Beware of the dog

Those who do not give, and run away from those who need, are the ones we used to call the Beware of the Doggers (that is, when we were academics). Beware of the Dog is illustrated by this story of a friend of a friend of who came into some money (how, I was never […]

Those who do not give, and run away from those who need, are the ones we used to call the Beware of the Doggers (that is, when we were academics). Beware of the Dog is illustrated by this story of a friend of a friend of who came into some money (how, I was never told). He moved out of the area he used to live in, and into the GRA. He provided everything for his security; a high wall topped with barbed-wire and broken bottles, two Nigerguard watchmen who had seen civil and uncivil wars, and a ferocious Alsatian guard dog which were only familiar with Maigida, his children, the security men, and no one else.

Meanwhile, this lucky friend’s friend’s father lived in the village, in a truly most wretched of lives. The old man’s younger son, who had been to his brother’s home in the GRA, told the Baba the wonders in the new abode. He also told him that the GRA son would send for him at the end of the month to see the new place. The old man then asked the younger son to write down the address on a piece of paper. Unbeknownst to the son, the father planned a surprise visit to the city.

The old man got ready and left surreptitiously, carrying as gift three live fowls. After changing from an open pick-up vehicle to a bus at the main road, he reached the city. The address helped as the Acaba man (Okada rider) could read and took him right to the gate. The old man was impressed by what he saw; his son was so successful he had the picture of his dog on the gate. The old man even thought the red letters near the ‘picture’ of the dog were the dog’s name. As he could not read, he could not know that it said: BEWARE OF THE DOG.

The old man, seeing that it was a bit dirty, reached up to the ‘picture’ of his son’s dog and used the tail of his dirty gown to wipe off the dust. As the maiguard was not readily available, the father of the son pushed open the door, all the better to surprise the occupants. Alas, it was the old man who was in for a surprise. The dog was there and, after a few seconds, the three live fowls were alive no more, and the rest is the history.

Or that other story we once narrated about the death of the father of one those suddenly-rich fellows. As part of the mourning, for seven days and seven nights jolly good food was served. A bull was slaughtered each day, and jolloff rice became everyone’s breakfast, lunch and dinner. Hundreds who had not tasted meat for hundreds of days did then. Everyone left his job: what is a job for but to get something to eat? ‘Mourners’ lounged around in their thousands, each waiting for the next mournful food.

After the seventh day fidda’u, the food suppliers rested. Mourning was over. It was then that the mourning crowd became sad; they started ‘mourning’ of missing the jolloff, not the deceased. They would have offered to continue ‘mourning’ for any length of time. One elderly, emaciated, wretched-looking man, who had significantly benefited from the food bonanza, remarked: “Is the mother of the bereaved still alive”? Serious.

Do the rich and powerful take solace behind barbed-wire fences and fierce guard dogs, happy with the wisdom that ‘what you don’t see doesn’t exist? We must tell them: what you don’t see – or refuse to see – does exist! So many of the well-to-do take meat, fish, milk and other proteinous foods for granted, because they can afford it, but have they asked about their relatives in the village?

A majority of Nigerians live below the poverty line-Nigeria’s poverty line. If the masses of the country were measured with the global poverty index, perhaps only five percentage points would be above it. These five percent today hold the rest of the country to ransom. One would have no problem with legally-acquired wealth, but in a situation where most of the wealth of the top echelon of our countrymen is ill-gotten, the masses are shortchanged. No wonder they complain, sometimes loudly.

So the wire fences keep the masses out – but they also keep those who steal the silver spoons (they were not born with it in their mouths) locked behind their gates. Now, then, who is free? The poor who roam the streets without three triangular meals – but free alright – or they who tuck in more than five pentagonal meals (breakfast, brunch, lunch, snack, dinner), but are mortally afraid of the outside?

There used to be, our elders used to say, a wealth of difference between wealth and riches. In those days, they say, a wealthy person used to be that person who had money and was willing to share it with others; and the rich person also had money, but did not normally want to share with anyone. Redistribution of wealth (of course not the ‘communist’ way) would solve most of the problems of society. Those who over-indulge should give the surplus away to others, and the receivers must be thankful. That way life would be balanced.

Let us all remember that famous story of a wealthy Lagos-based tycoon (now late) who was said to have once confided to his eldest son that all the trips he used to make to Australia were just so that he could get some sleep. “I had no business in Australia,” he was said to have told the son. “When I travel via London to Singapore and then on to Sydney, I was only using the opportunity of such long haul flights to lie flat on the First Class seat/bed and just sleep, and sleep, and sleep. I never get to get such sound sleep otherwise.”

Or the similar story of another billionaire, this time Kano-based, and also now late. He was said to have had a visitor one day; a childhood but rather poor friend. Before the tycoon could come down from upstairs to meet his visitor, the poor peasant had dozed off on the settee he had been cozily seated. And had begun to snore right away. Soft settee, breezing air conditioning conditioned his tired bones. When the wealthy one descended and the friend woke up, the former was said to have told his visitor that he so envied him: he told him there was no way he could sleep without drugs, even then it had to be flat out, on one side, and even then for only a couple of hours. As a proprietor of an airline, he could never naturally close an eye until all his aircraft had been reported safe.

The Nigerian poor are not lazy – it is just that almost all the opportunities are taken, or blocked, and the poor are so devastated. If the wealthy would help redistribute the Aye wealth around, there would have been no need of guard dogs, or Beware of the Dog, and old Baba and his three fowls would have been alive today. Beware, then of the Dog.