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Sacred snails of Umuaga
Throughout the world, nations have taboos. No one knows how these taboos began. In India's Hindu communities, cows are sacred. Holy cow! Try banning beef in America -- Texas would secede. In Korea and China, they hunt down dogs and eat the oily meat. Try that in America, you would go to jail! A man recently got three years behind bars for throwing a dog into traffic. In Awka, capital of Anambra State, Nigeria, the people do not disturb primates. Holy monkeys! In Achi, you dare not kill a tortoise -- unless you want to die. In Umukaabia Okigwe, Imo State, there is a spring in which you negotiate fat fish to draw water. In Idemmili, Anambra State, pythons ply the villages unperturbed; killing one accidentally is abomination. Sacred pythons! Sacred creatures are not always revered and protected by local communities. Let's start with Enuugwu Ngwo, a village that sits on top of Udi Hills and after which the city on the valley (Enugu) was named: There is "Afia Usu" (Bat Market) -- opposite the country home of Chief C. C. Onoh, the father of Ikemba's wife, Bianca, and former governor of old Anambra State. Thousands of bats reside on the tall cotton tree in the middle of the market by the roadside, fluttering and chirping all day long and going and coming all night long. No one kills bats in the market, yet no law prohibits anyone from hunting and or eating these creatures elsewhere. Further down the old Enugu-Onitsha road in the same Udi Local Government Area, sits the royal town of Umuaga (Obodoeze). The people of Umuaga do not 'touch' snails. They do not however rush to the stream (or 'town tap') to wash if they accidentally step on, or if they smash snail shells while gardening. Do they abhor the shell but eat snail? No; on the contrary, they believe that a local who eats it knowingly would develop chronic constipation. Now, that's serious because "swollen stomach" in those days gone earned the sufferer an instant quarantine in the forbidden forest, where the person probably and eventually exploded and expired. "May your stomach swell" is the worst curse an Umuagan would put on you. Unlike sacred pythons, holy monkeys, and sacred cows, snails are not sacred in Umuaga. The people do not revere nor accord special treatments to snails. When they burn bushes during farming season, snails -- both big and small -- burn; the unmistakable odor hangs in the air, and no one really minds. If a snail crawls under a clay reservoir pot of water, for obvious reasons, a youngster wielding a long stick would poke it to trigger a recoil into its shell or yank it off unceremoniously, golf-ball it to the nearest shrub, throw away the stick with a copious sputum of disgust, and then wash her or her hands. People from other towns in the Udi (Neke) come to pick snails; they are not disturbed, as long as they don't trample on farmlands. They are however asked to bring along their own drinking cups. So, let's call these snails "sacred" -- for lack of a better word. In Nigeria currently, we have three mighty sacred snails. They are there; but, you can't touch them. You cannot eat them without developing swollen stomach. We called them "sacred cows" in 1999. President Olusegun Obasanjo (OBJ) said he would step on all toes, probably while holding onto the horns of these holy cows. Many people shouted themselves hoarse while pleading with OBJ to step it up and arrest the sacred cows. In early August 2001, we heard that we could touch and eat if we wanted, but we must not ask the president to touch or to eat these snails. To Mr. President, the chubby sacred cows have become slimy and smelly sacred snails. Unless you have been reading comic books these past months, you must have read of the national wait for Generals Muhammadu Buhari, Ibrahim Babangida (IBB), and Abdulsalami Alhaji Abubakar (AAA) to appear before the Human Rights Violations Investigation Commission (HRVIC), also known as "Oputa Panel." Buhari is wanted in connection with the kidnap attempt on Alhaji Umaru (Billionaire in a Crate) Dikko in Britain and the execution of alleged drug-dealing suspect, Bartholomew Owoh. IBB needs to answer a few questions about the letter-bombing of Dele Giwa; while AAA is to tell about the alleged murder Chief M.K.O. Abiola under his watch and the nine-month looting spree of the treasury. OBJ is also wanted to appear again to tell how Fela's Kalakuta Republic got burnt, how Mama Fela was thrown out of the window, and how Fela girls got raped. The "no republic in a republic" defense does not wash. In fairness to OBJ, he had urged his fellow
musclemen to appear before Oputa. However, when asked about it recently by a
group of journalists, he lost his cool: "You people are deaf and
dumb," the president yelled in his characteristic country crudity. "I
have told you before that it is in their own interest to appear. If they don't
want to appear, you people should go and arrest them." What? I don't think the president knows the import of his statement. He was talking to the press, yes; but, truth be told, he could be talking to a mob of one million angry people. He knows the weight of his words. He could not have been talking to the journalists as a group of people looking for a pound of flesh. Should the people rise up and arrest Buhari, IBB, and AAA? Is he saying the people should do the Romanian number as on Nigeria's Ceaucescus? Doesn't he have the fortitude of his counterpart in Belgrade, the one who delivered Slobodan Milosovic to the Hague Panel? Does he not have the presidential chutzpah to deliver the generals to Oputa Panel? What is he actually saying: I detest them, but I won't touch them -- you (the people) can clubber them for dinner? I admit that many people have axes to grind, especially with IBB: Abiolas, David-Wests, Aka Bashoruns, Gani Fawehinmis, Kutis, etc. I know that AAA is carrying the cross of Abacha. But, there are serious issues worth talking about. I am a believer in the power of healing. Snail is a diplomatic creature; it negotiates thorns with its smooth tongue. The president has asked the generals to appear in person. Senate President Pius Anyim has said that only Justice Oputa could order their arrests for contempt. I don't know for sure what these men did or didn't do. But, as we say in Naija, "Na small $#!@ dey break nyash." I just hope that Buhari, IBB, and AAA wouldn't be like the proverbial snail that thought it could stay in its shell and quench fire with its slimy stuff, but got cooked inside the shell instead. You know why? Sacred snails aren't sacred. Everything else is embellishment. © MOE, 8/08/01 |