The agbado renaissance By Prof. TERHEMBA SHIJA

Great men and women, either by mistake or design, contribute something unique to our civilization. Their actions, utterances, dress styles, dance steps, gait or even their mistakes, constitute standard practices and are emulated by admirers. Indeed, famous people are often listened to with awe even when they say the obvious. They are stylistic innovators. “Great accents,” so says Longinus the ancient Roman philosopher, “should fall from the lips of those whose thoughts were deep and grave”

Call it a gaffe, if you like, but I found the words of Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu, the APC presidential candidate, most profound and revealing. He talked about recruiting five million young Nigerians in the army and feeding them with agbado and cassava, thereby creating a massive demand and supply chain for those crops in Nigeria.

Yes, to talk about cassava we all know so well. Benue state is the leading state in cassava production, and Nigeria is the leading producer of cassava the world over. But what is agbado? When has this lexicon entered into the Nigerian society that a presidential candidate would so confidently code-switch it into standard English without the faintest fear of his audience getting confused? I guess something must have told the jagaban that the corn or maize is so popular in Nigeria that everybody could identify it in the context of such inter-sentential mix.

He is my presidential candidate so I overlook his condescending Lagos city boy manner of presentation, particularly as he verily strikes a chord of discovery in my culinary world.

As a Tiv man, I have always thought of yam as the king of all foods. A calabash of pounded yam served with spicy pocho and dry bushmeat is my delight any day. If yam could be so respected by a Tiv man and rapturously associated with the liturgy of some gods of the Ibos and many other cultures in Nigeria where new yam festivals are celebrated, then it should take a crop as ubiquitous as agbado to dethrone it from its illustrious height. With Tinubu’s statement and barrage of attacks that trailed it, I have been jolted in my belief about the supremacy of the yam. I have now given agbado more ample chance to prove its efficacy on my palate.

First, there’s no doubt that the corn has more representation in Tiv philosophy than yam. How about the general proclamation among the Tiv in a proverb that during the season of corn, all discussions should be on that all important crop. In this respect, the Jagaban was right by evoking the hype on agbado above every other food item. A presidential recognition must not be taken lightly.

The second philosophical saying about agbado in Tiv which comes to mind most forcefully says “Hark, the cornfield of the toothless man is now ready for harvest!” Then what, one might ask. It is as simple as expressing regret that the corn farmer without teeth cannot eat the products of his labour. One certainly needs strong teeth to devour one’s agbado in either its boiled or roasted form.

Bola Tinubu’s simple statement provokes a renaissance about the aristocratic status of the corn among the food crops of Nigeria. This is the kind of hidden popularity of an object waiting to be discovered by a famous man.

Genius is really the revelation of sensations behind a common phenomenon in such a simple manner. Besides its ubiquity and versatility as one of the few crops grown in all countries in the world except in Antarctica, it is also processed into hundreds of other products for human and animal consumption as food or medicine. This certainly provides an answer for the toothless corn farmer in the Tiv proverb.

And by the way, before agbado is processed into either Amala or cornflakes, even the five million soldiers to be recruited by Tinubu would need strong teeth to deal with it at its rudimentary stage. Soldiers are like dogs. They bark their orders and also rely on their strong incisors to devour their food. Tinubu’s soldiers should not only devour agbado, but should also bark and bite. Toothless soldiers should not be made to face deadly bandits and Boko Haram insurgents.

Nigeria is a vast fertile cornfield. However, most of its citizens don’t seem to have strong teeth to devour the goodness of the land. A few of those who have, are mostly denied the opportunity to plough the land or participate in feasting on the common harvest. With a population of over 200 million people and huge natural endowments in solid minerals, water and agricultural resources, our country remains one of Africa’s richest cornfields.

Tinubu’s reign, if permitted by God, should make the difference. Those citizens complaining of exclusion and those with unwholesome dentistry should be taken seriously. It could be inferred from Bola Tinubu’s statement that what Nigeria produces locally is enough for our local consumption and for export. Why should a Nigerian child go to bed on an empty stomach? It behoves on our leadership to use its ingenuity and technology to process our corn in various forms to save even our toothless compatriots from starvation and our country from underdevelopment.