Groundnut pyramids have become a symbol of
national nostalgia for Nigerians. They get mentioned in laments and rants
critical of the country’s economic state, and are referred to in school history
classes and in discussions by older citizens who remember the “good old days”
when things worked as they should.
But there was a time in which these groundnut
pyramids were more than objects of collective memory; they were real, physical
structures, towering far above the humans who built them. Heavy bags of
groundnut, piled sack upon sack, like the pyramids of ancient Egypt. The old
monochrome pictures of these edifices testify of a golden age in agriculture,
one in which Nigeria could afford to display- or show off -its food surpluses.
Age
of Agricultural Boom
The groundnut pyramids were indeed a sight to
behold. In their heydays- the 1960s and 70s -you could find rows and rows of
these huge structures, sometimes holding as much as 15,000 full groundnut bags,
at collection fields.
It all began in the early 1910s, when farmers
in northern Nigeria were attracted to the groundnut crop because of the
significant returns it gave its growers. Demand from colonial merchants was a
big factor. One local trader, Alhassan Dantata , supplied groundnuts to the
Royal Niger Company. His enterprise grew so large that he was able to amass
bags of groundnut in their thousands, and display them in pyramidal heaps,
before having them shipped. It was he who began the tradition of the groundnut
pyramids.
The pyramids reached their zenith in the 1950s
and 60s; between 1956 and 1967, groundnut was Nigeria’s most valuable single
export crop. Sacks stuffed with the nut were assembled in huge heaps the shape
of a pyramid, in towns and cities like Kano, Malam Madori, Bebeji, and Dawakin
Kudu. And they weren’t just symbols of economic prosperity; they were tourist
attractions as well. The world marveled at the ingenuity of the structures, but
even more at the industry of the largely peasant farmers who had produced the
commodity.
Interestingly, this high point coincided with
Nigeria’s emergence from colonial overseer ship. The country teemed with people
determined to make the most of their new-found freedom. The pyramids were a
symbol of this striving; postage stamps from that period, which bore images of
the nut sack towers, suggest so.
What
Happened to The Groundnut Pyramids?
Most people have a one-word answer to this
question: Oil. But that answer is only part of a bigger story.
The Nigerian government did turn its back on
agriculture after oil revenues began pouring in. Beginning in the 1970s, the
country’s attention shifted to petro-dollars, and very rapidly became heavily
dependent on income from crude oil exports.
In time, this neglect of agriculture began to
tell on the sector. A combination of environmental factors threatened groundnut
production in the 1980s. Droughts became more frequent and widespread in the
north. A rosetta virus epidemic wiped out more than 750,000 hectares of the
groundnut crop in the region, and inflicted further losses in the decade that
followed. Farmers had to abandon groundnut for other crops, such as millet,
sorghum and cowpea. The groundnut pyramids gradually receded from reality and
into the realm of memory.
The government couldn’t do much to save the
pyramids. It had racked up debts throughout the oil boom, which it was
struggling to repay when oil prices sank in the 1980s. In trying to resuscitate
Nigeria’s ailing economy, it had to agree to the IMF’s Structural Adjustment
Program (SAP). As a result, it dismantled the marketing boards and removed
agricultural subsidies. These measures, along with the prevailing environmental
challenges at that time, forced a plunge in groundnut production.
Will
the Pyramids Ever Come Back?
Expert opinion suggests we’ve seen the last of
the groundnut pyramids. There’s a much bigger demand for the commodity these
days; the distribution systems have become more decentralized and complex, and
the produce is now being used in more diverse ways than before. All of these
don’t allow for groundnuts to be collected and stored long enough to be mounted
into mighty structures.
In fact, things have changed so much with the
commodity’s distribution and use, that most people don’t realize we’re actually
producing more groundnuts than we were in the glory days of the nut pyramids.
In 2016, Nigeria churned out 3 million tons of groundnut, compared to the 1.9
million tons it piled up in 1965.
But the symbolism of the groundnut pyramid
lives on. It has inspired governments in such states as Borno and Ogun to
attempt something similar: rice pyramids. Not surprisingly, these recent
displays remain in the shadows of the original thing, their now revered
predecessor: the groundnut pyramids of our fabled golden age.
Complied by TAD88
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