The Nation Newspaper

Tag: snake

  • Gorilla, snake allegory

    Belief systems and practices define the culture of a people and their very essence. Countries where superstition and all manners of attachment to weird beliefs and the mundane constitute predominant ways of viewing life, rank low within the development matrix.

    So it is with Nigeria. Our attachment to superstition, occultism and all manner of belief systems has become somehow, a thing of immense concern. We are regularly regaled with news of killings and reprisal attacks by students of our higher educational institutions in the name of cultism. The carnage arising from such killings has become as embarrassing as they appear to have defied solutions.

    But behind all this, is the notion that those involved in such cult activities derive some supernatural powers from it. Little wonder the army of our youths that are increasingly lured to them. Opinions will continue to be divided regarding the benefits that accrue from such weird engagements.

    But the same malady has also permeated the lower rungs of the educational ladder and the larger society. The increasing subscription to such weird belief systems raises questions as to how far-reaching our claims to religiosity and modernity have been. Even with increasing level of education and the quantum of exposure and rationality that go with it, the reality is that many of our people are still embarrassingly attached to these inexplicable and bizarre belief systems. The signs are easily perceptible in our daily lives; in our dealings with others and the ease to rationalize our failings on some unseen forces.

    Read Also: Zoo Gorilla ‘swallows’ N7m; Ajudua ‘swallows’ Bamaiyi’s $8m + Your Responses

    That is why a staff of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board JAMB in Makurdi, Benue State, Philomena Chieshe had the comfort of mind to come up with the claim that a huge snake swallowed a whooping N36 million kept in the vault of that agency. The JAMB sales clerk had told the JAMB registrar and his team on investigations that a sum of N36 million generated from the sale of recharge cards some time ago was swallowed by a huge snake.

    When prodded further, she claimed her housemaid connived with another JAMB staff to ‘spiritually’ through a snake steal the money from the vault in the accounts office. She was arraigned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, just last May after about one year and three months she made the stunning claim.

    But as the EFCC is still battling to unravel the mystery surrounding the rogue snake, another curious story evolved from Kano. This time, it is the narrative of a rogue gorilla. Reports quoting officials of the Kano zoological gardens went viral last week with the startling account of a gorilla that allegedly swallowed N6.8 million belonging to that zoo. According to reports, one huge gorilla sneaked into the office, carried away the money and swallowed it.

    Apparently worried by the uncommon narrative, Governor Abdullahi Gunduje ordered a probe into the claims. But the police suspect theft and have arrested 10 staff including the accounting officer. The position of the police seems amplified by the managing director of the zoo who disclosed though belatedly, that the zoo does not have a gorilla within it. So the story goes. If this later account is true, it is either the gorilla came from somewhere else or those who told the story could not differentiate between that animal species and humans.

    In the days ahead, we expect the police to conclude their findings and possibly have some of the suspects arraigned. But we may not get the full gist of events until the legal process runs its full course. Then and only then shall we get to know whether the stories of the gorilla and the snake were real or figments of the imagination of some rogue officials. Then also shall we begin to construct a positive correlation between our attachments to the normative as opposed to the empirical.

    The fact that such stories are easily peddled presupposes that their purveyors do so in the hope they could be believed. Those who told the story believe in the possibility of snakes and gorillas invading the vaults and swallowing the monies possibly as food. They believed in the persuasive powers of such stories and that it made sense to go that way. This angle was given added fillip by Philomena who claimed her housemaid connived with another JAMB staff to spiritually steal the money through a snake.

    For her, this is quite possible. And she would want us to believe her story. Why not? After all, we are regularly treated with all manner of such stories from sundry predators in the garb of religious, occultist and traditional seers. Last December, the Federal Road Safety Commission, FRSC, had to mount sensitization seminars to disabuse the minds of drivers and road users that there are blood- sucking demons causing accidents on the roads. In a clime replete with all manner of miracle workers laying claims to converting impossibility to possibility; a clime the supernatural is constantly held responsible even for acts of omission and commission of ours, it is not surprising that such fables will continue to trend.

    And as long as you can find those who believe such stories (they are many), so long will they continue to find sympathizers. That is the level at which our society still finds itself. It is telling of our level of attachment to superstition, ignorance and nature and how far removed we are from the path of modernity.

    But we risk glossing over the real import of the narratives on the snake and gorilla if we seek to reason them out in a rational sense. My reading of the matter is that the purveyors of such stories were not talking of the real gorilla and snake. They were merely deploying hyperboles to give effect to the disappearance of the monies. Philomena spoke of the spiritual snake. She said her maid connived with another JAMB staff to spiritually steal the money through a snake. Her maid and the unnamed JAMB staff are mere metaphors for the snake.

