erstwhile sleepy and serene community in the capital
city of Oyo State, came alive on Tuesday and it
became a Mecca of sort, when the news of a
miniature mermaid (omo Yemoja) filtered through
the city.
It took a while before the Nigerian Tribune crew got
access to the house, a storey building, and when it
finally did, the head of the family, Alhaji Raufu A.
Salau, said he was sleeping upstairs when he heard a
lot of unusual noise which forced him to come
downstairs.
According to him, "Ramota, his granddaughter, sells
fried and roasted fish in the house and, as usual,
purchased a carton of frozen fish that morning.
She
was in the process of cleaning the fish and
separating those to be roasted from the ones to be
fried when she was said to have screamed out loud
and called on neighbours to come to her aid."
Salau, a retired civil servant, said he heard people
asking after him but rather than come upstairs to
see him, the lady ran to meet her Shehu, an Islamic
cleric, who followed her home and offered some
prayers in the Islamic way before the neighbours,
who had begun to converge on the scene, could take
the pictures of the strange "fish." The first person
who took the picture of the strange fish was said to
have had his phone shattered mysteriously.
Alhaja Alirat, a member of the community, told the
Nigerian Tribune that she did not see the mermaid
but the lady who claimed to have seen it, but
declined to speak with the press, told her that the
mermaid, though very small in size initially, grew
bigger and was fish from waist downward and
human being from waist upwards, with mouth, nose,
eyes and long hair, which it was swinging to cover its
eyes when the mammoth crowd thronged to the
scene to look at it.
She also said it was alleged that the mermaid spoke,
begging Ramota, the fish seller, not to expose it but
that Ramota shouted out of fear.
Meanwhile, one Miss Osungbemi, an Osun
worshipper, claimed that the mermaid was on a
mission to uplift Ramota financially.
Rather than shout, she said Ramota ought to have
looked for a big basin filled with water and throw the
mermaid inside, adding that she should have then
called on Osun worshippers who would call the
mermaid by its cognomen and tutor the lady on how
to appease it.
She said Ramota would have become a consultant,
diagnosing and treating people with the aid of the
mermaid, who would be telling her what to do, even
as she claimed that someone in the house where the
mermaid was found must have worshipped Osun at
a point in his or her life.
Some members of the crowd, who did not volunteer
their names, said it was Ramota's mother that had
worshipped Osun before and that before the
occurrence, she had received messages to visit the
Osun Osogbo grove to worship Osun, but that she
had been complaining that there was no time.
Responding to Osungbemi's claims, Alhaja Alirat
said "the tradition to which one is born is quite
different from the religion one is practising," adding
that if one was born into Osun tradition and one
became a Muslim and, at a point in time, received a
message to worship Osun, there was nothing bad in
it.
"It does not affect one's religion. In fact, it is for one's
good, as worshipping the Osun would improve one's
fortune in life and make the person a better human
being.
At least, the Holy Book says we should give to
Caesar what is Caesar's," she said.
All efforts to see the mermaid, however, failed, as
some people claimed that the mermaid had been
moved out of the house while others said it was still
in the house and that Ramota had been taken to the
police station at Mapo.
At the Mapo Police Station, however, the Tribune
crew sighted Ramota, who was with her baby and
her Shehu, the Islamic cleric.
It was certain that the police were yet to sight the
mermaid as of press time.
Different contingent of policemen sent to the house
failed to bring the mermaid out, as the divisional
police officer later directed the press to the state
Police Public Relations Officer, Bisi Ilobanafor.
The PPRO said there was no issue in the mermaid
story as she spoke directly with Ramota, who told
her that she did not see any mermaid, but that it was
people who changed her story.
The PPRO said there were many creatures in the
ocean, adding that what the fish seller saw could
have been one of them but certainly not a mermaid.
Meanwhile, it was overheard that the mermaid had
been taken to the house of the Aare Musulumi of
Yorubaland, Alhaji AbdulAzeez Arisekola-Alao, in
Ibadan.
All efforts to get Aare Arisekola-Alao on phone
failed, as he did not pick his call but one of his aides,
who did not want his name in print, confirmed that
it was a big crayfish that was brought to Aare
Arisekola's gate and not a mermaid.
He said the people who came around were turned
back, adding that Arisekola-Alao did not see the
crayfish.
A traditionalist, Dr Olowoglass by name, said he was
born into traditional worship over 60 years ago and
had never heard that a mermaid visited someone in
the manner being broadcast around.
He said the president of traditionalists told him that
he had seen the purported mermaid and could not
say whether it was a mermaid or not.
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