Ah! Rice? O Compatriots

On the rice-fication of the Nigerian dream

You will read this essay just after swiping, with a panicked finger, past a tab containing news of yet another bone-chilling massacre in the north. Or in the perforating heat of your electricity-deserted apartment. Or right after buying fuel at a scandalous price. Or after dipping into your depleting savings for the umpteenth time because your salary is melting in the furnace of the economy. Or after another debilitating visa refusal because your Nigerian passport is limping on crutches. You must tone down your anger a notch so that you can observe, perhaps for the first time, that your enemy is closer than you think: a double-faced phenomenon that has worked its way into your household as a staple, but also shows up every four years to crush any hopes for a better country — rice.

Your name is Nnenna, Rukevwe, or Hauwa. You are, gratefully, among those whom your country did not kill in the past three and a half years, and you’re not sure whether it is because you were lucky or because your fate has been postponed for “second term.” You live in Lagos, Aba, or Kano. It is an election campaign year, and your city’s pulse is throbbing with feverish anticipation. Party flags and banners have been dusted, unfurled, and hoisted. You will be force-fed to near-constipation with manifestos and lofty promises, and even though you heard the same things four years ago, you will marvel at a politician’s ability to lie with a glint in his eyes, at the boldness with which he rewarms failed promises and serves them with fancy plating. You will almost think it a gift, for how else can one learn to flatter and deceive so deftly?

He has spent most of his four years globe-trotting, but he will now eat roasted corn on the streets to cheers of approval from the crowd thronging him; because this is the season to be like the common man and be touched by the feelings of their infirmities. But he will not stop there. He knows that the credit for eating corn with the masses will peter out the moment he climbs into his bulletproof SUV and zooms off. He must make the dew of his presence follow them home, sit with them in their small silences, and nudge them back in line when they consider straying. So he will order his boys to start sharing bags of rice with his smiling face emblazoned on them.

You are an investment banker, lawyer, or a trader, and if there’s one thing your income has fiercely battled, it is the soaring price of food. Market runs are now an exercise in humility — you now reckon that your bargaining skills can no longer fetch you any reasonable discounts. But now, standing before you is a man making rice flow on the streets as though by magic, as though achieved with the practiced ease of a wand. Can your salary for five years even afford this truckload of rice? He will be deliberate about this distribution. He will call it Operation Show Your PVC For a Bag of Rice. The people will line up like soldier ants, PVCs flashing in the air, gratitude welling in their eyes. You will watch his eyes crinkle in satisfaction as the bags are doled out, and you will know it is because he cannot believe his luck. He cannot believe he has been blessed with a people who are willing to forget their suffering at the sight of rice — a people for whom the prospect of a good pot of jollof tanks their conscience.

You must know that the politician has studied the cellular structure of your people. He has now discovered that nothing convicts and converts them like free rice. And so he is no longer concerned about governance. He will rule by rice. Terrorists are ravaging communities up north? Rice. More Nigerians cannot cope with the economy and are slipping into abject poverty? Rice. Kidnapping for ransom is now a malignant national tumor? More rice. You will learn that nothing is quite as dangerous as letting a politician know where your mumu button is — that in a world where you can be anything, you should not be elastic material that cannot snap back, tepid beer lacking the ability to froth.

You must cease being your brother’s keeper and become his judge — your keeping has so far fertilized his greed. When he is dusting up his shoes to attend the rice rally, pull him aside, look into his eyes, and ask if this is the summary of his life, if he has no shame. Look at him long and hard until the real Nigerian slowly appears from the corners of his irises and engulfs them in patriotic fire. Break his spirit so that the politician’s rice spell on him may break. Break his spirit that he may become a new creature of national consciousness. Tell your children that the politician’s rice is growth-stunting and poisonous to the soul, so that they may not desire it. So that they may not grow to become like the adults whose mouths have been clamped shut by starchy rice. So that they may be chaperoned only by their consciences, and not by rice. The rice trucks are on their way, once again, to secure consciences for the next four years. What will you do about that?