    It would appear we all erred in taking her statement in its literal sense. So also was the case of the gorilla that swallowed N6.9 million kept in the vault of the Kano zoological garden. If the allegory of the snake is difficult to appreciate, that of the gorilla should easily strike the right chord. They spoke of a huge gorilla. Incidentally, gorillas look like human beings except for their exceptional ugliness that will be difficult to decipher during the night the animal struck. Because the gorilla has the shape of humans, it is possible the narrator mistook a human being for a gorilla. The only snag there is that gorillas do not feed on pieces of paper and are not also capable of converting the money to buy their choice food.

    So it is not the physical gorilla. It was the human gorilla that was possibly misread as a real gorilla. The gorilla denotes a metaphor for the thief. This characterization was given more credence by the zoo management when they said they do not have any gorilla in that zoo. So we are inexorably left with the human gorilla. That is why perhaps, the police has made arrests of some prime suspects. That also accounted for the setting up of an investigative panel by the Kano State government to unravel who the thief gorillas are. It is hoped they will unmask the characters behind the snake and the gorilla allegory.

    Read Also: Ganduje orders probe of Kano Zoo’s ‘Gorilla swallowed N6.8m’

    More fundamentally, these stories have wider repercussions for us as a country. They demonstrate very unmistakably, the very dangerous dimension corruption has taken on these shores. The two fables have to do with the stealing of monies belonging to the government or its agencies. We need to get at the root of the relative ease with which unscrupulous officials dip their hands into governments till.

    We need to get at the root of the ease with which such infractions are rationalized on some weird and supernatural forces. President Buhari’s government has the fight against corruption as one of its cardinal programmes. It must figure out why the same individual that finds no wrong in looting government money meticulously preserves monies entrusted to his care by his ethnic unions or village meetings.

    The level of progress in this regard will make the difference. But one thing that stands out is that manifestations of corruption are both complex and complicated. Beaming the searchlight just on political enemies will be of little value in the overall success of the fight. We must work to re-direct the psyche of our people against such malfeasance to get a more enduring result.

  • Rogue snake metaphor

    Rogue snake metaphor

    Bizarre report of a snake swallowing N36 million in the vault of the Benue State office of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), made interesting headlines last week.

    A JAMB sales clerk, Philomina Chieshe stunned a high-powered fact-finding team when she told them she could not account for the money realized from sales of scratch cards because a snake crept into the vault and swallowed it. When prodded, she explained that her housemaid connived with another JAMB staff to ‘spiritually’ steal the money through a snake.

    And she would want her audience to believe the story. Why not?  After all, are such fables not commonplace in our national life? If she did not believe it could make sense to some people; if she had not seen people peddling and swallowing such mystic and occult stories hook line and sinker, perhaps she would not have come up with such concoction.

    Alas, she believed it could pull through. Hence the ease and seeming innocence with which she crafted a story that should ordinarily have qualified her for psychiatric attention. She is not alone in this kind of weird belief.

    In our daily social life, many well informed and even highly educated Nigerians promote this kind of thrash to deceive and hoodwink innocent citizens for some self-serving ends. So Philomina’s narrative, as naïve and unbelievable as it would seem, fits into an uncanny metaphor to illustrate the pervasiveness of corruption on these shores.

    It highlights the weird belief system many of our people have come to accept and live with. Promoted by all manner of preachers and mundane cultural practices, such tales have assumed a dominant role in explaining (albeit falsely) most of the challenges thrown up in our daily lives. All manner of places of worship and persons take liberty in accounting for and rationalizing human challenges through spiritual means. Even when there is no basis for these irrational explanations, such tales are invented by the unscrupulous and deceitful to achieve ends of mischievous and pecuniary nature.

    Sickness, misfortune and even deaths have been the worst victims of these supernatural and mystic explanations. And because of the vicissitudes of life in a predominantly illiterate and poverty stricken environment, many have come to accept such fetish and irrational explanations for some of the challenges they face in their daily lives. So Philomina was just exploiting the inherent weaknesses of our belief systems. Do you blame her when such stories are daily promoted in our television stations as real accounts of African life? Those who regularly promote disappearing and mundane relics of African culture in the name of ‘African Magic’ and similar programmes should share in Philomina’s confusion.

