Food occupies a central place in our culture. It plays a key role in religious/social activities, and is a major marker of the passage of times and seasons. It is a celebration. Food unites people and families and marks one’s acceptance in a home, family, or community. Food is not just an object thrown into the stomach to quench hunger.
Not surprisingly, food varieties mark the peculiarity of ethnic nations and cultures. A tour of food varieties in a nation tells tales of the diversity of peoples in such nations.
Over time and due to cross boundary interactions, certain foods have been adopted across nations. In Nigeria one can find restaurants serving amala, ofe nsala, banga, afang soup and edikangikong virtually anywhere you go to. Internationally you are likely to find Chinese or Indian curry in most countries. And, the idea of an English breakfast is taken for granted. The spread of food and the adoption of some have been spurred by commerce, colonialism and other factors.
Food and humanitarian aid were weaponized during the Biafra-Nigerian war and deeply impacted the diet and wellbeing of the people in the then Eastern Nigeria. I recall seeing that after the war, families ate less nutritious foods and those who were lucky ate more of eba made from cassava, the poor man’s crop. That was clearly attributable to displacement, blockages, destruction of livelihoods and other causes of poverty occasioned by the fratricidal war. Distended bellies were not signs of overeating, but often of kwashiokor.
Knowing that food is the anchor on which our culture is built, we must remind ourselves that for our people agriculture is a way of life, not just a business. Any policy or law that prohibits seed sharing is basically aimed at disrupting solidarity in our communities and replacing our communal power structures with ones built on exploitation, profiteering, poverty and hunger.
Food travels. Tastes are cultivated. Taste buds adjust to what is fashionable. This has birthed the fast or junk food and the related junk culture. Fast foods caught on quickly because humans have become addicted to instant gratification. We want freshly made food but cannot wait for it for 30 minutes at the restaurant. So we all make a quick dash for the “food is ready” shop. To ensure the food is attractive the fast food outlets are brightly coloured, brightly lit and totally surrounded by music so loud your wrist watch warns that staying there for extended periods will lead to permanent hearing impairment. To keep you from pondering the food set before you, there are big screens in every direction offering you soccer, wrestling, music, violent news and war movies. Distracted and deafened we gulp the foods, enjoy the colours and sounds and go away with a load of heavy metals, colourings and other loads in our guts.
When top politicians make a show of eating junk foods, and gulp litres of sugary beverages, they send a powerful but wrong message that obviously deviant junk culture is hip.
Our worries do not end with fast foods. We are equally assailed by the rush of Frankenstein foods produced through genetic engineering. Many of such products are imported without queries into Nigeria. Some of the genetically modified (GM) crops are already in our farms, markets and dining tables. Those approving them swear they are safe for human consumption. We are served doses of insecticide as the GMOs are fabricated to kill certain pests. If junk foods birth junk culture, certainly genetically modified foods will produce transgenic cultures.
The biggest factor pushing these food cultures around the world is geopolitical in nature. Hegemonic control of cultural products go beyond movies and sink their claws into our food systems. Poverty, wars, debt, cultural manipulations open the way for food colonialism to take root. It is a power play arena and requires conscious efforts to halt, overcome and reverse.
Decolonizing our food systems requires that we liberate our tongues and taste buds. It requires that we recover lost varieties. It requires that we reject GMOs. It requires that we preserve and share indigenous seeds and celebrate our foods. It requires that we expose the underlying market forces driving and influencing food system governance solely to their benefit and to the detriment of small holder farmers who feed the world and the attendant environmental and socio-cultural impacts.
We must critically examine the root causes or main drivers of hunger in Nigeria/Africa and resist its weaponisation to entrench a culture that does little or nothing to improve food systems but instead maximise profit for a handful of enterprises.
Who benefits from Hunger? Is hunger solely a question of productivity? Does hunger persist because farmers are not producing enough, even though in climes like Nigeria almost half of food produced goes to waste? How do global market relations and policies affect the rights of local food producers or their power to compete? These are pertinent questions that require deliberate attention and responses if our governments are serious about addressing hunger or food insecurity.
This session of our Sustain-Ability Academy brings to fore these questions amongst others and recommends critical recalibration of our food systems to ensure fairness and justice, resilience and sustain-ability.
Remarks at the Sustain-Ability Academy on Food, Power and the Politics of Hunger hosted by Health of Mother Earth Foundation and the Centre of Politics, University of Port Harcourt on 19 March 2026.
“…all classical traditions of world literature are fostered by environments where there areintensive struggles against great evils for the restoration of human dignity.”
– G. G. Darah, “Revolutionary Pressures in the Literature of the Niger Delta”
The Community and Culture Programme of Health of Mother Earth Foundation seeks to underscore the foundational role that literature plays in our culture. Our stories, poems, theatre, songs and dance often aim to educate, correct through the sharing of information and through naming and shaming. These cultural practicesconductedin the public, are for public consumption and demand action. The overall aims include keeping a record of happenings, envisioning what should happen and providing keys towards attaining preferred ends.
Ken Saro-Wiwa, Nigeria’s hero of the environment, was many things in his lifetime. He was a socioecological activist, a politician, educator, businessman, playwright, novelist and poet. He used his resources and talents in the service of the Ogonis and by extension his nation. While he laced his writing with humour, he was dead serious about the rejection of marginalisation, ecocide, exploitation and oppression. He fought for socio-ecological justice. It can be argued that through his artistic production he woke the consciousness of his people and used the cultural tools at his disposal to ingrain in them a sense of commitment to the Ogoni cause and along with that a determination to fight for justice. It can also be argued that without his prodigious cultural and literary outputs the Ogoni struggle would have burned out by this time.
Books are the vehicles for building sustainable struggles and retaining a heightened sense of humour while doing so. Literature can and should be an ideological and confrontational tool to reclaim the social mandate of the oppressed.
While books meet the aesthetic needs of the people, they also shape their imaginations. Undoubtedly, we are shaped by our imaginaries. Writers like Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Ngugi Wa’Thiongo, Niyi Osundare, Odia Ofeimun, Tanure Ojaide, Christopher Okigbo, Helon Habila, Chimamamda Ngozi Adichie, Nduka Otiono, Chigozie Obioma and a host of others challenge oppressive systems and the imaginaries that acquiesce to such situations.
Our community and Culture programme aims to use the tools offered by authors, poets, playwrights, storytellers and singers to build environmental consciousness, offer pictures of alternative futures and promote resistance to the horrendous environmental exploitation and damage happening around our nation and continent.
