Eid al-Adha in Nigeria: ‘We have never experienced a year like this’
Coronavirus-linked price hikes made celebrating the Islamic holiday difficult this year
By Kevwe Okporua. Photos: Damilola Onafuwa
In Nigeria when Eid (or Sallah as it is called locally) comes around, it is usually marked by the scent of cooking wafting through narrow streets, coming from blackened pots perched atop smouldering firewood brimming with jollof rice and meat. There’s often excitement in the air — from the murmurs of excited children showing off their best clothes, and the jolly chatter of extended families and neighbours visiting each other to share food. This year, the four-day festival, which ended on 3 August, was different.
In Kano, the capital of Kano State, the commercial nerve centre of northern Nigeria with 4 million, mostly Muslim, residents, the streets show no sign of the colourful festivities usually associated with Sallah celebrations.
With nearly 46,500 confirmed cases at the time of writing, Nigeria has the highest number of COVID-19 infections in West Africa. The country’s federal and state-level authorities have rolled out measures to contain the spread of the disease.
“We have never experienced this type of year,” says 80-year-old Rukkaya Umar. “God knows we’ve never experienced it.” Her meagre income selling soup spices disappeared because of lockdown. This left her unable to celebrate Sallah as she would have liked to.
It is traditional for Muslims to sacrifice a ram, a goat or a cow and to share the meat with family, friends and those in need during Eid al-Adha, which commemorates the of willingness of Ibrahim (Abraham) to sacrifice his son when God ordered him to — the prophet’s son was spared and a ram was killed instead.
Due to rising prices caused, in part, by movement restrictions to combat the coronavirus pandemic, livestock prices have risen in line with those of other sources of food.
“Things were tough with Sallah this year,” says Huawa, a 33-year-old teacher in Kano. “Last year you could buy a ram for 25,000 Nigerian naira [US$65] but now the price is between US$155 and US$182, so it has been very hard. Lots of people cannot afford to buy one.”
In Lagos, nearly 1,000 km south of Kano, rams are around 30 percent more expensive than they were a year ago. Fatimoh, who lives in Makoko, Nigeria’s largest floating slum, is left to reminisce about past celebrations.
“I enjoyed cooking and having people around to share our food with us, but now I don’t have the money to slaughter a ram,” says 60-year-old Fatimoh. “With the coronavirus, everything has become expensive and we basically eat whatever we can come by.” A widow, she supports her family by selling cooked rice from the canoe she rows around the heavily-populated and noisy waters of the neighbourhood.
Despite the challenges, she is happy to be in good health. “I don’t have any special food to celebrate Sallah with, but what’s important is that I’m alive and I pray that I remain alive,” says Fatimoh.
For Sarimotu, an ideal Sallah would mean a trip to Cotonou in the neighbouring Republic of Benin to be with her extended family. Many from Makoko make this journey annually to commemorate with their families and friends.
“All my siblings have travelled home to celebrate — if I had the money, I would have taken my children,’’ says Sarimotu.
But not only can she not afford to travel right now, she’s barely been able to feed her seven children since the death of her husband three months ago.
Sarimotu casts a sad gaze at her three-year-old twin daughters playing on the wooden floor of her house. In a sign of the happy festival that should have been, the children are wearing brightly coloured party dresses.
“There has been nothing to eat or drink and I don’t have anyone to help me,” says Sarimotu, who is heavily pregnant with her eighth child. “My children have only just had their breakfast at this late time of day. All they have to eat today is garri [dried cassava].”
Sarimotu rubs her swollen belly as she explains that the coronavirus pandemic also means she’s lost her small business selling jewellery at the market. Now she has no income to buy food.
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is scaling up its assistance to reach 3 million people in Nigeria including an expansion to support Government social protection systems in the cities of Abuja, Kano and Lagos where COVID-19 threatens to drive extreme levels of vulnerability.
WFP food and cash distribution in August will focus on assisting vulnerable people in urban hotspots that are hardest hit by the socio-economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
