People given to high-sounding jargon talk of something called the resource curse. Sometimes they get more specific and talk of the oil curse.
In their pessimism, they will soon talk of the weed curse. But for us optimists, we predict that Ondo State will soon become one large happy family, thanks to impending formalisation of cannabis production.
The big boys outside Nigeria have accepted what our grandparents knew ages ago, that the cannabis plant, which thrives fantastically in Ondo conditions, has positive medicinal value.
Looking for the best source, they have identified Ogbese where cannabis has hitherto been a menace because it grows quickly like weed or grass. So our governor, Rotimi Akeredolu has sought to get companies licenced under the watchful eyes of NDLEA officials to grow and export billions of dollars’ worth of the weed every year.
We are told pharmaceutical giants in Israel, Thailand and Canada can’t wait to lay their hands on Ogbese weed. And this is official, by the way.
Forget our other freely acquired resources which people pay to come and see, like the Oke Idanre Hill that doesn’t fetch us a million naira all year long, bitumen which will cause more environmental hazards to our being and climate, and others. This time, we are talking of a precious weed that every citizen can cultivate in their garden with minimal care.
Only one potential problem could vindicate the pessimists; if the big local boys try to exclude the masses from the action and say they are the only ones who will be allowed to sell weed. That could cause an uprising wilder than the one over bread price in Sudan.
For while we have always talked of the great agriculture potential of Ondo, we were not willing to break our backs to exploit it. But growing weed? Did I say growing? I meant sitting back as the foreign buyers come to up pick the weed, pay us and leave us to enjoy life.
And now try and fathom this. Economists have always blamed us for producing what we don’t consume and consuming what we don’t produce.
But now, the ultimate source of joy, for which others pay top dollar, will be just there to pick from our verandas. And this is not speculation; for some months now news of the health benefits of unsmoked weed has been spreading quietly and decent people are increasingly taking to consuming the free stuff, mostly drinking it like tea, for that feel-good effect.
Soon only a few of us ageing conservatives who were raised to frown at the mention of weed will be left behind by this happiness train.
I can’t wait for the day, coming maybe next year, when there will be no more anger in Ondo, and nobody will follow Ajos and Equity to the street to be flushed!
People will be too happy drinking the weed from their compound and making more money from Israeli and Canadian buyers to listen to those emergency activists.
And by the 2020 gubernatorial election, who will care who becomes Governor? Problems will only arise if somebody tries to exclude the majority from the weed windfall.
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