Mindful of the fact that poor nutrition can lead to a lack of energy, digestive problems, food allergies, weight gain, depression and anxiety as well as many of today’s most prevalent chronic diseases such as coronary heart disease and cancer, the Health of the Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) organised the National Convergence and Food Fair to celebrate Nigeria’s food and cultural diversity and rich biodiversity. Southsouth Bureau Chief, BISI OLANIYI reports.
The elaborate events had in attendance human rights activists, farmers, healthy-food advocates, academics, researchers, students of tertiary institutions, caterers, lawyers, medical doctors and other professionals.
The national convergence took place at HOMEF’s Nature Garden, opposite the main campus of the University of Benin (UNIBEN), Ugbowo, Benin, Edo State, with many caterers invited, and they freshly prepared many sumptuous delicacies from various tribes in Nigeria, after they explained to the participants the health benefits of the local foods on display, which were later enjoyed.
An educative, informative and entertaining drama preceded the national convergence, with HOMEF’s in-house actors and actresses displaying creativity, experience, dexterity and excellence in acting.
The drama focused on eating healthy local foods, thereby showing a careless young wife, who was fond of eating junk, polluted and poisoned foods, falling ill, despite the fact that her caring and supportive husband was always giving her N200, 000 weekly as feeding allowance, thereby being moved to a nearby hospital, with the medical doctor diagonising the errant wife of cancer, diabetes, and damage to her kidneys and liver.
There was the presentation of a monologue by a Law graduate of UNIBEN, Benjamin Efeobhokhan, who is also a HOMEF volunteer.
The monologue stated: “Africa is blessed. Nigeria is truly blessed, not only with natural/mineral resources, but fertile lands and waterways. The vast landmass alone is enough to eradicate hunger, only if we have systems that work. Only if we start building food systems that agree with our cultures and environmental realities.
“Dependency on the external to eat is killing our long-aged historical and cultural values. There is no food you are looking for that is not found here (in Nigeria). Many Africans have abandoned their rich cultural heritage, all in the name of modernisation. What we think is modernisation is in real sense, a death trap. It is killing us gradually, without us knowing. Let us end GMOs, let us return to our roots, let us return to our African foods.”
There was also poetry recitation by HOMEF’s Project Assistant, Stanley Egholo, titled: “Dangerous Dining Table,” which partly stated: “Our common hunger is not caused by lack of food, but for the lack of the environment, lost to GMOs and crude oil.
“We have all been modified into a modern world. What we swallow no longer matters to us. We preach ignorance, while we suffer our lungs.
We turn a blind eye, while it sees evil. We turn deaf ears, while bad music is played. For we eat poison as sweet meals. Are we not kicking our own bucket?
“The market was filled with plenty of fresh-looking tomatoes. Planted in June, harvested in July. So fast it is to make profit. Farmers now millionaires. With the sweet-smelling aroma of genes. Cancerous fluids we merry morning-noon-night. Belly filled with jargons. Food of bandwagons, painted in awesome colours. Harvested by scientific morons. For deceit and lies to entice the gullible stomach. Lives gone on this attractive dining table.
“Remember now thy old village. Thy grandmother and her little piece of land. Remember now thy history. That old muddy house. Where native soup and eba were served. How young looking were you? Did you ever visit the hospital? Get up from that dining and visit home. This meal will only lead you to hell. What is this harm we now do to ourselves.
Is man now too foolish to be wise. Greed, selfishness in economic wickedness.”
Panelists at the well-attended event included an outstanding academic/astute researcher, Tatfeng Mirabeau, a Professor of Medical Microbiology and Immunology at the College of Health Sciences of the Bayelsa State Government-owned Niger Delta University (NDU), Wilberforce Island/Amassoma, Bayelsa State, who has been at the forefront of the fight against Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and promoting bio-safety in Nigeria, but raised the alarm over threats to his life, for campaigning against GMOs, after being attacked, embarrassed, insulted, harassed, abused, and denied America visa, but vowed not to relent.
A nutritionist, Jackie Ikeotuonye, who is also a medical practitioner, but dedicated over the years to the struggle for a resilient food system, and at the forefront of resistance to GMOs in Nigeria, was among the panelists, as she disclosed that she was in Benin for the first time in twenty years, while looking for local foods to eat opposite UNIBEN, but she was directed to fast-food plazas, which she kicked against.
Other resource persons included an environmental, human and food rights advocate, Mariann Bassey-Orovwuje, an astute food sovereignty campaigner, who is also a frontline Amazon against the onslaught of biotechnology companies, and their local agents on the seeds and food systems of Nigeria and Africa; as well as the founder of Network of Women and Youths in Agriculture, Lovelyn Ejim, a full-time farmer, who is the Southeast Vice President of Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN), and the Chairperson of Pan-African Rural Women’s Council, but condemned the deceit by GMOs promoters.
In special sessions, the Lead Coordinator, Alliance for Action on Pesticides in Nigeria (AAPN), Donald Ofoegbu, pleaded with Nigerians to be advocates of the massive campaigns against GMOs foods, while HOMEF’s Director of Programmes, Joyce Brown, with story-telling format, in a presentation, titled: “The Magic of Microbes,” stated that there was the need to build the health of the soil, in order to produce healthy crops.
