Interview With… is a Zikoko weekly series that explores the weird and interesting lives of inanimate objects and non-human entities.
Food is an important part of our lives. We need food to survive. But despite the good work it does, Food has been accused of a grave crime by Nigerian men who believe that Food is responsible for their relationship problems.
Today on Interview With, we decided to speak with Food to find out how it feels about this allegation.
Zikoko: It’s great to have you here.
Food: [Yawns] Thank you for inviting me to talk.
You sound tired. Is everything good?
Food: I want to lie and say I’m fine, but believe me, I am far from being fine. With everything that I am currently passing through, “fine” is not a word I can use to describe how I feel.
That’s concerning. What are you going through? Care to share?
Food: Is that a rhetorical question?
As in?
Food: You are a Nigerian and you are asking what I am going through. My dear, I am going through a severe condition called Nigeria.
The symptoms are even more serious than COVID. And this is the worst part, you don’t know you have it until you leave the country or something happens that opens your eyes to your condition.
But you didn’t travel out of the country, did you?
Food: Even if I didn’t, I have siblings that are abroad and their lives are not this difficult. They are not scarce or expensive, they are just there, doing good for humanity. But see me here, ordinary lockdown and some people carried cartons of Indomie and went to hide them underground.
What kind of generational hunger will affect you so bad that you will think to hide Indomie with padlock and key? Indomie that they are selling one for ₦50.
Don’t judge them. Remember Indomie used to be two for ₦50…
Food: Zikoko, please, let me judge them. You people should stop waiting for God to judge things on judgement day. My body is peppering me right now.
You say we should not judge them, but now Nigerian men have become bold. Tell me, when will the judgement begin?
Wait oh. What did Nigerian men do? How did they enter the equation?
Food: Let me adjust my bumbum properly on this chair so I can fully curse the curse I have in my head.
Please, we don’t use to curse in our office. You don’t know which angel is passing.
Food: Then tell the angel to wear a bonnet so their head will not carry a curse that does not belong to them.
Ah, this thing pained you really bad oh.
Food: If it’s you, will it not pain you? You are on your own, feeding people and doing the good that you came to this life to do, and some people are out there saying you are the one that destroyed their relationship.
I am an ordinary pot of stew, Femi. How did I destroy your romantic relationship with Chisom?
Not Femi again. What is wrong with this guy?!
Food: No, no, no. It’s not only Femi oh, it’s like 80% of Nigerian men. Femi is just the go-to name for transfer of aggression. And frankly, they deserve it. 62% of Femis will serve all forms of affliction. You will think you are dating them, but you realise that they are a community tap, and you are just one of the people they are releasing water for.
But wait first. How do you know these numbers? What is the source of your statistics?
Food: I made it up in my head.
Um, statistics doesn’t work that way—
Food: Isn’t that how Nigerian men also make up numbers to support whatever they have said? Leave me, let me practice my Nigerian men audacity, please.
Oh, so it’s tit for tat now…
Food: I’m not tit for tat-ing anything with Nigerian men, abeg. They should enter their kitchen and learn how to cook me before they come out and do tit for tat.
Look, Nigerian men may lack everything, but they have two things in abundance. Number one is audacity. The audacity of Nigerian men is like crude oil: it is a natural resource.
So what is the second thing they have in abundance?
Food: Hunger. Ah, the way Nigerian men demand food, you would think they were sent out of heaven without food.
Not all men…
Food: I said what I said, please. Are Nigerian men possessed with the spirit of hunger? I have every reason to believe they are.
Tell me, why else will you see a man coming online to say he cannot marry a woman that cannot cook for him?
Oga, maybe you should worry about the poverty will cook your destiny before you worry about that plate of concoction rice you want to direct inside your mouth.
No, but—
Food: But what? A man that cannot make pap is coming to demand for Afang soup. First of all, where are your fangs?
Not you dropping bars. Come through, Nicki Minaj from Calabar!
Food: Learn to cook, they will say no, men don’t belong to the kitchen. Okay now. When hunger strikes you like thunder, we will see if you will not collect visa and become a citizen of that kitchen.
I—
Food: Sorry I’m ranting. This has just been a lot for me. I bottled it inside and sais I would not talk, but each time someone comes and says I am the reason why his feminist girlfriend has chosen to flog him with the whip of hunger, I boil internally. Like, I am nothing but a bag of raw rice. How can I be the cause of your tribulation?
We should all be feminists.
Food: And even with all of this, there are those women who will come and say, “Me I can cook oh.” A man can post, “Oh, I cannot marry a woman who cannot grind with stone,” and you will see a number of women in the comments section posing with their family grinding stone.
Like, my good sis, I love you and I want you to want better for yourselves. Even if you will bring out grinding stone, let it be because you want to treat your tastebuds specially, not because Femi from Obalende wants to eat fresh stew. The only thing Femi can cook is two packets of underground Indomie with carrots and sausages. Tell him to make four packets and you will eat pepper soup noodles that will purge you for three days straight.
This is a lot.
Food: I had to let it out. Sorry.
But what is the way out of all of this?
Food: Hunger. That’s the only way out.
Ahan, did you not just say Nigerian men are suffering from a case of chronic hunger?
Food: Yes. And that hunger is the solution. Let women arise in all nations and peg their boyfriends with the plug of hunger. We will see if men will not enter the kitchen then. They will watch cooking videos on YouTube and emerge as a new creature.
Right now, they are fighting to become the generation of men who will cross their legs while their wife is in the kitchen, slaving away to prepare fresh stew for their man. And I will not open my two eyes and let that happen.
Hmm. Any other advice for the women?
Food: Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the Nigerian man, walketh about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.
But what about the men who know how to cook? Any advice for them?
Food: Therefore, my beloved brethren who know how to cook, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of preparing food, forasmuch as ye know that your labour in the kitchen is not in vain.
Hian.
[Food rolls out]
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