Today is the first in our series of Book Days. As we get ready to digest portions from the book A Walk in the Curfew, there is another book we should peep into.
This other book is The Great Ponds by Elechi Amadi. It is a book that pictures the disruptions of society through fights over natural resources and mirrors the destructive extractive activities that has numbed our sense of the fact that the environment is our life.
Two key characters in the book are Olumba of Chiolu and Wago of Aliakoro. These two communities engage in protracted wars over fishing rights to WagabaPond. In the tale we see Chiolu warriors defeating those of Aliakoro, and thereafter members of Chiolu claimed Wagaba Pond and fished in it without hindrance. Aliakoro villagers, however, began to poach in the pond, and Chiolu sent a war party to catch the poachers. We note that these two communities were from the same clan. They were family torn apart by a natural resource.
Over time the two communities were plagued with wars, kidnappings, and an epidemic akin to COVID-19 which is the pivot around which the stories in A Walkin the Curfew are spurn.
Wago was emblematic of Aliakoro’s superiority over the other villages. His power got magnified in stature by those most troublesome desires of humans: honour and praises. Yet being a proud man Wago decided to blow out his own candle, to commit suicide in the contentious pond. The elders in Aliakoro knew suicide to be a great sin but they also knew that for Wago to choose to do so in the pond was a tactical and overly insensitive gesture. Personal interest had disregarded the communal good.
The Great Ponds is a testament to the power of literature to reflect, shape, and challenge societal norms. Amadi’s work continues to resonate with readers, offering valuable insights into the complexities of human nature, community, and tradition. It also offers a cautionary tale that we should not allow natural or other resources to divide us and lead to needles destruction and deprivations.
Now, let’s turn to the writers of A walk in the Curfew and other pandemic tales, some of whom are here with us today. By writing the stories in the time of the pandemic, the writers show that emergencies are excellent moments for reflection on life. They also hold up the light on how to build resilience and overcome the most dire situations.
The stories remind us of the power of human connection, solidarity, and creativity in the face of adversity. The writings not only capture the complexities and challenges of the pandemic but also offer hope, insights, and inspiration for a more just, equitable, and sustainable future.
The authors’ contributions to this collection are a gift to humanity, and there is no doubt that these offerings will resonate with readers worldwide.
Congratulations Onome Etisioro, Mfoniso Antia (Xael) and Kome Odhomor. Thank you for offering your creativity and for opening this journey on our Community and Culture highway.
Comments at HOMEF’s maiden Book Day held on 31 January 2025 in Benin City, Nigeria
Archeologists divide Earth’s history in a geologic time scale into a hierarchical series of smaller blocks of time. These divisions are called ages, epochs, periods, eras and eons based on Earth’s rock layers, or strata, and the fossils found within them. Scientists guess which parts of the geological record certain fossils belong to.
We are said to live in the Anthropocene Epoch — an unofficial geologic time. The official name is Holocene— an epoch said to have started almost 12,000 years ago.
The word Anthropocene is derived from the Greek words anthropo, for “man,” and cene for “new”. The basic question that scientists are trying to answer before declaring the Anthropocene an epoch is if humans have changed the Earth system to the point that it is reflected in the rock strata.
Key milestones in the horror history of humanity are
the advent of the Industrial Revolution — which accelerated climate change.
The testing and dropping of the first atomic bomb on human communities — Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.
The Challenge of Art: Between Wakefulness and Slumber
Art in the Age of the Anthropocene, is tied to human relationships to objects and materials and how these impact our environment. Read more here. The Anthropocene clearly is an epoch in which human activity harms human habitation in ways that can be compared to a person willfully destroying his or her own home. The question confronting the artist is how to use his craft to wake up humanity to this cannibal inclination, reminding everyone of the African proverb which says that the man who burns his father’s house can only inherit the ashes.
We can also begin by questioning the purpose of arts — all creative forms: music, photography, fine arts, drama, poetry, prose, etc.
Do we have the luxury of seeing art as production without utility beyond generating revenue? Can we afford to develop aesthetic or beautify bullets, bombs and weapons of mass destruction forgetting about how these burst and annihilate dreams, lives and communities?
Could art in the Anthropocene challenge, organize and present alternatives to the current decadent system into which humanity has been sucked?
Can art recover the meaning of terminologies such as “sustainability” and even “development”?
We live in an age when vast chunks of humanity know with more certainty that they do not know why we are here on earth. At a mundane scale we do not even know where most objects around us came from. For the ones we are certain are man made we still grapple with basic questions as to why the objects were made, who made them, when were they made and who can afford them.
Art for Oppression or Liberation
The Anthropocene is arguably an epoch where objects are made with inbuilt obsolescence. We live in a throwaway culture. We live in a time when Nigeria and nations around us have become cemeteries of obsolete technologies of various kinds. We are the junkyard where purchasing scraps is a high gamble as to their utility.
What role can the artist play in reminding us of our humanity, of our proud history of creativity and high aesthetic skills? With humanity racing to the precipice, can art help pull the brakes? Can art challenge the rising poverty as well as erosion of moral bars?
Can art help stop the barbarism of genocide, Ecocide, apartheid and bare-faced war crimes? How about rising green, blue and carbon colonialism via false climate solutions.
Can art be the fulcrum of revolt against exploitative socio-economic relations? Can art boldly demand fundamental system change? What would that change look like?
Art as a Tool for Communicating Change
For us, one of the urgent questions of the Anthropocene is whether we can afford to indulge in art for art’s sake. To answer this question, we may have to examine which artistes, and/or their production have stood the test of time, have made positive contributions to the emancipation of peoples across the world.
At this juncture we should ask ourselves some questions:
What art piece most influenced you and your world view?
Which musician stirred your conscience and demanded that you stand up to be counted?
What do you learn when you reflect on the bronze artistic pieces of Benin Kingdom and why they were stolen?
How best can you use your talent to communicate on the issues of our time— climate change, corruption, poverty, crime and violence?
How can art build resilience in our time by propagating a counterculture?
The artist must take a stand. The artiste must make a choice. The battles raging in the tumultuous age of Anthropocene requires that no artist can afford to sit on the fence.
A talk by Nnimmo Bassey at Exposed! – A TellThatStoryConference, Benin City, Nigeria. 30 October 2023
I thank the Chancellor and President, and the entire family of York University for the great honour being extended to me today.
