Descent into Abyss: A Review of Isidore Agbanero’s A Peep in the Dark

By Chuks Oluigbo

Imprint: (Owerri: Osprey Publication Centre, 2010)

Presented in ten chapters and in 108 pages, including a glossary of vernacular words, A Peep in the Dark is a story of man’s descent into abyss. Man, in search of security, often takes the wrong path and ends up in chains. That is the fate of Jonathan, our central character, a medical student in an unnamed Nigerian university. Faced with an uncertain future after he lost his father, Mazi Ibeh, who incidentally is the breadwinner of the family and the sponsor of his education, Jonathan approaches the head of his department, Prof Njoku. His aim: to defer his admission until he is able to raise money to pay his fees. The fallout of that move is his chance meeting with the stunningly beautiful Monica who would eventually become his sponsor and wife as well as instrumental to his future sojourn in the United States of America and the United Kingdom via a scholarship programme. But not before their inner quest for guarantee had pushed the couple to enact a blood oath. But it is not only Jonathan and Monica that take this path of dishonour. There is Kunle and Shola, and there is Jude and Nanny. And when the hour of test comes, it is the same Jonathan who initiated the idea of a blood oath that first violates the oath.

Jonathan makes an unprecedented result in the College of Medical and Health Technology in the United States and is offered a job which he promptly rejects and rather proceeds to the United Kingdom for a three-month practical training. His plans are well laid out and he does not want any disruption: “he would complete the training, return to his country and rest in the arms of the woman who had made all these things possible”. (p.70). Noble plans, one would say. But does he stick to them? The last week of his sojourn in the UK changes everything. He completes his training and gets his results. He has two options: leave the UK immediately or stay the remaining one week. He chooses the second, and in that final lap, he runs into Nanny, a bitchy Nigerian girl, the only black among the new intakes, and in the ensuing love tango, Jonathan gets lost, and rather than go back to his wife and mother in Nigeria, takes up a job in the UK and co-habits with Nanny, Monica’s antithesis: callous, materialistic, indolent, uncaring, lackadaisical.

In this way, the author raises the question of choice. Does man have control over his choices, over the path he eventually takes? It is an open-ended question. Jonathan has a choice to return to Nigeria after his training in the UK, but he chooses to stay back. He has a choice not to mingle with Nanny, knowing fully the likely consequences of that mingling. As the author puts it, “he was aware that this new girl was a distraction”, (p.72). Yet he chooses to mingle. Those wrong choices heighten the conflicts until his sudden realisation that he needs to find Monica, his true love and the woman who made her.

Jonathan and Nanny are frustrated by childlessness, with each blaming him or herself for the problem, more especially with medical science showing they have no reproductive problem. They arrive in Nigeria after five years of sojourn in the UK and settle in the quiet city of Calabar. Meanwhile, Jonathan’s search for Monica yields no positive result. Unknown to him, she is already married to another man, Jude Eze, and the marriage in turn suffers childlessness. He goes to the village to discover that his mother is dead. The only one left in the homestead is his uncle, Ochendo. Jonathan, Nanny, Jude and Monica would eventually come face to face with their past, and thus the root cause of their childlessness, at a seminar for childless couples in Calabar. In the ensuing drama, the reader gets to know that Jude was Nanny’s husband before she fled Nigeria. And just like Monica and Jonathan, Nanny and Jude are also under blood oath, with childlessness as punishment for violation of the oath. Both men take back their real wives. In simple terms, the past is a burden which every man carries. Only those who can confront and exorcise the ghost of their past are able to face the future more meaningfully.  

Conflict of cultures, the thematic pre-occupation of many an African novel since Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, is clearly evident in A Peep in the Dark. The modern educated African is caught between his traditional beliefs and the Western culture represented by Christianity. In this case, Jonathan stands out clearly. Though a baptised Christian, he is unable to heed Rev Shaft’s warning that converts should neither take part in the Owu festival nor eat or associate with heathens. He wonders “how he could possibly refuse to participate in a festival which his father was one of its leaders” or “do without the roasted yam and chicken which his father usually brought home from ozo council meetings”. And he often doubts the white man’s religion and the belief that there were three persons in one god. There is also a sharp contrast between the communal existence of the African (Jonathan’s roots) and the reckless individualism of the American (where he goes to study). In his sober moment while in the US, Jonathan longs for home, and thus re-affirms the age-old wisdom that there is no place like home. The author captures this nostalgia in fine poetry: “He thought of home, the land of the rising sun where the old and the young are bound together in a communal spirit, his place of birth, his taproot, a place where dark skin was something to be proud of”. (p.66).

