The Price Of Bread And Other Matters, By Kazeem Akintunde
Let us Pray!
Our Father, who art in Heaven,
hallowed be Thy Name;
Thy Kingdom come;
Thy Will be done;
on Earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day, our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not unto temptation;
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is The Kingdom,
The Power and Glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.
We all need to pray in Nigeria now as the ship of state is dangerously tottering on the precipice. This is due to the fact that majority of Nigerians now go to bed hungry. Those in government are aware of the crisis in their hand but don’t know how to solve it. A committee has been set up by the Presidency to tackle hunger in the land. I chuckle! How will the committee get food to the table of most hungry and desolate Nigerians?
In Nigeria now, the sixth line in the Lord’s prayer is gradually missing from the daily menu of most Nigerians. Perhaps, we need to increase the tempo of our prayers or work harder so that we can get bread on our dining tables, because many Nigerians can no longer afford to buy a loaf of bread.
The price of an average loaf is now between N1,200 and N2,000, if you want to eat bread that you are sure of the quality. Some two years ago, that same size of bread cost N500. Perhaps, our Father in Heaven knew of the importance of bread when He created human beings and we pray to Him daily to make it our companion and indeed, the presence of it (hunger or poverty) is an evil companion!
Bread is a staple food enjoyed the world over. A slight increase in the price of bread has had catastrophic consequences in different parts of the world. In Britian, in 1795, there was a bread riot over high cost of wheat and bread. As of that period, food riots tended to be localised and transient in nature, but the bread riots of 1795 and into 1796 were more prolonged and outbreaks occurred in most regions of Britain. In fact, Palmer (1988: 141) counted over 48 disturbances in the period 1795-1796, which is the most significant set of disturbances since the 1760 and 1770s.
My father and great grandfather were not yet born then. But more recently in Tunisia between 1983 and 1984, a sharp increase in the price of bread led to riots in which more than 150 lost their lives.
Their own version of bread is named ‘Neemat Rebbi’- (the Godseed), and bread is very crucial in the traditional Tunisian family diet. A slight rise in the price of bread is not condoned by the masses. But in August of 1983, about 200 Tunisian bakers and pastry chefs participated in the first sit-in protest in a series of mobilisation to denounce the state’s decision to ban 1,500 so called ‘modern’ bakeries from buying subsidised flour.
In Tunisia as of that period, there were two types of bakeries: traditional bakeries, which specialised only in traditional bread, and modern ones, which produce European-style bread and pastries. There were 3,200 traditional bakeries, and they sold bread at the fixed price of 190 millimes (around US$0.07) for packages and 230 millimes for bread. That price did not change for more than 10 years. After all, the main ingredient in bread making, wheat flour, was subsidised by the government.
However, there were 1,500 modern bakeries and they were not subsidised nor subjected to any fix price as they use partially subsidised flour and fine semolina to make their bread. That was the genesis of the crisis. A slight increase in the price of their bread resulted in over 150 souls being dispatched to the great beyond.
In the same Tunisia, a young man, Mohamed Bouazizi, who sold vegetables from a wheel barrow, on December 17, 2010, set himself afire to protest police harassment. Bouazizi died on January 4, 2011, but not before his gesture went viral, sparking protests against the cost of living and the country’s authoritarian President, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Ben Ali’s 23-year-rule ended 10 days later when he fled to Saudi Arabia, becoming the first leader of an Arab nation to be pushed out by popular protests.
The protests inspired a wave of revolts across the Arab world, as people rose up to protest against authoritarianism, corruption, poverty and increase in the price of staple food items, particularly bread. That was the beginning of what has now been termed the ‘Arab Spring’. On January 25, 2011, thousands of Egyptians marched in Cairo, Alexandria, and other cities, demanding the departure of President Hosni Mubarak, who had been in power for 30 years. On February 11, as more than a million people took to the streets, Mubarak resigned and handed control of the country to the military.
The uprising soon spread to Libya, Syria, and Yemen. The consequences of those actions are still visible in those countries today.
