VIEWPOINT

CUNNINGLY DEVISED FABLES │ Banji Odurombi

When the Apostle Peter wrote that the declaration of the coming of the Lord to believers isn't a fable, he was saying that against the background of fables that were being told in his time; cooked up, refined and falsified that overtime have come to be accepted as the truth. In our time, there are a myriad of such fables that their origins and contents seem improbable. Let's consider some of them.

One fateful day in football history that Nigerians will not forget in a hurry, according to the tale, is the Nigeria/India football match. It has been told in different versions, but the rendention I am familiar with reads thus: India was leading Nigeria by 99 goals, with none to Nigeria, and because it was so obvious that the Indian national team was using juju to play against the Nigerian national team, the national team players were told (wouldn't know who did) that, if they could score just a lone goal, the match would be decided in their favour. Was the goal scored and who scored the goal? Well, you may have to help my understanding. I am sure you know this and you probably told someone too.

Another that looked like it was a penalty kick taken by veteran Nigerian skipper, Teslim 'Thunder' Balogun. It was said that Thunder Balogun had boasted that no goal keeper could stop his penalty kick. Interestingly, a goal keeper was said to have challenged him. It was said that, when he took the kick, the ball hit the keeper's belly and opened up the bowels of the ambitious and daring goal keeper. The ball went into the net nonetheless. This should be one of the golden moments football enthusiasts wouldn't want to miss—it must have been an interesting sight indeed!

Probably, you heard this too. The late sage, Pa Obafemi Awolowo, was said to be so diabolical that he could be seen sitting high up in the sky (perhaps beholding what his fellow Yoruba men were doing or having a nice a time beholding celestial bodies). Maybe it was one of the reasons why people revered him so much. But what I don't seem to understand is why the sage travelled in helicopters and automobiles. He never should have needed them. It would have always been a wonderful sight to see Awolowo striding down from the sky to address his teeming political supporters. He probably should have seized the opportunity to address his supporters from such a celestial height.

Heard of the story behind the construction of the third mainland bridge? Perhaps it isn't  even the third mainland. Well, the said bridge, according to the account, was what resulted in the death of the construction engineer, Julius Berger. It was said that in an encounter with a mermaid, when the construction of the bridge was about to commence, Julius Berger was warned (by the mermaid) not to build the bridge. Since he disregarded this warning, the aftermath was his death. Julius Berger was said to be diabolical too that he caught the mermaid in a bottle so that it wouldn't constitute an impediment to the construction of the bridge. Berger was said to have been buried just beside the river. Please, someone show me the tomb of Julius Berger in Nigeria?

You must have joined them in the spread of this particular one on the dwindling state of our economy which has relied monolithically on crude-oil. Malaysia was said to have come to Nigeria to collect palm kernel from Nigeria. Consequently, they are now the leading producer of palm-oil in the world. This is not true! I once read an interview granted Punch Newspaper by a Professor at the Nigeria Institute of Palm-oil Research who debunked this. You can't debunk what a Professor that has been working with the institute for almost three decades said. Someone much elderly to me in age once mentioned this same story after this discovery of mine when discussing with me and I kept sealed lips. There are yet more to debunk.

You must have heard that erudite literary icon, Prof. Wole Soyinka finished with a third class, and billionaire Tony Elumelu made the same class. The scholar denied this in a published interview he granted in one of the weekend papers of The Punch. Specifically, he mentioned that he made a second class (Upper Division). Tony Elemelu came out hard on someone who claimed on Twitter that he made a third class with the following response paraphrased, "It is funny how people say what they know nothing about." He, however, did not mention the class he made. Those behind the third class tale are the increasing army of motivational speakers in the country who can hardly distinguish between 'not completing school' and 'dropping out of school'. They will usually say, for instance, that Bill Gates dropped out of school, painting a picture that it was because he couldn't cope academically that he 'dropped out of school'. You can do yourself well by checking up the facts.

One had better come to convinced that mythical legends such as Achilles (Heel), Helen of Troy, Bacchus, Dionysus (all products of Greek mythology), and Oduduwa, acclaimed to have come to the earth via a chain, never really lived and if they did, they did merely in the mind of creative writers.

The article has been modified but it was earlier published by the author on www.thedesertflood.com