The excitement over the delightful taste of Kilishi spread through the south of Nigeria in the early 21st century.
For many then it seemed like a new invention. It did not take long for the fuss to inspire Nigeria’s leading entertainment industry when the African music icon, Tu Face Idibia, while featuring in P-Square’s 2009 Danger album, delivered a verse describing how he finds it incomprehensive that every time he travels down to Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, he always gets Kilishi for his lady. The track was titled ‘Possibility.’
It takes a whole day to prepare Kilishi to full satisfaction
Surprisingly, Kilishi for more than a century is a snack that has financially sustained local families in many states of the north such as Sokoto, Borno, Kebbi, Katsina, Kano, Taraba, Jigawa, Niger, Gombe, Zamfara, Bauchi, Adamawa and Nasarawa, while Kaduna and Abuja have provided markets for interested buyers and dealers from outside the region and overseas.
A producer applying spice to Kilishi
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Kilishi is a meaty snack made strictly from lean beef thinly sliced from fillet, which is then either sun dried or oven dried.
Soaking the meat in a spice solution containing a mix of groundnut, garlic, ginger, onion, pepper and salt completes the preparation process before it is spread to dry.
Ahmadu Mai Kilishi, a Kilishi producer in Ungwan Sarki near Sultan Bello Central Mosque, Kaduna state, told NAIJ.com: “It takes one full day to prepare Kilishi to optimum satisfaction.”
“A full Kilishi stretch can measure up to a yard,” Yau Abdullahi, who produces Kilishi on Jos Road, explained to NAIJ.com.
“Depending on the customer, we sell from 1200 to 1300 naira,” he said.
Kilishi remains edible for between six months to a year provided it is stored in a cool, dry place.
Ahmadu Maikilishi at Ungwan Sarki, Kaduna, preparing his table for the process of making Kilishi
Kilishi on display.
How Kilishi started in Northern Nigeria
An investigation into how Kilishi started takes NAIJ.com to a popular Kilishi-producing family on Jos Road in Kaduna – the Abdullahi family.
“Our grandfather was the king of butchers (Sarkin fawa) in Kano. Our father Abdullahi came to learn this by himself as you see it now,” Yau explained.
“When he started it, he came to Kaduna, which is about 100 years ago we are talking about now; before we were born,” said Sani Abdullahi, who works as a civil servant.
The acclaimed inventor of Kilishi in Kaduna, Abdullahi Snr., was so popular that his children stutter when asked about his last name and can only remember him being called ‘Minister,’ a title he was given by the northern populace after he was specially recognised by the late Sardauna, Sir Ahmadu Bello, the first premier of Northern Nigeria region.
Abdullahi said: “During the time of Sardauna and co., the northerners knew him only, that’s how they gave him ‘Minister of Kilishi.
Grandchild of Abdullahi Minister, checking out processed Kilishi.
Ahmadu Mai Kilishi, another producer at Angwan Sarki, an area popular for the business in Kaduna, said he has been in the business for decades, and in fact was born into the trade.
His surname, Mai Kilishi (the one who deals with Kilishi) supports his contention. He said: “I have been doing this for about forty years. I started this when I was very young, inheriting it from Kano. I was born into it and I saw it as a means of livelihood so I continued doing it.”
“In fact in the whole of north, there is no other person selling Kilishi like I do. That is why my name is Mai Kilishi from my childhood as I started this as a hereditary kind of business.”
Kilishi can extend up to one yard
Kilishi is produced from lean part of beef.
Clearly, one thing both producers at Jos Road and Angwan Sarki have in common is that they both trace their lineage to Kano, another northern state that boasts of hundreds of Kilishi producers. However Mai Kilishi would not affirm whether it all began in Kano and so “cannot say exactly of the history of where it started.”
Is Kilishi a healthy snack?
Watch the video documentary below:
Almost all scientific research recently done by international food and health agencies concerning beef have found Kilishi to have good if not excellent health benefits.
Unlike other processed packaged beef brands whose methods of processing like cooking, frying, salting, curing, fermentation and smoking, negatively alter the protein content of the beef, Kilishi ends on the table just dried and nutritionally spiced.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations’ categories of processed meat products: “Many of the nutritional properties of meat, in particular the protein content, remain unchanged through drying.”
Further expanding on the advantages of consuming Kilishi, a nutritionist and food technologist with Ville Clinic in Kaduna, Esther Mmeni told NAIJ.com: “Kilishi can be enjoyed by both the young and the old” because “Kilishi itself has nutritional value”
Kilishing producing section of Barkindogo railway market in Kaduna
“Kilishi is healthy for the heart due to the processing technique and the spice added. As it is made from beef, it is high in protein. The cloves and the spice added, for example the garlic, is very good for the heart. It has anti-bacterial properties. Also the ginger added helps to fight cold and flu.”
