Nigerian Cannibal Cafe?

A story has been circulating the social media world over the last couple of days that has shocked many, a "NIGERIAN restaurant shut down for serving HUMAN FLESH", certainly would seem like a worthy thing to be appalled by if there ever was one.

The author of this story, Jay Akbar, writes that "a Nigerian restaurant has reportedly been shut down for serving human flesh to its customers" and that the police discovered "human heads which were still dripping with blood in plastic bags". Normally, I would easily dismiss articles like this as being the racist, fear-mongering, xenophobic nonsense a rag like the Daily Mail produces to cause divisions among the working classes. This story was different. It was linked to an earlier report of the story on the BBC Swahili website. 

So could it be true that a small group of Nigerians have been serving some other Nigerians flesh of their kin? The fact it was first reported on a news source which is not synonymous with lies gives it an air of credibility. 

For once it seemed like a story published by the Daily Mail which sought to expose a specific ethnic minority within our society to prejudice was telling the truth.

Except that it probably wasn't. 

At the very least it certainly was not reporting 'news'.

After typing in to a search engine "Nigerian resurant human flesh" followed crucially - as you should do with all dubious news stories on the internet - by the word "debunked" it revealed something not at all surprising. It was a racist article that seeks to cause a divide and fester suspicion among ethnic groups in our multi-cultural society. 

The search revealed a plethora of articles and web pages dating back a couple of years on the subject. Ranging in scope from relatively decent sources of information, such as the Independant (dated February 2014), to the Nigerian tabloid newspaper Osun Defender (dated September 2013) which I am assuming is the earliest source of the story. The articles are nearly word for word identical. 

I will not even begin to pretend that I know anything about the Nigerian tabloid who published this story, what its motives are, its political or ideological stance is, or if it is indeed a reliable source of information. I will assume, perhaps falsely, that it shares similarities with our tabloids. Similarities including, but not limited to, the falsifying or manipulation of data, outright lying (which they constantly have to edit once caught out), using unreliable or uncorroborated accounts from questionable individuals, and most likely, a penchant for sensationalism. 

If these are indeed characteristics of the original source I would take the whole story with a fist full of salt. 

It is worth noting that the original story went a whole SIX MONTHS before it was first picked up by an English news source and then, rather misleadingly, made to seem like a new discovery and not something which apparently happened six months prior. Then a whole year passed before it was picked up again and packaged as a new and shocking revelation about Nigerian society!

This could easily be dismissed as lazy journalism. A simple case of a journalist net checking on the sources, making sure the facts are correct, and being thorough all around. For many who have discovered this, it probably would be the conclusion they draw from the evidence. However, I know something far more nefarious lies beneath the surface. 

Which brings me neatly to the point of this post, there is nothing new about these allegations against African peoples. It is a long and worn out trope of the imperialist, racist mindset, which sought to label indigenous 'savages' of our colonised lands as qualitatively differing from the superior European people which murdered and displaced millions in a series of 'civilizing missions'. The natives peoples were predominantly imbued with characteristics closer to apes and other species in the natural world than they were 'humans'. They were even used as exhibits in "human zoos". 

It was in these earliest distant European colonies in the Americas, Africa, South East Asia and so forth that the shoots of the cannibal myth emerged. It seeps into every aspect of our Western Eurocentric culture. Connections between savagery, cannibalism and dark skin tones are everywhere, from the historical justifications of slavery, to the modern justifications for suffering and poverty in the often neglected and exploited parts of the world, through to depictions of natives in Hollywood movies. 

That is what I fear is at play here in these articles doing the rounds on social media. They are too easily being used as a justification for the continued racism, social exclusion and material deprivation of a large part of our society - and of the world - by highlighting a perceived 'otherness' that accounts for their position.

Let us not forget for a moment that the same 'group' who benefit most from the extreme exploitation of non-white European ethnic groups, are the same people who own most of the major media sources world wide, the rich white capitalists. It is very much in their collective interests now, as it has been historically, to continue to propagate these myths about the savage peoples of the world and to get the rest of the population to believe them. It's a role (nearly) all media sources play in maintaining existing power-relations, and one in which they revel.


Edit:
After posting this I found a website with a quote from a police stating that there was no such raid on a restaurant serving human flesh. Alongside many others carrying the same or longer quotes.

http://www.oasesnews.com/newsmakers/item/3668-refutation-restaurant-serving-human-flesh-as-meat