HOMEF’s Media/Communications Lead, Kome Odhomor, an iconic journalist, while interacting with reporters, also urged Nigerians and other Africans to consume local/natural foods, in order to be much healthier, thereby preventing the waste of hard-earned money on avoidable treatment of sicknesses/illnesses in the hospitals.
Many of the participants at the national convergence were allowed by the Master of Ceremony (MC) to make invaluable contributions and ask questions.
The Vice President, Southsouth, African Women Entrepreneurship Programme (AWEP), Pastor Helen Imoagene, who graduated from UNIBEN 40 years ago, and attended HOMEF’s programme for the first time, revealed that her initial consumption of fast/processed foods landed her in the hospital, while many medical doctors could not diagnose what was wrong with her, even after undergoing surgery, but another medical doctor insisted that she was not sick, but should be taken off medication, and put on natural foods for six months, thereby becoming normal.
An educationist, Elizabeth Eyo, advised that efforts must be made to reach farmers in the mostly remote villages, who still use chemicals to cultivate crops, in order not to continue to poison innocent people.
A human rights activist, Grace Okike, urged Nigerians to return to natural foods, while a businessman, Eugene Asemota, who experiments with farming, admonished consumers to avoid GMOs crops and foods.
Two of the students of UNIBEN in attendance: Elijah Efeobhokhan of the Department of Environmental Management and Toxicology in the Faculty of Life Science, and Emmanuel Odeimor of the Department of Animal Science, Faculty of Agriculture, hailed HOMEF for the initiative, as they disclosed that they learnt of the importance of consuming local/natural, not GMOs foods, and the avoidance of the use of pesticides in cultivating crops.
The Executive Director of HOMEF, Dr. Nnimmo Bassey, a renowned environmentalist, in his welcome address at the national convergence, revealed that greed was now destroying the world, because top officials of some companies/organisations were tampering with foods being bought, thereby poisoning the innocent consumers.
Bassey said: “Everything we saw that our ancestors were doing, they had reasons, because a food that is available at a particular season is the best food for your body at that season. Imagine eating apples coated with wax, in order to look nice throughout the year. Numerous criminals are behind some of the fruits and food items that we eat.
“When you eat locally, you will know the food, and the food knows you.
Let us be intentional about what we eat, let us protect our biodiversity, let us demand safe foods, let us insist on our rights to eat foods that are not contaminated, and let us insist on the right to life.
“When you eat contaminated or genetically-modified foods, then you have accepted to be poisoned. We are sending a strong signal to persons who seek to compromise our food system that we have rights to safe foods and life.”
The outstanding environmental activist also disclosed that one of the reasons for the national convergence and food fair was to celebrate Nigeria’s foods, cultures, and to remind the people that fast foods might be readily available, according to cash, but it would take a lot from them.
He said: “Indeed, with fast foods, we are actually accelerating certain problems that are avoidable. We are reminding ourselves about the best foods that we should eat. For persons who are accustomed to buying foods, they will also learn how to cook. Cooking is very important.
“In fact, cooking is a process that brings about a lot of other learning, especially how to economise, how to appreciate nature, how to know what is good for your health, and to know the culture into which you were born.
“Even spiritually speaking, food is central to all religious observances: for the Christians, in the Holy Communion. The early Christians were going from house to house. That’s why Apostle Paul warned them not to eat outside as if they had no food in their houses.
It was not just a piece of bread, they used to eat pounded yam in Israel in those days. In Islamic religion, food is also central. There were times the Muslims had to kill rams, and would cook a lot of food.
“One of the things that I personally learnt from people who are conscious of what food is, is when you sit down to eat, take only what you can eat. A lot of people grab more than what they need. That’s greed. Greed is what is destroying the world today. Greed is what is making some companies to tamper with our foods. Greed tells you that when you plant one seed, you will harvest one thousand fruits.
“Things that are not natural, people go for them, without offering the claimed solutions. Most people are ready to believe any lie, especially that the seeds produced in the laboratories with chemicals and manipulated are better than the ones that you have maintained naturally.”
Bassey also declared that many Nigerians had suffered a lot, in terms of bio-safety regulations.
He said: “We have a system in Nigeria that permits anything. We had a regulator who had just retired, after finishng his tenure, but another person came in, but we are yet to see any signal that shows that things will be different. Nigeria is like a hole used to pollute Africa. “The food fair is to promote our foods, health and culture, as well as to underscore the fact that we have a duty to protect what nature has given us.
“There are different foods in various parts of Nigeria, and different parts of the world, but most people like to have different kinds of food at every season. By nature, certain kinds of food are only available at certain times of the year or certain seasons.
“People in temperate region with snow all year round want to eat fruits that are grown in tropical climate. They want to have oranges, avocado pears, and pineapples throughout the year. That is not natural. Our bodies are not designed to accept those things, at every point in time.” The famous environmentalist also stated that to eat local and fresh foods was responsible for some Nigerians celebrating new yam festivals, stressing that when it was time for new yam, everybody would know that a new life had come.
Nigerians and their friends across the globe should eat local/natural foods, in order to be much healthier and live quite longer.
