Scapegoat
Melissa Penn, “Scapegoat Mask”
“Upper Italy” has already had occasion (here) to express its admiration for Nigerian journalism and the remarkable stylists who fill the pages of that country’s newspapers. The police blotter piece which follows is from the Port Harcourt “Tide”. We reproduce the article in its entirety – though there is a fragile link below to the original – because Nigerian papers care as little about copyright as they do about keeping old news laying uselessly on servers and this tiny masterpiece is, as far as we can tell, in the public domain.
Man dies after turning to goat
This is an amazing story of how a young man turned to a goat and later turned back to a human being after being hit with an axe by his elder brother.
Small Talks gathered that the incident which occurred in one of the cities of the South-South has kept tongues really wagging.
It was revealed that the injured goat which the elder brother of the young man had hit with an axe later turned out to be the younger brother of the man.
The elder brother of the victim who is now in police custody was said to have told the police that he had gone to his mother’s cassava farm and saw about 15 goats which ran out of the farm on sighting him.
According to him, a recalcitrant one had refused to move out of the farm.
It was gathered that at this point, he picked up an axe and used it on the goat, and to his greatest surprise, the goat that was injured turned to a human being (his younger brother) and died.
He also revealed that on sighting the transformation of the goat to his own brother, he took to flight and went into hiding from where the Police came to pick him on the receipt of the information.
Small Talks also gathered that the young man is right now being held for the alleged brutal murder of his younger brother, even though he has recounted the puzzling story to the Police.
The main puzzle for now, as Small Talks learnt is the fact that the Police have continued to wonder if actually a human being could turn into a goat and vice versa.
The Police, according to sources, are equally faced with a poser of whether or not, this claim is a desperate response of a man caught in the Police net and who is desperate to evade justice. It is, indeed, a hard nut to crack.
Sunday, Oct 8, 2006