Being born at a time we were at the edge of breaking free from colonialism, the notion of independence was built early into my psyche. Growing up in innocence and being sucked into a season of violent secession was both disruptive and traumatic. This was a season of disruption of my primary education and it yielded an age-long struggle to figure out what was missed in the traumatic gaps of forced migration and survival as a refugee within my country.
Seasons are episodic otherwise they would not be seasons. At the end of the Biafra-Nigeria civil war, I was already severely scarred by the sights of horrible human rights abuses, man’s inhumanity to man, hunger, disease, cries of men pleading for their lives and several other stressors. War games were not video games, but games played with actual bones, fire and gunpowder. Bones of once gallant men who signed up to fight their brothers against whom they had no personal grouse. Today, more investment is being made in warfare, armaments, and destruction than in building resilience and wellbeing in the world.
My early years were wrapped by tales of resilience and charismatic anti-colonial fighters in Zimbabwe （then Rhodesia）, Mozambique, Guinea Bissau, Angola and South Africa. It was a time of learning of the martyrdom of Patrice Lumumba, Samora Machel, Steve Biko, Amilca Cabral, Thomas Sankara and others.
Meanwhile my country was under serial authoritarian military dictatorship and as a young adult I could not escape being a part of the human rights and anti dictatorship movement. Whereas I thought that was the zenith of standing against injustices, more graphic examples were unfolding beneath the radar.
The wheels of oppression at home were literally oiled by crude oil and sundry extractivist activities. Capital trumped concerns for the health of Mother Earth and her children. Complaints against the destruction of the ecosystems and livelihoods were met with brute force. Whole communities were sacked or crushed. Oil spills and heinous routine gas flaring pumped cocktails of noxious elements and gases into the environment, birthing cancers, birth defects, breathing diseases and cutting life expectancy to a mere whisper.
It was at this time that Ken Saro-Wiwa and other Ogoni leaders stood out and called for environmental Justice. Later we learned from Saro-Wiwa’s last writings before his judicial murder that the organizing energy rose from the conviction that “silence was treason” in the face of the debilitating pollution!
The judicial murders and assault on communities were the red lines the dictatorship crossed that set me on a lifelong journey of standing for environmental rights as the key basis for the enjoyment of the right to life. It has been quite a journey loaded with inescapably fixing one’s attention on environmental horrors, some of which are unimaginable and indescribable. While the journey has been mostly across the African continent and the sacrifice zones of the global south, we cannot fail to acknowledge the resistance and resilience of our relatives in the global north who face similar circumstances and continue to fight for environmental justice, dignity and basic rights in the efforts to decolonize their territories.
Extractivism threatens both people and planet. Its roots can be seen in every facet of the polycrisis pushing the world to the brink. Fossil fuel corporations, for one, invest so much to alter and control global imaginaries and have so far succeeded as policy makers believe that there is no other way to drive “growth”. Yet, it is clear we cannot afford lineal growth on a finite planet. While record temperatures, wildfires, floods and other stressors rage across the world, leaders are engrossed in xenophobic nationalism, building barriers against climate refugees and promoting fictional or false and risky climate solutions. They stick their tongues out and sneer: we can pollute and then engage in carbon removal; rather than adopt agroecology （which builds healthy soils and cools the planet）and support small scale fathers who actually feed the world, we will whiten the clouds, hang up mirrors and sunshades in the sky to lower the global temperature.
We are not surprised that carbon trading is the clarion call and Africa is emerging as a huge carbon sink in what may well be a neocolonial continent grab. An exploitative market cannot be the solution of a crisis created by the market.
It is a big honour for me to stand before you today. It is clearly a celebratory moment for me. However, a life entwined with that of my peoples is inevitably coated by a cloud of rage. As I look at the hopeful faces in this auditorium I plead that you never allow anything or anyone to steal your joy or to dim your hope. In May 2023, Bayelsa State in the Niger Delta of Nigeria, one of the most polluted places on planet Earth, released through its Environment and Oil Commission, a report somberly titled Environmental Genocide. The report, among other things, revealed that the per capita pollution in the state stands at one and a half barrels of crude oil. Rather than being aghast by such a revelation the world has been loudly silent. We hear talks of decarbonizing economies at a time we should be depetrolizing the ebbing civilization and detoxifying the sacrifice zones.
The milestones in my journey and the successes in the midst of continual battles have come by the resilience of the peoples and communities. We see expanding movements and readiness of communities to suffer inconveniences today for the sake of building a sane future for those yet unborn. I have seen the power of traditional wisdom and cultural production in building hope and strengthening alliances against oppression. Talking about cultural production, poetry has been a therapeutic tool for me. Through poetry we capture the past and present and construct the future. It is a tool that exposes folly, elicits action and provides strength even in difficult moments.
This is not a time to walk alone. Belonging to the York University family offers a layer of strength, not just for me but for my constituencies. This is indeed a time to stand together to demand justice in all circumstances, to call for an end to ecocide, to build solidarity and not walls and to restore hope in our time. I dedicate this honour to the martyrs of extractivism and environmental defenders everywhere.
On being conferred with an honorary doctorate at the convocation ceremony at York University, Toronto, Canada, 13 October 2023.
The vital place of the narrative strategy is in awakening memories and building consciousness for action. Over the past months we have experienced an evolving of our understanding of critical storytelling. We have seen the overturning of previously held notions and seen a surge for inclusive actions to provoke change. Initially we sought to tease out folktales and songs from centuries ago but while these exude a sense of nostalgia, the epistemic value of lived stories of struggles, defeats, and victories, of pollutions, degradations, deprivations, and resilience are more prevalent in our communities. These stories, poems and songs underscore our grasping of the bases of the resolute push for a shift in power modes, as well as a systemic power shift that are rising in our communities. While the stories cover broad power equations, they areall spurn and woven around the standing, suffocating or missing stilt roots of mangroves.
The Niger Delta houses the 4th largest mangrove forest in the world. The livelihoods of coastal and indigenous peoples are inseparably coupled with mangroves which erode due to mangrove loss or degradation. Research shows that the Niger Delta mangrove ecosystem is the breeding ground of more than 60% of commercial fisheries in the Gulf of Guinea. Thus, degraded mangrove or losses in the Niger Delta affects fish production and the fisheries value-chain in the Gulf of Guinea. After over six decades of unmitigated oil and industrial pollution, Niger Delta mangroves are amongst the most degraded mangrove ecosystems globally, with a recent review of crude oil impact on mangrove showing that 37% of the global impact has occurred in the Niger Delta.