In another way, A Peep in the Dark portrays certain aspects of Igbo traditional beliefs and practices like re-incarnation, the concern for male child, the need for enquiries before marriage, the belief in Ogbanje spirit, the efficacy of oaths, and so on. When Mazi Ibeh, Jonathan’s father, is on a sick bed, Dibia Omanzu is brought in to take care of him. But when he is unable to perform, Omanzu turns around to blame the sickness on Ibeh’s sending Jonathan to school. Again, Okenze, one of the three men that Jonathan encounters on his way home from school to see his sick father, tells Okenze: “If not that both of us are re-incarnations of the same chi, I would have invoked Amadioha’s thunder to strike you dead this minute”. The Owu masquerade, believed to be spirits of ancestors which emerge from the anthills every year, is another aspect of Igbo culture that the novel highlights. The sacred python, believed to be a god to be revered and never to be killed, is also mentioned. Then there are certain aspects of widowhood practices among the Igbo, as in Nnedimma’s case. Omanzu accuses Nnedimma of complicity in Mazi Ibeh’s death because she allegedly pressured Ibeh into sending Jonathan to school. To prove her innocence, she is made to drink the water used to bathe her husband’s corpse, her hair is shaved with broken bottles, and she is excommunicated from the rest of the community throughout the one year mourning period.

Life in a typical Nigerian university is also highlighted: the observance of rag day, the meeting of the Keggite Club, the romantic relationships, the student demonstration led by the rascally son of the Vice Chancellor, the notorious Loaded Stevo, the eventual closure of the university, the attendant rise in crime in the state, the negotiations between the academic union and the government which seemed to yield no result because the negotiators often abandoned the key issues to trade blames.

A Peep in the Dark again treats the theme of change and the inevitability of death. Nature is in a constant state of flux. Nothing ever remains the same. Characters grow from young to old. On his return home, Jonathan also notices that “the very old had passed on and in their stead a new generation had sprung, the hitherto unborn with their new, unfamiliar faces. The old had grown older and the young too had advanced in age”. Death too is part of the change process, and every man moves ultimately to his death. Ibeh dies. Nnedimma dies. Nzekwu dies. Justice Williams dies. And so on.

The book is also about disappointments and reconciliations, repentance and forgiveness. The couples, in spite of all the wrongdoings against one another, still find a space in their hearts to forgive, re-unite and forge a new beginning. There is no misdeed too big to forgive, and forgiveness is truly divine.

Technically, the author makes ample use of the flashback device to take us back and forth throughout the development of the plot, but we do not get lost. His thorough grasp of the device keeps us abreast of situations until the final point when all differences are reconciled.

On the reverse side, there are a few errors in the book, typographical in the main. We blame this on the printer’s devil, as usual, especially since they are negligible and do not affect the free flow of the beautiful prose that the author has presented to us. Again, there are some impossible coincidences, especially in the last part of the novel where the couples meet. The manner of their meeting and the way they exchange their wives would have been more dramatic. With a little more patience and craft, that final point, which is the high point of the story, would have held readers spell-bound. Unfortunately, the author seemed too much in a haste to conclude.

The beauty of A Peep in the Dark lies in the subtle manner in which the author shakes the foundations of certain traditional beliefs and practices without being judgmental. Unfortunately again, the author does not prescribe solutions. If we follow Achebe’s assertion that ‘art for art’s sake is deodorised bullshit’, then we must blame the author for forgetting that it is also part of his job to chart a way forward for the erring society. He merely chronicles societal ills without lifting a finger to solve them. Again, if we subscribe to the idea of crime and punishment (which is the title of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel on the same theme), that is, that every evil act deserves a commensurate punishment, then it must be said that the punishment Jonathan and the other key players get is too mild for their many wrongdoings. Beyond these, we must commend the author for a job well done. A Peep in the Dark is indeed a great effort in creative literature.

