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October 22, 2008

The ear does not have a lid

Dikko Husseyni and Sisse Mamadou are sitting on wicker chairs in front of a mud-brick house. Two vultures squint down at them from the rooftop above, scraggy and angular like broken umbrellas.

'Did you hear the news about Muusa Kuranga?' asks Husseyni.
'I certainly did,' says Mamadou. 'Nowru walaa omboode.'

Nowru walaa omboode - the ear does not have a lid. The Fulani proverb means that when something significant happens in the neighbourhood, no one can help but hear about it.

'When I heard the news,' says Husseyni, 'my heart stopped beating and it took a long time to start again. Such a thing has never happened before amongst the peoples of the north.'
'Is it true they ate everything?'
'In the name of God, every last grain.'
'And is it true the mayor posted people all around the field?'
'Not just people. State police with batons!'

The field under discussion is situated eight kilometres out of town and has been the subject of a recent land dispute. Muusa Kuranga and his ancestors have cultivated the land for as long as people can remember, but the local council want to turn it into a cattle grazing zone. Two years ago they informed Kuranga that he must forfeit the land. He refused, and the dispute rumbled on month after month. Until last Wednesday, when the council took decisive action in a form that no one can quite believe.

The councillors chose the day of the weekly market, when they knew Kuranga would leave his millet field and come to town. They waited until he was out of sight, then rounded up a huge herd of cows and drove the cows into the field. By the time Kuranga got back from the market, his crops had been completely destroyed.

'And only a week away from harvest, too,' adds Husseyni. 'What those men did was truly wicked.' He starts to laugh, but not because there is anything funny about the conversation. In a society where grief and anger are shameful, nervous laughter is often the only outlet for emotion.

The vultures shuffle sideways along their rooftop, eyes flickering in search of prey. Their hooked beaks are red the whole way up.

'How many councillors are there?' asks Mamadou.
'Fifty-three.'
'How could fifty-three men decide to do such a thing?'
'They voted,' says Husseyni. 'My cousin was in the meeting and he told me there were three proposals. Proposal one: let Kuranga harvest his millet and then settle the land dispute. Proposal two: send some young men to harvest the millet and distribute it to the poor. Proposal three: get a herd of cows do the job. Quicker and cheaper that way. The first proposal got ten votes, the second proposal got twelve and the third proposal got thirty-one.'

Mamadou sighs and shakes his head. 'Allahu akbar,' he whispers.

It is not the land dispute itself that people here care so deeply about. What they cannot stomach is the deliberate destruction of food in this region of perennial hunger. The ear does not have a lid, but sometimes one might wish that it did.

Posted by sahelsteve at October 22, 2008 11:45 PM