Mangrove forests serve as coastal protection from storm surges and tidal waves. They are very valuable for climate change mitigation both by providing resilience to sea level rise, coastal erosion, and as very efficient carbon sinks. Sadly, an estimated 340,000 to 980,000 hectares of mangrove forests are lost or degraded annually due to activities of humans and corporations. Such destructive actions include crude oil and plastic pollution, unregulated harvesting, urbanization, so-called land reclamation, dredging activities and the spread of the invasive nipa palm.
In the course of investigating the place of mangroves in the power equations in some communities, activists from CEHRDand HOMEF recently reached the conclusion that mangroves must be protected and that a key way to do this is through the use of indigenous knowledge and the revival of customs of community conservation of mangrove forests. While a mangrove forest is being preserved on the coast of Kono in Ogoni, there is a heavy threat by the fast-spreading Nipa Palm. These invasive palms were introduced into the Niger Delta by a colonial officer in 1906 in the belief that the Nipa Palms were more aesthetically pleasing than mangroves and were useful for beautification and beach erosion control.
At Bundu, a densely populated neighbourhood in Port Harcourt, there is urgent need to clean the mangrove ecosystem of the massive oil spills and plastics and to prevent further despoliation of the creek. Fishers in Bundu community recall that they used to have customary norms for protecting mangrove forests in certain parts of the territory, with some being used as cemeteries for the young.
Both Kono and Bundu communities have traditional laws that debarred the people from harvesting mangrove woods or fishing in mangrove forests on certain days or periods of time. Except in Kono, this conservation mode has largely become history. Replacing Nipa Palms with mangroves in Kono and cleaning oil coated mangroves from Bundu must be a collaborative effort with the government and the community including local and international organizations.
Mangroves play vital roles in shaping livelihoods and cultures in coastal communities. Their degradation also negatively impacts the cultures and spirituality of the people. Migratory fishers carry tales bound to these ecosystems wherever they go.
The Shifting the Power Lines session of HOMEF’s School of Ecology brings Stilt Roots Stories from three continents – Africa, Latin America and Asia. Member groups of Oilwatch Network in the regions undertook the fishing out of stories connected to mangrove ecosystems. As the stories come, one recalls a visit to a vast area of destroyed mangroves at Magein the Guanabara Bay area not too far from Rio de Janeiro which the fisher folks euphemistically term the cemetery of mangroves.
During the visit in 2012, we met with members of Homens e Mulheres do Mar Association(AHOMAR) – Association of Men and Women of the Sea in the Guanabara Bay. That name did not include women initially, but after years of gender struggles, the role of the women had to be duly recognized and acknowledged in the name. One fisher pointedly told us about why they struggle to secure their livelihoods from the polluting actions of Petrobras. “We are resisting because we have no options. We might live or die. Our death may not result from gun shots, but because our livelihoods have been destroyed.” He added: “We are not seeking to be rich; we just want to live our lives in dignity.”
The reports, stories and songs from Africa, Asia and Latin America reveal the interlinkage of struggles and cultures across the continents. We learn also of the great need to recognize the intrinsic value of the gifts of Nature to humanity. We also learn that people power is essential to constructing the right power alternatives by which we can collectively design the future where every person lives in dignity, fully respecting other species, and their right to enjoy the cosy embrace of Mother Earth. Do not only see the trees when you look at mangroves. See the thriving life support systems that cut across species. See the culture of struggle and resilience. See power, power modes and unfolding alternatives.
Welcome words at HOMEF’s School of Ecology on Shifting the Power Lines. 27.07.2021
The noise from gas furnaces burning across the Niger Delta make it impossible for parents to whisper to their children. Whispering may sound conspiratorial, but parents cannot even speak normally to their children – a thing people take for granted. The explosive noises and hisses from the infernal fires make shouting the only way to hold a conversation. This anomaly has become the norm for two reasons: they must speak louder than the thunderous flares or shout to overcome the challenge of many persons slowly going deaf. Sometimes monologues appeal in the oil fields, because then you only shout at yourself.
Dialogue in the oil fields require keen attention because much of what is communicated is more in what is not being said than in what is said. Tears and sorrows, groans and gnashing of teeth speak louder than speeches or songs. Rivers coated with crude oil or bursting in flames at the whiff of a naked flame, say more than words can convey. And how about the fishes popping up belly up? The whale or the dolphin washing ashore and attracting machetes, saws and hammers as malnourished fishers hack away at the hope of a meal. They tell tales of feasting in dangerous pots.
Living in the oil field has been a disaster. And the many-tentacled roots of the ecological crisis require deep considerations. At one end is the willful irresponsibility of the oil companies who simply rake in more profits as they externalize production costs by heaping harms on the hapless communities and ignoring their groans. At the other end are the complicit governments who are trapped in the false hope that extractivism can extricate their nations from the carefully engineered grip of poverty.
Joint Ventures easily turn into misadventures as the oil companies take the driving seats and determine how much of the revenue goes into production costs and what crumbs are shared as profit. Taking the measly shares coated with promises of rising production to the bank, the governments suddenly become “credit worthy” and get enticed by financial institutions to start a borrowing spree and sink into the quicksand of debts. Oftentimes, they borrow their own cash stowed away in foreign banks. Indebted and addicted, communities and their environments are sacrificed so the companies can keep up the rapacious binge.
Oil wealth flies above the heads of communities. Just like power lines take power elsewhere leaving us in the dark. Communities farm and endure rotten harvests. Fishers fish, but the fishes are banished by crude. Fishes eat imported iced fish. Communities live by the riverside but may well have been in parched deserts. Riverine communities drink pure water!
Oil spills are waved off as inconsequential. And no matter how much is spilled, the volume exported is never affected because the export volume is a twisted piece of fiction. Whether on land or in the deep sea, no one knows exactly how much oil is extracted. When NEITI blew the whistle concerning offshore oil the government agency responsible for ensuring responsible behaviour among the oil companies squirmed and provided some specious denial. Oh, we know how much is taken! Really?
The oil spills that turned farmlands into an oily lake at Ikot Ada Udo in 2006/7 was ignored for many months. The spill attracted media and NASS’s attention and became a tourist attraction before Shell adjusted the cap on the well. The Niger Delta holds so much crude oil that hundreds of thousands of barrels of the resource can be spilled or stolen daily and no one would bat an eyelid. Community farms get destroyed. Forests get incinerated. Rivers get suffocated by blankets of crude. The big shots directly committing this ecocide are safely hidden away in air-conditioned board rooms onshore and offshore.
