Name your dog anything else, but not my ‘ Buhari ‘ – Editorial case study

Be warned. Do not touch a tiger by the tail. And that is the lot of compatriot Joe Fortemose Chinakwe, a trader based in Sango –Ota, Ogun state. There is allegation that he named his dog Buhari, a development that one of his neighbours finds offensive. According to reports, the neighbour’s father bears the name Alhaji Buhari.

The police have waded in and Chinakwe may be in trouble if he does not explain why he chose to name a pet after a name that we all know. Beyond that, the owner, according to the allegations, also emblazoned the name across both sides of the dog and proudly walked it around the neighbourhood.

However, one of Chinakwe’s pals came in defence of the name tag insisting that the dog owner names his pets after things or people he adores. Chinakwe’s dog has since disappeared , evading police arrest. For now, there is no exhibit at the Sango police station.

This dogfight is quite interesting especially since it involves just one dog. I know there are so many dog handlers at the Elewuran Headquarters of the Ogun cops. Many will blame the trader for not lying doggo. In literature, what he has done is called doggerel[ poetry that is badly written or ridiculous, sometimes because the writer has not intended it to be serious]. Ota is one of the favourite homes of former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

When the retired general once wrote on his gate, ‘Beware of man’, many found it funny be cause we are used to such signs as ‘Beware of dogs’ and ‘Military Zone: Keep off.’ Fela would put in a different way: Trouble dey sleep, nyanga go wake am. Na palava I dey find.

Thank Heavens there is an Alhaji Buhari in Sango. At least, many will not read more meaning into this doggy affair. If the name Buhari really tickles Chinakwe and he decided to so name his dog, hmmmm, I do not know if that is criminal. Our constitutional lawyers know better. Honestly, I owned a dog , against my will though.

My siblings just wanted one in the house and it was named Sadam. The Alsatian , so they told me, they even wanted a Rotweiler, was all I needed to scare all freelance children of larceny around me. Yes, thieves had organized a welcome party when they scaled the dwarf wall to vandalise a car in the compound. The German Shepherd scared everybody including visitors. It was fun watching people run past the house without looking inside because the big dog was always there.

The name Sadam was because we felt the Iraqi leader was a strongman and the dog became the animal version of Sadam. The dog I never welcomed initially later became my friend or so I thought. One night, I returned from work, went to unchain the animal as usual. The beast just pounced on me , the boss, who had done so much for it. I tried to fight back, its eyes were hot like fire.

I was lucky to escape into the house. The dog actually bit me . My saving grace was that the long pants I wore that night were still hard, they had just been made by the tailor. Instead of my skin, the trousers were torn. The next day, I decided to send the bastard to hell. I prepared hot, hot water, poured it on the beast and left it to groan to death. My siblings did not like my wickedness at all. They went to treat it. It survived. I did not like that.

I let it die a slow death and put the body in my booth, with the chain which one of my sisters said was expensive to forego. I drove to a lonely path and threw the deadly thing into the bush.

We still have one in the village. It replaced an earlier one that was put there just to scare thieves from our parents. That first dog had died last year, a day after my father passed on, December 1, 2015. Maybe, crying more than the bereaved, you know. And in my village, people are not free to keep dogs. I guess in the past one of my clansmen was bitten to death. And I really do hate dogs. I have heard stories of white families sleeping on the same bed with their dogs, sharing the same spoon and all that.

Even here in our country one woman was saved by her dog that killed a cobra in the house. I am not lucky with those pets. In my university of Benin years, a bulldog wanted to maul me. Behind Ekenhuan Campus, off Owena street, there was this family that kept the animal. As I walked past, I did not know the dog had broken loose from its chains.

There was no one around and no place to hide. It attacked me. Left with no option, I fought back like a mad man. I would not know how GOD gave me strength. I hit the dog so hard on the head, that it turned back and ran away . I pursued it wanting to kill it with just my bare hands, it went to hide.

When people heard the commotion and came out, they thought I was a superman not knowing that it was power from God. Back to Chinakwe. It is possible he did not mean harm, maybe mischief or admiration.

Yes, in the Sani Abacha years, one of my in-laws who believed in the Dictator’s hard ways, named his dog Abacha and he had a neighbour from the North. As a boy, my younger brother was bitten by a dog named Billy. When he became a man and bought his first dog, he named it Billy. The police should please not send a police dog after Chinakwe. There are things we can just laugh off. Times are hard. We need some comedy.

 Source: New Telegraph