WIKE AND MY GIANT ROOSTER : THE SPIRIT OF AKUKO GAGARA

 

WIKE AND MY GIANT ROOSTER

THE SPIRIT OF AKUKO GAGARA

Many years ago while still in my teens, we had this lucky rooster. You know those type they call parent stock.

I call it lucky because it survived miraculously three times. It scaled through Christmas because a goat took its place. It survived my birthday in March because I was in school sitting my mock school certificate examination and I didn't come home. During Easter, dad came home with a big turkey.

The rooster became so big you could hear it's footsteps in the compound without seeing it. That's not enough.

When it crows, the whole neighborhood knows which rooster crowed.

At dawn, nobody needed an alarm clock to wake up early. When it clapped its wings, it was something else.

After the exams were done and I came home, my mom bought four more chickens; one cock and three hens. The big cock played Big Brother to them all as they free-ranged in the garden.

One day many weeks later, the younger cock crowed. We laughed at it until there was some commotion in the garden. My brother and I went to the garden to find out.

Lo and behold, the big rooster was chasing the smaller cock all around and pecking at it anytime it caught up with his ‘younger brother’. We had to chase it and tie its leg to a pole before the other one had some respite.

When my parents came back and we narrated our experience, they told us that is why Yorubas say 'Akuko gagara kii fe ki kekeeke o ko' (Big roosters never want smaller ones to crow.)

Need I tell you the big rooster did not survive that weekend?

'Iseniyan nise eranko' (The ways of animals are often akin to that of humans)

Today I see many people in different facets of life who fall into same ken with my rooster.

People in high positions, those who have achieved greatness, those seen as models and envy of others, but feel threatened by the fact that another person is growing or enjoys public approval are no different from my giant rooster.

I have seen people in power, on the top rung that went gaga because someone under them dared climb the first rung. He would rather everyone else stood at the bottom and held the ladder.

A businessman going crazy because his employee is starting his own business is not different.

In politics, business, government and everyday life people abound who want to be the only one who is seen and heard. They fret at the possibility of another person picking up in life. A musician or artist who tries to pull down a budding artist or an athlete who tries to railroad a budding talent and a professor who stands in the way of another intellectual student are all guilty. They don't want to just lead, they want to dominate.

Like my rooster they are soon exposed. Their weaknesses and foibles which had been hidden are soon in the open.

This leads to their fall.

Like the AKUKO GAGARA who doesn't want to hear the little cocks crow, they soon come tumbling down into the fryer.

The period before crashing may differ, but the big one who wants no other around him will eventually fall.

Nyesom Ezenwo Wike represents the class of people in this ken. He rose from a lowly background to become the governor of one of the richest oil-producing states in Nigeria. While at the helm of affairs, like my late rooster, he survived many events that would have swept him away. He even had a hand in the emergence of his successor. By either hook or crook, he became a minister of the Federal Republic.

A rational being would have felt fulfilled. But immediately Sim Fubara, the little cock started to crow the spirit of my late giant rooster came upon Wike.

Unless some exorcist could purge Nyesom, and others in his school of thought, of the AKUKO GAGARA spirit, same fate that befell the giant rooster may be waiting round the corner.

 

Let all great roosters allow the little ones grow and crow, and complement them to form an ensemble; else the little ones will vanquish them.

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