Halima, the last daughter of former President, Ibrahim Babangida had a 3-day event for her wedding last week. While many focused on the number of private jets that landed on the Minna airport tarmac just for the wedding, many others were more interested in why soft drinks were not served.
Neither Coca cola, Pepsi nor Malt drinks were served. Turns out the financiers set out to put forward a message; that there are many more local drinks that are beneficial to the body than coca cola or Pepsi products or even the malt products.
Guests were served with chilled zobo, various forms of Kunu, there were also straight juice drinks, like pineapple, ginger, and some mixed together in cocktails.
The drinks were complemented with food and snacks. At the cultural night, which ordinarily should have featured dancing and singing for the bride, about eight states spread across Nigeria were chosen to present food and drinks which they served to people.
Both the people who had invitation cards and those who didn’t had access to these meals as there was more than enough to go round. Indeed, at a point, people from some of the states were begging to have guests taste what they had.
Local snacks, especially from Niger State, was the order of the day. In normal climes, you would enter a wedding reception and see cupcakes or piece of cake neatly packaged for guests. This was not so. The fine packages contained Donkuwa, kulikuli, kokoro and Gurundi, all Nupe delicacies
Maryam Babangida, a female motivator had the idea of encouraging local meals and drinks. Most of the local snacks and drinks were products from women.