By Mutalib Jibril
Among students in Nigeria, Garri is popularly known as student power (SP) due to the variety of dimensions it serves them.
Traced back years ago, Grocery, another name craved for Garri, was regarded as a food only consumed by the average people in the country. However, the downturn of Nigeria’s economy has surged the price of Garri, selling at around N24,000 per basin. This fact has made it difficult for the poor Nigerians to even afford the food any longer.
Bygone are those days when a cup of Garri is sold at the rate of N10, N20, and N30 respectively. Presently, the student power costs N170 per cup.
Despite the hike, the food is indispensable for students, as their foodstuff is incomplete without the presence of Garri.
Garri: Student Power
Before I proceed, I would love to share with you, a funny story of one Jambito – an epithet name for newly admitted students in Nigeria.
While the guy prepared to resume school as a first-year undergraduate student, I advised him to ensure he went along with him with much foodstuffs as long as he can afford. Most importantly, I implored him to add Garri.
But funny enough, he refused by saying “I don’t like Garri. Instead, I will replace it with cornflakes”. I pity him then, as I imagined how much he would regret his decision when Sapa (brokenness) gripped him.
Not long after resumption, he exhausted his cornflakes and later regretted not yielding to my advice. The following semester saw him come back to school with a full basin Garri.
Furthermore, the major reasons Garri is so dear to students is due to its nature of requiring simple preparation, and its fastness to sabotage students’ hunger.
Unlike other basic foodstuffs; rice, beans, yam, and the like. The process of preparing Garri is not cost and stress-free. All that is required is to soak it in water and add the ingredients if the person taking it can afford it.
Also, people especially students don’t care about sugar, groundnuts, milk, or kulikuli, as they take their Grocery with pride.
Similarly, Garri has become helpful for students who have lectures early in the morning, and for students who are exhausted and tired to prepare a meal after they come from lectures.
Semester end comes with a lot of trials because the majority of the students most often exhausted their foodstuffs. Those students that still have Garri at that time are regarded as legends. And for those who share it with their colleagues, their gesture is proclaimed as legendary.
To my fellow Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, (UDUS) students, as we resume for another semester, let us come with our Garri in bulk.