The enviable life of a cat

ats. If we don’t own one, we’ve seen one or two– laying ambush in the wild or cozying up to a grandparent on the balcony where there is one. We have loads of them in Africa, although they somehow do not make it to Cat Census when the need arises. In Africa we don’t count the things that count and, except you live in a town infested with rats, you’d be forgiven for not counting your cats. I know it sounds like sacrilege for my oyinbo readers, but it’s the truth. We acquire these things to help us get rid of mice especially in this season of Lassa fever.

African cats hardly get the royal treatment they are given in the West. There is no obligation on their owners to register them, put a chip under their skin, buy them expensive gifts and compulsorily register them for general check-up with the vet. Why? Even cows, that provide us with alternate protein hardly get to see a vet in cow life before they become barbecue. On the average, Africans tend to worry more about their children than they do their pets. All that is changing. To own a pet these days is a sign that you are above the Joneses. We plaster our social media pages with pictures of our cats and dogs.

In Eastern religions where reincarnation is usually the ultimate goal and not generally the willingness to kill the neighbour for a medal in heaven, animals are usually well respected. Who knows, one may complete this transition and return as – a cat! In the right clime, that would be pure heaven. On the average, to return as a cat in Africa would be reincarnation to a second hell. Rather than pray for such a denouement, one should pray to return as a cow in the kraal of herdsmen. I’m sure it’d be interesting to see humans die for the value of cows. It is something every Nigerian understands.

The beings we refer to as pets here have more rights than the humans in the global north than humans in most parts of Africa. In 1977 when my poor mother had her last child, poverty did not allow her to complete his vaccination. Yet, that was the year Olusegun Obasanjo and co squandered a billion dollars (in today’s money) on FESTAC. That child is 45 now, and has received nothing from Nigeria as a state. Depending on how you look at it, he is in good company!

According to the last cat census, there are 220 million cats in people’s homes and an extra 500 million classified as stray. According to a 2019 survey by credit.com, the average cat would cost its owner within the range of $5,000 to $23,000 in its lifetime. This include money for cat boarding, pet deposit in an average apartment building, but the biggest cost of owning a cat in the global north include buying its specialised food and water bowls, a little box and some scratching post, says DailyPaws. If your cat needs grooming as they often do, add $300 to your annual cat budget.

The cat in Okeagi does not need all these luxuries. It would get nearly 60 per cent of its protein from hunting mice. It would never visit the vet in its lifetime and would survive on its owner’s leftover and a de-commissioned plate for its water needs. African cats know their bounds, they do not need a nursery to know that they cannot litter their owners home. If they do, the issue is usually resolved with a little spanking. 

This was what forced me to do a little background check on Westham’s Kurt Zouma. Although his parents were originally from the Congo, this young footballer was born and raised in Paris. He is French, even if skinheads would contest that, it doesn’t change a thing. In 2017, there were 12.7 million cats in France. That is as many cats in one country as people in Kano State according to the 2016 census.

Only the wealthiest or wealthy wannabes adopt cats in the West. The costs, compared to the usual burden left behind in Africa are simply prohibitive. Western veterinarians are among the highest paid professionals in these areas. They do not just take care of the pets, they are trained to look out for signs of stress in the animals that come in and to report abuse. They ignore any signs of physical or mental abuse on their patients at the risk of losing their professional licenses.

So, pray what was Zouma sniffing to make his adopted feline look like a round coloured black and white football to him? It must be more than coffee. For a moment, he must have forgotten that he is a black man. Mental health challenges exhibit themselves differently in a person of colour than they do to fair-skinned individuals. Ozzy Osbourne once bit into a dead bat on stage and confessed to biting off the head of a dove during a boring record company meeting. Paris Hilton was rumoured to lock up his pet puppy in a closet out of anger. American Falcons quarterback, Michael Vick, raised 54 dogs many of which were found with signs of abuse.

Courtney Love’s drug use had unintended consequences to her pets. Troy Gentry killed a bear held in an electrified pen and Justin Bieber showed up in Germany with an ‘undeclared’ 14-weeks old monkey who should still be lactating on its mother’s tits.

Zouma has lost his two pet cats, a distress to his family. He has also lost $340,000, endorsement by famous brands and possible prosecution by London’s RSPCA. He better prays that no hidden stories of pet abuse surfaces. If that happens, he may be done in by this scandal, he would be finished if a similar story emerges.

In the West, pets are untouchables. In America, a man killed a young boy, Trayvon Martin and escaped justice. The killer of George Floyd would have friends in prison, but one caught abusing an animal would need to keep looking behind his shoulder even in prison. If seven-year old Obina Udeze could be flogged to death by his school proprietress for soiling his uniform; if those who took up arms against our gallant soldiers are forgiven and rehabilitated – whatever anybody does, they should never reincarnate in Africa as a pet.