A short defence of ofada rice.

If you have eaten ofada once and walked away unconvinced, the rice was almost certainly wrong. The grain you wanted was Abakaliki — short, brown, slightly nutty, faintly fermented from the threshing floor. The grain you got was probably Thai, dyed by stew.

We met three growers at Mile 12 last Tuesday. The cheapest of them quoted ₦1,200 per kilo. The same kilo, washed and bagged in Lekki, sells for ₦4,800. The middle is mostly empty.