Of Uwechue’s Igbo Presidency Project

By Chuks Oluigbo

Since few months ago when the pan-Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, purportedly acting after consultations with different Igbo groups both at home and in the Diaspora, announced that Ndigbo would support President Goodluck Jonathan to achieve his presidential ambition in 2011 so that Jonathan and his people would in turn support an Igbo president in 2015, both Ohanaeze and its Presidemt-General, Amb Raph Uwechue, have been under severe attack. Uche Ezechukwu, a columnist with The Sun, in a series of articles he entitled ‘Uwechue’s sad swan song’ used a lot of what I would call vituperative and undignified language against the person of Uwechue. Another writer, Emeka Nwosu, in the same vein, in his ‘Uwechue’s Misadventure’, referred to ‘the copious tongue-lashing and disgust’ with which Uwechue’s act was received across the length and breadth of Igboland. Many other writers too have said their mind.

I cannot join Uche Ezechukwu, Emeka Nwosu and the others to pour invectives on Chief Uwechue. For all I know, Uwechue is a man of integrity. I respect him so much. For one, he is about my father’s age. As a true Igbo son, I cannot insult my father. I was brought up to respect elders. I do not also want to join Sunny Ofili, publisher of thetimesofnigeria.com, a United States-based Internet news website, to argue that Igbo-speaking peoples of Delta State are not Igbo. Though an Igbo-speaking Deltan, Ofili had argued that the Anioma people of Delta State are completely different from the Igbo people across the River Niger in culture and history, and that most Anioma indigenes trace their historical origin to Benin. He also questioned the need for Anioma people to belong to Ohanaeze Ndigbo. His words: “I do not see the need for Anioma person to be heading Ohanaeze. I think it is completely self-serving. Uwechue is an experienced diplomat. I applaud all he has done for himself and our people but he should be at the vanguard of people helping to organise Anioma people to become stronger as a unit, rather than getting involved in Igbo politics, which we have no business getting involved in.” To which Uwechue responded: “I am from Ogwashi-Uku and we know our origin. That we have Ijaw people in Delta State does not mean they do not know that they belong to Bayelsa State. Ohanaeze Ndigbo is the grand umbrella for all Igbo stock, for all that have the Igbo origin including those in the Diaspora. So our inclusion is not out of place.” Both Ofili and Uwechue are Delta Igbo; let them settle the matter between them.

Amb Uwechue is a distinguished Nigerian who excelled as a career diplomat, politician and publisher. At the age of 32, he was already heading a Nigerian mission abroad. He served as Minister in the government of President Shehu Shagari. His Know Africa Books today remain the most detailed source of information on the African continent, its peoples, cultures, religions, geography, history, economics, academics, and politicians. His offices in London housed the headquarters of NADECO during the dark years of Abacha. Uwechue was also very relevant in the Biafran struggle. At the onset of the civil war in 1967, he aligned himself with the interests of the Biafran people. He it was who established the Biafran mission in France and single-handedly influenced the French authorities to align with the position of Biafra in the conflict, short of granting the young Republic outright diplomatic recognition. He also played a major role in the massive intervention of international charity organizations such as Caritas, Oxfam, and the World Council of Churches in rallying humanitarian aids to Biafra. Of Uwechue’s role during the civil war, The Rt. Hon Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe said in 1969: “the role and views of Raph Uwechue during the fratricidal struggle called a civil war were aimed at saving the Igbo speaking people from extermination on the one hand, and to preserve the territorial integrity of Nigeria on the other hand.” God forbid that I should disparage a man of such pedigree. My mission here is simple: put certain facts straight. And I begin with a question: 2015 presidency, is it for Ndigbo or for the South-East?

In an interview with Okungbowa Aiwerie sometime ago, Uwechue said categorically: ‘The Igbo, as represented by the Ohanaeze, believe that Nigeria has six zones, not two, and that offices at the highest level should go round the six zones, which actually were the three original regions. We do not believe in north-south zoning. There is no such thing in our country. For example in 2007, our late president, Umaru Yar’Adua, was the head of the executive in the country. David Mark is the head of the legislature. These are the two arms that are politically involved in the country. The judiciary does not meddle in politics. So, if you talk about north and south, it means that the south has got nothing, because David Mark is from the north. We found it okay because we never saw just north and south; we saw all the zones. Yar’Adua came from north-west and David Mark comes from north-central. What I am trying to emphasise is that this country is divided into six zones, not two. It is important that everybody takes that into proper account so that we do not run into unnecessary difficulties. We cannot afford to have two zones when it suits some people and six when it suits them. It has to be one, and that one is the six zones.’

