Or  Yam and egg. Or Yamarita.

You get the drift. If you like anything that is made with yam, this message is for you. It’s from the Minister of Agriculture and Rural development who shared a “Dear Nigerians” message via his Twitter. But we’ll do all we can to break it down for you.

So you may have noticed that yam prices have gone up or that you haven’t been able to lay your hands on any really good tubers lately. This is especially so if you live in the urban areas.

The Minister does not have a solution to that at this time. But he wants you to know that as from today, the 29th of June, Nigeria will start the exportation of yams. Tons of yams.

Dear Nigerians, I would like to address your concerns about Nigeria’s Yam Export programme. Please Read:?

— Audu Ogbeh (@AuduOgbeh) June 26, 2017

Still does not address your concerns about why yam is expensive? You are not alone. And the Minister understands this. So he wants to assure you that “there has never been shortage of yams” in Nigeria. In fact, we produce so much yam that a whopping 30% of these tubers rot away! Can you believe that?

Sure enough, the Minister and his people have thought of a way to address this problem of shortage in the land of plenty. Yup!

*Drum rollllllls* #BrilliantIdeaComingThrough:

EXPORTATION!

Yes, Nigeria’s brilliant idea to make good use of our yam produce is to export the yam even if Nigerians cannot afford to eat yam. Clap for the Ministry of Agriculture, will you!

Over 30% of the yams we produce in Nigeria rot away. Export therefore provides opportunities to earn foreign exchange & produce more yams.

— Audu Ogbeh (@AuduOgbeh) June 26, 2017

Why sir?

Because Ghana.

If nearby Ghana that does not grow anywhere near one tenth of the yams we grow, is targeting USD4bn in yam exports, we can do better.

— Audu Ogbeh (@AuduOgbeh) June 26, 2017

But if Nigeria “accounts for 61% of yam production in the WORLD” and Nigerians cannot afford it, should that not be a prioritized problem? Like make sure Nigerians can afford to eat all the yam it produces and then export the ones we cannot consume.

No! You have it all wrong

Nigeria has no reason not to engage in and benefit from this profitable trade in view of our large production capacity.

— Audu Ogbeh (@AuduOgbeh) June 26, 2017

In fact, yam exportation is “nothing new”. It’s just been done illegally up until today. So maybe the reason you haven’t had the chance to enjoy 61% of the world’s yam produce is that some bad people have been exporting our yams “through other ports… due to sharp practices.”

Okay, so we are getting somewhere. We’ll catch the bad guys and make sure they stop smuggling all our yam out of Nigeria, denying us sweet pounded yam?

No! No! No! We are just going to make these exportation efforts completely legal and make forex off that. Because:

We cannot diversify our economy if we do not explore new ways of creating wealth and earning foreign exchange…

— Audu Ogbeh (@AuduOgbeh) June 26, 2017

.…especially in items on which we have competitive advantage and superior production capacity. There is no need to panic!

— Audu Ogbeh (@AuduOgbeh) June 26, 2017

There you have it people! No need to panic. Focus your hungry eyes on the bigger goal and watch the Ministry of Agriculture chaperone the exportation of all our yams in exchange for forex that you cannot still afford.

No, the way forward is not the exploitation of all avenues to ensure that road networks between farms and urbane areas are fixed so that yams do not continue to rot away while we starve because farmers cannot get yams to us. The way forward is to sell all our yams to foreigners and empower our farmers by encouraging them to starve us while they happily choose to sell foreigners.

Brilliant idea! Just brilliant!