    But she goofed because snakes are not known to feed on currencies. Neither can one or a colony of snakes effectively swallow N36 million. She misfired because in this case, she will be required to prove beyond reasonable doubt that snakes could in all actuality swallow that amount of money. For her inability to differentiate between facts and fiction; normative beliefs and credible evidence, the snake rogue should be taken as a metaphor for the official in whose care the money disappeared.

    So it is not enough to peddle stories on the escapades of witches and wizards. Neither is it sufficient to seek escape route from the numerous ills that afflict mankind by attributing them to the unseen hands of some ghosts, the dead and the vampires. There is a limit beyond which such stories will no longer make sense. That is perhaps, the point that has been brought to the fore by the story of the rogue snake.

    Beyond this however, Philomina’s story illustrates the degenerate level into which corruption has irretrievably sunk in our national life. It is an acceptance that public funds can be frittered and all manner of ruse invented to successfully cover them up. That such a colossal sum of money could be left in the hands of a common clerk also speaks volumes on probity and accountability in our public life. And if one may ask, what happened to the bank account of that establishment that a whooping N36 million had to be kept in the safe such that we are now being told the ridiculous and lame story that it has been swallowed by a snake.

    As if this was not enough embarrassment, another state coordinator of the same establishment in Nassarawa State has come up with another strange story to cover up alleged fraud.  The official was said to have claimed his car got bunt together with N23million worth of scratch cards.

    Diligent investigations were however to reveal that the cards which the official claimed to have been burnt together with his car were actually used up by prospective students from Nassarawa State to register for JAMB within the same period. Obvious from the two accounts is the degenerate level into which corruption had sunk in the operations of JAMB. If the accounts of the two incidents are anything to go by then, it could be safely concluded that the establishment had been stinking in dismal corruption and corrupt practices all this while.

    It is also very confounding how colossal sums of public funds are left in the hands of some unscrupulous staff to manage only for them to fritter them away and cook up frivolous stories to cover up their tracks. Perhaps, if the current investigations had not been set up, the suspects would have conveniently covered up their tracks with the nation losing scare resources direly needed for developmental purposes.

    But that is this country for you. All these happened as the current administration was waging the war against corruption with fanfare. And if you ask them of their score card in the last three years or so, they will quickly brandish the war against corruption as one of their major achievements. The war could as well have recorded some measure of success in retrieving some monies looted by past political office holders. We have also seen a measure of progress in the recovery of some properties from both former political appointees and civil servants even as the target has mainly been those opposed to the government of the day.

    Events have however, shown we are yet to get at the bottom of the factors that propel and reinforce corruption in our national life. A former governor was reported to have said recently that corruption is the real problem of this country and not restructuring. He is partly right. But the proper way to put the matter is that corruption feeds from our inability to restructure. Corruption thrives because of our inability or refusal to restructure. Corruption is encouraged because of the awesome powers of the central government and its perception as an avenue from which the constituents should grab at will. That is why the two JAMB officials had no qualms inventing all manner of subterfuge to cover up the missing monies in their possession.

    That is the situation you get with such unwieldy national establishments performing functions that are better managed by smaller and more efficient organizations. If the universities were allowed to conduct their own examinations and set their admission benchmarks, an omnibus and ineffective institution like JAMB would have found no place. What is true of JAMB is no less correct of other national establishments. Decentralization or devolution of powers will promote more efficient and effective governance and reduce corruption.

    The much touted war against corruption will continue to remain a mirage as long as it has not touched the fabric of our society. The rogue snake denotes the lady under whose care the N36 million disappeared while in the raging fire can be found the man in whose care the N23 million was left. That is the metaphor of the unmitigated corruption that strides the entire gamut of our national life. That is how bad the situation has remained and a measure of success of the war against corruption.

  • Witch snake

    Witch snake

    We must not show surprise at the lying tongue of Philomena Shieshe, the conjurer of the thieving snake. We must admire not only her lies, but the fertility of her imagination. She has put the story of our war on corruption in perspective. She invoked a maid, a conspiracy, a large sum of money, and a snake. The corruption tale has come full cycle.

    Right in the heartland of animal impunity, she conjures the most enigmatic of creatures performing the most fascinating business of humans: making money. The herdsmen in Benue State – not the cows – growl and attack and make mincemeat of man. The herdsman is in the business of killing in the name of cows. The snake was making a killing in the name of money. Both do business, but the rest of us suffer.

    The woman is like the herdsman, the snake her cows. Thirty-six million is no small sum in any currency, so she’s no small woman. We have two lethal weapons in one state: one killing humans, the other swallowing their livelihood. Philomena and her maid are not interested in striking like a thief in the night. Hers is a snake but only to the spiritual eye. As Apostle Paul has said, the natural man cannot understand the ways of the spirit. When Jesus says to his Thomas Didymus that a spirit has no flesh, blood and bones, Philomena is paying attention. We have not seen but we should believe. She can conjure in the blaze of day, in the haze and in the blight of night.

