Bottle gourds, an untapped goldmine

By Ayo Akinfe

[1] If you want further evidence of the fact that Nigeria is sitting on an unbelievable gold mine, look no further than bottle gourds. They are used for a wide array of purposes. We hollow them out and the dried calabashes produced are used as household utensils across West Africa. They are used to clean rice, carry water, cooking utensils and as food containers. Smaller ones are used as bowls to drink palm wine too

[2] In pre-colonial times, they were the main means of transporting liquids before we had all these plastic and metal containers. I remember reading my Things Fall Apart and recollecting how central they were to the carrying about of palm wine. At traditional weddings in Igbo society, the groom's family was assessed on the size of the gourd of palm wine they brought when coming to ask for the bride's hand

[3] In our entertainment industry too, the dried gourd in used in making the West African kora, or a harp-lute and the goje a traditional fiddle. Why are these gourds not used to mass produce guitars and musical instruments today?
[4] Of recent, our people have found another use for them, which is using gourds to make motorcycle helmets. I believe this could be an area we exploit and seek to establish a global industry. With the current clampdown on the use of plastic and the move towards organic products, we should be looking to build the world's largest gourd processing factories
[5] I tried to check Nigerian production figures but alas, we do not keep records of our output. As is the case with many things we produce, we keep no data, have no board managing production and there is no strategy to exploit the global opportunities many of these products offer
[6] Areas where a gourd processing factory could carve a niche include the production of military headwear, motorcycle helmets, cycling head gear and probably as fashion accessories too. Just imagine some of the women going to Ascot in the UK wearing special hats made out of calabash gourds
[7] According to data out there, India is the world's largest bottle gourd producer, followed by Pakistan, with South Africa and Bangladesh in third and fourth place.To be perfectly honest, I would be surprised if any of these nations produced more than us. If we kept details, we would probably be the world's number one producer
[8] By now, we should have taken production to new levels whereby we are producing reinforced calabash helmets for military purposes. We should have even found a way to make them bulletproof. Calabash gourds have the advantage of being light, so unlike metal or reinforced plastic, you could add armour to them without the end product becoming too heavy
[9] Can someone please explain to me why when you step into Walmart, Asda, Sainsburys, Tesco, etc across the West, you are not confronted with Made in Nigeria calabsh cups of exotic design? They are cheaper than ceramic, would cost less to produce and could easily be mass produced. They also give you more versatility with regards what you can do with them
[10] Locally, one use I would like us to put the calabash is to return to using it as a sign of failed leadership. In the old Oyo Empire, when an Alaafin waa adjudged to have mis-ruled, he was presented a calabash with a parrot's egg in it. Once this was done he had to commit suicide. In 2019, we do not need a governor, president, minister or commissioner to commit suicide but please when we present you with a calabash with an egg in it, please just tender your resignanoses