LAST BATTLE OF THE GREEN SNAKE AND SNAKE CHARMER IN THE WHITE HOUSE

By Razaq Adedeji Jimoh
Every community has its epochal folklores. At presentation of the new Onisheri-elect, the crown Prince of Isheri Olofin, Idris Balogun (aka Oluomo Kaafata) described the town as an ancient Kingdom. So, it has its own ancient folklore grounded in the story of Olofin Ogunfunmire in combat with Aaroni Onigba ado (the gin with 200 gourds). The battle was said to have led to the dual life of the founder of the Kingdom, Ogunfunminite, as what the Yoruba would describe as seniyan seranko – to live as both human being and animal interchangeably. He lived as a man as well as a python, thus giving birth to the myth of his descendants being of a python origin.
There is however another 21st century folklore to emerge from the town yet about duality of life as a man and as a snake, here being unfolded as a tale of the above subject matter: the battle of a green snake and a snake charmer. But their themes of origin, the set and the values are not anywhere comparable to each other. The theme of Ogunfunminire's anchors on originality set in the ancient forest of the town with the value of helping humanity, such as he stopped the stigmatization and vilification of twins as mystery of forest gins which often lead to their killings at times.
The tale of this green snake is however a satiric narratives of the reality set in the modern time with the theme of destructive instinct and nature of the snake from the inevitable mutual threat as a cause of the strong enmity of man with snake. Prose like this is in fact, a part of the ways writers make money in sharp contrast to the belief and propaganda of the green snake vilifying the snake charmer literally as a fraudster, trickster, and a social leech for earning a living wage as a writer and journalist.
The snake charmer (the “charmer”) and the green snake (the "snake") had encountered each other right from way back the early life of this Fourth Republic of Nigeria's political history. The first regular part of the encounter was at the four wall enclosure of the Egbe-Idimu Local Council Development Area (LCDA). The second would follow at Egbe in the premises of a society called Gbemisoke. This was where the signs of intrinsic nature of the both as a snake and a snake charmer began to manifest mutually to each other. And thence the enmity started to grow ceaselessly and progressively.
Through the charmer's writing skill, he had found his way to the Hallowed Chamber of the Chief Priest of the Oranmiyan Temple at GRA via the vehicle of Gbemisoke originator. This was to attract an uncharitable envy from the snake – unarguably a stark illiterate by every standard of common sense evaluation of oral notation, outspokenness and undisguised phobic hatred for anything academic and academia. As the charmer once challenged: “Any one that could come out with a proof of where the snake had ever expressed himself in English language, even with a simple stretch of a sentence interspacing his regular vernacular heavily always heavily coated in his ilu-oke accent in context of any conversation thus far should come forward for a cash gift of N100,000”. No one has been able to claim the price so far. Thus that quite inferentially from this, the charmer could not be wrong to have concluded that the man in the green snake belongs to the social outcast of a Northern terrorist group called Boko Haram – meaning: Western Education is a sin.
It is therefore not unexpected that this cultural and social contrast would become the causative bedrock of the natural enmity between the green snake and the snake charmer - just as should be expected between a prey and a predator. Unfortunately however, while the charmer has resolved to let the green snake be and live its life to the fullest, the intrinsic natural threat the charmer poses would not let the snake give the charmer a right to peaceful coexistence, now at their third encounter at the White House in Insheri Olofin. This was to evoke the series of battle between the two natural enemies in the House. It began over a battle for where the soul of the White House should be between Mama Alimosho and a former commissioner who had just hijacked an emerging Third Force. As the late Fuji maestro, Alhaji Sikiru Ayinde Barrister, once sang, eni ti ko gbo tenu oga lo ma ni eiye o ke to.
The White House is one base of progressives' hegemony at its own modesty of uncharismatic candour. The landlord – simply call him "Oga" – has acquired the green snake as a pet. Of course, he also has a wolf as another domesticated wild pet. The snake charmer entered the White House around the month of May soon after the said coronation of the landlord as the new custodian of the progressives’ hegemony in Alimosho, following a tragedy of volcanic eruption that hit Arida landscape. The battle of wit between the two natural enemies was to start earnestly soon after their encounter here.
The White House is an attractive place to behold and fall in love with at first entry. The front recess of the compound is well laid with false lush of greenish organic gift of nature, which the spread of synthetic lawn on pavement of concrete floor base presents to the eyes in aesthetic landscaping from the right side immediately one gains an entrance. This paradise-like enclave is a quadrangular space demarcated from the concrete motor way with a set of beautiful salmond shrubs pruned to equal height of about one meter. Standing within it on the green floor are two carports under which the House sitting and large reception of guests hold. Interspacing the two is another but small purpose-built quadrangular reception cabin, obviously for special guest in unmistakeable terms. It tiled floor is cordoned off the green floor with angular uprights of four round stainless steel pipes joined together with a pyramid-shaped plastic roofing and about six pieces of four-feet square fibre glasses at the base. Within it is a large thick glass top table surrounded with four exotic thick plastic chairs on stainless steel legs each. Beneath the inner carport that meshes with the right corner of the perimeter fencing is the rendezvous spot of the House members with Oga’s seat at that corner extremity.