Ok. And that’s the point which Uwechue’s critics have refused to highlight, that Uwechue is also a very honest man. The points he made above are clear: that there are six geopolitical zones in Nigeria, and that power at the centre should revolve among these six zones. The South-East is one of these zones. There is no geo-political zone called Igboland or Ndigbo. It is just circumstantial that Ndigbo inhabit the South-East geo-political zone of Nigeria. And while the entire South-Easterners are Igbo people, all Igbo speaking peoples of Nigeria are not South-Easterners. So, the argument for Igbo presidency in 2015 should essentially be that the South-Eastern part of Nigeria should produce a president for Nigeria in 2015, and not necessarily that some other person who speaks Igbo but who is not from the South-East should rule Nigeria in 2015. If it is understood in this way, then there is no wahala. If Ndigbo (or Ohanaeze Ndigbo) decide to support President Goodluck Jonathan for 2011, I have no issue with that. That is, if it is understood that it is the South-East supporting the South-South. But if Raph Uwechue, who is from Delta State, South-South Nigeria, now poses as an Igbo man and says that Ijaw elders came to him to solicit support for their son, Jonathan, then I dare ask: do not the Ijaw elders know that Uwechue is their fellow South-Southerner? Do they not know that Bayelsa and Delta belong to the same geo-polity? Do they not realise that if Uwechue declares support for Jonathan, he is merely declaring support for his brother, his fellow South-Southerner? If they do not know this, then I think it is better we let them know. If they want the support of Ndigbo, they should be visiting the governors and peoples of the five South-Eastern States of Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo. We are not unaware that we have some of our Igbo brothers in Delta and Rivers States (even though many of them identify themselves as Igbo only when it is beneficial to them and deny their Igboness when it is not), but we are talking geo-political zone here, not ethnic group. It is also on the basis of this that I call on Amb Raph Uwechue to clear the air: this campaign for Igbo presidency in 2015, is it for all Igbo speaking peoples or for the South-East geo-political zone?

I may be accused of segregation, but it is good we straighten up all grey areas now before we run into confusion. I say this because I remember that the last time the issue of an Igbo president came up, some Igbo speaking people of Delta State indicated interest to run. They are Igbo, no doubt, but if any of them succeeds in becoming the president in 2015, won’t the South-South have taken double portions? The Igbo speaking people of Delta State are clearly in the South-South and should stay there for good. Same with those in Rivers State. They cannot answer South-South when the power equation tilts in favour of the South-South and turn around again to answer Ndigbo when the power equation favours the Igbo. They should rally behind Jonathan at all costs because he is their South-South brother. Jonathan’s share is also their share. Ndigbo too, if they think it is favourable, should support Jonathan. And when 2015 finally comes, our Niger Delta brothers should also rally around a candidate from the South-East just as the South-Easterners are rallying around Jonathan now so that the South-East would also take its turn. But if these things are not ironed out now, and by any chance an Igbo from Delta or Rivers State begins to campaign for presidency in 2015 in the name of Ndigbo, then we would hold Amb Raph Uwechue and Ohanaeze Ndigbo responsible for the ensuing confusion.

That Carnage At Abule-Ado, Lagos

By Chuks Oluigbo


When little Abraham woke up that morning of Thursday, December 2, 2010, he did not have any premonition of what was going to befall him. It was like every other day. As usual, his adorable mother bathed him; then he ate his breakfast, dressed up for school, took his school bag, and gleefully jumped into his father’s waiting car. His mother and his aged grandmother, who came visiting from the village, were already in the car. His father was to take him to school at Abule-Oshun, along the Lagos-Badagry Expressway, drop his mother off at work, and then take his grandmother to a hospital for medical check-up.