At Ororo-1 oil well at OML 95 off the coast of Ondo State, a blowout-induced fire has been burning for almost one year with no one lifting a finger to stop it.
And over a period of two years (2018-2019) NOSDRA registered 1,300 oil spills or 5 spills a day.
Oil spills are readily classified as being caused by sabotage even before officials get to the scene of the incident. The poor community people, the victims, are labeled criminals while the actual criminals are safely ensconced in stately mansions and are serenaded by wailing sirens as they dash between the bank and their stuffed bars and pepper soup joints.
Dialogues in the oil fields have to be hurried because our communities are basically open isolation wards of the forgotten. Territories of the sick and forgotten. The toxic air loaded with volatile hydrocarbons give visitors a headache within a few minutes of arrival there. For the locals, the fumes produce breathing diseases that make their whizzing sound like dull dirges and their voices crack like overstretched funeral drums.
Will this state of affairs continue for ever? The answer is a resounding NO. Soon the income from crude oil will dry. Soon, crude oil will become a stranded asset. The signs are in. At the height of COVID-19 lockdowns, the price of oil went below $40 per barrel. The Nigerian government struggled to meet budgetary needs. The struggle continues today. While the world charts ways out of the oil pit, we dig deeper into it.
Our healing will come, and it must come soon. Now is the time for the process to begin. As we sit at the banks of our rivers or in the middle of our forests, let us remind ourselves of stories of times when we could drink water from our streams and never needed to buy water hawked in plastic sachets. It is time for us to reflect on what went wrong and who we accepted should exploit our land in exchange for a dream that has become a nightmare. It is time for reflection as to what went wrong that our land would be so polluted while the polluter walks away free. It is time for us to reflect on what must be done so we can live in our land with dignity and enjoy the gifts of nature with no hindrance.
It is time for us to hear ourselves again, to hear the crickets chirp and the birds sing. It is time to quench the evil flames and allow the moon to light our night sky again. The time it is for us to flush away the polluting crude and toxic wastes from our steams, creeks and rivers and once more see our faces in our waters.
The future begins with an open whisper, an open dialogue. An open dream. An open conspiracy where people hear each other and whispers ride on the waves of our hopes.
Our future begins today with dialogues, not monologues, on our struggles, visions and hopes.
My talking points at an Oil Field Dialogue at Ikot Ada Udo, Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria on 20.04.2021.
Standing 12 years older than Patrick Naagbanton, it feels strange to be speaking at his memorial. However, many greats have gone before us after spending abbreviated years on planet Earth. Many such greats include Thomas Sankara, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Amilcar Cabral, Walter Rodney, Frantz Fanon, Che Guevara, Chima Ubani, Bamidele Aturu, Oronto Douglas and Festus Iyayi. Some of these greats passed by natural means while the majority had their lives cut short either by systemic failures or outright machinations of the anti-democratic forces.
Patrick Naagbanton’s passing was abrupt and, of course, unexpected. To say it was traumatic, would be to put it mildly. If it rang so for us, co-travellers on the environmental justice paths, imagine what it meant and means to his young family.
Placed on the canvass of life expectancy in the Niger Delta, one would find that he left at 49 years. Average life expectancy in the world ranges from about 50 years (Chad) to 89.4 years for Monaco. In Nigeria the figure is 55 years – about the fifth worst measure in the world. The point is this: life expectancy in the Niger Delta is atrociously low. It is almost unimaginable. But that is the reality.
Brutish and Short
Writing in the Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes said left to a free reign of human competition and exploitation of other humans and of nature, people would end up in a situation, “… which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” He went on to call for governance through social contracts that sets rules that govern social relationships and may include the letting go of certain personal liberties.
Looking at the life of Patrick Naagbanton, what he stood for and fought for, we come to the sad conclusion that life is indeed brutish and short in Nigeria. Happily, he left a corpus of writings in the form of poetry and prose, thus giving us a window through which to peep into his thoughts, dreams and life.
I got to know Patrick when he joined Environmental Rights Action (ERA) in the late 1990s as her Field Monitor. His fearlessness was apparent for all to see. He was literally ready to go anywhere and at any time. His Field Report of the Jesse pipeline fire of October 1998 remains the reference document for information of what transpired at that time. His reports were so detailed he would make readers feel they were at the scene of environmental crimes around the Niger Delta and the wider nation. He consolidated what became the routine format for monitoring reports – not just chronicling the pollutions and reckless extractive activities, he set out the socio-cultural context of the victims and their communities. This approach gives readers a means of knowing that what was being lost was not merely oil that was spilled, gas that was flared, but lives and dreams that were cut short.
Patrick Naagbanton was an expert on conflicts and paid special attention to the proliferation of small arms in the country. He did not write about violent action actors but was bold to step into their camps to observe and better understand what spurred and sustained such trajectories. He was fearless.
He was a man who was content with what life brought to him and could do with the barest necessities. No one could bend his position with cash. Money was nothing but a means of exchange for basic needs. His travels were by the most basic public transportation means. He epitomised the ideal that consolidated the environmental justice movement in Nigeria – live and travel the way the majority of our compatriots do. Such ideals are increasingly hard to track these days. No doubt, these endeared him to the people and opened doors to a broad spectrum of Nigerians, from those in high office to the boleseller on the streets.
Our Environment our Life
While our stations in life may differ and the foods that garnish our tables may be vastly different, we all have some things in common: the need to breathe. What we breathe may differ depending on where we live, the vast majority of Nigerians uniformly breathe highly poisonous air. Although the nation does not have adequate air quality monitoring stations, available data confirm that the air we breathe is deadly. The poisons in the air include those coming from emissions from automobiles, electricity generators, incinerators, gas flares among others. Particulate matters in the air are visible in the blanket of soot that has persisted over Port Harcourt, Rivers State and the Ekpan area of Delta State. There are high levels of sulphur and Nitrogen dioxides, volatile organic compounds, etc.
Besides the polluted air that Nigerians must breathe, there is also extensive water pollution. High levels of toxic chemicals including heavy metals and pesticides have been recorded in Nigerian water resources. Industrial and human wastes empty into water bodies across the country with little checks. In some communities, both beasts and humans drink directly from the same ponds.
The pollution covers both surface and ground water. And additional cause of poor water quality is climate change. An example in this connection is the dramatic decline in the quantity of water in Lake Chad. Coastal erosion and canalization by industry have led to increased salination of previously freshwater systems thereby denying the littoral communities’ access to drinking water and generally changing their aquatic ecosystems.
