The town that fed a snake

If I am ‘accused’ of being pregnant with twins, shouldn’t the onus be on me to confirm or deny the unusual news? Why would Dr Lasisi Olagunju or Bamidele Johnson decide to climb the roof to shout themselves hoarse that Funke is not pregnant and indeed (for good measure), she is a virgin? So, the Federal Government released the list of Suspected Terror Sponsors (STS) last week after many moons of consultations with the gods and the ancestors. Within minutes of the release, some people started protesting on behalf of the listed, even accusing President Bola Tinubu of witch hunting. Well, it is witchcraft to thumb your chest and say you know a pregnant tortoise just by watching it crawl. Are those protesting on behalf of those not protesting witches  or not? Me, I made a long mental note of their names and I have put them on a Supplementary List I’m trying to find a name for.

As if that was not enough, I did not hear any noise or dirges when Brigadier-General, dozens of soldiers were slaughtered like they had no wives, children or parents. Encouraged, terrorists took out a Colonel, Commanding Officer and more gallant soldiers. Nobody cited their fundamental human rights. They signed up for the job, they must have rationalised. But such sudden departures, amputation without anaesthesia of dreams are always painful irrespective of the job you signed up for. It doesn’t matter whether your are a trader at a market shut down five years ago or a soldier trapped in a armoured tank with a dead engine.

We should mourn, mourn wisely, mourn decently.

They said it was accidental.

A bomb meant for shadows fell on a market full of mothers, traders, children—people whose only crime was showing up for life. Somewhere between Borno State and Yobe State, grief rose like smoke again, stubborn, familiar, Nigerian.

And as we mourn, as we shake our heads and count the dead in whispers, a harder question pushes through the silence:

What kind of people hide terrorists?

What kind of people trade with them?

Let me answer you with a story. Not from the headlines, but from the old paths our grandmothers walked—where stories did not just entertain, they warned.

Long before asphalt roads and security briefings, there was a quiet town called Aduke-Oke, named after a powerful priestess and healer.

It sat between two forests. One gave fruit. The other gave fear.

The people of Aduke-Oke were farmers, traders, hunters. They slept with their doors open. Goats wandered into neighbours’ compounds and came back fat. Trust was their currency.

Until the night the forest changed.

At first, it was whispers, suspicion discussed in hashed tones.

Travellers spoke of men who did not farm but ate, men who did not invest but came to collect dividends. They came at night and left tears behind.

Bandits. Thieves. Agbalowomeeri, the ones who snatched from the poor had taken over.

The Baale (village head) sent the towncrier out. ‘Do not leave a snake on your roof, it will find its way into your bedchamber. A snake is wicked even when it looks tiny and harmless. No matter what these snatchers tell you, do not let them live in your hut. Do not trade with them or accept their gifts.

Everyone nodded and agreed with Baale.

Everyone… except Akanmu.

READ ALSO: NAF airstrikes kill scores of terrorists in Borno

Akanmu was not poor. That is what makes this story bitter. He had land. He had barns. He had wives who cooked steaming meals and many children. Pounded yam and bush meat were not just for festive occasions. It was just dinner.

But Akanmu had a hunger that his large farms could not satisfy—the hunger for more, irrespective of the source of that more.

So when the bandits came—not with guns blazing but with quiet requests,  Akanmu listened.

“We need food,” they said.

“We will pay.”

Not coins. Not naira.

Gold.

And when evil pays, it pays well. It spoils his victim until he loses his sense of reasoning and decency. 

At first, Akanmu only sold them yams. Then goats. Then information.

“Which houses are wealthy?”

“Who just sold harvest?”

“Which road has no vigilantes?”

Akanmu knew everything and Akanmu said everything.

Soon Aduke-Oke began to bleed.

One market day, the bandits struck.

They did not come for Akanmu’s house. No.

‘A kii fi omo ore bo ore.’

He was one of the bandits now so his compound had immunity.  The monster refused to eat the man feeding him.

The thieves came for the market.

Women were dragged. Men were beaten. Goods were stolen. A boy who tried to run did not get far.

The village cried. The elders cursed the forest, then prayed to the ancestors.

Akanmu, as an untouchable, counted his gold with his wives in the hut.

While the village buried its dead, Akanmu built a bigger barn, acquired more land.

He became “Oloye Akanmu”.

People greeted him with forced smiles and quiet suspicion because no one really could swear with facts.

Soon, the monster finished its regular victims but it was still hungry. As the Yorubas say, when what we enjoy eating finishes, the things we used to ignore should get ready to be eaten.

The bandits grew bolder. Why wouldn’t they? Someone was feeding them. Someone was guiding them. Their heartless partners profited from the blood and gore.

One night, they came again but this time, they did not go to the market.

They went to Akanmu’s compound.

Perhaps greed made them careless, perhaps evil does not keep loyalty.

Perhaps karma finally found the road to an evil man’s hut.

They broke his doors, scattered his barns and carted away his gold. Even when Akanmu shouted, “I am your friend!”

They laughed.

Friend?

A man who betrays his own people is not anybody’s friend. He is a tool and tools can be discarded when they have outlived their usefulness.

By daybreak, Akanmu’s compound was smoke and silence, and ghost of its once bubbly self. Well, the bubble had burst. One wife was gone. The  second wife was groaning in the throes of childbirth,  unattended. Another lay wounded.

His children, those barefoot, laughing children, were all cowering in their mothers’ huts. The village gathered, not in anger this time, but in cold understanding.

The elders did not curse him.

They simply said, “The snake has found its keeper.”

Akanmu was not killed that day. No. He lived. That was his punishment. He died in instalments. The gods ensured his shame. Both those who feared him and the ones who called him Baba Oloye watched him from afar as he sat in the ruins of what greed built.

To remember every warning he ignored.

To know that the evil he fed had finally learned his name and was calling him nonstop.

Now, let’s return to our reality.

What kind of people hide terrorists?

They are not always poor.

They are not always forced.

Sometimes, they are Akanmu.

People who just profit from evil. They sell food to killers, give shelter to destroyers.

They trade information for profit, knowing that their decisions would cause death of many. They are feeding babies and pregnant women to monsters. They  collect money to kill our soldiers. They send their children to private universities with money made from increasing the number of widows and widowers.

They sit among us. They smile with us. They mourn with us.

And then they return to the shadows to feed the very fire that will one day burn our roofs, our hopes, our dreams.

Here’s the bitter truth Nigeria must face.

Terrorism does not survive on guns alone.It survives on information from insiders, supplies from enablers, silence from communities.

Every terrorist hiding in the forest has a friend in town, parents who know his ways are not pure, wives or side-chicks who profit from his blood and sorrow enterprise.

We can continue  to mumble “It is not my business.” But is our business,  our pain, our losses, our disappearing nation. Like Akanmu, like that market between Borno State and Yobe State where innocent lives were lost not just to a bomb but to a long chain of complicity we refuse to break.

It is easy to blame government, to blame soldiers, the system. However,  let us ask ourselves: who is feeding the snake? A terrorist in the bush is dangerous but a collaborator in the village? That one is deadlier. The snake Nigeria and its terrorists sympathisers, banditry rationalisers and sponsors have fed over the years has become a monster-deity demanding the flesh of army generals and blood of Colonels. It is not longer satisfied with staying in its grove, it wants new territories, daily sacrifice.

We must kill this snake before it kills Nigeria. That is why I’m suspicious of those who insist this monster-deity has fundamental rights. As how now?