They set out for the day’s business full of expectations. Little Abraham arrived safely at school and bid farewell to his parents and granny. “See you later,” he said to them. All through the day he was his usual self. He attended to his class work, played with his friends, and during break ate the Indomie noodles and fried plantain in his food pack. When school was over, he waited endlessly for his father to come and pick him up. His young mind did not suspect anything when his auntie turned up to take him home instead. Even the crowd at their Festac Town residence did not speak to him in any way. Unknown to him, he had lost both parents and his grandmother in the carnage that occurred at Abule-Ado earlier that morning.

Between 7 and 8am that Thursday, while many Lagosians were still asleep, the Lagos-Badagry Expressway as usual was already abuzz with activities. Commercial vehicles were already on the road, picking up passengers who had lined up on the ever busy road. Workers in their private cars were also hurrying to get to work in time, while some rushed to take their children or wards to school before getting to the office. Hawkers of various wares moved up and down the road, and commuters who had not taken their breakfast used the opportunity to feed their stomachs. Everything was normal. Then came the explosion which filled the sky with thick smoke. People ran helter-skelter and in a matter of seconds, the whole place had turned into one huge hellfire, consuming both vehicles and human beings. Abraham’s father, mother, and grandmother were caught in that disaster, alongside numerous other innocent Nigerians.

According to eyewitness accounts, the accident happened when a loaded fuel tanker heading towards Badagry from Mile 2 entered into a pothole by the roadside and tumbled. As the tanker fell, fuel started gushing out. Few seconds later, the tanker exploded. Passing commercial vehicles, private cars, as well as pedestrians were consumed in the fire. By the time men of the Lagos State Fire Service came to the rescue, much damage had already been done.

That would not be the first time that tanker explosions have sent innocent citizens to their early graves. The charred remains of burnt tankers and trailers as well as abandoned remains of other articulated vehicles that continue to litter our roads and highways speak volumes. During a press conference in Abuja on April 7, 2009, the Corps Marshal and Chief Executive of the Federal Road Safety Corps, FRSC, Osita Chidoka, said that 5,157 road traffic crashes were recorded between 2006 and 2009 involving tankers. In particular, between January and March 2009 alone, the country recorded about 2,119 accidents, with tanker drivers accounting for 301 deaths. In 2008, an unfortunate collision occurred involving a fuel tanker and vehicles carrying contingents of Nigerian soldiers returning from a peacekeeping mission in Darfur, Sudan.

Recently, on Wednesday, December 1, 2010, two fuel tankers loaded with petroleum products collided into each other and exploded along Abak-Ikot Ekpene Expressway near Abak in Akwa Ibom State. The ensuing fire reportedly took the life of an innocent citizen, perhaps because it happened around 4am when people were still asleep. Only God knows what would have happened if it had been around 7am when many people would have been on that road.

On Friday, December 3, another tanker almost exploded along the busy Ikorodu Road in Lagos. The tanker, which was fully loaded with petrol, was freely spilling its content on the road between Palmgrove and Obanikoro. What saved the situation was that the tanker driver jumped out and frantically sprayed foam from the fire extinguisher, while FRSC officials diverted traffic from Onipanu into the service lane.

Also, there was a report in The Punch of February 10, 2010 of one Mr Hakeem Abdulrazak whose brother and his new wife got burnt beyond recognition in a tanker explosion at Ibafo, near Lagos. Hakeem’s brother, who was based in Saudi Arabia, came back to Nigeria to formalise his marriage. He had just finished the ceremonies and was driving back to Lagos when the incident occurred.

On May 13, 2010, Next newspaper carried the following report: “In late April, five people were burnt to death in Ibafo, along Lagos-Ibadan expressway when two tankers collided and burst into flames. The same month at Ilupeju in Lagos, a tanker conveying fuel tumbled off the ever-busy Ikorodu road and spilt the petrol it was carrying on the road. Five vehicles parked in front of a commercial bank as well as parts of the bank itself were consumed by the resulting inferno. It was the prompt response of the Fire Service that contained the fire and stopped it from engulfing the whole bank and trapping the workers and customers that were in the premises at the same time. In the same month, a tanker that was discharging fuel at a filling station situated in the densely populated Ojuelegba area of Lagos caught fire. Thankfully, a quick thinking motorcyclist got into the burning trailer and moved it out of the petrol station, thereby averting what would have been a complete disaster.” The list is endless.

