Chinwe Agbeze
Ebonyi State, in southeastern Nigeria, is home to Okposi and Uburu, two salt-producing towns in Ohaozara Local Government Area of the state.
During the Nigerian civil war, the enormous salt in both towns was said to have attracted buyers from all parts of the country to Odenigbo Okposi market, one of the most famous markets at that time.
The rich salt deposits in Okposi and Uburu lakes earned the state the slogan, “Salt of the Nation.”
The production process
It is a bright Wednesday morning as 80-year-old Florence Eberike makes her way to Mmahiezi Salt Lake, to fetch some brine to make salt.
Mmahiezi, which means “saltwater” in the local parlance, is located 62 kilometres from Abakaliki, the Ebonyi State capital. The salt lake is situated in Okwu community in Okposi town, and sits on about one-hectare of land enclosed by trees. A few metres from the lake is an abandoned salt extraction plant, which is overrun with weeds.
Crude, labourious, time-consuming and traditional is the only way to describe the entire salt-production process, which is exclusive to women.
Eberike fills her earthen pot to capacity, and balances it on her head. This is her second trip for the day, and the time is 10.13am. As she exits the lake, women approached the lake one after another to collect saltwater.
For the past 61 years, Eberike has been making frequent visits to this lake to fetch saline, which she processes into salt.
In front of her house, an enamel basin containing saturated hot brine and a calabash is on burning firewood.
“I started cooking this saltwater about two hour ago,” Eberike says in the local dialect, as she gently removes the calabash inside the basin. “But, the salt will not be ready today.”
The calabash serves as a filter. After a while, all the sand in the liquid would assemble at the bottom of the calabash.
“Doing this repeatedly helps to make the colour of the salt pure white,” she says, washing off the dirt in the calabash.
Then, she pours a portion of the brine she just fetched into the saturated liquid.
To produce salt, the brine is heated for long hours until the water evaporates, leaving behind the salt.
According to Eberike, the process could take one or more days, depending on the size of salt one wants to produce and the quantity of firewood available.
Several pots of brine are required to produce a sizeable quantity of salt, which entails making more than one trip to the lake.
When the liquid in the basin drops below half level, Eberike tops it up. Then, using a broken piece of calabash, she removes the dirt dancing on the surface of the liquid.
“The number of women producing salt has dropped drastically because of the laborious nature of the process. Some of them now live with their children in the cities,” she tells the reporter.
As she adjusts the firewood, a boy saunters in to buy some salt. Eberike disappears inside her house, and returns with some salt, which she hands over to the boy. Money changes hands, and she makes her way back to the lake for more brine.
A few houses away, Oluchi Agwu, is also producing salt.
Agwu, a middle-aged woman who has been in the business for 23 years, wakes up before 4am, and by 2pm the salt is ready.
“If you have enough firewood, you can produce salt in a day,” she says, pouring the hot salt into a basket.
While waiting for the salt to cool, Agwu quickly puts another basin of brine with the customary calabash inside on burning firewood.
She is trying to produce enough salt to meet the demand of her customers, whom she says would come calling in three days.
Agwu fishes out some plates and begins dishing the salt from the basket into them. Dipping her hand intermittently inside a small bucket of water, she moulds the salt nicely, after which she keeps the lumps close to the fireplace.
“If the salt is not properly dried, it will turn to water,” she says, as she turns her attention to the boiling liquid. “I always advise my customers to leave the salt in the sun to dry before storage.”
Nnenna Okoro, another salt producer, has been toiling all day. It is the third day, and she doubts the salt would be ready before dusk.
Okoro says: “I didn’t have enough firewood. I just got some this afternoon.”
There are other women like Nkechi, Ogbokoro, Nwanyi Sunday, Nwokoro, and Chukwu, who are also busy producing salt.
Forty minutes’ drive away from Okposi is Umuchima community, where the Uburu salt lake is located.
Close to the lake is a salt extraction plant, which was erected by the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO). However, the structure has been abandoned and overgrown with grass.
The Uburu salt lake covers a larger area compared to the Okposi lake and the method of brine collection is quite different.
The saltwater collected from the Uburu salt lake is poured into earthen pots containing sand, with the sand acting as the filter beds. Beneath each earthen pot is a calabash, which is built into the ground. The calabashes are lined up, with each sand filter pot hanging directly above a calabash.
The brine filters through the sand in the pot, and escapes into the calabash beneath. This distillation process usually takes a long while.
As the brine sifts through, Chinaza Igwe, a salt-maker, scoops the saltwater into her pot, using a cup placed near the filter pots.
Igwe moves from one calabash to another, patiently scooping the distilled brine from each calabash, until she fills her pot. But, the saltwater is brownish.
“The liquid takes the colour of the sand,” Igwe explains in the native dialect. “But, when I am done making the salt, it comes out fine.”
At home, she empties the brine into a metal drum and the heating begins. The salt will not be ready until the fourth day.
“I have to continue sieving the dirt so the salt can be as white as that,” Igwe says, pointing at a yellow basin containing salt, “This takes so much time.”
For N5,000 worth of firewood, Igwe makes a profit of between N4,000 and N6,000, depending on demand.
According to her, the proceeds help to keep body and soul together. “It is better than doing nothing,” she says.
The process of salt preparation in Uburu not only takes time, but consumes more firewood.
Distribution
After production and packaging, the finished product is moved to the community market, where buyers can access them.
The price of the salt ranges from N200 to N2,000, depending on the size.
Due to increased demand for the local salt, coupled with increase in production cost, Agwu says they have had to review the price upwards.