A 2017 UNICEF report “ranked Nigeria among the top 5 countries globally with large numbers of people without access to safe water, improved sanitation and practicing open defecation.” The report also showed that 66 million Nigerians did not have access to potable (safe drinking) water, and 109 million lacked access to improved sanitation.
Plastic pollution is a huge environmental problem in Nigeria. Efforts by NGOs to create awareness of the menace and promote the use of durable and reusable packaging still requires to be supported by suitable legislation. As we speak, Nigeria is yet to enact any law outlawing single-use plastics.
Biological pollution is another huge problem in Nigeria which if not check will evolve into serious biosecurity threats. Since the Nigerian Biosafety Management Agency Act came into life in 2015, there has been a flurry of permits for genetically modified organisms in the country.
As I stated in a recent roundtable with lawyers on the issue:
The business of genetic engineering is just that: business. Promoters target staple crops or varieties with wide industrial usage in a bid to take control of markets and food systems. Since the advent of the first wave of modern agricultural biotechnology the promises of this technology have been that they would end hunger, increase yield, reduce chemical inputs and so on. More than two decades on, these claims remain myths.
Failure is wished away and risks and rejected. Two examples. First is that it was in the same year that genetically modified cotton (Bt. Cotton) failed spectacularly in Burkina Faso that Nigeria approved the same variety for release in the country. That permit was issued on a public holiday that also happened to be a Sunday (1 May 2016).
When the President of Uganda insisted that that country’s GMO law must have strict liability clauses, the promoters of the technology accused him of attempting to stifle science. In other words, Africans should be guinea pigs and accept to be used for experimentations with no one taking responsibility over possible mishaps. The Nigerian law does not have strict liability clauses.
No matter how much Nigerians protest against GMOs, the government simply keeps mum and prefers to swallow the myths peddled by industry or to allow citizens to be used as guinea pigs in their fight for profit.
Deforestation remains a huge challenge in Nigeria. At the United Nation’s climate summit in September 2019, President Buhari pledged to plant 25 million trees. Youths were to be mobilised for the plantings. An inter-ministerial committee was set up to see to the planting of the trees and state governors all pledged to be a part of the exercise. A year has gone by and the pledge remains in the air.
Perhaps the most visible environmental challenge in Nigeria is the degradation brought about by the oil industry. Patrick Naagbanton did quite a lot on this, not just as a avid environmental monitor but also as a writer. He tackled the oil menace from a political as well as human rights perspective. In one clearly political engineering process, he was involved with the Kaiama Declaration of Ijaw Youths in December 1998, even though he was Ogoni and not Ijaw.
The devastation of the Niger Delta environmental by hydrocarbon pollution has rendered the region as one of the 10 most polluted places on earth. From oil spills to gas flares, to oil thefts, pipeline explosions and dumping of produce water and other contaminants into the land and water bodies of the region, the Niger Delta is a huge crime scene. NOSDRA recently reported an average of 5 oil spills per day in 2018 and 2019.
The oil sector is literally a law unto itself and poor communities have besieged the courts in Nigeria and outside Nigeria for justice. Efforts to enact a Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) has dragged on for over a decade. A judgement on gas flaring against Shell in 2005 is yet to be enforced. A few days ago, the Nigerian Supreme Court rejected a request by Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited to review and set aside a N17 billion judgment entered against it last year as damages for a decades old oil spillage in Ejama-Ebubu in Tai Eleme Local Government Area of Rivers State.
The depth to which hydrocarbons had penetrated Ogoni soil was put at 5m in the UNEP report on the assessment of Ogoni environment. By the time one of the locations was remediated by HYPREP in 2020, the pollution had sunk to 10 metres.
Meanwhile, many countries and jurisdictions in the global north will cease to produce internal combustion engines in the coming decades. This will mean a flood of Tokunbo cars into Nigeria and other African nations as we are still thinking that internal combustion engines will remain eternally. Another implication is the constriction of markets for petroleum resources. And, of course, on a global scale, less pollution. At our local scale, we can expect more pollution as the fossil fuels age creaks to its terminal point bring to fulfilment the saying that “the stone age did not end for lack of stones” and the fossil age will not end for lack of crude oil.
All these announce the urgency of the clean-up of the entire Niger Delta because if this is not done while the goose is laying the golden egg, it will be a hard sale when the goose turns decrepit.
Poems on Wheels
We will close this conversation with some pieces of writings that Patrick Naagbanton shared with his contacts via SMS. They show his sharp analysis and poetic capturing of thoughts and ideas. He was clearly a man in a hurry and this short form of real time reporting was very powerful and should remind all of us that we have no time to waste. Here are his words.
Restive journeys of Patrick Naagbanton
In spite of the late yesterday evening heavy downpour in parts of Port Harcourt, the weather around Choba stretch of the East- West Road, the weather is hot. I am on another restless journey to Abonnema and other riverside towns in the south-west parts of Rivers- Eastern Niger Delta. The towns are in celebration mood, but I am not. I am in my typical adventurous mood. They are celebrating their annual Go-to- Niger/ Liberation Day. The above event is always celebrated in a reflective, comic and satiric manner. They are celebrating their freedom from the ordeals they reportedly suffered in the hands of battle-fatigued Biafran soldiers who swooped on their towns during the unfortunate tribal Nigeria- Biafra wars. Am not part of the Go- To- Niger celebration. But will be in the midst of the celebrants soon due to my atypical adventurous beats. I don’t know where I will sail to after there.
(18 June 2019)
Restive trips in parts of the restive eastern Niger Delta creeks, rivers and tributaries- always breathing fearfully and restively. Am not afraid of the deltaic ‘waters’ and its elements – I always enjoy sailing in them than travels by air or road. Am safe and fine after my “sojourn” in ‘The River Between’. I just arrived in the Bonny Island after my restive battles with the restive ‘waters’. Rain falling restively like sporadic gun shots from the low, dark and broken rumbling clouds over the island. I will be here until my journey end.
(21 June 2019)
Selfless Service
top Rivers politician just called me on phone, ‘to beg me’ to use my connections to give him contracts in HYPREP. My first reaction was to laugh heartily at his request. Later, I acted like what the late Comrade Gani Fawehinmi did at the Ibrahim Auta Kangaroo Tribunal that gave the order to hang Saro-Wiwa and others. Auta has wrongly said Gani shouldn’t complain of lack of cash to photocopy laws books he quoted from at the tribunal, and that then, he was getting a lot of foreign grants. Gani spent about 2 hours to educate the Tribunal of High Injustice how he has NOT received a kobo as grants from any internal or external source. That was exactly what I did, and the man said ‘nawaoo. I thought you are part of them.’ Nigeria is an illiterate society. Even the so-called educated ones are inquisitive. Most of their opinions on a person or thing are derived from the wild rumour mills.