Echoing Mmeni’s view, a physiologist Zara Sedenu from Warri in Delta state, said: “Red meat is good for you; don’t let anybody deceive you.”
Beliefs associated with Kilishi
For some, most especially outside the north of Nigeria, the popular belief based on harsh experience is that Kilishi comes as a leather-strong dry beef snack that leaves the jaw painful due to extensive grinding.
Olaotan Falade, who resides in Lagos, said as much as he loves to eat Kilishi, he sometimes “have regret after eating Kilishi as most times I have to spend days recovering from the pain chewing it causes to my jaw.”
Maikilishi said he used to kill three cows in a day and sell all the Kilishi produced from them in same day
When asked if that has lessened his interest in the spicy meat, Falade said: “That has not stopped me from eating it; anytime I have the opportunity I still enjoy it like I am eating it for the first time.”
In the same vein, Bashir, a southerner who resides in Kaduna, said: “Sometimes I feel like I am punishing myself unnecessarily when I eat it. At a time I stopped taking it, but it was all over everywhere here, so I had to come back.”
However, NAIJ.com’s investigations reveals the truth behind their complains. Indeed, some kilishi that ends up in the mouth were not processed properly.
Explaining why there is hard Kilishi in the market, one of Abdullahi Minister’s sons Rabiu revealed that it is due to some producers cutting corners by using bad meat or using other cuts of meat apart from the lean part.
Majority of Kilishi producers in the north only use the sun-drying method which has been criticised
“We don’t do hard Kilishi; we do soft Kilishi. We remove everything that could make it hard during the preparation. Many don’t choose good meat in the market. We go to market to choose fresh meat and soft one while others just buy any other meat they can lay their hands on.”
“We don’t buy old cows, and we always buy cows that are reared in the bush not the ones reared in the city. You know the one in town eat anything unlike the ones in the bush,” he narrated to NAIJ.com.
Members of the century-old Kilishi producing dynasty
Youth empowerment
The Nigerian Bureau of Statistics in the third quarter of 2015 reported an increase of 9.9 percent in unemployment, the fourth consecutive increase at the time.
Six months later, there seems to be no sign of unemployment waning. As the situation continues, Kilishi production has been charting an effective path to credible earnings in almost all of the northern states and the Federal Capital Territory.
Some youths were sighted selling kilishi in strategic areas like bars, road stop-overs, bus stops, garages, airports, stadiums, etc. Ahmadu Mai Kilishi in Ungwan Sarki, Kaduna, claims training boys who now understand the art is a great achievement for him.
“I have achieved a lot from this. All the boys you see here are my boys. I taught them all.”
Saadu Bafarawa came from Zamfara to join his father in the Kilishi business in Abuja.
However, teaching the youths has had an effect on his own business as he does not sell as much as he used to because so many people are now in the business.
He said: “From the onset when I started this business, I used to kill three cows, and I sell all the meat in a day. But now, because many people are doing it, I cannot sell that much anymore.”
Imo Crescent in Area 1, Garki, is a major market for Kilishi lovers in Abuja.
Buyers can be seen trooping in and out at the back of the Area 1 ultra-modern shopping complex that accommodates no fewer than 20 Kilishi stands.
Saadu Bafarawa, 22, told NAIJ.com that he joined his father, Atahiru Bafarawa in the Kilishi business immediately after he graduated from secondary school in Zamfara state and needed to work.
“I finished school in 2012. After that I came to Abuja to work for my father and to make money.”
Bafarawa, who had just sold N20,000 worth of Kilishi to a customer also revealed how much he makes in a day. “Sometimes I make more and sometimes less. Like yesterday, I made 30,000 naira, but on a normal day, I could make up to 50,000 naira.”
NAIJ.com also visited the Nnamdi Azikiwe international airport in Abuja, where youths numbering around twenty would diligently approach travellers asking them if they were interested in buying Kilishi.
Sellers at Area 1, Abuja, unwrapping Kilishi brought from Dei Dei production centre in Abuja.(1)
One of them, Ibrahim Yoko, who travels down from Kaduna to sell at the airport, explained how he does his business.
“We normally approach travellers and sell to anyone who is interested in buying. They buy Kilishi from us and take it abroad. We sell for them at the rate of N1,500, maybe sometimes less depending on the customers.”
Olanrewaju Balogun was visiting from Lagos and, like many others who double as stop-gap agents for Kilishi-crazed relatives and friends outside Abuja, always visits the market in Area 1 if he is to return home to a rousing welcome.
“Each time I come to Abuja and I am going back home, at least to have something to drop; in the office, at home, friends and colleagues. Most of Lagos people especially my friends, they prefer this. Even if you didn’t buy they will be calling ‘please Kilishi’.
