Today, esteemed readers and compatriots, I wish to avert our busy minds to something we have all taken for granted, to wit: seasonal availability of everything we eat and make use of in this cursed geographical enclave, a place where all that matters to the mishandlers of the receding economy is the blood of innocents. As you all know, Nigerians purchase agricultural products, such as maize (corn "ukoru"), pear, yam, cassava, potato, orange, guava, mango, apple, cashew, etc with a seasonal mindset. Is this not shameful, ladies and gentlemen? Is it not a shameful thing that we always say to one another "Chai, mango go soon go oh"? Do you know that it is abominable elsewhere in the world to talk about seasonal availability of eatables? What does this ugly reality say of Nigeria? But why are our farm produce seasonal? Let me do justice to the remote cause of this problem.
WHY FARM PRODUCE IS SEASONAL IN NIGERIA
Farm produce is the real mainstay of every economy the world over, thereby making its intermittent availability a misnomer, a disaster that is unacceptable. Food occupies the highest position on the table of human necessities. Stomach infrastructure - in the words of Gov. Ayodele Fayose - should be the most crucial priority of any truly responsive government. That is why no matter the claims of any administration what really counts is the number of unemployed absorbed by the jobs created by it. No government is truly functional save it has created jobs that put food on the table of the citizenry. Such is the importance attached to food. Having known how inescapable food is to man, why should food be seasonally available?
Food is seasonally available in Nigeria because she does not have any masterplan for agriculture. It will interest most of you to know that agriculture is only second to gold and diamond when it comes to national and international revenue. The hard lesson here is that oil (black gold) is not as lucrative as agriculture. I am sanguine that my readers know that agriculture is open-ended: we eat the raw products, we use the by-products to manufacture other things, the animal husbandry aspect is useful to textile industries, and the latex from rubber trees makes plastic industries flourish. Having seen how significant agriculture is to every economy, can someone tell me why Nigeria operates a monolithic economy based on oil, which is of lesser economic importance? I think I know why. The desert dwellers are after the resources found in the coastal regions. The whole idea is to prey on the coastal dwellers until these resources are depleted. I say so because I know that arable land exists in the North for onward luxuriant commercial agriculture. Why are agricultural activities in Nigeria at the subsistent level? Why is Ota Farm, a product of national embezzlement, the only visible commercial agriculture? Something is very wrong with Nigeria! But how were other nations able to conquer seasonal availability of farm produce?
What farmers do is to ensure that they provide the needed soil texture, nutrients, and water for their crops throughout the year. In some areas, the atmospheric condition is sustained artificially to boost production. Where water is not readily available, farmers ensure that alternative supply through irrigation is made available. I have not sighted a single irrigation agriculture in the South-South, South-East and elsewhere in Nigeria. What we do is to rely on acts of God, nature, for water, good soil, and the needed temperature. Is that not why we say this crop grows in the North, the other grows in the South etc? Every crop grows wherever what it needs are available. It is the duty of a good farmer, one that knows his onions, to make everything available for his produce. Onion can be cultivated in the South. Carrot, potato (Irish and sweet), tomato etc can be produced in commercial quantities everywhere.
It is wrong to wait for the season of anything we eat. Our agricultural activities are the seasons these crops need. What am I trying to say? The things farmers do to ensure that crops are available throughout the year constitute the real season. We should be able to walk into the grocery to purchase whatever we desire without let or hindrance from seasonal availability. One of the occult reasons behind the protracted economic recession in Nigeria is monolithism. We cannot continue to put all our eggs in a basket of lesser global and economic importance. Agriculture remains economically and globally superior to oil. When will we learn? No one doubts that Buhari's egregious fiscal and monetary policies grounded the economy of Nigeria. In the same vein, no one doubts that the real problem with Nigeria is her reliance on oil. Seasonal availability of farm produce (food) is the aftermath of poor agricultural practice in Nigeria. People farm to survive and sustain their immediate families in Nigeria. That is a shame! Farming should be the real mainstay of every virile economy. We have not spotted any animus geared towards correcting this impasse. Nigeria lacks what it takes to survive for another 20 years as a sovereign nation.
The dark cloud surrounding this expired geographical entity makes the clamour for restoration of Biafra resounding. Biafra, the inescapably emerging nation, is the panacea to peace and progress. Biafra is peopled by those that understand that oil lacks what it takes to sustain a nation. Biafrans, especially those from the Igbo-speaking part, having traversed the length and breadth of the earth, know that oil does not build a nation. Agriculture will be given its pride of place in Biafra. We shall run a truly functional economy. Those who still schmooze about a non-existent One Nigeria are living in a fool's paradise. The unity sermonists are under spell. Things can only get worse in Nigeria. The only way out is peaceful disassemblage. Let us speak the truth for once: Nigeria was never fabricated for Nigerians. It was British way of extending colonization through the back door. I say so because no colonial master that is truly desirous of setting the colony free leaves without a referendum, especially where the colony is a pot-pourri of diverse cultures, worldviews, values, and religions. Britain simply kept Nigeria in care of (c/o) the North through which she continues to administer indirect rule. Nigeria has never been free! That 1960 so-called independence was a sham! "Our mumu don do!"
Russell Idatoru Bluejack is a thinker, revolutionary writer, university tutor, and socio-economic and political analyst that writes from the creeks in Biafra land.
Written by:
Russell Idatoru Bluejack
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