By Funke Egbemode
Ezeani, many years ago, was a village by the bend of a lazy river. For years, hunger sat stubbornly in every compound. The elders, not able to provide food for their families usually, gathered under the big orange tree, to talk about why their farms yielded so little when the land was fertile. They called it council of elders’ meeting, but it was really nothing more than a bellyaching session held from noon to late afternoon with no solution provided. Yet they returned every day for more deliberations while their wives pretended to be in the market. One day, a young boy, barely old enough to grow a beard, climbed the tree and plucked ripe fruits hanging low. He threw them down and asked, “Must we climb all the way to the topmost branch before we eat, when food is already at our fingertips?”
The elders were silent. Shame, they say, can be louder than drums. That season, the village stopped arguing about distant miracles and started harvesting what was within reach. As quietly as it came, hunger left, like an unwanted visitor who knew he had overstayed his welcome.
Nigeria today is that Ezeani where our problems are not always the absence of ideas or resources but the stubborn refusal or lack of political will to pick the fruits hanging right before us.
In development language, “lowest-hanging fruits” are reforms and actions that require relatively modest political will, a little new spending, and existing institutions—but deliver outsized impact quickly.” They are not silver bullets, and they do not replace deep structural reforms. Yet, they buy trust, stabilise society, and create momentum. Three things Nigerian politicians love. So, why are Nigerian governors and their tripled monthly allocation from FAAC not taking advantage of the nation’s size, talent, and natural endowments to score political points while still delivering on development?
Some leaders fear small reforms because they do not look “big” enough. They prefer the ones that require big ribbons. Our governors prefer the flyovers, roads and bridges so they can invite their colleague governors and walk them up and down the roads and bridges. Not that there is something wrong with cutting ribbons on long bridges but we can also walk five governors through dozens of hectares of cassava plantation, or even okro.
I have driven almost an hour through a cassava plantation before. It was so big, my fuel gauge was blinking yellow. Yes, it was that massive. And what is even more impressive, it belonged to one man, just one farmer called Niji Lucas. He planted, he processed and exported. One man desired to do all that and did it, employing dozens.
How come no government has thought of it with all the budgets the state ministries have spent every year, for five decades? Let us not even mention the Federal Ministry of Agriculture through the years. All we see are agbada in every colour at budget presentations. The governors go to their State Assemblies for the budget ritual every year, yet they cannot plant cassava. All we get is earful of long and big figures of how much they will spend on us. May the Lord forgive some of their sins.
The cassava species I plant, yes this little girl is a farmer, is harvested after one year. Just 12 months. There are species ripe for harvests in six months, even. Now, imagine one governor planting 100 hectares of cassava? Imagine the amount of people he will employ: from farmhands to Engineers to Agromists. Think of the number of women who will work there, young Nigerians, old Nigerians. Imagine a new community that will be built and the opportunities for bricklayers and carpenters. Even I will go there and build farmhouses and collect rent. Madam Landlady will only join that level of the value chain. My lashes, nails and wig will all be able to thrive there. Don’t laugh. The point here is, a farm settlement will provide more jobs than you think. It will decongest the urban centres faster than any other sector of the economy.
Now, let us go to the point that is agitating your mind. Security. The farms are not secure. Nigeria is no longer secure. The farmers will be abducted. Our harsh and sad reality. Do we all agree that not all the 36 states are so unsafe that we cannot plant anything? Do we all agree that we all still travel certain distances by road, in spite of our fears of abduction? Or are we all going to run abroad to live with our Japa children, all of us?
Was it not taking the easy way out that got us here? This is a country endowed enough to feed the world. The low-hanging fruits were and are still there, but our leaders were and are still climbing the iroko tree to look for what is not lost. Was it not the unoccupied, untrained, uneducated, unemployed children of yesterday that are today’s terrorists? Will they just disappear, this league of terrorists, by Nigeria doing the same things and expecting different outcomes? Will this headache be cured by running around the problems in circles?
A governor that decides to try out a corn or cassava project will even have something to showcase in 100 days. I know so. Google the images of a 100-day-old 100 hectares of corn. I just did. Take the media there with their cameras. Don’t go without the big talk show hosts and columnists. Go with the social media influencers. Then sit back and see that what a road commissioning can do, a cassava farm can do better.
Citizens experience development in small ways and that is the truth.
Small wins build trust, reduce anger, buy time for deeper, bigger reforms.
A government that harvests low-hanging fruits creates the political capital needed to climb higher branches.
So, what is stopping Nigeria from picking these fruits?
It is not ignorance and it not lack of money alone. The real obstacles are elite comfort with dysfunction.
‘Bamubamu ni mo yo, emi o mo p’ebi npomo enikankan.’
‘Me, I am well fed, I do not care about my hungry neighbours. ‘
That is how we got here. Fat cats whose palm kernels were cracked by political gods who prefer to flaunt their wealth rather than spread it? They rub the noses of the hungry neighbours in their posh and lush living. The ‘blessed’ believe somehow that there would be no consequences for ‘chopping alone.’ The rumbling stomachs of the poor gave them different instructions and they followed them, into crime, rituals into the forests
If we are going to stop more hungry people from answering the calls of the gods of evil, we must speedily, with ‘automatic alacrity’ go for the low-hanging fruits and easy gains.
There is also the need to ensure that those who shortchange Nigerians pay for it. And I do not mean send them to jail. That is a long topic I wrote about years ago but we will revisit it soon. There must be consequences for failure.
Politics that rewards noise over results is demeaning and must stop, too. Let’s focus.
History has shown that when even a few leaders choose discipline over drama, progress follows.
Conclusion: Back to the iroko tree
The village in the folktale did not become prosperous by inventing new trees. It simply stopped ignoring the fruits already ripe. Nigeria does not need to reinvent development. We need to practise it.
The lowest-hanging fruits are waiting: in classrooms, clinics, councils, farms, and files gathering dust. The question is not whether they exist. The question is whether those in power are finally ready to stretch out their hands.
Development, after all, is not always about climbing higher. Sometimes, it is about bending down and picking what has been there all along.
The views expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not of Law & Society Magazine.
