There is a big concern and uneasiness on breakfast tables of Nigerians due to the rising cost of Akara(fried bean cakes), the popular breakfast snack in Nigeria. “A sharp rise in the prices of beans and peanut oil is making Nigeria’s favorite breakfast snack unaffordable for the country’s poor.” The problem is that the rising “cost of beans, the main ingredient in akara — fried snacks that are sold all over Africa’s most populous nation– jumped 32% in May compared with a year earlier, almost double the headline inflation rate of almost 18%.”
In most Nigerian families especially among the working class, akara is ever present during breakfast. The hunger quenching akara has become a favorite snack in the streets and homes of Nigeria.
The fried beans cakes known as AKARA is one word in the diverse and multi-language Nigeria that everybody recognized. Whether you are in Onitsha, Lagos or Kaduna, akara is a word that needs no interpretation.
The origination of word maybe Yoruba, Ibibio or Igbo it does not matter, for it has become a universal word that cut across cultures and languages in Nigeria.
In the second quarter, Nigerian inflation rate registered officially at above 17 % but in actuality the inflation at monetary base and grassroots is probably above 30%.
The number of families and citizens that cannot boast of three square meals a day are increasing geometrically. Akara, the only snack which average Nigerian can afford is reaching beyond their means showing that the country’s inflation is becoming unbearable.
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