Saturday 27 February 2021

FROM OLE-FOWL TO BIRDNAPPER

 


I was thinking this morning...... Last Friday, while everyone was talking about the kidnapping of the 317 school girls in Jangebe, Zamfara state, I read a report that Lady Gaga’s father has spoken out about the dognapping of his daughter's two French bulldogs, Koji and Gustavo, who were stolen at gunpoint. “We’re just sick over it, it’s really horrible,” Joe Germanotta told The New York Post. “It’s like someone took one of your kids.” You may be wondering what 'dognapping' means. It's an adaptation of the word kidnapping. Since it was a dog and not a person that was abducted, it is dognapping. I thought it was a word he just made up until I checked the dictionary and found that to dognap means to steal (a dog), especially in order to sell it. So, someone that steals a dog is called a dognapper. Hmm!! Na wa for oyibo people!


I have learnt a new word. But, if we have the template for naming stealing of animals, why then are we doing something different in Nigeria? If you have been following the news on the security situation in Nigeria particularly in the North, you would've read that large scale stealing of cows is one of the root causes of banditry. That I will not argue, but what I don't understand is why stealing of cows is called 'Cattle rustling.' Going by the oyibo template, it should be called 'Cownapping.' Abi beko?

Even those of us in Warri those days no know book. Chai! Our ignorance was legendary. If we were literate enough, we would've learnt from oyibo people that when a hawk steals a chicken and flies away with it, you don't call the hawk 'Ole-fowl,' the correct term should be 'Birdnapper' or 'Chickennapper' or if you want to go local 'Fowlnapper.' Warri!!!

I continued thinking. When someone steals a fish from a fish pond, it is 'Fishnapping.' I once saw a ram roaming around my compound and had to report it. Thank God I did because someone would've eyed me askance thinking I am a 'Ramnapper.'

We can safely conclude that the Nigeria of today is suffering from the menace of kidnapping. But there is also Cownapping from the North and Birdnapping from the air. One assault we still need to investigate is that of 'Fishnapping' from the sea, because the rate at which fishes have disappeared from the shallow waters is really a cause for concern.

Kidnapping, Dognapping, Goatnapping, Cownapping and all ...nappings including Fishnapping from your mother's pot are vices and the Bible says all ...nappers like other sinners will go to hell (Revelation 21:8). Stay away from any form of ..napping.

Stay hopeful. God's got your back.

Happy Sunday.

......Just the thoughts of a certain Wey Mey

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