Dog Meat Cures Malaria, Repels Witches – Eaters In Ibusa, Agbor, Ubulu-Uku, Umunede

THE number of  people turning to dog meat (flesh and other palatable parts derived from dogs) for its undocumented health and spiritual benefits is snowballing, compelling sellers to open road side joints where they butcher and sell the meat, fresh or cooked.

 From Ibusa to Agbor, Ubuluku and Umunede in Delta State, you see men mostly in hidden or open kiosks demolishing plates of dog meat pepper soup, which they claim stands out from any other meats





Dog meat joint



As a group of people gathered round a giant size cooking pot in front of a kiosk built with bamboo sticks at Abuedo Quarters, Ubulu-Uku, along the Umunede Ogwashi-Uku Road, Aniocha South Local Government Area, it did not strike one that they were negotiating the parts of a newly slaughtered dog meat.

Some of the customers wanted to buy the parts and personally prepare them for their family members and friends.

Different  experience

“When you buy dog meat that is prepared by the road side, you really enjoy the meat, but it is a different experience when you use it to prepare soup,” said Tony, a slim built bus driver, who parked his Toyota Hiace bus, which he uses to ferry passengers from Agbor to Asaba to join the ‘dog meat’ queue.

Immunization against malaria

On why he eats the meat, he said it serves as an immunization for his family against malaria attack. “We use mosquitoes net in my house, but somehow mosquitoes still find their way into the house, and I know that dog meat fights malaria parasite,” he added.

Foils witches’ attack

For some, dog meat prevents them from being attacked by witches and wizards and even makes evil spiritual forces to flee from them. “I do not fear witches because like dogs that have penetrating eyes, witches too see and they feel I have powers that neutralizes their power,” said Ike Azuka, a teacher who said,   “ I visit dog meat joint at least three times a week.”

Traditional doctors’ favourite

At Umunede,     Ika North Local Government Area, Ansalem, who sells both dog and goat meats, depending on the animal he gets for the day, told Niger Delta Voice that he sells the bitter part of dog meat to traditional medicine practitioners, who pay upfront for it.

Increasing demand

He also said that the increasing demand of the meat has led to the increase in price. “In the past, we used to buy a big dog for N3, 000 or N3, 500, but now people want to sell for N5,000 or more. That makes it very hard to make more than N2000 after sale.”

A dog met seller in Ibusa, Onyeka, who sometimes kills two dogs a day, and serves it with cooked yam, prepared with heavily- spiced pepper soup, said that he has heard some customers saying that dog meat eaters have fortified immune system that wards off any form of infection.

Onyeka, whose kiosk is proximate the Ibusa General Hospital, said that in the past, some customers used to send people to pick the meat for them, but they now walk in confidently to devour the meat. He said more people were eating the meat because of the good it does to the body.

“Whenever I kill dog meat, people hardly wait for me to finish its preparation before they start making demand,” he said.

Another seller, Success, who also runs a kiosk near Ibusa General Hospital, said that he hardly meets the demand of his customers, who according to him, range from the high to the low in the society.

Source: Vanguard