By Busuyi Mekusi

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Natural elements are inevitable companions to humans. While some are positively impacting, others are negatively oppressing. In-between are those filled with the pangs of sweet-bitter, like rains that enhance growth and precipitate destruction when accompanied with winds. No doubt, farmers are happy scratching the ground for planting as house owners wriggle in the pains of destructive storms that left them without shelters. Housing policies in Nigeria remain arbitrarily deficient, with private citizens saddled more with the responsibility of house construction, leaving behind poor planning and usage of the environment, as well as shoddy constructions that are vulnerable to the vagaries of weather and collapse.    

Yoruba older generation might appear garrulous in speech, but they are deep in philosophical appraisals and submissions about things that affect them. They contrast with the younger generation that got nurtured with the abridged principles of African and western civilisations. Characteristic of every hybridised processes and products, they are merely made-up of a fraction of each of the orientations, with no needed depth and substance for effective socio-cultural engagements. Two members of the natural environment that Yoruba people have woven into their philosophical engineering are dog and grasscutter. While the former has been largely domesticated, the latter is still substantially a game, hunted for relishing protein, and being systematically included as part of the animals to be raised domestically. 

Dogs are globally considered to be; faithful and loyal companions, protective of their masters and territory; good family pet, courageous, affectionate and gentle; patient and intelligent. Beyond these aggressive protective, guiding and guarding characteristics of dogs, they are mytho-culturally considered to have the capacity for metaphysical vision, which could enable them see beyond the physical; including ghosts and apparitions that are believed to co-exist with humans.

Grasscutters, also known as marsh cane rats or Thryonomys swinderianus, are microlivestocks with precocious offspring capable of running and having their eyes open at parturition. While grasscutters could be trapped for capturing and eating, they could also be gamed by using hunting-dogs. Dogs are noted for their ability to sniff objects and substances, to choose what they consider acceptable or abhorring. It is from this sensibility that Yorubas proverbially state that the mother-dog knows how to breastfeed her puppies but swoops on the young of grasscutters as preys. 

The adage about the dog and grasscutter has helped Yoruba people to designate selfish attributes and intentions in people. It is a fact that so many human beings, mostly Nigerians, reflect the symbolism of the mother-dog, not only in terms of faithfulness, protective tendency, courage, affection, gentleness, patience, and intelligence, but the selfish attribute of keeping their own children while pouncing on those of others with reckless abandon.

One personality that comes to mind is a Sokoto-born herbal dispenser and vendor that plies his trade in Akure, Ondo State, with government ministerial office complexes as parts of his coverage areas. Characteristic of such vendors and their marketing ability, the Sokoto man is said to be dexterous, affable and comical to a fault. His products range from special grains and herbs that are attached with the credential of curing or mitigating common but life-taking diseases like ulcer, high blood pressure, infertility, etc. Central to these herbal medicines is the one nicknamed ‘Mayokuro’ (don’t remove it).

‘Mayokuro’ is a combination of granulated herbs, that enhances sexual sensation and performance in both men and women. The naming was arrived at to justify the sexual satisfaction that people who use the concoction would derive, with the accompanying request of the sexual partner, particularly the woman, that the man should not pull out his manhood, but continue in the escapade. Sexualised public discourses are very common these days, with profanity made popular, and decency easily blurred. Notable motor-parks in Nigeria are spaces for such vendors to convoke interactions, and lure even unwilling listeners to their conversations.

A little sit-in in any vehicle loading passengers at Jabi motor-park in Abuja would avail one different marketing narratives that may be annoying, offensive, obtrusive or humorous. Sellers of sex-enhancing herbs at this park, most especially of northern extraction, would use signs and signification to buttress their arguments, for example the movement of the hand to typify the expected turgidity of the penis after ingesting their products. Even though ‘Mayokuro’ or other herbal products are not regulated by known government organisations like NAFDAC, its efficacy has been allegedly attested to by some of the users. Notwithstanding the attendant pretentions, sexual matters seem to be unifying across different age groups, tribes, and colours, with even acclaimed misogynists supposedly directing their emotions somewhere else, including dogs that are considered to be loyal companions. Human sensibilities and sensations could be predictably complicating!

Of more concern to us here is the mother-dog attitude of the Sokoto-born herbal vendor who freely ‘dispenses sex’ but carefully ‘hoard’ his three wives from the sexualised public space. The man told the stories about his three wives to some of his acquaintances, and how he got one phone that is not internet enabled for the use of his three wives. According to him, he also has a low-quality phone with a dedicated line through which he communicates with the wives and the children. The phone in his house in Sokoto would be put in a central place, and any of the wives that needs his attention would drop him a missed call, to prompt him calling back. Each time he calls the Sokoto line too, any of the wives could pick the call, with them taking their turns to speak with the husband.

Even though the Sokoto-herbal-seller has an internet and social-media enabled smart phone, he was said to have claimed that allowing his wives access to social media would expose them unnecessarily, and corrupt them sexually, particularly given his intermittent absence at home in Sokoto, while down south to make ends meet. This is more so as he felt that men using products like ‘Mayokuro’ could prey on his wives. Our friend with the character of the mother-dog would also jocularly indicate that he loses weight anytime he visits Sokoto, as he would have to make up sexually for the period he was away.

The story about these three ‘hoarded’ wives of our friend speaks to the endless commoditisation of women in Nigeria, and similarly exemplifies how the mother-dog selfishly nurtures her puppies and feed on the young of the grasscutter. The foregoing similarly reminds us of how the political and elite classes in Nigeria freely access amenities and luxuries they deny ordinary Nigerians both at home and overseas. For instance, while some Nigerians are groping in hopelessness, we are being entertained by Amaechi and Wike who renew their political brickbats recently, with the former accusing the latter of being a lazy drunk, and incurring the expenditure of N50 million drinking Whiskey weekly. Undeniably, Government Houses in Nigeria are sites of extreme comfort, while private abodes of ordinary citizens are spaces for expansive conflicts on pecuniary matters.

News are replete with civil and pubic officers that divert budgetary allocations and steal monetary releases to education, health, infrastructure, etc., leaving behind relics, as they procure comfort for their children in high-brow estates at home, and expensive mansions abroad, with access to valuable education and sustainable healthcare provisions. Nigerian politicians are mostly found of deploying the children of others as political thugs, with their children only returning to share the booties of political victory. Misguided opportunists at various strata of life protectively handle their female children while they exploit others sexually. The tangles among politicians on the new naira policy and the needless suffering and collapse of businesses of common Nigerians stressed the fact that commoners are mere pawns in the hands of the rich.

On the other side of the socio-economic divide, the community of poor Nigerians also parades a few who are as selfish as the mother-dog that preys on the grasscutter young. One of them is Ifeoma Ossai, a woman that allegedly grabbed and dragged the manhood of her landlord, Monday Oladele, in Sango-Ota, Ogun State, over electricity bill, leading to his death. Others are psychopathic adults who continue to rape minors. Parts of the league are mad drivers like the one that drove the BRT that collided with a train in Lagos. The lists also include owners and drivers of unguided-container-laden trucks that fall and kill other road users at will.

From the ‘Mayokuro’ maverick to the many selfish mother-dogs that are feeding fat on the babies of grasscutters, we must, as leaders and followers, embrace fairness, justice, transparency, inclusion and recognition of constitutional rights of citizens, as we look forward to a new democratic regime nationally, and emplace, through the ballots, representatives at the level of the states. After all, the possibility exists that the grasscuttter may wise up someday, to tame the bestiality of the selfish mother-dog!