In Lagos, Agege bread still basks in the limelight

A type of bread popularly called Agege bread has over the years assumed a regular space in the hearts – and stomachs – of Lagosians. The loaf occupies a position on the daily menu of residents, cutting across the socio-economic strata. Why does it appeal so widely? Daily Trust sought to find out. To many […]

A type of bread popularly called Agege bread has over the years assumed a regular space in the hearts – and stomachs – of Lagosians. The loaf occupies a position on the daily menu of residents, cutting across the socio-economic strata. Why does it appeal so widely? Daily Trust sought to find out.

To many residents in Lagos State, no day is complete without an Agege bread meal, especially when it is eaten with Ewa Aganyin, a special beans pottage, a delicacy made mostly by Togolese women resident in Lagos and in some parts of Ogun State, and which also enjoys wide consumption. Then, not to forget, Agege bread is again in the limelight, thrown into national prominence courtesy of Olajumoke Orisaguna, an Agege bread hawker who fortune has smiled upon through an accidental photo-shoot by popular photographer TY Bello. Suddenly, everybody is talking about how an ordinary loaf, consumed mostly by the ordinary Nigerian, could have gained so much fame, becoming something of a brand. What is in a name? Or, more succinctly, what is in the Agege bread name?
Agege, an old town then in Western Nigeria and now a disorderly and unplanned one in Lagos State, was once famous for the busy train station it hosted when there was sanity in Nigeria’s railway system. Massively populated by traders from Northern Nigeria, Agege was a major entrepôt for commerce, and the train station served it well in bringing goods like groundnuts, leather, tomatoes and other vegetables, grains and Kulikuli, a type of cracker made from groundnuts.
As the railway mode of transportation in Nigeria gradually deteriorated from the early 1990s, the volume of commerce in Agege began to nosedive with it. Also disappearing was the daily grind of train wheels at the railway crossing gate, just a stone’s throw from the popular Pen Cinema. As the activities of the Nigerian Railway Corporation officials at the railway crossing began to peter out, a new pattern of activity became noticeable around the axis. On the shoulders of the road that traverses the railway tracks, small-scale traders began to take positions to eke out a living. Among these traders, a particular group began to stand out. On both shoulders of the road would be seen long lines of tables trading a panoply of loaves, always looking fresh. And because the axis gradually grew into a commercial centre of sorts for mainly bread purchase, the ‘Agege bread’ title gradually became solidified, practically a singsong.
The vantage location of the Agege bread trading hub helped in enhancing huge sales and advancing the brand’s fame – and appeal. For thousands of people who live and work in many of the suburbs of Lagos State, and in Ogun State where many people who work in Lagos State actually reside, the Pen Cinema-Railway line road is the access point.  So, daily, thousands of people, vehicular and pedestrian, traverse the road, with many of them taking to their workplaces or home, a loaf or more of the now-famous Agege bread.
As the brand gained more popularity, many young girls, and even middle-aged women, took to hawking Agege bread, now not restricted to the Agege area alone, but virtually throughout Lagos State, but advertising their loaves as “Agege bread”. Aforementioned Olajumoke was, for instance, shot hawking Agege bread in Surulere, an organized part of the Lagos metropolis, many kilometres from the actual Agege.
Initially, too, most of the bakeries that began churning out Agege bread were located around the Agege area. But any loaf now produced anywhere in Lagos State will pass for Agege bread. Those who started the initiative in Agege seemed, however, to have set a standard to follow in flavour, as the Agege bread bought anywhere in Lagos would appear to have the same taste: moderate sugar, and so much freshness.
Consumers of Agege bread attest to its agreeable taste on the tongue, and say it blends well with stew, beans pottage, margarine and a good dunk into a mug of beverage like tea or hot cocoa.
Adebayo Jimoh, 49, is a baker who claims to have been baking Agege bread for 25 years, and he told Daily Trust the nitty-gritty of the famous loaf’s baking process. “It is made from flour, mixed with other dry and liquid ingredients, usually combined with a leavening agent, kneaded and shaped into loaves and baked. The bread is a regular white loaf, baked from flour, margarine (often baking fat), sugar, yeast and little water. It is known for its toughness, too. It is yeasty, has a hard outer brownish layer and a white soft inner part that is a little on the sticky side.”
To Jimoh, however, the allure of the business is fading as rising cost of production eats substantially into profits. “The business is lucrative but the cost of ingredients used in producing the bread has increased due to the high exchange rate. The money I spend on daily production has increased by N17,000, which has reduced my profit margin. I have not regretted going into the business, though. I do sell bread to people within and outside Lagos.”
An Agege bread hawker, who called herself Iya Maryam, told Daily Trust that she has been selling bread for the past 20 years, and the business has been worth the sweat.
Another hawker called Iya Kemi said she has been selling Agege bread for the past 15 years. She has been able to apply proceeds from the business to train three of her children to the university. “The bread is good and its consumers appreciate it. It holds hunger at bay longer than other loaves. I have customers who always buy it and send it to their relatives outside Nigeria,” she stated.
Lateefat Salisu, an indigene of Kogi State, said she has been selling Agege bread for the past four years and she has had no cause to regret venturing into the trade. One of her customers, Taiwo Adetayo, said he has been eating the bread for over 10 years. “It’s tasty, healthy, pocket-friendly and gives me the desired satisfaction,” he quipped.
Another patron, Segun Ariyo, says he eats it at least thrice a week because of its “unique taste”. As Agege bread enjoys the latest wave of limelight, one thing stands out: It has always had appeal.