew they were coming because they rattled and like the dogs in Pavlov’s experiments we salivated and lost concentration on item six as item seven on the programme was imminent.

You swallowed spit as you sang - O little town of Bethlehem- for that Jollof smell travels faster than the speed of light. You feel it in your soul. If you came first; that first term of school,  you told everyone for you did not know who will ‘dash you Christmas money’.

Those were heady times when you visited people with full stomachs and still had the intestinal fortitude to squeeze in more food.

The stars of December with Jollof Rice, Moin Moin, all Nigerian soups, stew, all meat and fish, more stew, Ukodo and Eshia with dry fish and freshly boiled yams. And to have all these dishes being cooked simultaneously was one of the joys of being alive then. The frying of meat was also good as you could take a piece from the already prepared heap without anyone noticing. Like all families we had myths of Christmas that have been told through the years.

Like the time when mum brought home a frozen Turkey as hand luggage from London as she was landing back in Lagos on Christmas Eve .  But the biggest story was that of the Turkey my father brought home that became part of the family. It knew us and played with us when we fed it. It was a tragic day when it faced execution on that Christmas Eve. Just like Ikemefuna cried to Okonkwo that faithful night when things fell apart, so did our Turkey. ‘My Father, My father’ it screamed looking at the family conjuring up further images of a fearful young Elisha crying as Elijah ascended to heaven. The last words the Turkey heard before the brutal beheading was ‘Father for what? In this Lagos?’

I was moved to my soul and lowered my young head in quiet prayer. ‘May your flesh rest in peace on my plate of jollof rice come Christmas day’.

Halleluyah! My prayers were answered

Okonkwo

The Chinese had been in the area for close to six years building roads and railway lines. Suddenly news filtered into Ogidi that a laboratory was being moved from Nnewi to the town. An official from the Ministry  of Agriculture in Awka had come over to discuss this laboratory with important people in the town. The Chinese had been experimenting with yams for a while now and Ogidi’s soil was considered good for what they intended to do.

The laboratory was ready in two months and was officially opened with much fanfare. The Director of the laboratory did not look particularly strong. Mr Wang Li coughed through his speech and it seemed he might faint under the heat. He spoke of developing yams for export and implored the people of Ogidi that jobs would flow into the area and create prosperity when they started large scale farms. They however had to finish all the experiments.

Mr Wang Li surprised everyone when he called for rotten yams to be brought in for a price. The laboratory was flooded. Mama Nneka whose kitchen seemed to make yams rot very quickly made a lot of money when she bought a lot of yams and stored them in her kitchen. She then got different people to go in with her rotten yams to collect payment.

This was meant to be for research purposes. It put money in the hands of the people and smiles on their faces. It was announced that by the next month land with titles would be bought for farming. The Chinese were paying above the market prices. People queued with their title deeds at the make shift Land Acquisition porta cabin. A university Professor was worried with the way Hectares of land were being sold to foreigners. He asked for a leasing arrangement so that families could continue to have ownership of their ancestral land. He was told to shut up. His father had left him no land to inherit, so who was he to say how land owners should manage their property. He was told in no uncertain terms to go and hug his second wife tight and keep his nose out of the business his poverty would not allow him to understand. His books were his second wife. A particular large land owner refused to sell his land. It was in a prime location and in the area where the Chinese wanted to farm. There were many dignitaries sent to his country home to convince him to put pen to paper and die a Billionaire. His children all begged him but he refused because he had been talking to the Professor. He was found dead in bed and the deal went through as his first son was keen on the deal. He had a great befitting burial and the word around town was that he died of stubbornness.

Mr Wang Li announced they had grown yams in the laboratory that were resistant to pests and could grow quite large. The community was invited to witness the produce. People came as far as Obosi, Ihiala, Aguata and even Onitsha to this big meeting.

The display was impressive. One particular type of yam was huge. In front of it was a plate of cooked slices of yam. Dignitaries called up to taste it all nodded as they chewed. This was the best yam ever cooked since the history of the world. The edentulous Mazi Eze was helped onto the podium by his sons. He tasted the yams and clapped his hands in approval. People called the yam Udoji Award for its size. Mr Wang Li then went on to announce that this yam could not rot.

Everybody laughed. Mama Nneka known for her ‘back luck’ kitchen asked to host the yam for three days, ‘and una go see’.