    She has learned one or two about corruption and how to mock it. She has demonstrated, through the hiss and jaw of a snake, that the war on corruption is phony. How different is her story from the reels of lies we have heard from the EFCC targets. The Dasukigate, the MainaGate, the NNPC tale with Kachikwu and Baru have had versions of snakes swallowing money. A person is charged, he says he is not guilty. He comes with a tale of phantasmagoria.

    The billions disappear. Often the stories end up in obscurity even though they are clear to all of us. When the men are detained and questioned, they come out afterwards with one triumphal lie. The snakes in our anti-corruption war are manifold. The first liar is the defendant. He says he is not the thief. He or she followed the rule of law. The more we look, the less we see. The best way to steal is not by direct putting of the hand in the cookie jar. Not in secret. But in plain sight. All who must sign, appends their signatures, all the way from to the lawyers and contractors and permanent secretaries. Yet billions are being stolen.

    The SANs are their serpentine accomplices. The case takes on are sinuous pattern. It goes to the court, it follows to the appeal court and when it gets to the Supreme Court, we think it is over. But we have only just begun. They were only treating a superficial part. The substantive matter is still hanging and hiding like the billions. Like the snake, it takes a path back to where it seems hidden. How many corruption charges have yielded jail terms since 2015? Like Philomena, the snake has swallowed the money, but no one can see the beast. What you cannot see, you cannot hold.

    We started the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) to spike the serpent. But because it is spiritual, no one can strike it. A number of cases have followed the pattern of the swallowing snake. The Saraki case that has gone up and down, right and left like the adder on the alley. Or Patience Jonathan, who says the late mother owned the money and the EFCC is showing disrespect for our heroine past for her labours of love and profit in this land. Or the case a few years ago when top SANs defended two colleagues allegedly caught in the bribery scandal.

    Our money often assumes a lot of paths like the snake. They are stolen in Abuja or any state capital. They take a route to the bank. In the banks are many turns. It goes to a vault in Naira, meanders through files, and desks, slithers up to the offices of the bank directors and hisses in a disappearing act into another currency in the forex department.

    It reaches Europe in Euros, or goes to America in dollars, or other climes in their own currencies. They blend with the environment, look lush like the greenback of American dollars, or tawny like the desert sands of the Middle East. We search for them here in our banks, lawyers defending their thieves, whereas they have changed form and home. The “pepper has rested” elsewhere.

    In the case of Philomena and the N36 million, money is a spirit, it takes wings and disappears – into the bowels of the snake. In a few cases, a snake is caught. We applaud ourselves for such rare heroics. Like in some cases where some money has been returned to our coffers. But snakes have a way of escaping, like the re-looting of the Abacha $500 million. A big snake had vomited that. But another has swallowed it again.

    Nor is the snake the only victim of our lies. The goat, the stubborn mammal, bleats lies. Not long ago, children often lied when they failed exams and did not want their parents to know. They claimed, “Baba, I passed but the goat ate up my report card.” We may think the goat harmless unless when it sinks its teeth in an errant piece of yam. But the goat made news in 2009. One was prosecuted in Kwara State for stealing a car. The police arrested the goat, claiming that the real thief transfigured into the bleating beast.

    The Nigerian incident was foreseen by French writer Victor Hugo in his famous novel, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. A beautiful woman, Esmeralda and her goat are arrested and hanged for sorcery. The author was taking a swipe at the Spanish Inquisition for canonising violence in the name of justice.

    For the witch snake, Philomena was only mocking us for our hypocrisy. If billions disappear on apocryphal tales from politicians and get away with them, it was time shadowy citizen gave us a witch snake with a conjurer’s twist. The latter was provided with good humour by Senator Shehu Sani, who materialised with snake charmers at the JAMB office.

    But snake charmers, by their nature, are also phony. They cannot charm a snake in the bush, only the ones they bring to the show. But our people steal strange money, so we need a new breed of snake charmers. EFCC does not seem equipped for this, not with their lawyers, or our SANs sans honour, or our judges on the take.

    We have been happy to take what we can from the looters, even if they are small compared with what the witch snakes have swallowed over the years. As they say where I come from in the Niger Delta, ‘at all, at all na winch.’

