Chukuku, a community in Abuja where frying Akara is taboo

The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) is a home to all Nigerian citizens from diverse cultural background. However, in spite of the aura of elegance and modernity that surround the fast-growing capital city, there are  indigenous communities in FCT who are not swallowed and still retain their age-long culture and identity. CLEMENT IDOKO and ADETOLA BADEMOSI write that frying akara otherwise known as bean cake, a delicacy best eaten with garri, bread or pap, remains a taboo in Chukuku community.

A S it is with many traditions in African communities where myths and taboos are common phenomena, so is Chukuku, a traditional Gwari community located between Gwagwalada and Kiyi village of Kuje Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.

The rustic village can easily pass for a slum in FCT. It lacks all forms of social amenities, apart from electricity that the indigenes of the community described as “erratic”, Chukuku has nothing to show that it is one of the host communities of the nation’s capital city.

Chukuku, which is about fifteen minutes drive from the major town of Gwagwalada, from the popular Wazobia Park, has no good road networks, portable water, police station, senior secondary school among others and most of the indigenes live in clusters of mud houses roofed with old corrugated iron sheets.

In fact, if you are driving or riding a commercial motorcycle  into the village, the first agony on arrival is a coat of red clay dust on the wheels and rear of your car or on your eye lashes if on motorcycle. You need to also have a duster or an extra handkerchief to dust off the red coating on your clothes because the roads are in bad shape.

The community which is mostly inhabited by the traditional Gbagyi people, has a mixture of other tribes such as the Yorubas, Igbos, Hausas, among others, who are highly industrious  with farming  as their major occupation. The culture of the traditional Gbagyi women carrying loads on their shoulders is also intact as the reporters observed many of such women returning from farms with woods loaded in gourds and held firmly on their shoulders.

Interestingly, the men also take their time off after a day’s hard work to relax on kegs of palm wine under cool shade provided by trees planted in the village. A guide of the Nigerian Tribune crew simply known as Sule, took the reporters to some of such joints where fresh palm wine and peppered kpomo (hides and skin) were sold with people drinking and eating with an aura of enjoyment around them. Both the young and old men gather to unwind and discuss the issues of the day at such a spot.

However, a major source of attraction to the village is the myth that the community forbids frying of akara otherwise known as beans cake, a delicacy in most part of Nigeria. Many women are engaged in the business of frying and selling of akara in cities and localities to eke out a living. But in Chukuku, this is a taboo.

We spoke with the Community Secretary, Muhammed D. Sarki Tsugbaza and he said the myth was true and that the instruction was handed down by the community’s forefathers. He, however, could not give reason for the ban on frying of bean cake in the community.

He clarified that eating of akara was not forbidden in the village but said what was a taboo was for anyone to put a fry-pan on fire within the community to bake the cake. He said it was a delicacy eaten and sold in the community but no one was permitted to fry the akara there.

Tsugbaza said: “Truly, we learned from our forefathers who founded this village, that people are not allowed to fry akara in this community and then we asked them, they said that their forefathers gave the instruction. They didn’t explain to them the reason for it. We also believe that since  our forefathers said that they did not know the reason and we cannot lie, truly we don’t know the reason”.

Some other sources, however, said the ban on akara frying was associated with esoteric belief that witches and wizards use the oil used for the frying of cake to perpetrate evil. It was also gathered that witches and wizards used the smoke coming out from the frying of akara to move in to attack people at night.

The reporters had to speak with the community secretary after the two attempts to speak  directly with the village chief, Mallam Jibril Sarki failed. He mandated the secretary to speak on his behalf even though, the chief would have required an interpreter because he could not speak English.

When asked on the consequences of breaking this age-long tradition, the community scribe said it was not the ascribing any punishment to people but that everybody grew up with the consciousness that the tradition could not be wilfully desecrated.

He added that there was no record of anyone found to have gone against the myth since the creation of the village. He reiterated  that eating of bean cake was not forbidden but baking it within the community was the taboo.

He said: “If someone dares to do it, we are not the one to punish the person but whatever you see, you caused it for yourself.  We don’t have anything to do about it. In this community, I have never seen anybody who fries akara, but we eat it.  If you want to eat it,  you can go to Gwagwalada or anywhere and buy and bring it and even sell  just that we don’t fry. If you go to Gwagwalada, fry and bring it here to sell, we will buy. But we don’t know the reasons why our forefathers said they did not want people to fry it.”

A middle-aged woman seen selling tubers of yams when confronted with the question of the taboo since akara baking is more of their occupation, said she was not worried because there were other things to do to make money. “I’m selling yams. This is my business; if you want to buy, you buy. It’s our culture, I can’t talk on that.”

On the poor state of the community, Tsugbaza decried the challenges faced by the villagers especially that of good road network. According to him, the none availability of good roads is impacting negatively on farming activities of the indigenes as this hampers the transportation of farm produce to town.

He said:”We don’t have good roads. You saw the type of road through which you came into the community and we don’t have roads to our farms to carry our farm crops to the market to sell. We are suffering here because if there is no good road, your farm produce will remain in the bush.We are basically into farming.

Legend has it that Chukuku community evolved from three great forefathers namely: Etsu Demo, Etsu Faji and Etsu Bayedaza who were hunters and had lived under a hill referred to as old Chukuku. It was gathered that Etsu Demo, who was the eldest of the three siblings, moved to the present day Chukuku after surveying the land and discovered that it was fertile for farming activities.

The community secretary buttressed this oral history when he revealed that the indigenes of Chukuku were predominantly farmers of various crops such as yam, guinea corn, rice, soya beans and millet both for subsistence and in commercial quantity.

He also lamented that in spite of the proximity of the community to the FCT, it had no pipe-borne water or public boreholes to alleviate the water challenges in the community. He further disclosed that most of the boreholes sunk in the community were privately owned and if you do not have money how do you buy water everyday?”, he asked rhetorically.

The secretary said even though the community had a river but it was contaminated with all sorts of toxic waste by riverine people. He said people defecated, washed clothes in the flowing water.

He said: “There is river here but it is not good. For instance, there are  people that are up there, they have fowl poultry. If the fowls are dead, they throw them into the  river, we cannot drink it. That is why we are suffering for water. It is like poison, that is why we cannot drink the water again. We are poor citizens. Those who have money to dig boreholes collect money from people, so we want government to assist us by digging boreholes for us.”

He also called on the Federal government to accelerate the building of a police station for the community, noting that land was already allocated by the community to the government for that purpose but said nothing had been done in that regard. He said because of the security concerns, the community was making its own effort to raise fund for the construction of the station.

One other challenge, he said was the absence of a senior secondary school in the community. He disclosed that Chukuku with its large population had no senior secondary school.

He said the community had a public primary and a junior secondary school but in dire need of a senior secondary school for the indigenes to be properly educated while also calling for even distribution of electricity with more transformers to the area.