When two weeks later the Udoji Award had not succumbed to the evil spirits in Mama Nneka’s kitchen, people began to take the yam seriously. The murmur in town was that this yam would take over Africa and get Ogidi youth jobs. Things were finally coming together.

A few months to the planting season, the youth of the town were all getting ready for the jobs to come.  That was when the shipments began to come in. Lorries delivering mechanical parts arrived to the main farm site which had been cordoned off. Everyone knew the Chinese were building something very great. The town was buzzing with excitement for prosperity had fallen on them uninvited. So many workers came in from China for the construction which went on all day and all night. Some youth leaders asked when the locals would start being employed and they were told that Phase Two of the project will bring the jobs. Soon people began to hear strange mechanical noises behind the great walls around the farm. No one was allowed in. There was a lot of money in circulation due to the sale of land so the local economy boomed as people spent lavishly.

An announcement was made that the Yam Farm was going to be officially opened and a technological miracle was going to be revealed. On the great day, the dignitaries sat in the covered sitting section while the masses stood a far off in the sun. After the speeches and traditional dances Mr Wang Li announced, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you, Okonkwo!’ There was a noise like thunder and out in the distance, what had looked like a heap of sand covered with leaves began to move towards them at great speed. As the leaves flew off to reveal a shiny metallic engine that had a head and eyes, people took to their heels. An announcement was made to calm the crowds and they slowly returned to watch the spectacle. What followed next was a demonstration of how this machine could prepare the ground, plant seed, spray both water and pesticides and fell trees. The tree cutting demonstration was phenomenal. The great machine drove across the large expanse of land and stuck out a giant saw which brought the tree down. This was a robot that would eat Amadioha’s lighting as a light snack. It brimmed with the artificial intelligence of an evil spirit.

A man in the crowd shook his head sadly. ‘Farming as an occupation is over in Ogidi’.

Okonkwo did the entire planting season single handed and worked for twenty hours each day. He only stopped to renew his charge from the solar power plant in the corner of the farm. The harvest the next year could have fed the whole of the State.

The produce was displayed for the cameras and they were promptly shipped off to China. The yam peelings were needed for the development of a Cancer drug that was hoped would fetch the Chinese Billions.

Mr Wang Li promised the good people of Ogidi that after the yam peelings have been removed, the rest of the yams would be made into yam powder which the approved importers in Ogidi could buy. He hoped that the government would be able to afford the cancer drugs for the people when it was ready.

People of Ogidi now travel to Nnewi to buy their yams as they have no farm land to work with. When some young people went to Mr Wang Li to ask for some Udoji Award yam seedlings they could plant in other towns, he found it very funny.

‘My friends, you don’t understand business’ he said.

Hunger

Hunger starts off politely. It greets you with an early morning hug and a kiss which is soon followed by nastiness if food does not appear. Man muss wack afterall. The older people resort to lamentations and philosophy when hunger pangs strike them at a time their fridges and pockets are empty but the babies have not read that memo. They just cry, making sounds designed to go straight to the brain of an adult and propel them to action. When parents feel impotent in the face of hunger, frustration rises and actions become unpredictable. In the midst of the painful anger the adults get that epiphany of torment: someone somewhere in this town has enough leftovers to feed my family.

People will procrastinate if they can get away with it, so nature makes sure there is no opportunity to, ‘forget to eat’ or ‘forget to feed the baby’. The world stops till that food goes into the mouth.  Various countries quote between 20 to 40% of household food that goes to waste. That is not adding the percentage of farm produce that rots away after harvest or gets intentionally burnt so as not to flood the market with food and upset the price structure.

In the abundance of water, the fool is thirsty says Bob Marley but the hungry may disagree. They do not have access to food. They are not so foolish as not to know they are hungry and neither are they so dumb that they cannot guess which part of town has well stocked fridges. They are wise enough to known that they cannot just turn up at a house and bang on the gates asking to be let in so that they could have dinner with the rich guys. Na today?!

¹⁹ “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. ²⁰ At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores ²¹ and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.

Hunger can get so bad that people migrate from their homes to go and live illegally outside the gates of the rich in expectation of a few crumps. This new location guarantees nothing as the parable told by Jesus clearly shows. Death comes to take away the starving beggar on a chariot with space for two. The rich man too is taken but the food is left behind.

