Ebolisation of bush meat

By Clem Oluwole

(First published on August 22, 2014).

It was the late political sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo (pet name, Papa Awo), who said that Nigerians “dig their graves with their teeth by what they eat.” I marveled at the declaration because I could not imagine how a sane, living person would be digging his/her own grave, using the teeth as tool. But it later made sense to me several years after the sage had gone to his own grave dug not by him.

There was this book written by Dr. Peter D’Adamo entitled “Eat Right 4 Your Type”. The book is a product of research conducted on the kinds of food that are suitable or unsuitable for different blood groups. I will like to use myself as an example. I belong to type B+. Before I came in contact with the book, I was rooting for all manner of consumables. I loved snails and chickens, while corn and maize-based meals were regular features on my dining table. But D’Adamo came and swept all that away. Snails and chickens are forbidden for my blood type but I could eat turkey and duck which are cousins of fowls.

I believed D’Adamo when he ruled out maize-based meals because I came to realise that whenever I ate a local dish known among Ghanaians as “donkunnu” for breakfast, it could carry me for a whole day. I used to call it German floor. From D’Adamo’s standpoint, my system could not easily digest the meal. When your system is slow in digesting a particular meal, it becomes a slow poison. Just don’t delude yourself with the feeling that you are saving money because hunger has been staved off.

I was alarmed to read that consumption of chicken by folks of B+ could lead to paralysis. I cannot remember the danger in snail consumption but I showed fowls a red card about a decade ago. When I began life at 40, I flashed a red card to red meat. I did not need a D’Adamo to tell me that. I already knew the health implications of tearing away at beef.

However, D’Adamo was kind enough not to rule out venison like bush meat from my menu until Ebola struck in Nigeria a few weeks ago even though I had stayed off the delicacy (as if I had a premonition of the disease) long before the virus announced its presence, using the Liberian-American bioterrorist, Patrick Sawyer, as the announcer. Ebola is notorious for weaponising bush meat to afflict its victims. Consequently, most Nigerians have distanced themselves from all manner of bush meat, at least for now. But there are others who still prefer to dig their graves with their teeth by keeping faith the delicacy. Or how does one explain the rationale behind the recent importation of monkey meat from Libya of all places? I caught my breath when I saw a picture of the bonfire that the officials of the Nigeria Customs Service in Katsina made of the truck-load of the carcasses on the cover page of LEADERSHIP of Monday, August 25, 2014. The good news is that the Federal Government has banned the importation of bush meat to save us from ourselves.

There is this axiom among the South-westerners that if you live very long, you would eat a quantum of meat bigger than an elephant, itself a species of bush meat. I have been a bush meat trinity from childhood: a hunter, a marketer and a consumer. For instance, as a juvenile, I nearly committed “boyslaughter” because of bush meat. A fellow kid hunter had surged past me like Usain Bolt during a chase as I was hurling my glittering machete at a grasscutter, and missed his stupid head by a whisker; I narrowly escaped becoming a gurgu (one-legged man) because of bush meat when a bush rat escaped from its hideout and ran between my legs. I missed the prey but got my right ankle. And I crashed my car which I weaponised to overrun a brown monkey somewhere along Abaji-Lokoja highway in the 80s. Anyone of you who can surpass these breath-taking deeds should raise his/her hand… no one! Yet, I have had to back off even before Ebola sneaked into the country.

So, when Malam Salisu Suleiman wrote on the back page of Blueprint Newspapers of Monday, August 18, 2014, about how he was a witness to an inter-state cab driver who used his automobile to bludgeon a game that gallivanted across the road without caring a hoot about the damage done to the car and putting his passengers’ lives at risk, he reminded me of my own experience. However, I was not as fortunate as the cab man. While he hunted down the animal, my prey escaped into the bush, leaving my Peugeot 504 saloon car with a disfigured bumper.

Well, just as we thought we had successfully managed to contain the spread of the scourge, the virus opened another battle ground in Port Harcourt. Now, there is panic in the Garden City following the death of a doctor, while another one is sickened of the virus, with close to 100 suspects under serious watch. There was also a stir in Abuja two days ago over the reported arrival of the disease but the health minister, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, has rushed to debunk the story and assured the apprehensive residents not to panic.

The decision of the Federal Government to extend the resumption of 2014/15 academic calendar for primary and secondary schools to October 13, 2014 is a welcome development. Before that announcement, I had resolved that my boy, who is going to JSS 2, would be grounded at home until the Ebola opposition is routed. Private school owners are not pleased with the postponement. To them, the decision is not good for their business… just as bush meat dealers are counting their losses. Their losses; our safety!