THE KPOMOR BANK OF NIGERIA



He took a deep breath, plastered on a smile, and stepped to the podium. Lights. Cameras. Action.
He had missed this, the flashing-bulbs, missed it for all of three weeks. But now, he was back. And coming back hadn’t been easy. He had to devise a plan. A big plan. And now they were about to hear it: The Kpomor Plan.

It wasn’t really a Kpomor plan seeing as it wasn’t a plan for Kpomor, but a plan against Kpomor. A plan to eradicate Kpomor, not totally, but from the plates of consumers. And it was a good plan for five-minutes on primetime TV, wasn’t it?

The Kpomor —sorry, Anti-Kpomor plan —was simple enough. The Nigerian Leather Industry —Nigeria does have a leather industry, doesn’t it? —well, whatever… The Industry has suffered immensely at the hands of Kpomor sellers. Oh, the atrocity these lot have committed, the ways they have ripped off from the nation’s purse by selling Kpomor —low-cost non-meat —to the Nigerians who would like very much to have chicken, turkey, and beef, but cannot because these are part of a fairly-expensive dietary-plan; and for those Nigerians who while they can have some beef, turkey and chicken still need to supplement with low-cost non-beef for aesthetics, health reasons, or out of necessity.

But this was a plan, this was THE plan. A plan that could actually work because hey presto, it wouldn’t require government funding.

All the other doomed projects had failed because they were too ambitious —they required a few billions of public funds, which were sealed in the private bank accounts of government officials —so there was no way they could have worked. But this, his plan; this was genius. And he was going to leave his footprints in the sands of time, leave his mark like branding on cow hide, like none of his predecessors had done. He was going to be THE Minister for Agriculture whom everyone would talk about for a long time —three weeks tops, before he would need to hatch another plan for his next TV appearance.

He had it all worked out in his head. And he relayed the plan to the press, the idea of it —a shadow of it, or was it the whole of it? This was history being made. This was an ideology, a movement. He was like Karl Max. He was championing the cause of the Nigerian Leather Industry, existent or not. He was going to become a legend.

“Don’t you think there are more pressing agricultural needs, Mr. Honourable?” A reporter asked. She was sitting in the third-row and he couldn’t quite make out her face in the overbright light.

She should lose her job. He was an Honourable Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

The reporter seemed to be very unaware of this though, as she pressed: “What about the pyramids of Kano, which have long disappeared? What are you plans to restore Nigeria back to it’s days of glory in the agricultural sector? Do you realise that Malaysia is now the highest exporter of oil-palm in the world? And that Nigeria is one of the biggest consumers of their bleached palm-oil products, more fondly known as vegetable oil? Do you even realise that Nigeria had gifted Malaysia with the oil-palm with which the latter had, only a few years later, become number one oil-palm exporter in the world? What can you say about this?

“And about cocoa-production in Nigeria… You do realise it’s dwindling, don’t you? What is government doing about this? Have they set any plans in place to explore the several products, medicinal and otherwise, that can be sourced from cocoa?”

The Minister felt a vein tick in his temple, completely flustered.

“All I know” he said tightly, “is that Kpomor has been banned. And once the laws are in place, anyone who’s found with Kpomor will face criminal prosecution.

“A task-force is being banded together, right now as we speak. And their job would be to enforce the outlawing of Kpomor. So that way we can keep Kpomor off the streets, and still provide employment for young Nigerians.”

There! He shut them up. He had—

“Minister, sir, has the government put any infrastructure in place for the processing of all the hide that would be coming in now from non-consumption of Kpomor? You do realise that without this, the banning of Kpomor would be a lot like putting the cart before the horse, and even the horseman?”

“All I can tell you is that Kpomor is banned” the Minister repeated.

“So about the banning of Kpomor, what should Nigerians do with the hide they cannot now consume? Is the government going to establish a Kpomor Bank where all of these hide can be stashed —deposited? —and if so, would there be some sort of incentive —monetary or otherwise —for these Nigerians giving up all that Kpomor they might as well eat?

“Sir? Can you hear me, sir? Honourable Minister?”

But the Minister wasn’t listening. His mind was faraway, relishing in future glories. Unbeknown to the last reporter, he had just furnished the Minister of Agriculture with his next bright idea. A Kpomor bank. Glorious.

He could see the signs in the streets. The bank buildings by the main-roads, big bold kpomor-ish letters reading: KPOMOR BANK OF NIGERIA!

Glorious!