The question is, how many more need to go before a concerted action is taken to stop this ugly trend? Is it not time enough for those in charge to arrest the insane conditions that make these accidents happen? Certainly, the government cannot continue to idle away while road users are maimed and killed. Governments at all levels must step in immediately to save travellers from avoidable deaths. There has to be control on the time that these vehicles are allowed to ply our roads. Elsewhere, heavy vehicles ply the roads only late in the night when the roads are freer. Why is it different here? Sometime ago Nigerians were told that the idea was being mooted, but up till now, nothing has come out of it. The situation where tankers and other big vehicles dominate the roads between the hours of six and ten in the morning when most workers are rushing to work and in the evenings when workers are returning from work cannot be allowed to continue. The Nigerian government should take this matter seriously and implement that measure as well as other useful measures to mitigate the danger posed by tanker drivers.

Unfortunately, we live in a society that does not value human life. Else, why do these things persist and the government is seen to be doing nothing about it? There is an urgent need for all stakeholders including the Federal Road Safety Corps, the Nigeria Police, Nigerian Union of Road Transport Workers, NURTW, independent petroleum product marketers, National Union of Petroleum and Gas Workers, NUPENG, Nigeria Haulers Association, the Nigerian Shippers Council, and other relevant organisations (both government-owned and non-governmental) to come together and join hands in combating this ugly menace which has claimed the lives of innumerable Nigerians. Whether we like it or not, every traveller on the Nigerian road is a potential victim. And who knows, it could be you.

Where I Come From

By Chuks Oluigbo

Whoever said that knocks open doors?

Where I come from

No one answers knocks;

Those already seated inside will never get up

To answer the door

For fear others might take their seats;

Those who dare to knock remain perpetually outside

Or sit on bare floors in the corridors;

Those who get in and sit on top

Are those who kick the doors open

With their jackboots

Or who shoot their way through –

And they are hardly any better than you or I.

Of Nigeria’s Hand-to-Mouth Economy

By Chuks Oluigbo

According to the Christian Bible, when God created Adam and Eve, presumably the first parents of all humankind, he put them in a beautiful garden of abundance, but when they sinned through the agency of the devil in the guise of a serpent, God condemned them and their descendants on end to a life of labour thus: “All your life you will sweat to produce food until your dying day.” The same message was re-echoed in the book of Psalms: “By the labour of your hands you shall eat.” In the Epistles, Saint Paul told his listeners unequivocally: “He who does not work, let him not eat.” Thereafter, many generations of people in diverse cultures of the world, Nigeria inclusive, have continued to extol the virtue of hard work, especially in the area of exploiting the abundant riches of the earth through cultivating the land – agriculture.

Nigeria, no doubt, is an agriculturally-endowed nation. Leading economic historians of the last and the present century, Nigerian as well as expatriate, agree that agriculture was the mainstay of the traditional economies of the various peoples of Nigeria in the pre-colonial and colonial periods. Up to the early 1970s, agriculture accounted for well over eighty percent of Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the major value of the country’s exports.

Then came the oil boom, and rather than build up the agricultural sector with the zillions of petro-dollars accruing from the oil sector and transform Nigeria once and for all into a food-sufficient economy, the government of the day frittered away that chance and instead actively encouraged the Nigerian populace to abandon agriculture and rely one hundred percent on crude oil. Nigeria thus became a mono-product economy. Petroleum became the pivot around which the country’s economy revolved such that any quake in that sector had adverse negative effects on the whole economy. The then military Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon, overwhelmed by the huge sums rolling into the government coffers from crude oil, was reputed to have said that Nigeria’s problem was not money but how to spend it, and so he embarked on extravagant spending on white elephant projects which had little or no positive demonstration effect on the economy.

After Gowon, succeeding governments seemed to have realized the mistakes of the past and so made efforts (even if half-hearted) aimed at redirecting Nigerians to the farms by initiating certain agricultural programmes such as the River Basin Development Programme (RBDP), Operation Feed the Nation (OFN), Green Revolution (GR), the Directorate for Food, Roads and Rural Infrastructure (DFRRI), the Better Life for Rural Dwellers Programme (BLRDP), among others. Specifically, OFN was launched against the background of alarming decline in agricultural production, galloping food prices, increasing food import bills, and accelerating flight of youth from the rural to the urban areas. Unfortunately, it yielded no positive result except that the huge sums mapped out for it ended in private pockets. Its successor, Green Revolution, was also an abysmal failure and created greater problems than it came to solve.

