Even, when some of the broad outlines of history appear to repeat themselves, on the whole nothing remains the same. Mankind has been repeating many errors made in the past since recorded history. Africans are the most backward people on earth because we hardly wrote our own history. We waited for Europeans to start writing our history for us. And, now in Nigeria, history has been removed from the school curriculum. That will guarantee that future generations will fall into the same traps as we.

I want to extend my greatest gratitude to Captain Roosa for caring about Nigeria more than our leaders apparently do. I don’t cry over rubber because it represents several opportunities lost in this country. In my short span of life, I have been closely associated with at least four crops – two food and two cash crops – which if grown to the limit of our collective abilities could make our squabble over crude oil revenue disappear.

The Malaysian proverb was offered to Nigerians at the second Nigerian Economic Summit in Abuja by the Guest Lecturer, a Malaysian, who had worked on that nation’s Vision 2020 programme. Unlike the two fraudulent Nigerian versions – VISION 2010 and VISION 2020 – the speaker made it clear that Malaysia, which was already light years ahead of Nigeria, planned to achieve the objectives of VISION 2020 in a generation – defined as thirty years.

The first part of this series on cassava bread appeared on Monday last week; it could not have come at a better time. On Wednesday, June 11, 2012, after the Federal Executive Council, FEC, meeting, the Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, announced that President Goodluck Jonathan had approved two major incentives aimed at encouraging the production of cassava in the country.

As a demonstration of personal preference for cassava bread, the President is in order. And as the transient occupant of Aso Rock, he and Mrs Jonathan can eat whatever they choose. But, it is a grave error to mistake what is a personal preference for a sound national food policy. It is almost certain that cassava bread, as staple in the Presidency, will not outlast Jonathan himself.