What’s all the noise over a dog’s name?

Nigeria is a headline nation. The mass media is all about headlines while the consumers are busy relishing the headlines. The current headlines are about the APC rally in Edo State, the promises galore, the movement from technical recession to the real recession, including who/what caused it. The BBOG circus in Abuja and Onanuga’s declaration that reports about hardship is a “mere propaganda”. On the last score, I still believe that there is an injection they give to those invited to come and chop, that makes them speak in tongues. Because of this headline mentality, hot news quickly become cold and many issues are left hanging. I want to still call our attention to one old news item: the man who called one of his dog Buhari , called , Mandela, Obama and Joe( after himself), and called his one week old daughter Aisha! May be after this, I will still go back to the law, theory and practice of progressive padding
Ihe onye balu nkita ya ka o na-aza is number 244 in the general section of my forthcoming book on Igbo Proverbs. It simply means that whatever a man calls his dog is the name the dog bears. The legendary Chinua Achebe had said it all: proverbs are the oil with Ndigbo eat words. It is also a common saying in Igboland, that the words of our elders are words of wisdom.  I wish to confess that I relish our proverbs. I have lived it in two important events when the need arose. In the late ‘80s, when SAP was inflicting pains on the lives of Nigerians (just as chaanji is doing currently), I named my dog SAP. Then, I lived at Abakpa GRA, Kaduna. Much later, when a group of political brigands decided to ruin Anambra State, with the obvious support of the I de kampe General, I named another of my dog, Eselu.
May be because SAP was not a human being, or because Eselu did not know that I named my dog after him, or because I did not inscribe the names on the dogs, I got away with that treasonable audacity. Today however, Brother Joe is not so lucky; he named his dog Buhari, and allegedly strolled around with the dog in an enemy territory. Since then, neither he, nor the dog and even the Ogun State Police, have known any peace.
This naming business, apart from being a pervasive phenomenon, is not new. In November 1949, Michael Iheonukara Okpara, then Premier of Eastern Nigeria named his dog Gerald, after the then colonial acting resident and there was no evidence that he was arrested. In recent times, there was the fellow who named his goat Jonathan, another threatened to name his pig Goodluck in the morning and Jonathan in the evening, the Nigerian who called Patience(Yes; that same Patience) Hippopotamus,  and a lady who called her Dog, Lai Mohammed. Ali Baba has dogs named OBJ, Thatcher, Chaka, and Queen Amina. Then, Brother Joe named his dog Buhari!
By the way,which Buhari are we talking; the one at Aso Rock or the one living in one obscure corner of Ogun State? Is the complainant a Nigerian or a Nigerien?  Why and how does the complainant have two surnames? Who killed Buhari and what happened to those who killed Buhari? Naming a dog Buhari and killing the same dog, which one is more likely to breach public peace? If a roadside Mallam had called his dog Buhari and if Joe had called his dog Ojukwu or if another mallam had called his dog Ojukwu, would there have been a complaint?
I know that Brother Joe will be wondering what had happened. If he is a poverb-master, he must be pondering: mbosi M na eje nta ka mgbada ji ali enu( the day I go hunting is when all the deer climb up trees) kedu ka nke m jili pu iche( how come my own is negatively different); o ka esi eme anu abuna anu ka o maka na obu ururu( is this how they treat every animal or is it because it is ururu- the senior brother of squirrel).  On my own I would add that  Onye uno ya na agba oku anahu achu oke(a person whose house is on fire does not chase rats). Meanwhile, the rating of Reno Omokri in the prophetic market would have risen several notches higher. Two weeks before the Joe-buhari-dog affair, he declared”Do you want to know if there is change in Nigeria? Insult PMB the way you insulted GEJ and you will know the true meaning of “change’

Dr. Ikechukwu  Muo (PhD), is with the  Department of Business Administration, OOU, Ago-Iwoye