Son of late ‘minister of Kilishi,’ Rabiu Abdullahi said the smell of cloves chases flies away
Mmeni believes Kilishi should not just be seen as snack, but also as a healthy snack.(1)
Challenges
Although selling Kilishi is helping people make ends meet, it cannot be said to have been smooth sailing all through the years for those involved in the trade.
The hurdles these makers of Kilishi, who are mainly local men, have to face include an irregular power supply, the lack of a conducive environment for production and selling, health-inspired distrust by a section of the populace towards the product and a weak network for selling.
Explaining why most makers of Kilishi prefer the sun-drying technique even when they have the option of the more hygienic oven drying, Rabiu abdullahi said:
“We used to use oven to do it. When you go inside you will see where we abandoned them because they are no more working. Once the oven broke down to fix them is problem and even when they work, we don’t always have light. But these drying outside in the sun is sure.”
Muhammed Abdullahi said people in the north only recognised his father during the era of Sardauna, former Premier of Northern Region
As sure and cheap as this technique seems, it may also have negative consequences. A nutritionist, Esther Mmeni believes that the sun-drying technique is not hygienic because the beef gets exposed to all kinds of bacteria and organisms in the air. She advised:
“I prefer people to go for the oven-dry method which protects the Kilishi itself from being infested by bacteria and other dangerous organisms.
“No matter how you want to dodge, one way or the other there can still be infection. The possibility that Kilishi is not infested is very thin. Because, looking at it, they produce Kilishi in a very open environment. Cars pass around there, hawkers pass, any kind of person pass, goat, animals pass. So you will find out that through the dust, through the air, infection takes place.”
In 2010 Mmeni designed a tunnel drier for drying grains which can also be used for drying other food materials like Kilishi, a device that won her an award from the Step B World Bank Project.
She encouraged people to consider her invention. “For example the tunnel drier I designed can be used with electricity or can be used with coal. Using fire does not mean they heat the product directly.
“They only use it as a conduction of heat through a pipe that will generate heat inside the cabinet. In so doing you can as well still dry your Kilishi, it will be hygienic, free from contamination and the nutritional value of the Kilishi will still be retained,” she told NAIJ.com.
A safety management officer Rotimi Akingbehin could not hide her doubts about the safety of Kilishi: “I don’t like Kilishi because it is exposed. The whole manufacturing process is like open. You have to dry it. It’s not cooked. So it’s prone to you getting so many diseases. I have tried Kilishi before, not that I have not tried it but not anymore. I don’t want to try it anymore.”
Kilishi: one of those guilty pleasures
It does not matter what anybody says about this meaty invention from the Arewa region of Nigeria, the possibility that fear of contracting diseases and bad-mouthing by health-conscious individuals will discourage the growing number of Kilishi addicts from their love for the dry meat remains unlikely.
When asked if the talk about Kilishi spreading diseases has affected sales, Sani Muhammed, who operates a Kilishi stand in Abuja said: “It didn’t affect our market. Because people are aware that this is not true. Rather we have been getting more customers. If people want to know the truth, they can follow us to where we are doing it, then you will see it with your eyes so that you know that this is not the truth.”
What goes into most Kilishi
When asked if she thinks there should be a change in the way Kilishi is produced, a physiologist Zara Sedenu responded sharply. “They should leave it! You don’t mess with perfection. We enjoy it like that, let’s leave it like that. If they touch it now they will spoil everything. We know it’s not that good; it’s one of those guilty pleasures.
“It’s not really as I would have liked but it’s just a luxury you just take once in a while: very enjoyable.”
Kilishi smuggled outside of Nigeria, not exported
While the price of crude oil, Nigeria’s major export, remains unstable and keeps depreciating by the day, with the government struggling to carry out major projects, the idea of the diversification of the economy away from crude oil still seems less fancied even by some of the administrators in states where Kilishi is being produced in large quantities.
4wA visit by Naij.com to Kaduna state’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry to find out what the state is doing with Kilishi revealed that the the development of Kilishi as an international export is not part of the ministry’s plan.
The just-ended 37th Kaduna international trade fair organised by the Kaduna Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture which boasted ten participating countries also revealed how much stakeholders in the country are not done with digging deep into the earth for financial possibilities, judging from theme of the fair, “Promoting Solid Minerals Sector for Sustainable Economic Development of Nigeria”
Nevertheless, it may not be that easy to export processed meat from Nigeria to countries around the world because of the food and drug policies abroad. For example, the importation of fresh, dried or canned meats or meat products is generally not allowed from most foreign countries into the United States. However travelling Nigerians have found their ways around the ban.
Yau Abdullahi, one of the sons of the acclaimed inventor of Kilishi in Kaduna state
A Nigerian at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja en route to the United States who pleaded anonymity revealed to Naij.com how he manages to beat customs to take Kilishi abroad. He said: “It is very easy. We lined it inside our luggage along with our clothes and other stuffs. The moment your luggage is checked and you are cleared by the customs, you are through.”