Hunger was meant to be a beautiful thing. It is a most gentle reminder that it is time to eat. This prevents people from wasting away. People always need to be reminded to do things, even paying the bills for what they have purchased. The gentle reminder is always followed by the bailiffs who come looking for property they can confiscate. Hunger has its own metabolic bailiffs that eat away at the body’s stored fat if there is no food in the stomach. This is a painful process and the individual starts to lose weight.

The world of leftovers is a strange one. Humans work so hard for food then throw it away. Chop-remain, is what the village people call it. There is a stigma attached to eating the leftovers of others but when hunger ‘catches you’ all stigmas are forgotten. Hunger is democratised in Nigeria. The boys of Bornu state experience it in the same way the girls in Calabar do. Once that fire burns, there is no tribal discrimination in choosing food to douse the flames and pangs. For the hungry lad in Borno who prefers to eat his own type of food, preferences melt like wax under the thermal glory of hunger. Anything will do, from the Amala and Ewedu from the West to the Afang soup of the East, he go rush dem. Apart from the ‘catching , Nigerian hunger sometimes joins forces with the hot sun and greedy mosquitoes to beat Nigerians. Hunger beating you is both a physical, psychological and spiritual abuse. The lashes are lavish and make the victim cry out loud, (usually to God), asking why they were born in this country and why their parents no get moni? Next comes the raining of curses on the heads and graves of everyone who has ruled Nigeria till date. The lashing intensifies despite the cries.

Suddenly the object of the hungry man’s hatred turns up and throws some bank notes at him and he smiles, grabs the money and runs off to buy that eba so that belle go gauge. It is election time after all.

It is impossible to discuss National hunger without a mention of Politics and Leadership as the agricultural policies and investments lies in the hands of the government and those Civil Servants that should be serving the hungry with plates of food. Anyone in charge of any local government area, State or Country should no longer feel at ease when they are in possession of the information that there are citizens under their watch going to bed hungry; that is with empty stomachs, fridges and wallets. Just what is the prestige of presiding over starving people whose brains are being burnt up for metabolic fuel? Where would National development come from when the people are in survival mode?

A 15 car procession of a governor speeding past hungry Africans on the way to the airport is an absurd curse rather than a prestigious show of strength. That is like meeting a finely dressed man out in the streets with a $40,000 watch and his kids are crying for bread at home. It would be impossible to respect such a father. The truth of the matter is that the leader of the starving is really starving, no matter how much he has in his wallet. The people may be starved of food and dignity but the leader is starved of his humanity. Ask the leader about this he would reply, ‘did they tell you my children are starving? Second bass jare!’

A Naija Food Beauty Contest

Our people say that ‘Monkey no fine but im mama love am’. Such is love in the eyes of the beholder. A perception contaminated by geography, blood and genetics. They say that beauty attracts people to come together but character keeps them together. With food the beauty is magnetic but it is the taste that keeps you coming back for more.

Everything is a contest in today’s world. Television has cooking contests that are quite popular in the UK. It is a kind of X -Factor for the kitchen alchemists, who all fight like gladiators for the winning prize. Usually the judges on these shows taste the food to score it and we know how subjective that can be. Till Elon Musk or some other clever person invents an AI (Artificial Intelligence) food taster it will be biased judges for the foreseeable future.  It would be great to have food analysis apps attached to smart phones that can scan and pick up any contaminants accidentally, carelessly or intentionally added to the food. This would please that Naija cohort who have been expecting to be poisoned for twenty years so far and are still on hypervigilance mode.

Food can look beautiful but every man is a Judge in his own gastric court. Now the beauty on the plate has nothing to do with the smell or the taste. Some Food handlers  know how to design food artistically in ways that make you want to forfeit the meal and hand it over to the Tate gallery for displays. Some Food handlers from hell will revolt you. You know those odd people who think dogs, snakes and alligators are food. Once those nasty plates are seen it takes weeks to get them off the mind.

I find that sliced paw paw on a white plate is incredibly alluring. The bright colours seem to light up some area of the brain that brings satisfaction. I don’t particularly care if I eat that fruit or not but I find it attractive. If I were a judge on any food beauty pageant, paw paw will win hands down. Second will be those wonderfully shaped cakes I wouldn’t eat. There is really much to say about the virtues of looking and not eating. The feasting of the eyes is a great past time.

