The animals of Aso Rock

Apparently, Aso Rock, Nigeria’s seat of power is crawling with all sorts of animals. At first, the place was teeming with a range of flora and fauna until recently when a new species, the political animals—so named by the great Aristotle himself—moved in, colonised the space and stole the limelight. 

Until recently, the affairs of the other animals of Aso Rock have remained largely quiet and unreported. They went about their business of flying, crawling and capering, grazing, swallowing and cannibalising as usual until some bumbling vandals saw a giant python slithering happily across the presidential grounds and decided to make bush meat out of it. 

The murder of the giant python drew the ire of the villa’s Senior Park Ranger, Salihu Manzo, who during a visit to the permanent secretary of the villa described the killing as “regrettable.” During this visit and the resultant newspaper reports, it became public knowledge that the National Park Services has a special arm called The Royal Rangers, whose job is to protect the wildlife of Aso Rock. Who would have known? 

In any case, the Permanent Secretary, State House, Tijjani Umar, assured that more effort will be made to keep the political animals from harvesting the wildlife of Aso Rock, either for their soup pot or juju cauldrons, none of which is good for the animals. 

Before this killing, however, there has been a history of controversy that has united the political animals and the wildlife of Aso Rock. Hard to believe but money has been at the centre of previous public spats. 

In 2017 for instance, Senator Ben Bruce took to Twitter to lament the budgetary allocation for the Aso Rock wildlife. The good senator believed the animals are eating better than most Nigerians. 

“It breaks my heart that at a time when many Nigerians can’t eat we are budgeting N40 million to feed wildlife in Aso Rock Presidential Villa!” Senator Bruce tweeted in February 2017. 

Before that, it didn’t seem as if most Nigerians knew that those wild animals have an allocation in our national budget. But it is true. They have had it for years, long before the senator raised the alarm. Somehow, this fact has always been tucked under some details in newspaper reports. 

Earlier this year, newspaper reports lumped the N57 million for feeding the Aso Rock wildlife into the N2.1 billion spending presented as frivolous by the government. This lump sum includes the N30 million for presidential entertainment and N21 million for ‘House Construction,” among other expenses. Of course, it is okay to see that the president’s entertainment costs only about half what it costs to feed the entire wildlife population in his neighbourhood. And then again N21 million for house construction makes you wonder what house are we constructing again for the president. 

But I digress. The main issue here is that the conservation of wildlife is very important and necessary and media reports lumping the wildlife budget into what is considered frivolous spending by the villa is not being fair to the wildlife. I am delighted there is an attempt to conserve the wildlife at Aso Rock and that the political animals have not turned savage on the wildlife. At least, not completely. Especially when one considers our superstitious nature and relationships with wildlife, it is easy to imagine the political animals going berserk and exterminating as many of their wildlife cousins as they can. 

The other time our spectacular wildlife had been dragged from the brink of extinction into the centre of national discourse had also revolved around money.  

Who has forgotten the giant snake that mysteriously snaked its way into a JAMB office, slithered into its locked vault and swallowed, of all things in the world, N36 million an official had kept there? 

Or the adventurous monkeys that monkeyed their way into a farmhouse and stole N70 million a senator had kept there. 

To the best of my knowledge, these monies have not been recovered. It makes you wonder what sort of extravagant tree mansion or luxury burrow these snakes and monkeys are constructing in the wild. What opulent ‘snake in the monkey shadow’ lifestyles do they live? 

The other time national discourses have centred around animals that did not involve money, power—or more precisely conspiracy theory—was involved. 

In 2017, there was some confusion online when videos showed a herd of cattle blocking traffic within the villa. Imagine a scenario where some minister or senior government official is dashing to see the president with some matter of exigent national importance and is held up by an endless stream of cows crossing the street in the villa! This was in the early days of the “killer herdsmen” hue and cry and so the potential for scandal was quite high as the narrative was spun and the conspiracy theory machinery churned the narrative that the ubiquitous herdsmen enjoy sanctuary in Aso Rock. 

Incidentally, the herd did not belong to wandering herdsmen being harboured by the presidency but to the presidency itself, as an official explained. The herd was being reared for the entertainment of the president and his vice and at the time of the commotion, were being moved by government employees to another location until their ranch was cleaned. So, the herdsmen overrunning the villa narrative died reluctantly. 

That by no means, meant the villa was safe because, at one point, the president was forced to beat a hasty retreat from his office when highly-trained, highly-skilled special forces of rats pulled off something remarkable. They launched a special operation that culminated in them taking control of the president’s office. 

The smart creatures took advantage of the president being absent for 107 days on medical leave to the UK to carry out this dastardly stealth raid. When the president returned to resume work, he was shocked to discover the rodents had full control of his office. Fortunately, instead of taking over the entire country, the rodents limited themselves to dancing shaku shaku on the table, swinging from and chewing the AC cables, and romping on the luxury seats in the office. The government had to plan a special operation of its own to reclaim the office. After an intense battle that lasted several weeks, costing the lives of several billions of naira, a triumphant president resumed his office. 

The irony was in that year’s budget, the government had budgeted N4.9 billion for “annual routine maintenance of mechanical/electrical installations, building/civil and environmental services within and around Aso-Rock villa facilities.” 

Somehow, these rats from hell escaped these maintenance works and found their way into the president’s office. But then again, they were rodents’ special forces. 

Rats and wildlife are not the only things Aso Rock needs to worry about. There are rumours of a 200-year-old Gbagyi witch hunting the grounds of Aso Rock.  

In 2009, inspired by these rumours, a reporter went to Aso Rock to hunt this witch in the neighbouring village of Oviye and met people who said they had seen her wandering about the villa. One woman said she had seen her twice, once when she was around six years old and the second time when she was in her 60s or 70s and at both times, the ageless witch looked exactly the same. 

They said the witch probably lives in one of the caves around the villa. The reporter explored one of those caves but I guess his courage ran out of steam to visit the others. 

The good news for Nigerians is that there is no budget for the maintenance of the witch and she had not decided to launch a commando-style witch invasion of the villa that would render the rodent’s infestation child’s play, but some of the Gbagyi communities around the villa have said that previous governments have offered them cows or money for cows to offer in sacrifice to their old gods, to pray for Abuja and the villa. They haven’t had cows and money in a while. According to a resident simply identified as Mama Gbagyi, their gods have had to make do with goats and they may not be well pleased with that. 

Yet there is an even more sinister insinuation from that report. “According to another villager, it is the lack of animal blood sacrifice on Aso Rock that causes those occupying nearby Aso Rock (Presidential Villa) not to think properly.” 

The animals of Aso Rock have suffered, I tell you.