” Snake Oil” (Business ) Episode 1 A witch fell out of the sky the other day, somewhere around Oshodi. Rather than fall off her broomstick, as one would imagine, eye witnesses reportedly claimed to have seen a bird fall out of the sky and change into a human being – a woman! There are quite a few videos on Youtube showing an irate crowd surrounding a bloodied woman, on the ground, with the sole intention of lynching her, preferably with a tyre around her neck and doused in petrol and somebody deliberately playing with matches. It’s strange that these ‘jungle justice’ lynching implements always turn up, first, before the police. However, none of these videos actually show her morphing from bird to human, like a truck would transform into Optimus Prime or a scene from a Harry Potter movie. That would well be worth watching and it would probably generate a few hundred million hits. That being said, if the notion of a witch is to be believed, the phenomenon could be the ‘UFO’ responsible for a church building collapsing, not too many miles away. Baba David was there when it happened. Well, he wasn’t exactly ‘there’, but he was ‘there’. He had joined the crowd after the ‘bird’ had changed fully into a woman. But that didn’t dissuade him from believing she was a witch. “ They said she change from bird to woman”, Baba David said later on, recounting the story for an umpteenth time , to an umpteenth audience,”….they said she began to give a testimony of her crimes”. It’s always ‘they said’, ‘they saw’, ‘they did’ and very rarely ‘ I said’, ‘ I saw’ with individuals taking full responsibility for their utterances and claims. It would be nice if someone, someday, hand on heart, could say,’ I saw her change’. Nevertheless, Baba David was in the crowd, she was a witch and she was going to get what was coming to her. Business had been rather slow and to Baba David the witch palaver was a welcome distraction from his boring profession as a street hawker. It’s one of those things that brightens up ones day. From a tray, balanced on his head, he sold local remedies for a living. “ One-Stop-Miracle-Cure”, he called himself. Whatever the problem he always had something concocted up in his bottles that could cure anything. His one medicine could cure all ailments from a simple headache to HIV, Aids to magun, thunderbolt. People have always accused him of selling snake oil, a claim he vehemently denies. ‘Snake oil’, as the name implies, is not necessarily made from snakes. Its more mundane than that. Its usually a mixture of honey, ,water and vinegar with a few chicken bones and herbs thrown in for effect. Snake oil is actually a name given to any worthless concoction rumoured to cure-all ills with out any medical proof to back claims. A phrase that originated in the Americas in the eighteenth century and has evolved into a modern day description of any one who is a quack, fake doctor or who hawks ‘miraculous’ herbal cures. Baba David would disagree. “ When I bring the medicine out”, he would say, “…the label speak what it can cure”. You couldn’t fault him on that. If you approached him on the road and asked if he had a cure for cancer he’d tell you to wait while he put his tray down. In between him putting the tray down, pirouetting round with his over size shirt, billowing out, he’ll produce a bottle with “Cancer Cure” inscribed on it. For a reasonable fee he’ll sell it to you actually guaranteeing it’ll work. Whether or not it’ll work is another thing but should the drug not work it is non-refundable as Baba David would have long gone. For the past month or so he had been doing brisk business flogging bottles of his concoctions with “ Ebola Miracle Cure” emblazoned on them. The customers couldn’t get enough and often bought several bottles in one go. With no known cure for Ebola, people were willing to try anything to prevent catching it and if they had it , cure it. And as usual the quacks and fake doctors were cashing in. With the Ebola epidemic now being contained in Nigeria and elsewhere and the word slowly slipping out of peoples everyday vocabulary he wasn’t making that much money any more. He needed something to happen to drum up trade. To be continue
Posted on: Sat, 18 Oct 2014 04:54:02 +0000
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