21 Feb 2009 |
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WHO SAYS MEN CANNOT CHANGE INTO ANIMALS WITH AFRICAN SCIENCE? By AISAGBON OMOGIADE
The controvercy generated by the Kwara State police command by parading a goat or a sheep as an armed robbery suspect- a man. who changed into the animal to avoid arrest was a news item world-wide .The Police Public Relations Officer according to many observers, brought the image of Nigeria to disrepute for having the courage to display a domestic animal as a robbery suspect. The vigilante group who “arrested” the goat before it was handed over to the police is still insisting that the domestic animal was actually a human being who transformed into a goat to avoid arrest. Our most prolific writers have aired their views. They saw it as an embarrassment to display and detain a domestic animal, who can neither talk nor has features to handle a gun or drive for making attempts to steal a car. The story attracted lots of comments on our dear website-NVS. Some commentators saw the action of the police as arrant nonsense and a high display of ignorance .Some even thought it was an avenue for police men attached to the station the animal was detained to have a plate of goat- meat pepper-soup free of charge. A week or so earlier, there was also an incident where a passenger of an Okada was said to have turned into a tuber of yam as soon as he placed the safety- helmet on his head. The tuber of yam, the Okada operator, were said to have been detained at a police station in Lagos. My comment on NVS was that, the suspect-goat and the yam should be kept in the same cell and if the goat refuses to eat the yam, then some mysterious things were happening. My reasons: I would want to quickly state that I am a Christian and if you like, born again in the biblical context and not doctrinal or denominational. I am not trying to advertise any idol or deity but merely using them as examples to buttress my point. For this reason, I will not mention the names of the deities, idols, towns and villages that may be used as examples. Many years ago, a British researcher went to the Azande ( territory now known as Central African Republic) to learn more about the people’s belief on witchcraft. His first contact with the locals brought to an end the research he prepared for that could take some months or years. Two suspects were brought before the elder of the village. They were accused of stealing. Two fowls were ordered for by the elder. The elder mentioned the first suspect’s name and forced a concoction into the throat of the fowl. The fowl ran off as soon as it was left. The second fowl went through the same process but died instantly .The second suspect was now proved to be the thief. The researcher begged for a little of the concoction which was eventually taken to ICI(Imperial Chemical Industries) for analysis. The researcher was startled to know that the concoction was capable of killing a human being within three minutes. Why then did first fowl survive when the name of the innocent suspect was mentioned before the concoction was forced down its throat? To say this is superstition is tantamount to doubting whether Pharaoh’s magicians did turn their staff to snakes when the biblical staff of Moses turned into a snake .The people of most parts of Europe are still superstitious till date. The Italians and Greeks are superstitious about coming across a black cat, if a mirror falls and break, spilled cooking oil and salt ,while the Germans believe that when a man presents a gift of a pair of shoes to a woman, he is paving way for her to run away. The British themselves, from 16th to 18th centuries executed more than four hundred persons for unproved accusation of witchcraft. Superstitions are quite different from Mysteries. There is a yearly festival in a mini- town of the northern part of Edo State where a particular deity is appeased with slaughtered goats and fowls. The soup of okro that is used for the pounded yam that serves as meal for the participants throughout the period of the festival, is always from the okro-seeds- planted and harvested within a few minutes. In another village, a few kilometers from the Edo State capital, the yams that are pounded for the festival of an idol are not boiled with water. A particular leaf is put in the cooking- pot and the leaf turns into water. You can imagine the quantity of yams that can feed more than two thousand people to be boiled with just a small leaf. There are known hunters in many villages of Edo State who go to the bush at night, pluck some particular leaves, knot them together ,say certain incantations, throw the knotted leaves on the ground and shoot. An animal is picked from the spot .It is generally believed that animals killed in such a way are tasteless and the hunters cannot eat out of their meat. I remember an incident in the mid 60s.My late dad had a visitor from his village during the Christmas celebrations. We were kids and playing with fire-works outside the house My elder brother threw the explosive popularly known as knock-out close to where my dad and his visitor sat. When the knock-out exploded ,the visitor was seen coming from behind the house. As my dad was scolding my elder brother for his insolence, the visitor told my dad to leave him alone that it was a festive period. He told my dad he has the power to leave a particular place as a result of sudden shock. For the rest of the night, he told us stories of how some of their co-villagers turn into animals to eat up crops in neighbours’ farms out of jealousy. This story was substantiated a couple of years ago in one of the local government headquarters of Edo State when a farmer whose crops have been eaten up by a particular animal went one day to farm with his gun. He met a deer eating his remaining crops and destroying his farm. He shot the deer who turned into a human being immediately .He reported himself to the police but the first son of the deceased testified in favour of the farmer that his late father had the ability to turn into various animals. The farmer was asked only to be responsible for the burial costs of the man and the case did not go to court. Unlike some Greek philosophical sciences that were later proved partially or totally correct by modern scientific researches, the African sciences have continued to remain mysterious to modern scientific researchers. The Kwara State police Public Relations Officer was not supposed to parade a domestic animal as a suspect, but that obviously does not mean that certain persons of African origin with certain mysterious means, cannot turn into animals.
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