     

    The bard and the trance

    Writer Wole Soyinka gave us an interesting word last week to describe President Muhammadu Buhari. I am still trying to figure out what he means by trance. Does he mean Buhari is in an ethno-nepotistic trance, which means the spirit of his ancestors have so overwhelmed him that he sees only people from his clan  when doles out appointments? So, he is president of Nigeria, but that trance makes him see Katsina even when he is supposed to see Owerri? Is that why he asked his Benue men to embrace his neighbours?

    Or is he in a religious trance, and he sees only men and women on Friday prayers and when Sunday comes he rejoices Friday has come so soon, and so appoints as though it is a one-faith country? I am not sure that trance is always a good thing. What we need, if we are to believe the bard, is to look for men who can exorcise that spirit and bring our beloved president back to earth.

  • 50 rushed to hospital after eating cow bitten by snake

    OVER 50 people were rushed to various hospitals in South Africa after eating meat from a cow that had reportedly died from a snake bite.

    The incident happened at Mpoza village outside Tsolo in the Eastern Cape Province.

    The province’s department of health spokesperson, Sizwe Kupelo said the patients confirmed they had eaten the meat from the carcass of an animal that had died after being bitten by a snake.

    He said the patients experienced diarrhoea, vomiting, headaches and stomach cramps, according to a report by News24.com.

    Among those who were ill were 16 children, eight of whom had been transferred to the Nelson Mandela Academic Hospital’s paediatric ward, while the others were treated at Mthatha Regional Hospital.

    Kupelo said four elderly patients were also transferred to Nelson Mandela Academic Hospital for further treatment.

    Kupelo said the department was urging communities to stop consuming meat from dead animals as it was dangerous to do so.

  • Snake bitten

    •It is high time for Nigeria, like Costa Rica, to produce anti-venom drug  

    In the last two weeks, about 70 Nigerians are reported to have died from snake bites in Plateau and Gombe states alone. All clinics in the two states and other states: Adamawa, Taraba, Bauchi, and Borno are unable to treat snake bites because of lack of medications needed to detoxify victims of snake bite.

    Indeed, snake bite is common all over Nigeria but is more prevalent in northern states during harvest months between July and October. Snakes bite farmers every year, but the problem has been more striking this year because the medication used to treat snake bite, usually imported from Costa Rica, the United Kingdom and India, has not been available in the country since the end of August.

    We consider it worrisome that both the Federal Government and governments of states that experience snake bites at regular times every year have failed to provide, in the short-term, imported medications to treat victims, and, in the long-term to produce such drug in Nigeria. If Costa Rica, from which the medication that responds effectively to Nigerian snake bites had been imported in the past, can produce one of such drugs, Echitab Plus ICP, at one of the country’s institutions, Picado University, then Nigeria has no excuse not to put its money where its mouth is on the ruling party’s promise to improve citizens’ health, especially by making primary health centres functional. A stakeholder that should appreciate the gravity of problems faced by farmers, Managing Director of Aliyu Mega Pharmacy, has painted a troubling picture of the experience of victims of snake bite: “We receive an average of 50 victims every day. Some arrive here in very critical conditions and we just have to watch them die because we are helpless.”

    There are other dangers awaiting victims of snake bite in a situation of lack of medication. According to one of the medical practitioners in Gombe, quacks have started to peddle locally produced anti-snake venom drug. This can only aggravate an already sad situation. Further, doctors in the affected states have also observed the rise in self-medication, facilitated by herbalists that generally do not require any form of certification for quality assurance.

    Furthermore, a drug that costs between N13,500 and N30,000 per treatment is undoubtedly prohibitive for most of the subsistence farmers that get bitten by snakes. The states affected by this problem annually need to respond compassionately to the victims and more strategically to snake bite by encouraging local production of medications that can prevent victims from cheap death in the 21st century.

    In the meantime, such expensive medications should be subsidised by states, especially that the attacks occur mostly during the three months of harvest in a year. Losing over 50 citizens to snake bites in one week ought to alarm governors of any state in which such a thing occurs.  Governments of such states need to treat this matter as an emergency. The centrality of agriculture to the new national policy on economic diversification demands that federal and state governments do not look away from anything that can discourage new and experienced farmers from staying on the farm.

    On the preventive side, we urge state governments to increase and improve public health education strategies and tactics. For example, state governments need to encourage farmers to wear boots and well-studded gloves during the harvest season, and, if need be, subsidise such items for farmers. There are many species of anti-serpent plants that can also be planted near food plants without any negative effect.

    We also call on the Federal Government to support efforts by states to save farmers serving the cause of food security from dying from preventable and treatable snake bites.

