Mr Viral
By Peter Duru, Makurdi
They are known for being the easiest source of affordable and cheap food for many, including artisans, students, traders, civil servants, transporters as well as commercial motorcycles operators popularly known as Okada and other low income earners.
The popular belief is that their presence in the food sector has in no small measure helped in putting food on the table of many, especially while at one’s place of work or business.
And in Benue State, which is known as the “Food Basket of the Nation” you find them in several locations, including popular street junctions, markets, public spaces sometimes close to offices and even the state Secretariat, ensuring that cooked food is readily available at affordable prices for ready buyers.
That is how important food vendors, also known as “Mama Put”, are to meeting the food needs of the majority of the downtrodden who daily rely on their services for survival. For this class of the population, Mamaput sellers have become irreplaceable.
For many in Makurdi the Benue State capital and its environs, Mamaput provides a ready source of cheap and affordable food for the generality of the masses and low income earners. That is why there is always a human traffic wherever Mamaput joint is located.
For as low as N200 in one’s pocket, there is an assurance that the customerS would eat food to their satisfaction. For that amount, the customer can decide to eat a plate of Benue pounded yam, soup and a piece of meat. And for those who prefer rice, corn, yam or cassava flour their choices are even cheaper because the foods are locally produced and in commercial quantities in the state. But pounded yam remains the most preferred delicacy in the state and it is never in short supply as it is grown across the state in large quantities, too.
Even in the remotest villages of Benue State, Mamaput spots provide varieties of cheap cooked food and most customers would even prefer to eat out given the affordability and quantity they dish out per plate.
Most people believe this was actually what earned the state and justifiably so, the appellation “Food Basket of the Nation.” Benue has been synonymous with cheap food and that was the situation in the state until recently when the table turned and the people are suddenly confronted with the sudden price hike of Mamaput delicacies.
Unlike what obtained not quite long ago, the price of a plate of Mamaput which used to be the preferred eatery for the ordinary people in the state, is suddenly going out of the reach of the people.
Findings indicate that a plate of Mamaput food with a small piece of meat in Makurdi and most parts of the state now sell for as high as N1,000, depending on the spot, as against the previous rate of between N200 and N300. The sudden jump in price appears to have dampened the enthusiasm and appetite of Mamput consumers in the state.
A visit to some of the Mamaput spots in Makurdi reveals that unlike before, patronage has also dropped drastically due to the hike in prices.
The development has also left many lamenting their inability to afford the cost of a plate of their delicacy from the Mamaput eateries that hitherto made cheap cooked food available to a large percentage of the populace.
One of those who could not hide their anger and frustration over what has now been termed the ‘outrageous hike in prices of Mamaput’ in Makurdi, is a middle age mason, William Agba, who took a break from his site to munch a plate of pounded yam at a popular neighbourhood Mamaput spot on Vandeikya Street, High Level Makurdi.
Agba, who lamented the sudden hike in the prices of Mamaput foods, noted that the development has forced some of those who patronise the spots to skip meals. He said: “Some of us cannot understand what is happening, particularly those of us that are site workers. Most times we depend on Mamaput to take care of our daily food. And with N200 or N300 one can eat a plate of good food to his satisfaction. But that is not the situation at the moment.
“Now for you to eat and get filled you will spend about N1,000 at Mamaput. What that means is that Mamaput is no more a place for the masses. I cannot understand why this is happening here in Benue where we produced food in large quantity.
“Can you imagine that I just ate a plate of pounded yam without meat and I was asked to pay N800. Formerly N150 or N200 would have been enough for that because yam is not our problem.” A commercial motorcycle operator also known as “Okada”, Jerome Ager, who could not hide his frustration, said: “Maybe they do not want the poor man to exist in this country. The cheapest Mamaput food one can get now goes for N800, and a plate of it will be not fill you. So you are always forced to add half plate to get filled. Mamaput is where we eat cheap food throughout the day as we ply the roads and now see how the price has gone up. They do not want the poor to breathe and eat in this country.”
On her part, a mamaput operator, Awase Abaa, who is known for selling cheap food in town, blamed the high cost of food on astronomical rise in price of farm produce, noting that the price of each plate of food is determined by how much they buy the raw food from the markets.
She said: “We sell a plate of cooked food based on how much we purchase the food items from the market. If we do not do that we will run the business without making small profit.
“I want to give you a simple example on why mamaput is no more like before; before now we used to buy a sizeable tuber of yam for N300 but now that same size of yam is going for as much as 3,000. A bag of ‘Akpu’ that we used to buy for N700 right now goes for as high as N12,000. A bag of corn that was sold for N18,000 now goes for N70,000.
“You can now see our challenge. How do you expect to get cheap food from mamaput with this kind of price increase? And you know that we make our profit from the food and not the soup. So if prices remain the way they are, there is nothing anyone can do about the price of a plate of Mama Put food.”
A farmer of grains, cassava and yam, Mr. Simon Agbasha, who added his voice to the development, acknowledged the effect of declining food production to the price hike at mamaput.
“People are not producing enough because of insecurity in our communities so we do not have food in Benue markets like we used to have in the past. Armed herdsmen keep attacking our communities and those who are supposed to farm and produced to feed the populace have found their way to Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, camps, that is why we are suffering food shortages in the state.
“Again we have the challenge of farmers not being able to properly store their yield due to lack of storage facilities. And at the end of the day aside recording post-harvest losses, the produce would not be in the market after a short period of time because they could not preserve them for continuous sale throughout the year before the next harvest season. The development is affecting the year round supply of farmers produce in the markets across the state which is contributing to the high cost of food in the state that prides itself as the “Food Basket of the Nation”, Agbasha said.
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