The size they sell for N200, was previously sold for N150, while the N500 worth of salt used to cost N400.
But not all the products make it to the local market. A portion of the salt is ‘exported’ to Aba, Enugu, Awka, and other neighbouring states.
The salt is not used for food preparation alone.
According to Agwu, she welcomes customers from Aba and Port Harcourt, who use the salt to produce herbal medicine.
“This salt is medicinal. It neutralises poison and it is used to treat most illnesses,” she boasts. “Those who are hypertensive are advised to use the salt because it is natural. We don’t add anything to it.”
On a good day, she earns up to N10,000, but when patronage is low, she makes nothing.
“When I take the salt to our market, I make as little as N500. Some days, I don’t make any sales. I can’t even remember making up to N2,000. My major buyers come from Aba, Port Harcourt and Enugu,” Agwu says, trying to recollect.
During festive periods, the salt producers raise their prices to rake in more profit.
“In April, I sold the N500 worth of salt for N700 to those travelling back to other states after the Easter break. That is usually a good time for us,” she says.
On the other hand, Eberike relies on buyers in and close to the community for patronage.
“Some days are good, some days are terrible,” she says. “When I have salt for sale, I make between N1,000 and N3,000.”
But she makes even bigger profits when students on excursions and tourists visit the community.
“I make up to N5,000 in sales. Even oyinbo people, who came here to see the salt lake, buy some to take to their country. Our salt has travelled very far,” the 80-year-old salt producer says with a grin.
Firewood is gold
In both communities, the salt-makers have a common challenge: firewood. Local salt production consumes a lot of firewood, and this important commodity is in short supply.
“I bought this firewood for N500,” Rosemary Okorie, a salt-maker in Okposi points at three small pieces of firewood. “I’m even lucky to get them, because we don’t really have firewood here.”
With little or no firewood in sight, the salt producers have to rely on Edda, a community about 23 kilometres from Okposi, and Alayi, in Abia State, 66 kilometres from Okposi, for firewood supplies.
“Drivers from Alayi bring firewood in trucks for us to buy,” Okoro says.
The women contribute money, buy a truckload and split the firewood among themselves.
According to Eberike, N5,000 worth of firewood would fetch her a profit of between N6,000 and N10,000, depending on the level of patronage: “The firewood can last up to a month and, with that quantity, I can cook as many as 10 pots of salt.”
A means to an end
The energy, time and patience, which go into local salt production, are not commensurate with the profits.
“It is not easy,” Agwu says, removing dirt particles from the hot brine. “But we have no choice.”
Agwu tells the reporter that their joy knew no bounds when the news of a proposed salt extraction plant for their communiuty reached them. But before they could put on their dancing shoes, their hopes were dashed.
“I thought the end of my labour was in sight,” she says, gloomily. “They couldn’t even finish what they started.”
According to Eberike, the salt extraction plant would have been a blessing.
“Our women are gradually leaving the business because it is very stressful. The plant would have encouraged them to stay, and more to join the business.”
However, some of the women say the business is not that bad, as they pause to count their blessings.
She says: “I catered for my nine children with the profits I made from the salt business. I am still taking care of myself with the proceeds from the business.”
Though tedious, Agwu agrees the business has put food on the tables of many and clothes on their backs.
According to her, “there is no woman in this community that this salt business hasn’t helped, including me. We only buy the firewood. The saltwater is free.”
Rising salt importation
The rate of salt importation in Nigeria has been on the upward swing. In the first quarter of 2019, the cost of crude salt imported into Nigeria stood at N4.5 billion, representing an increase of 25 per cent, compared to the first quarter of 2018.
Nigeria imported N2.1 billion worth of crude salt from Brazil, and N1.5 billion from Namibia in the first quarter of 2018, according to data obtained from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
However, this figure grew significantly in the first quarter of 2019, as Nigeria’s total crude salt import jumped to N4.5billion – N2.3billion from Namibia, and N2.2billion.
In March 2019, salt import topped the Nigeria Import Chart for the first time, as it rose to 13 million metric tonnes from 23 metric tonnes in February 2019, according to the shipping position from the Nigerian Ports Authority.
In the third quarter of 2017, Nigeria imported N1.68 billion worth of crude salt from Brazil, N1.33 billion from Namibia, N173.36 million from the United Kingdom, and N5 million from Germany, bringing the total figure of salt imported in the third quarter of 2017 to N3.19 billion. This figure rose by 12.8 per cent to N3.6 billion in the first quarter of 2018, and by 41 per cent to N4.5 billion in the first quarter of 2019.
No doubt, this figure will continue to soar as long as the country’s brine deposits remain untapped.
Interventions
In March 2009, Ebonyi State received a grant of $87,939 from the Japanese government. The grant was given under the Japanese Assistance for Grassroots Human Security Projects, to boost the capacity of women in the salt-producing communities.
The ambassador of Japan to Nigeria at that time, Toshitsugu Uesawa, stated that the purpose of the grant was to provide modern salt-production technology, and reduce the labour involved in using traditional methods for salt production.
The project was executed under the UNIDO Poverty Reduction through Productive Activities, with the Ebonyi State Salt Manufacturing Cooperative Union as the implementing partner.
According to Uesawa, the project is expected to generate income and improve the living standards of women in the salt-producing communities.
But this expectation has been cut short, as the salt extraction plants are in a sorry state, and the living conditions of the producers are yet to improve.
“This would have been a great project,” Eberike says of the abandoned plants as she stares disappointed at the desolate structure. “I pray I live to see this dream come true someday.”
While the local salt producers keep hope of a better tomorrow alive, they continue to make a pinch of salt at a time.