The possibility of an internationally recognised industry for the production and sale of Kilishi in Nigeria remains distant, and Esther Mmeni thinks it would require huge investment.
“Corporate bodies might find it challenging to do because there are some challenges involved. Either you import your oven or you design it locally. You as well should be able to get enough cows so you can get your beef from there. You also have to know the health conditions of the cows because some may have diseases. All these things you have to put into consideration.”
Adedayo Majaro, a Nigerian-American who resides in Brockton, Massachusetts, highlights how hard it is to get Nigerian-made Kilishi abroad, and said that she does not miss any opportunity to ask anyone coming to the United States from Nigeria to help her get the meat. “I do get Kilishi from friends whenever they travel home. I tell them to always bring Kilishi for me.”
A customer having a taste of Kilishi in his car at Ungwan Sarki area of Kaduna
Majaro wished she could buy Kilishi from the markets in Brockton but said that the product on sale there is not the same as the Kilishi coming from Nigeria. She said: “At times when you go to African stores, you get some packaged Kilishi but it’s not as good as the one made in Nigeria. I don’t really buy Kilishi from those places.”
Kilishi money supporting Boko Haram?
As the battle against insurgency heightens in the northern states of Nigeria, it was discovered recently in March 2016 that the dreaded Boko Haram sect has been exploiting the sale of dried meat to fund their operations.
This came to the notice of security agencies in the country who based their intelligence on the increase in cattle rustling in affected states, most especially Borno, the state most hit by the insurgency.
It was learnt that the cattle rustlers with links to Boko Haram use different markets in Borno to sell dried meat to unsuspecting customers while the money garnered from the sales then finds its way to the terrorists.
In an announcement on the situation, the secretary to the Borno state government, Jidda Shuwa, said: “Evidence available to security agencies show that most of the cattle being traded at the market were the direct proceeds of cattle rustling perpetrated by the Boko Haram terrorists.
“They are sold at prohibitive cost to unsuspecting customers through some unscrupulous middle men. The money realised from such transactions will then be channelled to fund the deadly activities of the terrorists.
A member of the Abdullahi family processing Kilishi in a spiced solution
“Consequently, the terrorists feel they have discovered new source of resuscitating their infrastructure with a view to re-commencing their atrocities.”
In order to tackle the situation the state government was quick to take some drastic measures that meant both Kilishi producers and other meat consumers in Borno will have a lower supply of meat for a period of time.
Shuwa announced a two-week suspension of “importation of cattle to the state capital through all routes and all sources other than the cattle traders association.
“All trading activities in Gamboru Cattle Market, Dusuman, Shuwari and Ngom have been suspended till further notice in line with government’s commitment to ensure that no public place is turned to avenue for funding activities of the terrorists.”
Nutritionist, Esther Mmeni, in 2010, designed a tunnel drier which can also be used to process Kilishi
Making Kilishi better
Ahmadu Mai Kilishi readily boasts of having sold Kilishi directly to the former director general of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Dr. Paul Orhi, as a testament to how hygienic his working environment is.
Also, Yau Abdullahi’s MRD Kilishi carries NAFDAC number AI-9979L. Nevertheless, some skeptics about Kilishi’s health status remain hard to sway.
Tunde Lawal, who accompanied his friend to buy Kilishi at Garki Area 1 market believes there is room for improvement. “It’s a nice meat though. But the flies that patronise this Kilishi is what pisses most people off. If you dry something, it’s very advantageous than when you burn it on the fire. I believe they are supposed to have more customers than this,” he said.
To make Kilishi more sellable and far reaching, the nutrition expert Esther Mmeni, like many other critics of the dried meat, believes a lot still has to be done. According Mmeni, there must be balance in the way people perceive Kilishi. “Kilishi needs to be seen not just as a nice snack, but also as a healthy snack,” she stated.
Nigerian- American, Majaro, said the Kilishi in African stores at Brockton, USA, is not thesame with the ones that come in from Nigeria.
“As much as Kilishi is heart-healthy because of the cloves, garlic and ginger added, you will find out that a lot of local men use salt or spices, made from sodium metabisulfite which makes the sodium content of the Kilishi to be on the higher side.
“Most of the local producers of Kilishi want people to enjoy their Kilishi and come back again. Because of the competitive nature of the business, they tend to add a lot of salt and spices made from sodium metabisulfite and in so doing the sodium content of the Kilishi becomes high which goes on to counter the positive effect of the cloves, the garlic and the ginger.
“Therefore such Kilishi is no more heart-healthy.”
She advised that it would be good if “health workers can go to supervise their processing techniques starting from raw material intake which is very important before the processing itself.”
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