Tunde Odesola

When two or more words combine to form a new word, what you get is a compound word, which is also called a portmanteau. An example of a compound/portmanteau word is brunch – a combination of ‘breakfast’ and ‘lunch’; motel: ‘motor’ and ‘hotel’ – a roadside lodging where motorists park directly outside the rooms to rest; podcast is a word coined from ‘iPod’ and ‘broadcast’, just as sunlight is forged from ‘sun’ and ‘light’. Even the word ‘portmanteau’ itself is a portmanteau word, combining ‘porter’ (to carry) and ‘manteau’ (a cloak).

Did you know there’s a compound side to food? Come take a bite. A balanced diet is a healthy meal that nourishes the body with essential nutrients in the right proportions. Adalu is a Yoruba delicacy consisting of corn, beans, and palm oil, popular in Benin and Togo. Abula is a classic Yoruba soup of ewedu and gbegiri that caresses amala on the descent journey to the belly. Oyinbo people, too, have their own compound/portmanteau meals. They have croffle – a combination of croissant dough and waffle; meatza – a pizza crust made from meat; turducken – a roast dish consisting of a boned chicken inside a boned duck, which is placed inside a partially boned turkey.

Is my tale getting more delicious? Good! “Give me second base, jare,” Fela Anikulapo-Kuti would say when he diminuendoes his tune to change musical notes. I’m just about to change to the second base of this literary offering and enter into the underground spiritual game. Hahaha! Just sit back and enjoy, please.

Here we go. There’s a new compound meal in town. The new meal is a portmanteau of madness. It’s as disgusting as it’s disturbing. It’s crazy, irritating and sickening. It’s a food combination that the brainless are guzzling with gusto right now. It is Fufeyin, a meal of fufu and eyin. Eyin is a Yoruba word for egg – protein-rich, formerly a food on common plates, but now a permanent resident on the exclusive menu for executive plates. Fufu is the long-lasting starchy staple famous among the masses on 0-0-1 unsquared meal, enduring in the stomach from a.m. to p.m.

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Fufeyin is the new opium for the brainless. It’s an unhygienic food combination that leads to acidic farts and watery gastronomic leaks. Fufeyin is a metaphor for moral rot – a symbolic dish served hot by deceivers to the devoutly daft. It’s the burnt offering rejected by God, but guzzled by the gullible, eyes shut, wallets open. The ‘fufu’ in Fufeyin symbolises a poverty background, the ‘eyin’ in it symbolises craze for wealth. Fufeyin is evil. Fufeyin is a meal made for the ignorant and the stupid by an irritating chef who doesn’t know how to light a stove.

Can we spare 60 seconds to talk about brains, please? It could be less. Let’s place a grown man on a spot marked ‘A’ and place an ant on a spot marked ‘B’. In the heads of the man and the ant, the brains are of different sizes. Having studied ants for more than five decades, the moniker, “Ant Man,” perches fittingly on the laurels of James Traniello, a professor of biology at Boston University. A 2023 publication, “BU’s ‘Ant Man’ studies Ant Brains,” published in Boston University’s digital research journal, The Brink, says Traniello’s work ‘raises questions about how both insect and mammalian brain sizes evolved and about the relationship between the size of the brain and how much energy it requires’.

In a 2020 publication in The Brink, “From Ant Brains, Seeking New Lessons about Human Behaviour and Society,” Traniello says, “Human brains weigh only about 3 pounds, but use about 20 per cent of our energy. Brains are also metabolically selfish, potentially capable of demanding energy dedicated to other organs.”

Science says an ant’s brain is remarkably large in proportion to its body size and sophisticated enough for navigation, swarm intelligence, efficiency, chemical communication, memory and colony coordination. The size of an ant’s brain is 0.01mm, which is 15 per cent of the body mass, with an estimated neuron count of 250,000.

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The human brain is about 2 per cent of total body mass, with an 86 billion neuron count and measuring 1,200 – 1,400 cm in size. The human brain has faculties for reasoning, language, memory, creativity, emotion and consciousness.

Traniello, whose research attracted a $1.5m grant, says, “Some types of ants even work together to cultivate and harvest mushrooms for food,” adding that, “Like humans, ants are known for their extraordinary collective intelligence. Cooperating groups are better at problem-solving than individuals in both human and ant societies.”

Although the human brain is far more complex than the ant’s brain, the actions of some people show that a human brain not put to proper use cannot compare with the brain of an ant. Indeed, the irritable way many Nigerians worship glaringly deceitful religious and political leaders, fawning over fake miracles and political promises, shows that an ant’s brain is far superior to some humans’ brains.

Probably the vacuity in humans was what King Solomon noticed when he offered that timeless piece of advice in the Book of Proverbs, chapter 6: verses 6-11: “6. Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! 7. It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, 8. yet it stores its provisions in summer, and gathers its food at harvest. 9. How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep? 10 A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest—11
And poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcity like an armed man.”

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The Jewish Virtual Library says Solomon became the King of Israel in approximately 967 B.C.E, that is 2,991 years ago, yet he talks about the ants ‘gathering its food at harvest’, and Professor Traniello, in a 2020 research corroborates King Solomon, saying, “Some types of ants even work together to cultivate and HARVEST mushrooms for food.”

Because I’m not as wise as King Solomon and because I live in the digital age, I’ll depart from the ant metaphor and go after the spider and its web. The spider web holds a fascination for me because of its intriguing comparability with digital technology. So, watch me as I step onto the spider’s intricate web, gingerly avoiding the pitfalls of sticky strands.

Ssshhh! Silence! I’m on the cobweb now, trying to get my balance; it’s bouncy and shaky here, like walking on the slippery terrain of Nigeria. Ha! God, abeg o. Can you believe what I’m seeing? Ha!? So, spiders too write graffiti? Ise eniyan ni ise eranko o – humans behave like animals. Or perhaps worse. Wow, how lovely the spider writes! Can I read out some of the graffiti? OK. Here we go. “While ants build colonies and spiders design cobwebs, humans flock to charlatans selling spiritual fufu and eggs.” Wow! Word!

I can see more graffiti on the wobbly cobwebs. I’ll read them: “Fufeyin and co are a curse on humanity.” “Fufeyin will perish soon.” “There are a million Fufeyins littering different altars in Nigeria.”

Ise eniyan ni ise eranko o – humans and animals behave alike. That’s why life, like a cobweb, is a delicate weave – spun from dreams, sweat, fears, and faith. Like life, the cobweb glistens at its peak, masking its trap in its fragile form, lurking for the next victim. Wise up, brethren; Fufeyin is the trap, stop falling mugun.

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