Why They Give You Rice When You Cry
Saraka. The word is not originally Nigerian; it travelled here on the same currents as other things. In its pure form, Saraka (or Sadaqa) is the Islamic duty of almsgiving, a practice our enslaved ancestors in the Americas kept alive by shaping sweet rice cakes to give to children.
The priests and pastors stole the word. They use it as a “good luck charm” called Tsaraka, a practice well-documented among the Hausa speaking people and increasingly adopted in Nigerian religious practice.
The political class has turned it into a perverted ritual. They steal and hoard the nation’s wealth until the people cry out in pain. Then, they pay for protection with the stolen wealth. They use the people’s own stolen money as the sacrifice to buy good fortune from the spirits they fear. They turn the people into the sacrifice. The “rice” is not food. It is a sigil of obedience.
When a politician distributes rice, they are not feeding you. They are performing a ritual of impoverishment. They are saying: “I have taken the land. I have emptied the treasury. But I have the power to give you this single grain. Now, you must vote for me/support me/worship me to get the next one.”
The ‘rice’ is the material form of their binding contract. It is the leash held by a master who has stolen the dog’s own food bowl.
When we were children Christians were admonished not to eat the sacrificial food of the pagans. This rice is the sacrificial food.
This morning they and their pastors sit with looks of piety interpreting a Bible they do not understand about a God they do not fear.
But the ancient GODS, the ones they worship at midnight when they think we are sleeping, and our ancestors, are not dead, they are not silent, they are not bound.
They are witnesses. And your hunger is not a debt. It is evidence.
My name is Lesley Agams and today is Sunday, Orie, 14 June 2026 YOML 12695. At Least
#onceuponatimeinumuaka #mzagams #naijabynature #nigeria #NigeriaDecides2027 #BAT