Are we likely to have our own Nigerian spring? I do not pray for any uprising in the country, but the masses have been pushed to the wall. Some few years back, with N200 in your pocket, you can confidently have a breakfast that could last you till evening before looking for anything to eat again. Many labourers at construction sites are home with bread and beans for breakfast. Another variety is bread and bean cake or bean cake and pap. But to enjoy such delicacies now, you must cough out something in the region of N1,500 and N2,000. Most of them can no longer afford to eat bread and beans again. Bread has been priced beyond their means, while beans is a no-go area these days. Rice, yam and other staple foods are out of their reach now, so, the cheaper alternatives like spaghetti, soya beans cake, fried cassava cake, known as ‘winer rogo’ in Hausa and ‘kunun zaki’ are what they now make do with.
The grim reality of today’s Nigeria is not limited to the poor alone. A friend who is an Editor of a national newspaper posted on his Facebook page that a loaf of Old English Bread now cost N2000. Two days earlier, he bought the same loaf for N1,700. Many of his friends on the social media platform told him to go for new English loaf or the more popular Agege Bread if his favourite, the Old English loaf is no longer affordable. Eight months ago, the same loaf of bread cost N800.
Master bakers have identified the high cost of wheat and sugar as well as other products used in the making of bread as the real reason behind the hike in price of bread. Indeed, over 70 per cent of master bakers in the country have closed shop as they can no longer afford the price of wheat and flour. In some northern parts of the country, it is not even available in the market again. A bag of sugar has risen beyond the means of most bakers as it cost N70,000. Few weeks back, the same bag was sold for N55,000.
The Russian-Ukraine war has been blamed for the shortfall in wheat and flour supply as Ukraine is a major supplier of wheat to the rest of the world, but even before the war, the crisis back home has been the major contributory factor to the crisis we are facing now. When we were shouting about the war against the Boko Haram insurgents, rather than winning the war, it has only produced more billionaire military generals after over a decade of battling the terrorists.
When we complain that kidnapping and banditry in the North East and North West has been turned into a big business, we were told to mind our business. Now, the consequences are glaring and staring all of us in the face.
I lived in Abuja for over seven years and once the raining season starts, many of the Hausa boys and even other tribes in the north in my area disappeared. I later learnt that most of them went back to their villages to farm. Today, 80 per cent of those boys are in Lagos and other South west states as Okada riders and pure water sellers. They dare not go back home to farm as bandits and kidnappers are waiting.
Those that are in the villages still engaging in farming activities have to pay protection fees to bandits so that they would not be kidnapped. Their farm produces are shared between them and the bandits, otherwise, they should be ready to lose everything. Yet, we allocate billions of naira every year to the defence ministry.
We shouted that it was wrong for young boys who should be in school to be herding cows from Kaura Namoda to Ikeja in the 21th century and that ranching is the way to go, we were told to shut up. In the process of herding cows from one point to the other, another crisis is borne as the cows feed on the crops and sweat of farmers. This has always created crisis between farmers and herders.
But the powerful northern interest would hear none of this. So, with farming no longer lucrative and farmers abandoning the farms, how would we not have hunger in the land? We are simply not a serious nation. The consequences of our actions and inactions are what we are all trying to cope with now.
Instead for President Bola Tinubu to solve the farmers/herders crisis, we have now been told that a special ministry – Ministry of Livestock Development – is being considered for herders now so that the north won’t dump Tinubu in 2027. Prices of most essentials have increased three-fold since the removal of fuel subsidies but we are still negotiating what should be the minimum take-home salary of the least paid workers in the country for almost six months without a headway.
Tinubu will be deceiving himself if he believes that all is well in the country. Nothing is well and it will be in his own interest if he finds quick solutions to the hunger in the land. Majority of Nigerians are hungry and a hungry man is an angry man. The relative peace in the country is akin to that of the graveyard. It could bust at any given time and how it will end, nobody knows.
See you next week.
