One Man’s Poison by Muneer Yakub

One Man’s Poison by Muneer Yakub

NEWS DIGEST – An adage says: if you haven’t been to another man’s farm, you’d think your father’s farm is the biggest.

There you are, confined within the jurisdiction of your birthplace. You’ve come of age, but the stimulant to make you leave your hometown for somewhere else has not. You lack exposure. You don’t even know anywhere in this world where ‘pure water’ is sold for seventy-five Kobo.

You’re a ‘get-inside.’ You’ve never stepped beyond the toll gate of your area. Your visa to the next local government has long expired. Little do you know that, where I stay, people pay ten Naira, buy a seven Naira worth of goods, and receive a balance of five Naira. How would you know? When you’ve never left there.

Meanwhile, your professor, a native of Sokoto who teaches in Sokoto, has done nothing wrong. But because he had his primary, secondary and tertiary education, including Masters and Doctorate all in Sokoto, you’ve been rendered an equivalent of a Sokoto-based Yaro boy in experience. No exposure!

It’s been quite a while I migrated from Lagos in search of knowledge to the great city of caliphate. I must say that it’s been so far an experience-laden exodus. O! What a wonderful area! So peaceful. What a morally upright environment! So descent. My people from Oyo may tell you, you’re ‘On Your Own.’ Not here O. Especially on religious bases, a sense of belonging is usually felt everywhere around.

Beyond this feeling, however, is a reminisce of my first feeling. The feeling of transformation. The feeling of absurdity. The feeling that I had just arrived a new planet far away from Earth. But whether Mercury or Pluto, I didn’t know. What feeling? The feeling experienced by every southerner who has just arrived north for the first time. The feeling that “one  man’s food is another man’s poison.”

I remember, as a newbie, seeing extremely tattered and battered Naira notes being spent hitch-free between traders and customers, bikesmen and passengers, banks and patrons, everywhere. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was dumbfounded. Was there another CBN here? I kept asking myself.

A note almost torn into two halves was good to go. Let alone that with an excised edge, who dare rejected it. I wished I could make my people back home learn a lesson or two from this. Hmm…Those people? Even if it was boldly written in the two holy books that tattered Naira notes be not rejected, and probably backed up with a few incantations from the traditionalists, they will not take heed.

Come to Lagos. The woman selling veggies will not only reject the just-faded money you’ve brought, but she will also ensure that a mixture of one or two curses and abuses accompanies you as you back off. Let alone a tattered note. You won’t even dare approach her. Though, the nicer one may take her time to explain: my husband’s father, she’d say, if I receive this from you, who will receive it from me? And if that happens to be the last money on you at the moment, what other choice have you, if not forwarding the messages of curse you’ve received back to where you had collected the money. Do me I do you, God no go vex!

I also remember seeing people, goergeusly dressed, but flaunting with chewing sticks, long and short, strucked in one corner of their mouths as they moved around town. “Branches of ‘Dongoyaro’ trees are really suffering,” I thought. Every time, everywhere, northerners brush their teeth. Why? Even the provisions of teeth-related health tips didn’t exceed ‘twice-a-day.’ Any disease here that plagues unbrushed teeth? I was so curious that I had to quickly go and get one for myself. Though I gave up when I eventually noticed that, despite this, brown teeth were still ubiquitous.

Besides, with what mouth would I explain to my people back home, that such a practice is not considered barbaric in the north, but endemic. To even brush with a stick in the first place is an act of barbarism where I come from. The old generation whom would have been expected to uphold this practice have really stepped up. In Lagos, no one wants to be left behind in the realm of civilization. Not even the old elders. Who chews sticks anymore?

Colleagues here even made matters worse. In class, pen in one hand, chewing stick on the other. Alas! I gave up. For me, that was poison. To them, it was just how they roll.

Muneer Yaqub  an essayist and a campus journalist in Usmanu Danfodiyo University Sokoto.

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