By KEVWE OKPORUA. Photos by Damilola Onafuwa
In Nigeria when Eid (or Sallah as it is called locally) comes around, it is usually marked by the scent of cooking wafting through narrow streets, coming from blackened pots perched atop smouldering firewood brimming with jollof rice and meat. There’s often excitement in the air — from the murmurs of excited children showing off their best clothes, and the jolly chatter of extended families and neighbours visiting each other to share food. This has been different this year.
In Kano, the capital of Kano State, the commercial nerve centre of northern Nigeria and home to an estimated 3.9 million — most of them Muslim, the streets of the city are stripped bare of the colourful festivities usually associated with the Sallah celebrations.
With nearly 45,000 confirmed cases (at the time of writing), Nigeria is the country with the highest number of people with coronavirus in West Africa. The country’s federal and state level authorities have set up measures to contain the spread of the disease, which have affected people’s lives.
“We have never experienced this type of year,” says 80-year-old Rukkaya Umar. “God knows we’ve never experienced it” insists the mother of 8 children — five daughters and three sons. Her meagre income selling soup spices disappeared because of anti-coronavirus lockdowns. This left her unable to celebrate Sallah as she would have wished.
Rukkaya Umar says 2020 has been difficult.No money for rams
It is traditional for Muslims to sacrifice a ram, a goat, or a cow and to share the meat with family, friends, and those in need during Eid al-Adha, which commemorates the prophet Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his son when God ordered him to. Due to rising prices caused, in part, by movement restrictions and partial lockdowns to combat the coronavirus pandemic, the cost of rams, other livestock and food items spiked.
“Things were tough with Sallah this year,” says Hauwa, a 33-year-old teacher. “Last year you could buy a ram for 25,000 Naira ($65) but now the price is between 50–70,000 Naira ($155–182), so it has been very hard. Lots of people cannot afford to buy one,” says Hauwa
Hauwa a schoolteacher in Kano, the commercial hub in northern Nigeria.Hauwa a schoolteacher in Kano, the commercial hub in northern Nigeria. Photo: WFP/Damilola Onafuwa
In Lagos, nearly 1000 km south of Kano, with price of ram about 30 percent more expensive than the previous year, Fatimoh Nukpo Dossi who lives in Makoko, Nigeria’s largest floating slum, was left to only reminisce past celebrations.
“I enjoyed cooking and having people around to share our food with us, but now I don’t have the money to slaughter a ram,” says Dossi, year 60-year-old Dossi. “With the coronavirus, everything has become expensive and we basically eat whatever we can come by,’’ adds the widow who supports her family by selling cooked rice from the canoe she paddles around the heavily populated and noisy waters of Makoko.
Fatimoh Nukpo Dossi rows her canoe in Makoko, Lagos.Despite the challenges, she happy to be in good health and alive. “I don’t have any special food to celebrate Sallah with, but what’s important is that I’m alive and I pray that I remain alive,” says Dossi as she clasps her hands to the air in prayer.
Nothing to eat
For Sarimotu Kodepo, a recently widowed mother in her 30s, an ideal Sallah would have meant a trip to Cotonou in the neighbouring Republic of Benin to be with her extended family. Many from Makoko make this journey annually to commemorate with their families and friends.
“All my siblings have travelled home to celebrate; if I had the money, I would have taken my children,’’ she says.
Sarimotu Kodepo, a 30-something year old mother of 7 who is pregnant with her 8th child, stands in the doorway of her home with two of her daughters in Makoko in Lagos, Nigeria.But not only can she not afford to travel right now, the grieving widow is barely managing to feed her seven children since the death of her husband three months ago.
She looks on sadly at her three-year old twin daughters playing on the wooden floor of her house. In a sign of the happy festival that should have been the children are wearing brightly coloured party dresses.
“There has been nothing to eat or drink and I don’t have anyone to help me. My children have only just had their breakfast at this late time of day. All they have to eat today is garri (dried cassava),” says Kodepo who is heavily pregnant with her eighth child.
Food assistance in urban hotspots
Kodepo rubs her swollen belly as she explains that the coronavirus pandemic also means she lost her small business — selling jewellery such as earrings and necklaces at the market. She now has no income to buy food.
A member of staff with FINDEF, a partner of WFP, types information into a phone app of Sarimotu Kodepo.
A member of staff with FINDEF, a partner of WFP, types information into a phone app of Sarimotu Kodepo.The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is scaling up its assistance to reach 3 million people in Nigeria including an expansion to support Government social protection systems in the cities of Abuja, Kano and Lagos where COVID-19 threatens to drive extreme levels of vulnerability.
WFP food and cash distribution in August will focus on assisting vulnerable people in urban hotspots that are hardest hit by the socio-economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
Elizabeth Adejoh (41), front, commutes on a canoe with a WFP partner staff member, through Makoko in Lagos, Nigeria.
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