Every man should belong to a team of Judges that walk in packs looking out for gastronomy beauty. The buffet section at parties or in restaurants, with their long line up of food, look at each other then set their eyes on the Judges. ‘Would they love me?’ they ask themselves as we walk on by. Further down the line the moin moin looks sideways to the dodo and says, ‘fine food like me? Na dem dey rush us’. The Judges look and choose the best. The coconut rice suddenly finds its voice and starts to sing, ‘I’m a wonderful thing baby’ like a little kid from Sierra Leone with a Creole accent. But this is a beauty contest and the judges will decide who is finest.

That smooth round pounded yam moulded by hands gifted in geometry is a delight to look at. Fried rice looks good in a large silver dish. It has so many little bits of colourful edibles.  Next is grilled fish lying on its side at full stretch. The fish lies in state at its majestic funeral having lived a life well spent. Growing in size so that it is fit for the banquet where it arrives dead, spiced and fully cooked. It will rest in peace in someone’s stomach swimming with the Fanta. Fish is fine when motionless and at peace. The heaped up chicken is not a pretty sight. Neither is the stewed beef that always seems like it is attempting to swim in a dried up river.

Looks are deceptive and many get to their tables after being seduced by what they saw, only to be greeted by all the pepper in Kano as they take their first spoon. All na hustle. The food must attract someone. Sometimes in parties inexperienced people make comments about the wowo (ulgy) food. They shout to people who are about to sink a spoon into a dish, ‘I wouldn’t eat that poison if I were you. I wonder who cooked it?’

‘I did it. On my feet all night’ comes the reply from the chef who has been orbiting her creation wondering why nobody is taking a bite. It can be soul destroying to be rejected by people but such is life. That is why some hate competitions among school children as some would come first and others would come last. They try to protect kids from the harsh realities of life. These are the same kids who are sat in the car seeing mansions along the road while they make their way to their tiny flat. No one can be protected from the fact that all the fingers on the hand are of different lengths.

If one’s fried rice looks like Tuwo Shikafa wearing make- up, one’s pepper soup might win the prize. One man’s soup is another man’s poison so it works out well for all in the end.

There is a trend of escalating beauty on social media. Lagbaja said - wowo girls don finish for Nigeria. Everyone has long hair and finger nails and flawless skin. It might be flawed skin buried under layers of Mary Kay but no one is washing off the twelve coats of paint to check.

The same applies to food. It gets prettier by the day especially on Instagram. Food now has a team of people sorting out the photoshoot. Backgrounds, fine plates, shining cutlery and good lighting produce pictures of food one normally only sees in a dream.

I wonder if this escalating beauty is a problem. It can be irritating trying to eat dinner on a date with someone obsessed with photographing every plate that comes. The actions are intrusive but the photographer is hell bent on showing that their plate – betta pass my neighbour’s. There is a competition to show your food fine pass. A short twenty years ago, there were only two people involved in a dinner date. Now it is all the followers on Instagram, monitoring spirits on Facebook and the Ogbanje spirits on Twitter lamenting they are soaking Garri at home while slay ‘cuisine’ Mama is living it up.

Izzz like everybody is contesting in a beauty contest. The good thing is no one takes selfies with the food when it comes out at the other end. Halleluyah!

Musical Plate

Nigerian Jollof was made for music as was all the other Naija foods. Pepper soup in a steamy bowl congested with assorted floating and submerged edibles is best swallowed with Peacocks International Guitar band playing that guitar that makes one forget the problems of life and slurp away happily. The Eddie Quansah song drowns out the noisy eating habits of your neighbour and prevents the panic when pepper goes the wrong way and someone starts choking. ‘Bros, drink water’ someone says and passes a glass and pats him on the back. Once the danger has passed, someone else teases, ‘Your village people don start again o’.

There are some Nigerian foods that would refuse to go down the gullet without music especially if more than twenty people are present. I recall eating at a party when the music stopped and all we had was the clinking of cutlery, chewing noises, coughing and noisy conversation enveloping us with an unpleasant sound cloud and sonic drizzle. The silence was unbearable.

Love, music and food all get along fine in the Naija ecosystem. The musicians are not oblivious to this fact and the food references abound in Naija music that we all love.

Oni dodo Oni Moin moin is a Yoruba folk song that has been covered both by Fela Kuti and Sam Apkabot at different times. That song floods my mind with visions of hot rice, slices of dodo and moin moin all baptised with the sprinkling upon of hot bright red tomato stew. Dodo is one of my favourite foods and the way the song emphasises the sound dodo makes the Naija mouth water. Fresh Dodo can never keep a secret of its presence. It could be fried at the east end of the street and the smell travels through the air tormenting each house till it gets to the end of the street and dances back.