  • Snake rage and aviation fuel snafu

    It is often said that we should be careful what we wish for. But Hardball says, be careful what you invoke. When the Nigerian military in their brief moment of exuberance began to name their ‘routine’ military exercises after animals, no one would have thought of a possibility of a backlash. But superstitious heads have begun to suggest that the rage of snakes in some states of the country may not be unconnected to those terms as ‘Python Dance’ and ‘crocodile smile’.

    In the past couple of months, about 250 deaths have been reported across the snake belt states like Plateau, Gombe and Katsina. Hear it from the managing director of EchiTAb Study Group, the anti-snake venom producing firm: “Moreover, we were not used to this large request. All of a sudden, people go to their farms and meet snakes in large numbers…”

    But as you may know dear reader, Hardball is not given to superstition. As oriental sages long conjectured, something made the cocoyam to begin to squeak. The requisite authorities simply are not prepared for this snake season. It’s the period of the year; after the rains when snakes come out of semi-hibernation and are on the prowl.

    For a perennial problem that has plagued a large swathe of the country for ages, our response has lacked method or rationality. First why are anti-venom drugs still being imported by Nigeria? Second, how could the drug be scarce at the most critical time when it is needed most? If the appropriate quarters were alive to their duties, the treatment centres would be well stocked at this time.

    When a female student died of snake bite poison recently in a higher institution in Katsina State, the school was at its wits end for the control of the pest that it had to deploy snake charmers! A tertiary institution in 2017 world!

    Today, it is bad enough that we cannot produce this essential drug locally; it is worse that we had to run out of stock but what is to be said of the fact that supply of the drug has been hampered for about ten days because of shortage of aviation fuel in Nigeria?

    It is said that planes coming into Nigeria to supply stock have to haul return journey aviation fuel. Again, in 2017; to think that Nigeria is a major oil producing country.

    And what’s to be done? The House of Representative calls on the federal government to declare a state of emergency on the snake bite crisis. Brilliant guffaw!

    And Hardball calls out: MAY DAY, MAY DAY! Anyone out there!

  • Spare the snake, kill the man! (2)

    Spare the snake, kill the man! (2)

    Ibadan City is the largest   in the West Africa, this I read from Akomolede, a Yoruba book written by Oba Adekunle Aromolaran of Ijeshaland, as pupils in the primary school back then in Jebba, an ancient town near Ilorin, the capital of Kwara State. It was so fascinating that I was eager to visit the city one day. Our Yoruba Language teacher , Mrs Jegede , a funny character went ahead to tell us about ‘Layipo’,  an idiomatic expression for ‘deceit’. Layipo is the people’s word  for Bower Tower, a tourism site in Ibadanland. To me, then, it was more than being funny and coming from a funny character and to cap it all in a funny way. Hmmmmm! Semiu indeed showed me the real meaning of “layipo’ in a queer way. I will spare the snake and will kill the man. Let me continue to repeat. I don’t care! He blew my nostrils into pieces while I thought he was cleaning it. It’s just an idiomatic expression.

    We bought the land with both names inscribed on the receipts. I was waiting for Semiu to collect his own contribution from the thrift society so that we can start building the house, but no word or action came from his side.      Months went by  and one day he came and said that he had collected the money. I heaved sighs of relief and I quickly asked from him if I should call the bricklayer , Baba Mosudi who built Madam Ololade Supermarket, he said no.

    “ What of Tao the son of Alfa Quadri at Isale Foko. He is trustworthy too” I told him.

    “No, I don’t want any of them” he replied.

    “Who else do you want?” I asked calmly, though I was a bit annoyed, but I refused to show it in order not to have any excuse.

    “Hmmmmmm! Let me  think very well so that I can give you the best answer.”

    “ No problem, after all, we are both living in this house” I finally said as I got up to enter the kitchen to serve his food.

    Throughout the night I didn’t sleep. I was in a state of confusion, I was annoyed, irritated and in fact, I didn’t know what to really say. In my inner mind, I knew something was wrong but that thing was what I couldn’t fathom. I wished the day would break so that I could fill my mind with many positive things.

    The evening of third day, market boomed and I was happy. I was preparing to go home when Semiu came to my shop to meet me.    Such a visit was not unusual due to the way we exhibited love, though he has not done so in the recent times, nonetheless, I was happy that he came.

    “Do I offer you drink or food daddy Vincent?” I looked straightly into his eyes and caressed his moustache, not minding that some of my customers were still around.  About three of them looked at us while the remaining pretended as if they didn’t notice anything.

