‘Kuli-Kuli’: Trans-tribal delicacy facing extinction

‘Kuli-Kuli’ (groundnut cake) making is a popular and old business in the North, especially in the North West and North Central, but the end users of the multi-purpose delicacy are spread across the country.  According to our findings, the Igbo eat it along with soaked garri and in preparing their soup to make it thick. […]

‘Kuli-Kuli’ (groundnut cake) making is a popular and old business in the North, especially in the North West and North Central, but the end users of the multi-purpose delicacy are spread across the country. 

According to our findings, the Igbo eat it along with soaked garri and in preparing their soup to make it thick. The Yoruba also use it in drinking garri or as an appetizer while the Hausas use it in many preparations such as ‘dattu’ (kwado), kilishi (dry meat) and in eating cooked cassava and sweet potato among others. 

It is learnt, also, that poultry farmers use kuli-kuli in preparing chicken feed.

Kuli-kuli is made from groundnut which is subjected to vigorous processes meant to extract some of it by products, notably groundnut oil, and isolate the tunkuza (the pre-fried kuli-kuli) which is used by kilishi (dry meat) sellers in preparing it among others.

According to the Sokoto State Chief Nutritional Officer, Malam Ali Hamza, kuli-kuli contains nutritional elements such as protein which is for body building, carbohydrate, an energy giver and oil and fat which also give energy.

Kuli-kuli business seems to be common mainly among elderly women as the younger ones cannot withstand its stress because the process of making it is still not mechanised.

Nafisa, a 20-year-old kuli-kuli maker told our reporter that though her’s was hereditary, she would quit as soon as she got married because it is too stressful and hazardous.

She said that she usually exhausts about 50kg of groundnut every two days at high sales period such as during the fasting period but that she used only about 10 measures (mudu) of groundnut at other times.

Asked why she wants to opt out of the business which her family was known for, she said because “it is too physically challenging.”

She said: “We wake up as early as 4am and start processing the groundnut for grinding after which we now put it in a mortar and pound it for hours which enables us to extract the oil and get the tunkuza which we mould into different shapes (ball or flat) and fry to get the kuli-kuli.

“Kuli-kuli work is very cumbersome and stressful. I don’t pray to continue the business after I get married,” she said.

However, Malam Abubakar Umar, a consumer opined that patronage of the product is declining because of the availability of better processed snacks which are more convenient to handle because they are well packaged and preserved, though not as nutritious as kuli-kuli.

Hajiya Hauwa’u Yahya  of Yar Goriba area who is the defacto leader of the Kuli-Kuli Producers Association in Sokoto State, said majority of her members are above 50 years old, an indication that the business is gradually facing extinction.

Hauwa said all the girls she trained left the business after getting married because they could not cope with the hazardous nature of the business as the workers are exposed a lot of heat in the process of making the product.

“The business requires hard work, perseverance and total dedication because it is time consuming and exposes one to a lot of health hazards,” she said.

Hauwa, however, added that the business is profitable as it enabled her train all her four children up to the NCE levels in addition to financially supporting members of her extended family.

She expressed hope for a better job for her children other than kuli-kuli business, saying, “I don’t want them to suffer the way I am suffering now.

“That is why I am taking the pains of training them now so that they would be able to stand on their feet and also support me in old age,” she said.

She appealed to the state government to support the business through training of their members in the use of emerging technologies which she said would ease the difficult processes and make the business attractive to the younger ones.

She also solicited for financial support for the members, recalling that the last support they received was during the administration of Governor Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko.

The Director General of Sokoto State Small and Medium Development Agency, Hajiya Aisha Hassan, said the agency would soon organize product development training for kuli-kuli sellers where they would be trained on market modernization and value enhancement.

“We have to make sure they formalise their product with the Corporate Affairs Commission, NAFDAC and Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON). This is to ensure proper packaging, labelling and market mobilization so that we can take their products in many different shapes and enhanced  taste to many places.

“I assure you, you will see a positive change by next year because we will introduce them to modern machineries that will ease their business in addition to other forms of assistance,” she added.

The Director, Planning, Research and Statistics of the agency, Abubakar Ahmed, said N400 million had been budgeted this year to support female entrepreneurs, including kuli-kuli makers, in addition to other interventions in collaboration with the development partners like USAID and UNIDO aimed at alleviating poverty among the rural women.

The Chief Nutritional Officer, said there are many benefits of kuli-kuli, one of which is in curing malnourished children if other nutrients are added to it.

According to Hamza, this is why the state government is sponsoring a research on kuli-kuli, which they hoped would be adopted into the national nutritional programme.

“The research is aimed at discovering its other nutritional contents and how other essential elements can be added to it so that it can be adopted into the national nutritional programme as a replacement of plumpy nut (ready-to-use therapeutic food) fondly known as RUTF, which is used for curing severely malnourished children that is currently being imported into the country.

“We are hoping the outcome of the research will help end importation of plumpy nuts and save billions of naira for the country. It will also boost groundnut farming and make Nigeria a net exporter of its by products,” he said.