New York Sun Editor John B. Bogart (1848–1921) while trying to explain the meaning of the word "news" the way journalists see it once said: "When a dog bites a man, that is not news, because it happens so often. But if a man bites a dog, that is news."
If Mr Bogart were to be alive today, he would be shell shocked to discover that In Nigeria, "man bites dog " will not even make the headlines because it will unsuccessfully struggle to compete with even more ridiculous headlines.
I have quietly observed the excessive frenzy and excitement generated by the shameless headlines we have seen of late in this country. Am talking about; " Snake swallows 32 million Naira in Jamb office ", "Monkeys swallow 70 million Naira on a senator's farm, " dragon disappears with 500 million dollar loan" (the latest).
It appears to me that we only got the joke in the gist but not the gist in the joke. We got the comedy in the news not the news in the comedy.
We are now running the risk of laughing too hard and making too much merry of serious national issues that should milk the tears from our eyes. Not every joke calls for too much laughter, some call for sober reflection.
Let me illustrate. Imagine yourself in this scenario. You suddenly discovered that you have just 24 hours to pay your school fees or face expulsion. You rush home to inform your father who Immediately directs your elder brother to dash to FirstBank and withdraw the last N70, 000 from his account. Your elder brother dashes to the ATM to make the withdrawal. He comes back sweating and looking every bit confused. Your dad asks him " where is the money"? He replies " sir, while I was coming back, I was waylaid by two heartless elephants who suddenly jumped out of the First Bank Logo. One held me very tightly with his trunk while the other wicked one slowly robbed me. He took all the money from my pocket and before I could realize what was happening, they had split the money and hurriedly swallowed it before disappearing back into the First Bank Logo".
All of you in the house immediately burst into laughter. Your dad laughs very hard and goes back to sleep. Every other person goes back to what they were doing after having a good laugh. You also laugh very heartily and return back to school the same way you came.
This is just my assessment of most of the reactions I have seen. We are daily becoming a big international laughing stock while laughing our socks off.
Let's look at these animals a little more closely. A snake is a literary representation of unparalleled greed. A snake is the greediest animal you will find anywhere. Unlike other carnivores like lions and tigers, a snake does not bother to eat parts of its prey and leave the rest for hyenas, vultures and other scavengers. It swallows everything whole whether useful or useless. It swallows the head, waist, legs, shoes, clothes, fingernails, hair, weavon, hook, line, sinker etc.
This is the classic depiction of most of our political office holders who loot humongous sums of money that their 18th generation will not need.
This is the classic depiction of most of our political office holders who loot humongous sums of money that their 18th generation will not need.
A country that ranks among one of the world's poorest but holds the record for the highest paid political office holders is certainly a territory of huge reticulated political pythons who don't mind swallowing everything in sight. We have one of the greediest set of politicians in the solar system.
The monkey! Growing up, i still remember watching the popular Hong Kong martial arts movie titled "snake in the monkey shadow". This movie was a bundle of joy for all kung fu lovers. It heavily featured all the "mumurities" and "yeyerities" of Chinese television martial arts. I can still remember seeing lanky Chinese men with oversized shirts ridiculously flying like monkeys or dancing like cobras and punching both the living destiny and future out of people for no good reason. I seriously believed all what I was watching was real until I grew up to realize the extent of my silliness.
Again, the monkey is the most crafty and restless of animals. A trained monkey is better at stealing than the best pick pocket. The restlessness of the monkey is legendary. Its practically impossible for a monkey to sit still for even a minute. Unlike birds who build their nest in a particular tree, monkeys are known to jump from tree to tree at the slightest provocation. For monkeys, the best tree is the next available tree. I find no better description for our politicians who have degrees in high jumpology. In fact, nowhere else in the world is the defection of politicians to and fro political parties witnessed and celebrated as in Nigeria. Check and compare your facts.
Ours is a territory of professional political monkeys monkeying from one political tree to another in search of banana.
The innocent animals we have victimized in our lazy bid to cover up our profligacy have indirectly become a symbolism for our collective shame.
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