Moin moin is made from grown beans, and beans features in another Yoruba folk song that went thus:

There is oil, there is beans

I am not afraid to have twins

Because there is oil, there is beans

Now what is better that a rice and beans orchestra? The thoughts that these song evoke produce dancing vibrations in the soul.

Bunny Mack was from Sierra Leone but his monster hit, Let me love you was loved and adopted by Nigerians

You are my sweetie my sugar

My baby My lover

In my youth when I saw nothing wrong in chewing on a cube of St Louis or Tate sugar, this song struck a chord. Gone are those days of blissful ignorance when I had no Diabetic patients.

In recent times my ability to cope with spices has waned and I avoid Shito at all costs. Just looking at it in a jar takes my gastric pH southwards but I love the wonderful personal irony when I get all emotionally involved in Runtown’s Mad Over you

Ghana girl, say she wan marry me o

I hope say she sabi cook waakye

Hope your love go sweet pass shito

Hmmm, sounds like pure reflux oesophagitis love to me. Another ironic twist is from none other than the KokoMaster himself who equated his ‘hotness’ to Hot Amala to gi  a gaan gaan in the song Gbono Feli Feli.

Now I am not an amala eater but I feel good about the song till date. And sometimes when I am really feeling myself, I think, Hmmmm! African Michael Jackson! Na dem dey rush us!!

Nothing is as attractive as hot food, after all the salesmen tell us that good merchandise sells like hot cake.

Newer sounds like Solid star and Tiwa Star sing about Baby Jollof my love, you too sweet like jollof make me wonder if a girl can be sweet like Nigerian Jollof? Hmmm, expectations should be kept attainable please.

When Duncan Mighty sang in the studio with Tiwa Savage in the song  Lova Lova, I wonder if it was real love or hunger

This your love sweet, Ofada Rice

Nne you too Sweet like a Yam Porridge.

Now to the elephant in the room. You cannot go four songs on any Naija play list without thinking all music recording studios in Nigeria are located on a plantation or on Banana Island. There is an epidermic of Banana references which risks flooding the ears with Potassium. This phase will pass hopefully and I am not a big fan of Banana music. Well I used to be when Dan I recorded Monkey Chop.

It was a big hit in the seventies and the chorus was everywhere

Monkey come chop Banana. I still don’t  understand the song till now.

But when it comes to love songs and food, the best example is down to the KokoMaster ; Dbanj

When to Kokomaster fall in love

You know say water don pass Garri

My sweet Potato

I wanna tell you my mind

My Sugar banana

As I don get you if I say make I hammer

I am not quite sure what the recipe for sugar banana is but I guess the KokoMaster has some form of Gastronomic Immunity and artistic licence in that kitchen of his.

There is no doubt that music can affect our emotional states and modify our food seeking behaviour especially in groups. In parties with very good DJs people dance for hours and the drinks and food always run out. Fast paced music ‘gingers’ people up and they in turn expend more energy, sweat more and drink more. Even when eating alone, I then to play some music. Listening to the humming of the fridge or electric generator and air conditioners (depending on which country I am in) is bad for eating. On flights that depressing white noise that aircraft engines give of is replaced with the inflight entertainment. The meals are usually just nothing to fly home about but I guess that is why everyone is given ear phones at the beginning of the flight.

In all matters of the stomach, just as it is with love, ambience is paramount. And the quickest way to set the mood is via music.

If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.

Something Light

Unscrupulous individuals give ‘something light’ a bad name. You know them. They consider eating two portions of pounded yam, each the size of a new born baby's head as something light. Simply because they usually eat eight portions, but are now down with malaria and have lost the inbuilt greed. The greedy ones have all been born.

We are here to claim light back from the darkness of crude greed. The light something is really a snack.  It is a portion of food that will not stretch the belly of a toddler. This is food that caresses the palate and makes the mouth yearn for more. Pepper soup, thin slices of paw paw, akara, few ground nuts and the like.

I must warn that when a Naija uses the word ‘something’ in reference to food, they are lying at worst or being vague and misleading at best. Like the guy who is invited to join someone eating a meal who says, ‘thanks, I have just had something’. The fact that he strokes his abdomen as he speaks and looks at the plate with disgust betrays his hunger. Naijaz are never vague when it comes to food and might even give unwanted details. Offer some people a drink and they tell you how full they are by not only listing the meals they have had in the last twenty hours, but they throw in the genealogy of the goat that featured in the pepper soup.

