Aramanda Okunrin

When Kande Garba returned to Katsit village in northern Nigeria nine years ago, she expected to earn more growing ginger than her husband brought home as a technician in a textile company in Kaduna city. After all, Katsit was known for ginger and the crop was in demand. Similarly, John Umaru was not worried when he, too, returned to the village after cutbacks by his employer, the Kaduna state government. He was sure ginger farming would bring in more income than he had received as a primary school teacher.

For far too long we’ve relied on others to tell us our stories South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) [1] Introduction Apart from Egypt which had employed the use of hieroglyphics, the Ethiopeans’ Kushite civilisation, most of Africa had no known record of written documentation. Though some had some form of coding system, such as the Yoruba of Western Nigeria, this still relied a lot on oral tradition in which some individuals were entrusted with memorisation of verses, history, songs and myths, as in Ifa priests. The arrival of Europeans and Arabs however changed the form of documentation. “Upon the arrival of the Europeans in the fifteenth century, came written historical accounts in Portuguese, Dutch, English, French and others” [2] . Much of the written history of Africa therefore was reconstruct made by foreigners. This definitely had its down side. “Arabic accounts were primarily related to religion and criticized 'Pagan" societies, while European sourc...