DO NOT MEDDLE WITH BREAD!
To understand what Nigeria is fiddling with today, we’d have to travel as far back as the Roman Empire. This is not a journey to Rome as Nero fiddled as it is not a story about one man. This is a call to our attention, especially to some governors who need to be called to Abuja to see clearly what’s staring at them in their states.
From available records on the Roman Empire, certain things defined the popularity of an Emperor. Three especially stand out. If you wanted to be popular — Roman emperors placed a premium on their popularity amongst the people — winning new territories was a sure bet. To go to war and to return with the spoils of war and an expanded empire always earned popularity for the emperor or an aspirant who desired the throne.
One emperor, desperate for such popularity, went to war with Roman soldiers, fought no one, then returned to Rome with some of those soldiers dressed as slaves, like they were spoils of war.
Julius Caesar on his part conquered Gaul, because he wanted the popularity and the power that came with it. He went on to exaggerate his exploits in his book, Commentarii de Bello Gallico, in the same way some politicians today exaggerate their roles in public office in their autobiographies or books written by their allies. However, there is no exaggerating the reward Caesar got. Becoming the Julius Caesar for starters.
There were other emperors who didn’t go to war. They played for popularity by keeping the Roman people entertained. They simply organised more festivals and gladiator games than usual, all to distract the people from political or economic issues of the day. Long into its decline, author Juvenal suggested the people of Rome were, “only anxious for two things; bread and circuses”. Emperors like Caligula used these distractions to good effect, until the intrigues of Roman politics caught up with them.
Across its history, there were popular emperors who were not given to organising circuses. There were even iconic emperors like Marcus Aurelius, who achieved popularity, yet never won new territory for the empire. Even though he fought wars to protect the realm.
I do not know of a single emperor that was popular or deemed great today that ruled a Rome that was hungry. Emperors never toyed with the grains of the Roman people. They instead offered their own allies to be killed and handed to the people for daring to get in the way of the food supplies.
Voltaire once offered a variation of the Juvenal quotation, stating that Parisians required only, “the comic opera and white bread.” 260 years before the French revolution, riots broke out in Lyon because of poor grain harvests. There was chaos, maiming, looting and the destruction of the houses of the rich. The Grande Rebeyne (Great Rebellion) ultimately led to the spilling of grain from the storage to the streets. What happened in 1529 foreshadowed the 1789 French Revolution.
Bread was not the (only) cause of the revolution. Often presented to be that simple and straightforward, the issues that led to the revolution were layered and a lot more complicated than bread. However, the shortage of bread helped to spark the anger directed at the monarchy. There had been the Flour War of hundreds of riots within a month. Riots that were sparked by food scarcity and the high cost of food. The riots spread from the inner cities to Paris.
To emphasise the place of food in the kingdom, the monarch oversaw the supply of food to the people. This earned the king a nickname, “The First Baker of the Kingdom”. Turgot, an aide of Louis XVI advised the king in clear terms, “Ne vous mêlez pas du pain”. Do not meddle with bread.
Bread, it would seem, gave empires and kingdoms their life. You cannot write about great civilisations like that of Egypt and Babylon, without telling the story of grains/bread. When Jesus said, “man shall not live by bread alone,” it was a statement that emphasised the essence of bread. Contrary to perception, the statement didn’t diminish bread. Else, “alone” wouldn’t have been necessary.
History, dynamic as it is, exists to reflect who we are as humans. There is no us without those who came before us. Whatever elevated them can lift us, just as we are not above the temptations they battled against.
Nigerians are probably some of the most resilient people in history. They get pushed to the wall, they hardly bounce back, they dissolve through it instead. Nigerians found their way around the scarcity of Naira, we navigate the worst of petrol scarcities, we celebrate a few hours of light as we found comfort in the norm of darkness. We may shout and complain about these things, but we always just find a way around them. We somehow never pursue solutions; we just find a way. Higher fences and burglary against armed robbers, SUVs against bad roads, foreign schools — even if na for Togo and Lesotho – against ASUU strikes, generators, inverters, roadside fuel sellers, lawmakers engaging in construction, etc., these are all Nigerian answers to problems we refuse to fix.
These things are different from food. There is no design to bypass the scarcity of food. Only the availability of food can solve that problem. And to the hungry, whether the food comes from a Nigerian soil or a Dutch one, people just want to feed. Open the borders, let people feed. Only the living can compute the balance of trade.
At times, those Roman emperors — at least in Rome — ruled over people fewer than the population of some of our states. Today, we have some governors who need to be prodded by Abuja to get down to doing what they were elected to do. Ki la o je l’agba, ohun l’agba ki la o se. That’s King Sunny Ade saying, “what are we going to eat?” is more important than “what are we going to do?” Do not meddle with food! People are hungry.