I HAD earlier resolved not comment about the danger from wall geckos that marketers are hyperbolising to sell their insecticides nowadays, but this new news about killer spiders has forced me to adjust and speak a little bit. I remember when Ben Oche was trying to make a worthwhile point after the presentation by one Mr David in new MSCC, Keffi, but his words were stabbed to death by who knows better. Some of us get confused whenever we’re interrupted at the middle of a speech, so I realised I would be a bad teacher if I tried to say anything there. But thank God the gift of writing overtakes all my skills, and, pronto, here we are without fear of interruption.
This kind of news is always created by internet fake news propagators, and then products’ marketers will generate other strategies therefrom. If you didn’t know, this post shared about the killing of family of six by a spider was first about wall gecko: the screaming headline then says, “Wall gecko wipes out family of six in Ogun State”. Then insecticides marketers began to spread the fake news to market their products; of course, some new products were made along with the news.
“You didn’t know that your fingers house bacteria? Even the salmonella, which causes typhoid, housed by geckos, can be found in our fingers. Now fetch your soup into two plates. Turn the soup in one of the plates with a finger, and turn the other with a spoon. Wait for some hours for the one that will get soured first. In fact, even our parents who never went to school would tell us not to touch cooked food that would be kept for sometimes with our hand. Why? The fingers carry bacteria that cause decomposition.”
As Greg Odogwu writes, “the major effect the story had on society was in setting off the panic button. The social media went haywire. All sorts of armchair pundits concocted evidence to support the assertion that wall geckos are poisonous. Others suggested ways of getting rid of the reptile. “Avoid death; get rid of wall gecko in your home now”, warned a Facebook post”. Then as said above, insecticides producers and marketers hijacked the news to their own advantages.
Adding that, a peripheral fact-check indicates otherwise. The common house gecko, also known as Asian house gecko, Pacific house gecko, wall gecko, house lizard, tayoto, chipkali or moon lizard, scientifically known as hemidactylus frenatus, is “non-venomous and not harmful to humans.”
In any case, even experts weighed in on the matter. A zoology and environmental biology lecturer at the University of Nigeria, Eugene Onah, told AfricaCheck.org, the fact-checking non-profit, that the wall gecko was not poisonous.
“You see, when you allow someone to synthesise for you the knowledge you have, they will do so to their own advantage. If you are learning anything, learn it well to synthetic level. Alexander Pope says “a little learning is a dangerous thing.” I once told someone that I am doing a PhD program because I don’t like ‘little learning’. It’s too bad that the followers of the Bible don’t even know the Bible, neither do the followers of the Qur’an.”
He said, “One wouldn’t automatically die just because a wall gecko fell into the food one is eating. However, because the wall gecko carries a lot of bacteria in its mouth, the tendency of one getting infected from the bacteria is high. But let me tell you, if you want to get rid of everything that is a carrier of bacteria, then you may have to cut off all your fingertips, because they are houses to numerous bacteria.
Oh! You didn’t know that your fingers house bacteria? Even the salmonella, which causes typhoid, housed by geckos, can be found in our fingers. Now fetch your soup into two plates. Turn the soup in one of the plates with a finger, and turn the other with a spoon. Wait for some hours for the one that will get soured first. In fact, even our parents who never went to school would tell us not to touch cooked food that would be kept for sometimes with our hand. Why? The fingers carry bacteria that cause decomposition. A study in the UK has shown that ATM machine’s keypad harbours more bacteria than public toilet. It’s our fingers that contaminate the pads. I’m afraid, one day these people would come with a product telling us about the dangers of the bacteria in our fingers and how they could be eliminated (lol).
You see, when you allow someone to synthesise for you the knowledge you have, they will do so to their own advantage. If you are learning anything, learn it well to synthetic level. Alexander Pope says “a little learning is a dangerous thing.” I once told someone that I am doing a PhD program because I don’t like ‘little learning’. It’s too bad that the followers of the Bible don’t even know the Bible, neither do the followers of the Qur’an. When Mr David was quoting from the Bible about geckos and their counterpart reptiles, relating their consideration as unclean in the Bible to the bacteria they carry, and claiming that the law against geckos are because of the disease they could cause, even pastors among us were clapping. They could not relate that the law is not only peculiar to these reptiles, but also to all unclean animals including your dogs, pigs, etc.
The Islamic instruction against geckos only follows the biblical one. Or you didn’t know that the Qur’an is a laconic piece of the Bible stories? That’s why surah 10:94 says if you are in doubt or don’t understand the messages in the Qur’an, you should read the Bible or ask someone that has read the Bible. Therefore, though the Islamic and biblical instructions against geckos are hygienically okay, they are by themselves a canonical matter – nothing especial. You don’t know this because you are just a follower. Well, the issue of religious followers without the understanding of what they really follow is something for another day.
“The gecko story is just a new marketing strategy by insecticides sellers, stop falling for it. The best solution to good health against pathogens is hygiene. Make it your culture.”
One thing we have failed to realise is that, as we are spraying these chemicals to control and kill the geckos, the effects of the chemicals in our lungs when inhaled is another more health threatening matter. Of course, you are instructed to stay away from the room for about 15 minutes or thereabouts, but you might inhale it while spraying it. And, since it is said that the chemicals can last for months when sprayed in our rooms, it means therefore that we will be inhaling a bit of them every time we enter our house. Too bad!
I think we have been thought the best hygienic lifestyle age-long against intake of pathogens, haven’t we? The wall geckos do not pose dangers as eating your food without warming it or picking something into your mouth with your hand without washing the hand or, using your spoons or plates without rinsing them, etc. Some of us will buy something to eat before washing our hands after using the ATM or touching a banister in a public building. Now it’s groundnut season; how many people wash their hands before eating groundnuts?
The gecko story is just a new marketing strategy by insecticides sellers, stop falling for it. The best solution to good health against pathogens is hygiene. Make it your culture.
Olohy, a social critic, writes from Keffi, Nasarawa State.
