The Greedy Grasscutter and His Nigerian Cousins

A family of grasscutters went in search of food one day. It had been a terrible season for the clan; famine bit particularly hard that year. The mummy grasscutters nagged, the daddy grasscutters worried, and the baby grasscutters lost weight at an alarming rate. Even the granny grasscutters were dying quietly in their sleep from hunger and ill health. So this particular hunting trip was a find-food-or-die-trying expedition. They were desperate. It was also their lucky day.

Within minutes of setting out, they stumbled upon a large cassava farm. They descended on their good fortune and ate to their hearts’ content. Bellies distended and spirits lifted, they began their journey home—except one. He told the others to go ahead; he would follow later. They pleaded with him, warning of the risk of being caught by the farmer, but he sneered. He could take care of himself, he said.

Unwilling to risk their own lives, they reluctantly left their greedy kinsman to his reprobate heart. He continued stuffing his face until he became too full—and too heavy—to move. He was so overfed he could barely breathe. That was when the farmer arrived.

The grasscutter was stunned—and stumped. The farmer, furious at the destruction of his farm and even angrier that the culprit stood staring instead of scampering off, brought the handle of his hoe down swiftly on the overfed belly. End of story. The grasscutter ended up in spicy egusi soup, accompanying the pounded yam the farmer’s wife and children enjoyed that evening.

That overfed grasscutter is called oya adimu in Yoruba—the grasscutter that eats until it cannot move, the one caught in the act. Above all, it is the one that never makes it home. His joy at abundance seizes his brain, chokes him on pleasure, and delivers him straight into the clay pot of soup.

Does this remind you of Nigerian political parties and the men and women who run them? Give them power and they eat—then eat some more—until they develop pear bellies. They continue as if tomorrow does not exist, until tomorrow arrives with the handle of a hoe, swiftly ending their reign and pleasure. Then the overfed grasscutter becomes food.

The gluttonous grasscutter should also remind us of the terrorists who have held this country by the throat for too long. They are as bad as greedy politicians. They want everything—not enough to survive, but everything. They want to strip, whip, and terrorise to feed themselves, their wives, and their concubines. This is not hunger. It is not homelessness. It is no longer religion. It is primitive plunder—the beastly spirit of slave-trading forefathers reborn.

Too many demonic human beings have formed a conglomerate of evil enterprises. They now operate Departments of School Abduction, Commercial Bus Kidnapping, Church Raid Operations, and Ransom Processing. Each unit is run by mean-spirited, poker-faced men and women who care nothing for tears—as long as they are smiling to their banks, onshore and offshore. They want more, then more, and still more.

They wear agbada and clutch prayer beads as if Paradise is their sole obsession. They take chieftaincy titles in churches—sometimes not even their own. They travel to Jerusalem and perform lesser hajj. With blood money, they fund even greater evil, convinced no one sees them and no reckoning will come.

That must have been what the greedy grasscutter thought as he stuffed himself—feeling bigger than everyone, imagining himself larger than the cooking pot. But no bush meat is bigger than the hunter’s clay pot. If it is too large for stew, it becomes soup. If any remains, it becomes snacks for palm wine or akpeteshie down the triumphant hunter’s throat.

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It may take a while, but the reign of all fat cats will end.

Terrorists will become smoked meat.

Rulers of evil forests will end in ignominy.

They should slow down and remember how Osama bin Laden ended.

Today, Nigerians are the ones running scared. We fear road travel. We cannot concentrate in church for fear of armed demons bursting through the doors. Normal life feels suspended. But the grasscutter will be eaten. We will eat him in egusi soup. This season will end. It must.

The political leaves are already changing colour. Criminal appetites are growing. The wind feels different. The new Defence Minister, Brig-Gen Musa, appears determined to do things differently. He has openly said he is watching both the thief and his friends—and that they are not very different. From my crystal ball, it seems he may soon go after those who defend bandits, those who declare forests sacred while captives rot within them. Why not? Terror has been one-sided for too long. It is time terrorists, their defenders, and their PR teams tasted their own pudding. The Nigerian state must clean the evil forests thoroughly.

What have we not done to pacify terrorists? We begged them, reasoned with them, even helped them find wives and paid bride prices. They mocked our olive branches and returned fiercer. These are not people to negotiate with. These are people to confront—with force.

Now to politics. Politicians are moving again—stealthily, nocturnally, testing waters. It is then you realise they are the same, whether brandishing umbrella, broom, cock, or maize. Party symbols change; appetites do not.

Political people forget tomorrow. They stuff themselves with power until election season finds them stunned and stumped. You are thinking of PDP and APC—add Labour, Accord, ADC. The similarities are striking: six and half a dozen.

The PDP enjoyed a 16-year feast. It made multiple trips to the farm. APC must learn from that history, not refine the same mistakes. Unfortunately, politicians think only of today.

God factor. They forget that four years is not forever. They forget the God-factor. They forget that markets thin after midday. They forget that masquerade festivals end—and even the chief priest’s children must pay for bean cakes when they do.

As Kenny Rogers sang in The Gambler:

You’ve got to know when to hold ’em

Know when to fold ’em

Know when to walk away

Know when to run…

Nothing lasts forever. Ask the overfed grasscutter—if he were alive.

Let me end with Philip K. Dick: Man is infinitely strong; yet for every creature that runs, flies, hops, or crawls, there exists a terminal nemesis he cannot escape.

The grasscutter found his. Others will too.