Dogs And A Theatre Of The Absurd

I tried to place the furore of naming a dog after Mr. President but my compass kept redirecting me to another president whose dog BO has phonetic similarities with his owner’s name Obama. There was this great story as well about an American president who travelled and forgot his dog. When he then realized it, he sent Air-Force One to fetch the First Dog, only to run afoul of the press. They criticized him for spending taxpayers’ money on a dog. The president shut them all up. He told his traducers that if he would use Air Force One to fetch a lost dog, perhaps they should not wonder at what he would be capable of if it were an American citizen stranded and lost the way that First Dog was.

By MajiriOghene Etemiku

I love dogs. They are man’s best friend. Of all the animals in the world, a dog is the closest to humans. When we were in primary school, we heard about this famous Alsatian which belonged to a blind German, and which used to deliver letters for his master at the Airport Road Benin City.

He knew when to cross the road and when he entered the office, he would drop the letter on the floor and bark at the postman. When he appears to pick up the letter, the dog escorts the post man to the post point as if to make sure that the letter gets sent before heading home.

Unfortunately one day, he got knocked down by an oncoming vehicle and died. Through the address on the letters that the dog used to post for his master, the post office traced his owner. Distraught, and bereft of his friend and confidante, the German packed up and left Benin City.

Therefore when I had my dog, he treated me like that German and I treated him like a human being. He was my friend. He had his preferences and dislikes. If you ever gave him food which did not suit his palate, like an unpalatable piece of bread, my dog would eye you and promptly proceed to bury that meal until such a time he had any need for it.

I tried to teach him how to say the letters of the English alphabet. For letter A, he would bark once when I said it; for letter B, my dog would bark twice and bark thrice for letter C and so on and so forth.

Unfortunately for me, he fell out with my neighbors and became persona non grata on that premises. We sadly had to part, and from what I was to hear from his new owner, he had been eaten.

I have never really believed that tale that a dog is food and a taboo among some ethnic tribes in Nigeria. As a matter of fact when my dog was alive, one of the 404 (code for people who eat dogs in Nigeria) specialists then had asked me whether I was rearing him as food.

My dog heard the question, I guess, and went after that man. He was lucky to escape without losing a finger or getting his clothes ripped to shreds. But I began to believe it when my other dog died recently and mysteriously too.

Our prime suspect was a dog-eating fella close by but because we had no proof, we just let him alone. But just yesterday, he proved true – there, behind our premises, he had tied a dog down to be slain for pepper soup.

And just then, the story of the dog named after Buhari broke. According to the now-famous story, a chap had named his dog Buhari and before anyone could say Changi, all hell broke loose.

The man was quickly arrested and charged, I guess more from the effrontery of making his dog our president’s namesake than that the name could result in a breakdown of law and order.

But then, the story began to move from the ludicrous to the mundane: about 100 lawyers were already lined up to defend the rascally fellow. I didn’t give this incidence any thought, except perhaps to begin to wonder at what the fuss was all about.

The dog’s name was not Mr. President’s first name, Muhammadu, and which would have had direct references. I tried to place the furore of naming a dog after Mr. President but my compass kept redirecting me to another president whose dog BO has phonetic similarities with his owner’s name Obama.

There was this great story as well about an American president who travelled and forgot his dog. When he then realized it, he sent Air-Force One to fetch the First Dog, only to run afoul of the press.

They criticized him for spending taxpayers’ money on a dog. The president shut them all up. He told his traducers that if he would use Air Force One to fetch a lost dog, perhaps they should not wonder at what he would be capable of if it were an American citizen stranded and lost the way that First Dog was.

But perhaps to shut up the cacophony of insinuations making the rounds, that Mr. President had ordered the arrest of the owner of that dog, his image managers bungled things up once again.

They said the President, Buhari had no time for such things, and that anytime Mr. President picks up the papers, he quickly dashes to the cartoon section and just laughs and laughs. We all hope this is not true.

A newspaper is a serious document where serious national issues are reported, debated and disseminated. It carries caricatures and graphical representations of these grave issues and they lampoon and satirize.

Those cartoons are not funny, and why the president is indeed laughing at those serious issues at the heart of our heart as a nation, I can hazard a guess. Just five years after our independence from the British, our own people took over the mantle of oppression and suppression.

To mirror this sordid state of affairs, Wole Soyinka wrote a play, Madmen and Specialists, a satire on the antics of the political class. Then he invited the very people he satirized to come watch the play.

They all took up choice positions and as if on cue burst out laughing as the play started. But one did not laugh. He drew the attention of his colleagues to the deeper truths inherent in the play, and one after the other, they slicked off. Matters at hand today are no laughing matters.

Bob MajiriOghene Etemiku is communications manager, ANEEJ, Benin City @bobaneej