    “This moustache, don’t ever allow any woman in Ibadan to touch it.  It is meant for me alone” I said as  I brought out a small comb to comb out it. I applied a little drops of olive oil and combed it romantically.

    “Nobody can take you away from me. I am all yours” Semiu told me to the envy of the people.

    “Mama Vincent, I better be going home before you corrupt my mind with   your love in Tokyo meningitis “  mummy Bimbo, one of my influential customers whose husband was a retired Chief Justice.

    “Aunty, you better wait to guide me more , because you taught us how to do this” I told her smiling.

    “….. Yes, we taught you, but you have known this more than those you met on the job” she replied me amidst laughter.

    “ Mama Justice, let’s be going together. My husband too will be waiting for me to come home and comb his beard. Nobody can flaunt her husband’s moustache to me while mine is three times her own” Mrs. Janet Malboro who resided in Jericho GRA told us as got up abruptly feigning to be annoyed.

    She ran after the justice’s wife, and one by one, they all got up and left; leaving me and my husband alone.

    “Now that the coast is clear, can we talk now darling?” Semiu asked me.

    “ I am all ears, my love” I replied him.

    “Though, we   have an agreement on how to spend my own money. But kindly allow me to use it for another thing…….”

    “ Another what?” I cut him short.

    I was so annoyed that I didn’t bother to allow him to finish before I sprang up on my feet in readiness to go home. Having sensed my mood, he got up to be on his way out. I cared less because my policy is that promise is a debt. Even when my own mother was on her sick bed and needed money as instructed by my siblings, I didn’t send money from the contributions collected. I had to sleep in the office sewing dresses to earn enough to send home. This is all because Semiu had instructed that we should use the money to buy land.

    We got home and he apologised. He didn’t tell me anything about the money again which I learnt he had even collected three months before sitting me down to tell me what to do with the money. He pretended that all was well and I, in my in my quest to build a happy home and make something tangible out of it did not suspect anything until the day the bubble burst!

    I was preparing to take orders from the Hausa Community in Shasha when  the telephone rang and the voice at the other end asked for my identity and I agreed.

    “ Please come quickly to the  Maronu Hospital because your husband was rushed in few hours ago” the female voice whom I suspected to be that of  a nurse told me.

    “Rushed in? Why? When? How? Haaa!……” I was just shouting to the roof because the voice had already thinned out.

    I called my next door neighbor and explained what happened to her and begged her to deliver the good for me while I went to visit him in the hospital. By the time I got there, I was shocked to see his pale figure lying on the bed. He has emaciated beyond description, nobody would believe that Semiu who woke up that morning , prepared  his own breakfast of ogi (pap) and  jogi was the person on bed. I was just looking at him.”

    “ Madam , why didn’t you advise your husband to come to the hospital on time. Imagine, if not because of a good Samaritan that saw him where he slumped at the bus stop, we would have been saying another thing by now.

    “ Doctor, he was hale and hearty when he left home this morning . Though, I was still sleeping because I was tired, he was healthy  enough to prepare his own breakfast and gave the left over to the children.”

    We were saying this when an elderly woman whom I later knew to be the matron sauntered in and  what she said baffled me.

    “Is this Mama Vincent”? She asked and   the doctor said yes. I was dazed again because I didn’t know how they got to know my name.

    Events unfolding later confirmed that Mama Vincent was the other wife he had outside our matrimony. He cunningly named the children of the woman the same name that my children are bearing to cover his clandestine activities. This same woman was the one that he gave that money in question to.

    What happened was that before I got to the hospital, the woman was there before me. She has been called by that name by her friend who came in there and this was after she identified herself as Semiu’s wife.

    Vincent, Jolaade, Ibiwumi and Lolade were my children’s names. And this was how Semiu named those children the other woman they had within five years. Yet, Semiu gave no clue that he was cheating on me.

    That day, I did not know what was on the ground. I came in later in the evening to give him food and I saw the same type of plate that I brought in. I was wondering who was so close to him in Ibadan City to bring in food. Well, I felt may be some of the family friends.

    But on my way out, I overheard a  male nurse telling his colleague how  Mama Vincent was so friendly and caring despite the fact that the man was just recovering from shock. I went my way thinking it was co-incidental. As I was going out, something just told me to go back , but I felt there was no need since I was going to go back the following day.

    Trying to open the gate, there came  a woman who was in her late 30’s and was wearing the type of the cloth Semiu and I bought to celebrate  Oke Badan festival. I looked at her and a three year old child she was holding. The resemblance was like that of Jolaade, my last born when she that age. Something in me told me to greet the woman and  carry the baby. I just whispered to myself “to mind my own business”.   Can you imagine what I found out later again, that was Semiu’s last born from the woman. If I was going out  from the hospital, the woman would be going in. Semiu is a devil,  no story about that. Despite the fact that he was on his sick bed, yet he was still able to perfect his devilish act!