(13 August 2019)
Cemetery, Prisons and Violence in Ogoni:
Am told that the ongoing violence in Ogoniland – is sponsored by the Nigerian State to provide the basis for siting of military barracks, cemetery and prisons in Ogoniland.
(18 August 2019)
This presentation is left inclusive and you are invited to carry on the struggle. We believe this is what Patrick Naagbanton would wish that you do.
Thank you.
These were Nnimmo Bassey’s Talking points at First Memorial Lecture and book launch for Patrick Naagbanton held on Thursday, 3rd December 2020 in Port Harcourt, Nigeria.
We are happy to share this collection of short stories triggered by the The COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has exposed global vulnerabilities and challenged individuals and nations to wake up from slumber and take actions that recognize our planetary limits. The responses to the pandemic have revealed a high level of unpreparedness across the world. Lockdowns and other measures crushed the poor and heightened their exposure to the virus. The informal sector, already unsupported, got thrashed by repressive response measures.
Despite the challenges of collapsing state structures and economies, we took this as a time to think and find ways to overcome the miseries presented by the failed systems. We took this as a time to organise, even if we are/were physically isolated. We reminded ourselves that the virus will not change anything that we (the people) won’t change. In other words, the change that will frame the post pandemic era will come from humans, our relationship with each other and with Nature. The push for change will inevitably revolve around our interpretation of what is happening around us and our resolve to act. This revolves around the narratives that we frame, formulate and allow. Understanding that our lives are framed, powered and guided by stories, we sought the interpretation of the socio-ecological and health crises through the tales in this collection. We welcome you to the trip in the imaginaries.
The aroma from the tilapia on the grill wafted around the street corner. Entering every home through the front door and exiting through the windows. Everyone in the neighbourhood knew when Mama Ogie had set up shop for the morning and when some tilapia sizzled on her open grill. The pull was magnetic. By 11:00 am a line of community folks and passers-by had formed even though the first servings were yet to land on the plastic plates that crowded the tray on the rickety wooden table that served as her bukateria.
“I’m grateful to Mama Ogie,” a man said to his neighbour. “Her grill is so special. I don’t come here because I am hungry…”
“You don’t come here because you are hungry? Please, say something else,” his neighbour interrupted him. “What do you come here for? To learn how to cook?”
“I come here,” the man calmly replied, “because whenever I perceive the aroma of the tilapia, I am assured that I am well. You know one of the symptoms of COVID-19 is the loss of sense of smell.”
“So, this is your testing centre? Why don’t you smell the aroma from a distance instead of wasting my time by taking the space before me?”
“I would gladly have done so and saved some cash,” the man replied. “Unfortunately, I have to eat the fish to be sure that my sense of taste is still okay.”
“I know how you eat your fish,” replied his neighbour. “Through your nose!”
Mama Ogie looked up the customers lined up before her and splashed some vegetable oil on the grill. Today will be a good day, she told herself. Ogie, his 10 years old son, shared a broken wooden chair with his friend, Idemudia. The two were inseparable. They had big dreams of life as business tycoons or politicians. Every day the same debate: what is the difference between the politician and a business tycoon?
“Who will be the politician? Who will be the tycoon?” Ogie asked.
“That is easy to know,” Idemudia laughed. “Who makes promises and never keep them?”
Mama Ogie turned the fish and nodded satisfied by how they were turning out. She roasted some plantain along with the fish. The two made a perfect lunch for those who could afford them. Just a few months ago most of her customers always bought a combination of fish and plantain. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, only a few could buy the two. They had to decide whether to snack on fish or pile their belly with plantain.
Soon it was the man’s turn to place his order.
“That’s Mr Social Distancing,” Ogie whispered to Idemudia.
“Yes,” Idemudia agreed. “We will see if the plantain will keep a social distance from the fish today.”
The man looked around furtively and signalled his neighbour to maintain his distance. He drew in as much of the aroma from the fish as he could. He wished he could get a mouthful of the delicacy through his nostrils. Then he bent forward, got closer and closer to the fish…
“Mr Man,” Mama Ogie yelled at the man. “Be careful! Stay back. Maintain your social distance.”
“Social distance is between people,” the man replied, “never between man and fish.”
“That bridge is crossed with Naira,” Mama Ogie stated sternly. Then she laughed. “You are a funny man. What does your pocket say today? Can it close the gap between the fish and the plantain?”
Ogie winked at Idemudia. No social distance between man and fish? Does he live in the river? He always enjoyed the banter between her mother and the man. This was their street corner school. They learned the habits of the neighbours just sitting here besides the Mama Ogie’s Fish is Ready shop. Ogie thought they should prepare a signpost to brand his mother’s business. Maybe even produce some business cards, Idemudia suggested. We could even start a fish delivery service. Mama Ogie’s Tilapia Special. That sounded nice. Since Idemudia’s father was a fisher, they could ensure there is enough supply of fish to be grilled. We will be rich! We can turn it into a joint business, Mamas Ogie and Idemudia Special Tilapia?
Trouble was that Idemudia’s mother was a dealer in catfish. While Mama Idemudia was engaged in aquaculture, her husband would not tolerate any fish that was not caught at sea. He had no qualms killing fish but believed that the fishpond was restrictive and punishing for the fish. Eating farmed fish was like eating chicken bought from the big poultry farm from across the city. Lazy chicken. You could kick them, shove them. They could not and would not be moved. Fat chicken. Papa Idemudia believed that for chicken to land on his plate it must be able to fly over buildings and be chased across the neighbourhood. The chicken had to fight for its life before he would be satisfied. Just the way he chased fish when they dragged his line in a futile attempt to escape his grasp.
Fishpond fish or fish from the sea. This was the contention at the dinner table most nights when Papa Idemudia was not out at sea. One day he had a bout of runny stomach after dinner and accused Mama Idemudia of having cooked some of her catfish. She swore it was the wild catfish.
“You could tell by the length of their whiskers, can’t you?” she asked her husband. “You know everything about fish and can tell which is from the pond and which is from the sea by looking at them or simply by looking at how they lie in the pot.”
