Feeding plans for Ramadan

He has branched off to the house of the Majority Leader of the State House of Assembly before he comes here. He said I should come ahead of him because he hears that you are planning to travel. That I should come and tell you that before you travel, you should make adequate arrangements for […]

He has branched off to the house of the Majority Leader of the State House of Assembly before he comes here. He said I should come ahead of him because he hears that you are planning to travel. That I should come and tell you that before you travel, you should make adequate arrangements for Ramadan food.”
Smiling all the while, I said, “Which arrangement should I make? After all, during the Ramadan people are not eating or drinking, so what is their problem again?” Tsinin Kusa laughed at my joke, for he knew it was one. Who does not know that the Ramadan period is the costliest time of the year for a Muslim family in this part of the world? It is a paradox, for one would have thought that since people spend most of the day without eating, then their food budget should come down. As a matter of fact it shoots up, astronomically. People eat things during the breaking of fast that they don’t normally eat in their lives. Prices of foodstuff also shoot up every Ramadan, especially fruits.
While those thoughts were crossing my mind, Tsinin Kusa pulled out a long piece of ruled foolscap paper. I could see on it the ugly scrawl of his master Maikaho. Though Maikaho says that he dropped out of secondary school “because my father died and I had to support the family,” some people spread the rumour that he did not even do primary school, that he only attended adult education class. However, he speaks a smattering of English. He can read a paper and he can also write. Half legibly perhaps, but enough to convey his political message, like he did today.
Tsinin Kusa presently handed the paper over to me. It was divided into three sections, and under each section was a long row of essential commodities. “Essenco,” as we used to call them during our days in the civil service. In Maikaho’s paper, the title of section one was “Traditional rulers, title holders and Malams.” Under it, he listed the three emirs in Tafki State. He then listed ten prominent traditional title holders in each emirate. Separately, he listed 32 big Malams in the whole state, divided by their emirates of residence. He then made a list of essenco that should be given to each one of them: rice, corn, millet, sugar, milk, spaghetti, indomie noodles, vegetable oil, palm oil, Lipton tea, washing soap and salt.
The title of section two in Maikaho’s paper was “Political elders.” Under it, he listed between 5 and 10 important political leaders in each of Tafki State’s local government areas. He then made a list of essenco under them similar to the one in section one. Section three of his paper was titled “Youths.” When I reached this section, Tsinin Kusa leaned forward to explain. He said, “You see Alhaji, these youths, unlike the others, most of them have no wives. In fact many of them don’t even have homes. So the best thing for us to do is to arrange for food to be prepared in your house every evening. We will then deliver it to this mosque nearest to your house where the boys will congregate and break their fast with it.”
I could envisage chaos in such an arrangement. This area is GRA; do you want to bring a lot of political thugs into it for breaking of fast? They could fight over the food and disturb my neighbours. I was also thinking of my wives. The way they are not happy with my entering politics, will they want to be cooking food for multitudes every evening when they themselves have been fasting the whole day?  Tsini must have read my mind, the smart Alec that he is, because he said, “Maybe it is difficult to prepare this food in your house. Your wives are used to Abuja cooking; they don’t have very large pots. We can contract someone else to do it. There is one Hajia over at Tudu who does that for other people every Ramadan.”
What kind of food can we serve to all these people? I asked. I spoke too soon. Maikaho had scribbled under this section, “date palms, porridge, akara, jollof rice, white rice, oranges, water melon, pine apple, sachet water, and pieces of meat.” I flipped over the paper and I saw that there is a fourth section at the back which I initially didn’t see. The title of this section was “Alms.” Under it, Maikaho wrote, “street beggars, orphanages, sick people in hospital, stranded travelers, mad people on the street, students, prisoners.” As I was pondering over this section, Maikaho breezed in. He said it was the majority leader of the state assembly and the senator that were both looking for him over the same thing, Ramadan feeding. “You know,” he said, “both of them are also eyeing the governor’s chair.”
I didn’t know that. Still I composed myself and said, “Maikaho, this your paper is too general. You mentioned categories of people and you also listed the types of essenco that we should give them. But you didn’t say in what quantity, much less estimate the total cost.” Maikaho is not the person to be caught off guard. He had already pulled out a cigarette stick and lighted up, saying, “Let us hurry and take our last cigarette before Ramadan comes. What I miss most during Ramadan is not food or water but cigarette. On the first day of one Ramadan some years ago, I forgot that I was fasting and reached for a cigarette. Since that day, my wife takes away the whole pack as soon as the Sultan says the moon has been seen. She only returns the pack to me on Sallah day.” 
He continued, “You said I did not write the total quantity and cost. Well, let me just tell you this. I am just coming from the house of the majority leader. He has ordered three trailer loads of rice, two trailer loads of maize, one lorry two full of sugar and milk and one pick up full of vegetable oil. He also sent this truck called they call dogon baro to buy rams from Tudu market. I think the whole thing cost him about N20m.” I found that my hands were damp with sweat as I held onto Maikaho’s paper.