In order to solve the problems created by GR, the government in power embarked on unprecedented importation of rice, wheat, and other food items through a Presidential Task Force. Overnight, Nigeria, which used to export food to other countries, became one of the world’s greatest importers of food items, and consumer goods topped the list on Nigeria’s import records. That situation has continued to worsen with the passage of time. A recent report from US Wheat Associates Inc., a trade group for the world’s largest exporter of wheat, says that Nigeria will soon displace Japan as the biggest buyer of United States’ wheat. According to the report, “The markets that are really growing are located in Africa. Nigeria’s per capita income is growing and Nigerians are consuming more food and they are looking for more Western-style food products”.

Some twenty years ago, a programme was initiated to make Nigeria grow wheat in order to cut down on the excess revenue spent on wheat importation. Again, during his tenure as Nigeria’s president, Olusegun Obasanjo tried the same thing with cassava, with the aim to make cassava flour a major component of Nigeria’s bread and thereby reduce the country’s reliance on imported wheat. But like other programmes before them, these initiatives died almost at the moment of conception. Today, Nigeria spends over 50 percent of its income on food, according to Dr. Vincent Akinyosoye, Statistician-General of the Federation and Head of the National Bureau of Statistics.

The abandonment of agriculture had negative spread effects. As more and more young people continued to acquire higher education certificates and degrees, they increasingly saw themselves as people who had no business with agriculture. The rural-urban drift, which began in the early days of colonial rule, continued irreversibly until the rural villages were denuded of their major work force. Today, there is severe hunger in the land, and many Nigerians live from hand to mouth. Food scarcity continues to intensify by the day as the price of available food continues to sky-rocket. It has gone so bad the average Nigerian worker spends about eighty percent of his monthly earnings on food. The idea of three square meals has long been dumped in many Nigerian families.

It is partly for this reason of hunger that nothing else seems to work in the country. Much of the effort an average Nigerian makes daily is channelled towards filling his empty stomach first. His primary problem is food, and until he gets it, he cannot think of any other thing. Of course, it is only when a man has filled his stomach and is not worried about where the next meal will come from that he can think of how to move his nation forward.

This situation raises some serious questions: Why has Nigeria continued to import the bulk of its food items fifty years after independence? Have all the farmlands in Nigeria disappeared? Are the lands no longer fertile? Are there no crops to plant? Or are Nigerians too lazy to cultivate the land? Is it the government or the people that should take the blame? Where exactly does the problem lie? What is the possible way forward? Honest answers to these critical questions may help Nigeria to trace its way back and avert imminent food crisis. It is indeed regrettable that Nigeria, with its superabundant human and material wealth, still grapples with the fundamental problem of providing food for its citizens when all its peers are constantly breaking new grounds in science and technology.

While I was in Makurdi, Benue State, during the one year compulsory national youth service, I was highly impressed that virtually everybody I met, particularly students, talked about their farms, and some actually took time to go to the village to cultivate and tend their farms. But whether that is still the practice today is a subject for further research. A lot may have changed considering that children of today feel ashamed to say that their parents are farmers, not talk about they themselves. Farming has come to be regarded as an occupation for paupers and never-do-wells, and young people in the cities who think that they have become wealthy discourage their parents in the villages from engaging in farm work because they feel their parents, having given birth to wealthy children, have become too big to be called farmers.

In the present circumstances, Nigerians need no soothsayer to tell them that there is imminent danger. As such, there is an urgent need for every Nigerian to return to the farm. Internal food-sufficiency should be the concern of every citizen, for to feed oneself is to feed the nation. Again, the government should take seriously the issue of food provision, not through importation but through active support and encouragement to local farmers. If possible, a state of emergency should be declared on the agricultural sector. It does not end in including agriculture in the 7-Point Agenda. Pious pronouncements should be backed up with positive action. Undoubtedly, no nation can move forward where more than half of the population are hungry. Likewise, the need for Nigeria to rely less on importation of food and work towards internal food-sufficiency is not negotiable, for, according to Prof Onwuka Njoku, external food dependency is the most pernicious form of national insecurity.