Image credited to ABC News 

Ayobami Atanda 

The story of the Jungle becomes difficult to tell day by day. The everyday narration of phenomena is more gory. When you think you have seen it all, something will occur that will make words ineffably outrageous to vomit. It keeps getting worse and now it has become almost unbearable. Well, all the little animals in the jungle think they have voices, forgetting that they abide in a place where the wildest reign, anarchy let loose and the young are vulnerable to attack even when innocuous. 

There is Sub-Jungle. Little animals were sent from the wide one to this small elucidated jungle to have mind illumination. Each animal sent its young ones to the Sub-Jungle so that the PIGS could enlighten them, hoping that the little animalistic creatures would come back to the Wild Jungle, knowing their rights, being their (parents’) voices, and consequently liberate them by turning the jungle into a better place to live. 

The young ones went to Sub-Jungle with high hopes. They believed in one of the rules that stated all animals were equal. They were eager to pronounce their rights at any slightest show of infringement. Nonetheless, when the PIGS beat them, they often tell them not to cry. And if any would cry, they threaten to send it back to the Wild Jungle, thereby forfeiting the cause of coming to the Sub-Jungle. 

When it first started, everyone thought it was a joke. The PIGS first gradually quenched the spirit of animalism. They subsided the spirit of oneness among the young animals. There was a time when they disbanded the group that championed the little animals’ solidarity. That was a long time. It happened when some of the little beings present were non-existent. Nevertheless, the solidarity group was reinstated but was unfeathered like the hapless chicken Joseph Stalin unfeathered. Just as Joseph Stalin gave the poor chicken crumbs, the PIGS also gave the solidarity group little, but its power had been like the power of a dog drawn in a book; it can not bite. The hen ate the crumb to survive. Likewise, the group came back, however, as a toothless dog. Therefore, the PIGS had an unchallenged leverage to oppress the small animals.  

In Sub-Jungle, you dare not call a spade a spade. Few of the young ones, in the past, made open, but harmless confrontations any time they felt cheated, but they lived not to tell their stories the next day; they were always banished with no option of return. Some whose offences seemed very minute faced perplexed threats constantly until they gave up their struggles. The more these little creatures strive for a habitat suitable for all, the more they realise that they dwell in the Sub-Jungle of the Wild Jungle. 

Year in and year out, the struggles for liberation dwindled, but the oppression increased. Many little animals gave in to the status quo. They felt their mettle was dead on arrival. Hence, they saw no need to challenge the so-called unchallenged. But some were obstinate; they were hellbent not to make animalism go into oblivion. Ipso facto, they began to pronounce their plights to the hearing of the animals in the Wide Jungle. They followed the undaunted struggle of a renowned animal activist who wrote a book written while in a cage. He wrote in the book, “The man dies in all who keep silent in the face of tyranny.”  

However, the PIGS began to censor any publications against them. They claimed any publication against them was malicious. And any animal that dared to make it would not see the other day in the jungle. Some did; what followed their actions was debilitating. These little creatures had to go to other little jungles to start again or they lost interest in mind illumination. The last time many of the little animals went out en masse to decry their suppression, the pigs closed the Sub-Jungle for a while. When they reopened it, they told the young animals to vow not to challenge their authority again before coming back. 

One day, though not long, the few little creatures who served as watchdogs cried and made their grievances known peacefully because the PIGS deprived them of what they (PIGS) enjoyed freely during their time. The big creatures did not take their act lightly. Just as before, they took it as a felonious crime. They commanded them to come to explain why they were crying because they heard the rumour that they wanted to beat them. They put them in a cage till they implemented how they would beat them. When they started to beat all the young animals in the jungle, there was no one to stand in the gap. They had silenced the last active watchdogs. The remnants were impotent. Notwithstanding, their silence was deafening. They wept solemnly as they hustled to get their minds illuminated. The grass they fed on had become scarce; hence, they constantly battled to survive. However, the only lesson they kept learning was that they needed to be wild to live in the jungle.