Jolted by the creak of the door, two rats darted in different directions, squeezing their bodies under the chair to hide.
Desperate to kill “his enemies” as he entered the room, Akin Ojo quickly grabbed a stick. Rats are his regular visitors and he had killed several of them in past weeks. He was ready to deal with them again.
As if they were anticipating his moves, the rats ran out from behind the chairs in separate directions.
Confused about which of them to pursue, Ojo opted for the one near where he stood but he was unlucky. He fell on the corridor, hurting his ankle. He watched helplessly in annoyance as the rats wriggled their way through familiar holes in the walls and escaped.
Aside from the menace of mosquitoes and cockroaches at his Egbeda, Lagos home, rats are Ojo’s major nightmare. The pesky rodents eat his food, leaving their faeces in food sacks and shelves.
“Rats are so annoying. I wish I can wipe them out of existence. I don’t understand why they keep coming. I have killed some, using rat gums but they keep coming. They eat and defecate on your food. I fell while trying to kill some of them,” Ojo narrated his frustration with rodents to SUNDAY PUNCH.
In Mafoluku, a Lagos suburb, what welcomes visitors into the living room of Mrs. Folu Olaniyi is a sticky gum pad. The pads also adorn every corner of the rooms and kitchen in a bid to trap the annoying rodents.
Because of constant invasion of her home by rats, Olaniyi has a monthly budget for mouse traps. She narrated her unending war against them.
“Some rats are so big that the gum pad would not catch them. There is another rat poison mixed with fish and crayfish to kill rodents. This is a better alternative because these rats have become clever and seem to outsmart the gum pad. The disadvantage is that the rat can die in your home and the smell is usually irritating,” she said.
Immanuel James Ibe-Anyanwu’s encounter with rats is similar. The Lagos resident shared a bitter tale of how a particular rat upturned his dustbin every night, scattering the bin in different directions.
He said, “Rat Bomb! Kill and Dry,” boasted the rat poisons. They were in vain of course. Sometimes, I struggle to lift the dustbin bucket. But the rat doesn’t. It brings it down single-handedly and feeds to his taste. It flings rat gums away with a casual kick, leaving furs for my consolation. It’s no longer a joke. Lagos is facing a rat invasion and risks some impending epidemic. In silts and clogged drainages, rats find safe habitation, breeding and subduing the state.
“If you drive through Lagos at night, especially from midnight through the early morning hours, you will envy the life of rats. They enjoy in the fronts of people’s shops, eating and partying. I have seen rats nibble boldly at human feet in Lagos markets. I saw one rob a little child of a cob of corn.”
Nigeria’s rat explosion
Ojo, Olaniyi and Anyanwu’s experiences capture the frustration of many Nigerians with rat infestations. Across the country, the hazard of rats is borne by the poor and rich.
Just last week, President Muhammadu Buhari’s spokesperson, Garba Shehu, announced to the surprise of many that rodents had infested the President’s office while he was away on medical vacation in London.
Shehu said this was the reason the President would have to work from home. How rodents would find their ways to Aso Rock, the cosy office of the President, still baffles many.
With the recent report of Lassa fever in Lagos and a few other states, many Nigerians in Kano, Jos, Enugu, Port Harcourt and other towns and cities have a more genuine reason to dread the menace of rodents in their neighbourhoods.
According to the World Health Organisation, Lassa fever is contracted through the consumption of food exposed to rat droppings, urine or faeces. The disease is an acute febrile illness characterised by vomiting, facial swelling and muscle fatigue.
Unlike humans, rats do not fall sick from the virus so they serve as a suitable host for its maintenance and multiplication.
In extreme cases, Lassa fever victims bleed from their eyes and nose. The disease got its name from Lassa, a town in Borno State, where it was first discovered in 1969.
Since its resurgence in 2015, the disease has claimed many lives in Nigeria. WHO noted that between August 2015 and January 2016, 159 suspected cases of Lassa fever, including 82 deaths, were reported across 19 states.
Last year, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control stated that over 100 persons have since been killed by the disease.
Two weeks ago, the death toll increased. The Chief Medical Director of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Prof. Chris Bode, announced that two patients died of the disease at the hospital.
Panicked by the news, many Nigerians have begun to purchase more pest control products to contain the invasion of their neighbourhoods by rodents.
Agbodemu Ishola, a resident of Ifesowapo, a sprawling slum in EbuteMetta area of Lagos, told SUNDAY PUNCH that apart from patronising rat poison vendors, cats have come to his rescue.
Ishola stated that there are thousands of rats in his neighbourhood owing to open dumping of refuse and drainages. The security agent said the threat of rats had reached an alarming rate.
"The rats are stubborn and very adamant. They are no longer scared of human presence. They stand still, watching you even when you try to chase them away. They scare children every minute.
Source: punchng.com
"The rats are stubborn and very adamant. They are no longer scared of human presence. They stand still, watching you even when you try to chase them away. They scare children every minute.
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Click to read full newsSource: punchng.com
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