Nigeria: The Goat-Man And the 'Other Reality'

Nigeria: The Goat-Man And the 'Other Reality'
9 February 2009
McNezer Fasehun
allAfrica.com

The story of the goat (or was it really a sheep?), which was arrested recently for being an armed robbery suspect, has continued to make headlines, with a certain slant that ridicules the apparent ignorance or superstition that informed the arrest.

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) gave the story prominence on its website, with an innuendo suggestive of Africans being captive of weird beliefs.

Briefly the goat-man came into being when a local vigilante group gave two men, who were allegedly trying to steal a Mazda car in Kwara State, a hot pursuit. As the vigilantes came within reach of one of the hoodlums, he reportedly leaned his back against a wall and turned into a goat. Apparently the vigilantes caught the man in the said act of esoteric transformation and 'heroically' took it/him to a local police station, which dutifully effected an arrest, and authorised an investigation. The Kwara police later felt embarrassed and quickly recanted its earlier statement that the goat-man would remain under arrest while it investigated the matter. It also invoked an extant law to auction the goat-man.

The police recant under pressure and media ridicule is a mistake. The society would perhaps have been better served if investigation into the issue had continued, with the vigilantes who apprehended the goat-man asked to provide proof. The village where the goat/sheep was apprehended should also have been encouraged to look for a possible owner of such a sheep/goat, and if no owner showed up, the police would then take the matter further by calling upon those who claim to be versed in such things to come forward and prove that the goat is indeed 'human'. This approach would not only have given the story of the vigilantes a deserved benefit of the doubt but would also, even more importantly, provide a good opportunity for a national discussion of a phenomenon that seems to hold the life of many Nigerians hostage. What if such a feat was possible and the hoodlum did indeed turn into a goat? The manner in which this was treated with ridicule would in future discourage the police and vigilantes from arresting hoodlums who allegedly turn into funny objects such as mosquitoes or even a pair of old shoes.

In Nigeria, tales of occult practices are a daily staple, instilling fears in the hearts of many. There are unbelievable stories of people turning human beings into money-spitting zombies, of men having their manhood disappear just by shaking hands with some people, of charms which could protect people from machete cuts or even gun shots, and of women using 'love potion' to ensnare men into marrying them or to get them to do their wishes. None of these claims, I believe, has ever been subjected to critical public scrutiny, and the consequence is that they continue to feed into an already existing rich repertoir of alleged ubiquity of the esoterics in the Nigerian space dimension. Many Nigerians therefore live in fear, even paranoia, of these alleged forces without even being sure of their existence.

Consider a related story in the United Kingdom (UK) in the 1950s where one 'Dr Carl Kuon Suo' was peddling a manuscript called Third Eye. Just before the manuscript was published by Secker & Warburg in 1956, its author changed his name to TuesdayLobsang Rampa. In the book, which turned out to be an instant best seller globally, the author claimed to have been a lama in Tibet and narrated a purported experience of growing up in a monastery there from the age of seven. Dr Rampa also claimed that during that period a small hole was drilled into his forehead, which aroused his 'third' (or 'inner') eye giving him very stong powers of clairvoyance.

The spirit of critical inquiry forced Heinrich Harrer, an Austrian mountaineer and Tibetologist, to hire a private detective, Clifford Burgess, to investigate Dr Rampa and his claims. The detective was able to unmask Dr Rampa as Cyril Henry Hoskin, an Englishman who was born in Devon, and whose father was a plumber. It was also found that contrary to claims in the book Mr Hoskin had never been to Tibet and spoke no Tibetan. Caught red-handed, Dr Rampa did not deny that he had been born as Cyril Hoskin, but claimed that his body was now occupied by the spirit of Lobsang Rampa. Curiously as an undergraduate in Nigeria in the 1980s, Lobsang Rampa's Third Eye was a sort of fashion accessory to a certain category of students who claimed to be seeking spiritual enlightenment.

Critical inquiry could also affirm the existence of certain paranormal practices as the case of David Seth Kotkin, a Jewish American magician and illusionist, better known as David Copperfield, illustrates. David Copperfield's claims to magical powers had been subjected to rigorous scrutiny over the years. He was not only the youngest person ever admitted to the Society of American Magicians but his proven illusions include walking through the Great Wall of China, making the Statue of Liberty disappear, flying, and levitating over the Grand Canyon. Not only did he provide entertainment he also used his magical powers to good effect, when in 1982, he founded Project Magic, a rehabilitation programme aimed at using magical powers to help disabled patients regain lost or damaged dexterity skills. The programme has been accredited by the American Occupational Therapy Association, and is reportedly in use in over over 1100 hospitals in some 30 countries worldwide. Essentially the magic of David Copperfield is tested and proven and some public good have indeed come out of it.

The above two instances illustrate a certain probability of any paranormal claim being either a fraud or with some merit. It is only with critical public scrutinty that we will know whether the goat-man story was simply magic - a mere illussion - or a confirmation of what many Nigerians believe to be an ubiquity of the occult in the country, or simply nonsense.We should not allow the inanities of church militants or the shame of being thought 'primitive' to asyphyxiate the spirit of inquiry necessary for separating the credible from the creduluous and the charlatan from the serious.

To aid this spirit of enquiry, I am offering N100,000 to anyone who can publicly prove that the arrested goat/sheep was indeed human.




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