  • Two suspected fraudsters held with live snake

    Operatives of the Assistant Inspector-General of Police’ (AIG) Zonal Intervention Squad (ZIS), Onikan, have arrested two suspects for an alleged N5 million fraud.

    Ahmed Fatai Seun and Joseph Adaramola were apprehended last Thursday at Ijebu-Igbo in Ogun State, with a live snake and fetish items.

    The suspects were said to have tricked a victim who bought herbal concoction at Ikeja from Fatai.

    It was gathered that the victim was lured into the scam after he spoke with one “Baba” through the telephone, who promised to offer special prosperity prayers for him.

    He was said to have been charged N75million for the charm but paid N5million before he realised what was happening and reported the case to the police.

    According to the zonal spokesman, Muyiwa Adejobi, a Superintendent of Police (SP), detectives swung into action and arrested the suspects.

    He said: “It was then discovered that the said Baba (Seun) he met in Ijebu-Igbo is the same Fatai, who sold Agbo (concoction) to him in Ikeja. Seun always act like an old man to dupe people.

    “AIG Abdulmajid Ali has directed that the suspects be charged to court without delay.”

  • Nigeria to produce anti snake venom

    As the October 31 date announced by Wyeth for the expiration of anti venom approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for coral snake bites draws near, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control, Prof Nasidi Abdulsalami,  has assured that Nigeria has the skill and the capability to produce the snake anti venom and bridge the gap which will soon be noticed after.

    The present manufacturer, Wyeth now owned by Pfizer has stated that it will cease production by the end of October this year. And that by that date there may be no commercially available antivenom (antivenin) left, as that is the expiration date on existing vials of Micrurus fulvius, the only antivenom approved by the Food and Drug Administration for coral snake bites. The antivenom was approved for sale in 1967, in a time of less stringent regulation.

    Prof Abdulsalami said his centre can be more proactive though if the federal government is ready to invest in the production of the antivenom as his centre is already collaborating with Echi TAB, United Kingdom, and Costa Rica. This is championed by Echi TAB and the Nigerian study group. The centre required between $3million to $5million to undertake the studies required to get it approved by FDA.

    According to Prof Abdulsalami there is really no need for the world to experience any panic as Nigeria/UK collaboration will rise to the challenge and fill the gap created by the suspension of the anti snake venom by Wyeth.

    A snakebite treatment specialist at the Florida Poison Information Centre, Tampa, Joe Pittman while assessing the situation said, “It’s ridiculous that we’re losing a technology that we already have. It’s even more ludicrous that we have a product that’s available, and we have to jump through so many hoops to get it approved.”

    In July 2009, an FDA advisory board determined that Coralmyn qualified for an accelerated approval process, but there is still no one with the estimated $3 million to $5 million to pay for the required studies.

    Nobody in this situation is being a bad actor,” says Eric Lavonas of the Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Centre. “We just don’t have a system set up to deal with it.”

    With no adequate replacement for coral snake anti venom, hospitals are likely to appeal to local zoos, many of which maintain small stocks for their staff. But zoos are under no obligation to provide the medicine.

  • Snake found in Magistrate’s chambers

    Snake found in Magistrate’s chambers

    There was panic at an Ejigbo Magistrate’s Court in Lagos,on Monday when  a snake was found in the Magistrate’s chambers.

    The incident occurred around 8:30am, support staff were about receiving Magistrate Akeem Fashola, who has just been posted to the court.

    It was learnt that the magistrate sat on his desk, without knowing there was a snake beside his table.

    “Oga was in the office and he had sat down for sometime. He stood up and went into the toilet to allow the cleaner continue sweeping when she got close to his seat.

    “It was the cleaner’s scream that attracted all our attention. She said as she was sweeping, her broom swept something that was heavy.

    “As she looked up, she realised it was a green snake. And the snake at the same time, skipped to the other side of the office, near the cabinets, where it hid.

    “It was at the point that we came in and killed the snake. We are really shocked because no one could explain how the snake entered the chambers,” a court worker said.

    The Nation found that the court is not surrounded by bush.

    Some litigants believe that it is possible the snake crawled in from the nearby International airport, which shares boundary with the court.

    They appealed to the government to clear the bush around the airport and fumigate it to avoid safety.

    At the time of filing this report, workers were fumigating the court  premises, and rearranging the offices.