Instagram story viewer> @tittle.editorial> Posts

Tittle

@tittle.editorial

96

followers

80

following

The rudder that steers the ship.
Nigeria | History | The People
↓ Read on Substack

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

Happy Independence Day, Nigeria. 🇳🇬
The everyday conversations are often a sign of a larger conversation happening. I recently came across a video by Aproko Doctor where he was "testing" the validity of palm oil that is commonly sold in the market.

And it sparked such a conversation that I could not resist but get into a rabbit hole.

Food economics is one of those places where the ordinary can tell us something much bigger about a country. It touches agriculture, trade, prices, logistics, household welfare, labour, finance and ultimately, what reaches our tables.

How does a country with such a deep history of producing and trading palm oil arrive in 2026 with consumers asking whether the oil in the bottle is even genuine?
Are the palm trees disappearing?
That question sent me backwards.

Coincidentally, I had been reading Susan M. Martin’s Palm Oil and Protest, an economic history of the Ngwa region in south-eastern Nigeria from 1800–1980.

It is a layered book, but it helped me see palm oil differently. It was not just export commodity, but had a whole productive "mini" system built around land, household labour, processing knowledge, domestic use and trade.

Then the economics changed, specifically when Europe had their eyes on the motherland.
Producer returns weakened. Labour moved. Education and urban opportunities became more attractive. And by the 1970s, mineral oil had shifted the centre of gravity of the Nigerian economy.

But when I came back to 2026, the data complicated my original question.
I discovered that Nigeria still produces a substantial amount of palm oil.
So perhaps the more interesting question went from disappearing trees, but its disappearing worth.

What we are getting from the productive assets we still have, and whether we have renewed, improved and protected them well enough over time.

That is where this four-part series begins.
Part 1 is about the asset: what we inherited, how the palm economy worked, what changed, and why the present-day conversation points to a much bigger question.

How well do we maintain productive capacity towards agriculture, before scarcity forces us to respond? Read more via link in bio. by @tittle.editorial

2

2

15 days ago