Growing up, I often heard older folks say, “know your onions”. We took that figuratively, no one took it literally.
Just like being worth your salt, or being worth your weight in gold.

To know your onions means to know your value. To know what you bring to the table. It means to have self-worth, not to settle for less.

All of that flipped in 2020. With all Nigeria has been through this year, we were blessed to not have to go through any natural disasters.
The locust that ravaged some parts of Africa didn’t get here, same with the murder hornet that threatened Asia, Europe and America. Yet…

Yet, by November, the price of onions in the market has skyrocketed astronomically. It got so severe that bitcoin investors were wishing they had invested in onions farming and trading instead.

In the same year when a security guard gets to take the temperature of a medical doctor and based on that decide if he can come in or gets rushed to the hospital, we should have known that everything is possible.
When suya is being sold without onions, and people have no option but to accept it, then you know that truly, water done pass garri.

I wish this uncomfortable period will have encouraged more people to go into farming, but with the recent killing of 43 people by Boko-haram (according to the government, over 90 according to the perpetrators), this is highly unlikely.

The fact that a government spokesman’s response to this dastard and repugnant incident is that “the people didn’t seek the army’s permit before going to their farms“, tells us that those to save us actually do not care. Or feel.

Lots of farmers are skipping out on their first and in some cases second planting season in a row. Newcomers, crowd-funded and with millions of Naira of investment are being forced to pull out too.
Yet the president keeps talking about the youths going into agriculture. How do you go to farm knowing it might cost you your head?

I hope this is the last time we experience onions scarcity, but the logical part of me tells me otherwise.
On a final note, know your onions. And know its market value too.

Wilson Joshua is a Video Editor, Content Creator, and Creative Writer.
Follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. @IJOSWIL

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