Snacks which are also called small chops are the real light somethings. Naijaz have incorporated foods from all over the world in the creation of our small chops list but I will concern myself with snacks which can best be described as authentic Naija food.

There is no place like a Naija wedding for understanding the importance of small chops. The affairs tend to run late because of circumstances beyond anyone’s control,  and it seems the late arrival of key participants is always linked to a hair dresser. So you leave the church and take photographs then it is off to the wedding reception.

With everyone hungry, people are ushered to various tables. Like it is in FIFA World Cup Groups there is always that Group of death. The table that devours its inhabitants because there is a super hungry guy with a prominent Adam’s apple sitting there. The type of guy Fela sang about in the song Kalakuta show.

Look di man he dey waka

Hunger dey run for im face (woko -woko woko –woko)

Once seated at this table the lateness continues and the DJ tries his best to help you forget your hunger by making you deaf. Then the small chop bowls arrive, Halleluyah! Then malt drinks with no bottle top openers. Now due to politeness no one wants to be the first to make a move for the snacks and the gentlemen will usually offer the bowls of finger foods to the ladies. But not on the table of death and starvation. The super hungry man just reaches out both hands as big as shovels and grabs all the puff puff. Next he brings out his bottle opener from his bunch of 20 keys (which includes a miniature pen knife), and opens two bottles of malt for himself! At this stage the wise people excuse themselves and seek another table.

The small chops are used to keep you hanging on while you endure stale jokes from the MC that you have read on your WhatsApp groups years ago. That is till the main food arrives; Party Jollof Rice.

Here is a list of the life -saving snacks that keep Naijaz from fainting at weddings and parties operating on African time

 Puff puff

Small, tasty and just like Bonny Light, easily processed, this snack is the King of all Naija finger foods. Couples that had no puff puff at their wedding reception need to go and remarry themselves. It is made from frying a mixture of plain wheat flour, oil and dried yeast till it becomes golden brown.  

Chin Chin

This crunchy snack that comes in small hard cubes is prepared from deep frying dough made up of plain flour and margarine. This snack should come with a health warning. The hard granite like cubes of goodness can break a tooth or dislocate a jaw bone. All dignity is lost as the jaws are converted into a pressurised grinding machine causing the chin to vibrate at an astounding frequency. Maybe this chin action gives the snack its name.

While on the topic of losing dignity we might as well go there.

Sugar cane

I call this the snack of madness. A country eats all its sugar cane and imports sugar? It is messy to eat and spit out. People look like Panda’s eating bamboo when they feast on sugar cane. It is child abuse to have kids clear up the mess after adults have eaten this snack. Worse comes when the sugar ants congregate on the messy left overs. Thank goodness no one has been mad enough to serve this Bamboo look-a-like at a wedding ceremony.

Nuts

Ground nuts and guguru (popcorn) keep the mouth busy and keeps hope alive while waiting for that Party Jollof rice. The only problem here is people dip their fingers in the nuts and some fall back into the bowl. Now I have been to parties and seen how some people wash their hands in the loo. Enough said.

Akara

Bean cakes are Naija’s equivalent of hot crossed buns. They have the powers to ginger you out of your lethargic on a cold harmattan morning especially when there is Ogi (Pap) to assist it in the journey down that dark tunnel that leads to the stomach. It is made from frying blended beans which has been spiced to taste.  

Plantain Trilogy

Fried thin slices of unripe plantain are called Ipkekere (Plantain chips) and when ripe plantain is fried it is called Dodo. Roast plantain is Boli. Dodo goes well with rice, yam and moin moin.

Meats

Snails, gizzards, suya and kilishi (dried beef) can be used as starters before the main meal.

Miscellaneous

Other snacks which are usually not available in weddings but can be obtained from road side food vendors include, Suya, Roasted or boiled Maize alongside Coconut, fried yams and various fruits such as oranges, agbalumo, banana  mangoes and pears.

Kuli kuli which is fried peanut paste is popular for some as is coconut candy. Some snack on Tapioca and other love termites and maggots off the palm trees.

Mosa which is fried mash plantain mixed with eggs, pepper and flour is eaten in Northern Nigeria.

Summary.

For some, anything that is not Swallow is something light. People like this never waste time with snacks. The party starts for them when the swallow arrives. We hope and pray that something light will appear at the end of their dark tunnel of deception one day.