“You are right,” Papa Idemudia answered. “I can tell which is which even in the darkest night. In fact, when I am out fishing, I just have to whistle a tune for a particular fish to jump into my net. Or to swallow my hook. There is one particular fish I know by sight. It likes playing around my boat. Sometimes I pat its head with my paddle. I think it may want to come home with me, except that I do not think it would like your pond.”
Ogie’s eyes widened as a big car pulled up. Mama Ogie urged Mr Social Distance to pick up his roasted plantain and move on. He looked wistfully at the fish he could not afford. He couldn’t just saunter off. He hung around to test his sense of smell a little bit further. Maybe his belly could be filled through his nostrils as they say doctors do, at times. The door of the big car opened, and someone stepped out. Ogie’s mother was effusive in her welcome. This person had never stopped by her stand. There was to be a party tomorrow and the person wanted to give invitees a special treat of street food. A large order was placed. Tomorrow at noon. Sharp. Grilled fish and roasted plantain. A wad of cash exchanged hands. And the car zoomed off, tyres screeching, water splashing. Street Food. How could anyone call her special food Street Food! In any case, the money was good. No receipt. No guarantee. That person may love street food, but certainly there was no street sense.
Ogie eyed Idemudia. That’s the sign to confirm that we are in business. Mamas Ogie and Idemudia Special Tilapia. And Catfish! Yes, Mamas Ogie and Idemudia Special Tilapia& Catfish.
They would sell the idea to their mothers, and their mothers will sell the idea to their fathers.
They gave themselves a congratulatory high five and fell off their broken chair almost knocking down the grill. Horror! They looked plaintively at Mama Ogie. Would she hit them with here ladle?
“Go home, both of you,” Mama Ogie shouted, alarmed. “Idemudia, what will I tell you mother? That I poured hot oil on you? Go home!”
“Yes, home, children,” Mr Social Distance spat, then unable to stifle a sneezed let out an earth-shattering burst, tripping over a pile of charcoal. His plantain flew out of his hand, and landed in a puddle by the roadside, making his enviable dive to capture it completely useless. He sat in the puddle lamenting his misfortune. Although his olfactory organs functioned okay, he would have no way of knowing if his taste buds were yet in good order. No way to know, except someone offers him a morsel to bite, that is. And nobody did. Not yet. His neighbour walked close, clutching his plantain and the head of a tilapia. He wouldn’t offer him even the eyes of the fish.
“Go home!” Mama Ogie shouted again. “What must I do to you two?”
Idemudia began to pull Ogie by his shorts. Blame it on Mr. Social Distance. No, blame it on the broken chair. No piece of grilled fish for them today. Just then Idemudia’s father passed by on his bicycle. Stopped.
“Good morning, Papa Idemudia,” Mama Ogie greeted. “I will need plenty of fish tomorrow morning.”
“W-o-n-d-e-r-f-u-l!” Papa Idemudia replied slowly. “That sounds like music to my ears. What are you celebrating? Marriage anniversary? Or is Ogie going to the university?”
Ogie wanted to step forward to greet Papa Idemudia but his friend pulled him back. Too late.
“Idemudia! Idemudia! How many times have I called you? Papa Idemudia called. “You should be at home helping you mother feed her catfish. What are you doing here at this time? Come with me quickly. These days no one knows who is spreading the virus. Have you washed your hands?”
“The pond is empty,” Idemudia whispered as his father drew him away and made to leave.
“Wait!” Mama Ogie called after him, “please, collect a deposit for the fish.”
That was a new one for Papa Idemudia. Getting paid before he goes fishing? Was that a good mor bad omen? And did she say, please? Wonders will never end. Mama Ogie, the fish and plantain seller, pleading with him to collect a deposit for fish he was yet to catch? Where will the fish come from? His fishing expedition of last night had fallen into a recent pattern. He had toiled, laboured and fished all night. What did he come back home with? A pitiful catch that could hardly fill up a bucket. What a rough night it was. He thought of joining his wife in catfish farming. But Mama Idemudia told him that due to the inter-city restriction of movements the supply of fish feed had dried up. Didn’t he help her pick all the fish from the pond two days ago? Just one throw of his net and everything came up, flapping this way and that. He saw Mama Idemudia peering at the pond the next day. Throwing a few scraps into the water and expecting a fight for her offering. There was no stir. The only ripples came from what she dropped. Her heart thumped. The pond remained silent.
He had gone to the sea with hope. He had to stay in the shallow waters. A naval blockade stopped movements into the deep waters. Did COVID-19 come from the deep? Throwing nets at the shallow waters yielded debris, plastics, invasive weeds. He got caught a few wiggly creatures. Is the Navy keeping us at the shore so that those international thieves that came with big trawlers could take everything away unseen, unchallenged? It was annoying that they were stealing the fish to make animal feed, not even for eating. What more rotten ideas would humans come up with? Thieves trawled in the deep, oil spills coated coastal waters. And the oil companies not only polluted the waters, they slashed through the mangrove forests creating canals for their barges and monstrous machines. Our freshwater creeks turning brackish. Adding salt to injury. He began to see sense in the fishers always saying fish is better than oil. He dreamt of Idemudia on an oil rig. A big man to care for him when he retires from fishing. Wie cannot eat oil. We cannot drink oil. Oil is forcing him into retirement. Should he give up? Here was cash for him to collect. Will tomorrow be better than last night? What if it isn’t? Oh, but my friend will dance to my paddle. It is quite big, almost the length of my canoe. If I invite it home… How do I get through the blockade to reach my friend? Will I betray a friend? Pandemic. Pandemonium. Take the cash? And then what? The pond was silent! The sea? He could only see!
“Here is the money,” Mama Ogie stretched her hands to Papa Idemudia over the head of the man in the mud.
“Ammm,” Mr Social Distance cleared his throat, still seated in the puddle, his plantain sinking into the mire. Out of sight. “I need to test my taste buds.”
Ogie winked at Idemudia as he climbed on his father’s bicycle. Mamas Ogie and Idemudia Special Tilapia & Catfish! You promised me a piece of fish, Idemudia frowned.
The aroma from the tilapia on the grill wafted around the street corner. Entering every home through the front door and exiting through the windows. Everyone in the neighbourhood knew when Mama Ogie had set up shop for the morning and when some tilapia sizzled on her open grill. The pull was magnetic. By 11:00 am a line of community folks and passers-by had formed even though the first servings were yet to land on the plastic plates that crowded the tray on the rickety wooden table that served as her bukateria.