Kellogg’s owes me a swim, big time!
Some, if not all, our distinguished indulgees, who followed our stories on corruption in this newspaper last week are possibly now running for cover upon seeing the name Kellogg in the headline above. And they would be running because some of them, as usual, not having the lever, would think this is the same Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR), one of those multinational companies that deliberately set up a functional unit they would rather jokingly call, in their various European and American headquarters, “bribe them Nigerians with itchy fingers unit,” which they then used to get contracts from our greedy government officials. But don’t bother about running for cover, but companies are different! One helps in the process of ‘tanking’ up your vehicles, the other helps to ‘tank’ up your stomach, at least in so many different ways. Of Kelogg’s you’ll be finding out presently.
And by the way, here’s how it all got started. You wake up in the morning with what seems like a hangover from your activities the previous day or night, depending on when you really get down to your own kind of activities. You take a good look at yourself – full-blooded man that you are, or very Olay(istic) woman that you are, your eyes wanders down south and you find you can’t really see your midriff. or your find that everything is suddenly going south-the firmness, the toned features and all that stuff that you have always been proud of and shown off to so many people; in fact, that you annoyed people with by going all over in that, ‘in-your-face’ kind of attitude. You are losing it man, woman! You are sure to be telling yourself: “This is the time to really start getting a grip of myself so that I can regain the authority to be able to see my legs when I take a look south of my body.” That’s the authority you once had that you flaunted all over the place in that “I don’t care” manner. Now, you care! You bet you should!
But so that the message doesn’t get driven home about how much damage you are doing to your humble self through some inordinate activities or no activities at all, you decide that this is the time to start eating cornflakes again. You probably remembered how your mum used to put cornflakes out on the table for breakfast before you went to school and how you would smile because sugar and milk were always added to the servings to help you in your continued quest to promote the retention of the expression. “awww, that boy, he has a sweet tooth?” Yes, you had a sweet tooth then, but later began to have ‘bitter tooth because of your love for other kinds of liquids, this time not milk! A return to cornflakes is always going to be seen as a good way to kick-start your day, allowing you to have enough amount of energy to tide your until lunch time.
So, in order to achieve this, you set off to one of those many supermarkets that are trying very hard to be what they are not – otherwise they won’t be charging so exorbitantly for products that are available at Oke-arin market in Lagos, Ogbete market in Enugu, Dugbe market in Ibadan, Sabo market in Kano, for far, far less. Such high prices are often used to feed the impression of exclusivity – when you can just put on your boots and hit the streets to these other markets to get things for less. You’ll be on your own (OYO) if you start singing that radio station jingle.
“Don’t settle for less. Don’t settle for less. 93.7 … it’s Rhyyyyyythmmmmm” Well, I’ll excuse you if you did because at Rhythm, there seems to be massive staff loyalty – Jacob Akinyemi Johnson (JAJ), Godwin Asuquo, for instance, have been there like forever. And JAJ, bless him! Such quality whenever he’s on the mic.
But it’s not only that the supermarkets try hard to sound off on price, they are responsible for the importation of plenty nonsense, especially those packaged tin foods that could leave you with some health problems, including cancer, if you didn’t check the sell-by date and lead got in the way of the food! And should you think that the products are coming from their home countries, you need to take a careful look, whereupon you’ll find that they are actually from some far-flung Middle East tax free zone, which ought to make the products not as expensive as they see them in those shops.
If you, therefore, arrive at any of these supermarkets looking to buy a pack of cornflakes, you are likely to be confronted by different brands, one of which will be the Kellogg’s brand. You would have grabbed this particular of which will be the Kellogg’s brand. You would have grabbed this particular pack believing that by so doing you are now in the league of those who eat high-brow supermarket breakfast cereal. So as you are sat there at table this morning wondering what’s become of your midriff, or how it is that you can no longer see it; or how the flab has made you lose all your Oil of Olay panache, you are looking at this Kellog’s pack and suddenly, something hits you.
On this Kellogg’s pack in front of you there’s a very tempting free offer that meets your needs at this very moment. Remember, you need to be able to see your midriff and you want to also firm up those muscles and prevent so many things from going south. You had been longing for a swim, and here you have, on a platter (without John the Baptist’s head), a free offer of a swim. Your attention is immediately taken away from the ‘flakes in your plate as you read on, looking for where this free swim is available to you. You’d at least expect that when an offer like that is made, there’d be swimming centres where you can redeem it. Your thoughts race to the various places where there could be swimming pools – those built by governments now harbour more frogs, toads and other animals and so can’t accommodate humans. The ones belong to clubs are for members only, and again you have to belong to belong; if you see what I mean. But as you search on through the pack, there is no clue anywhere.
It’s not really true that nothing in the pack suggests where to go. It’s just that while you are eating your Kellogg’s cornflakes in Lagos, Ibadan, Abuja, Kaduna, Enugu or Oloibiri, you might just realize that you have to buy a flight ticket to the UK, be insulted at the embassy before (if you ever) get a visa, and get roughed up at the airport here and at Heathrow before you can get your swim. You see, that’s not the pack made for this market. And those supermarkets just import anything without reading the pack because they care less about you and I, the consumers. What they care about? Just seeing you walk in and pay at the till. They are getting away with it because the legal system doesn’t support consumers. Imagine the number of cases that could be brought against these seemingly upwardly mobile ‘markets’ were the legal system to be working in everybody’s favour.
But if you have bought those Kellogg’s packs with this ‘one swim’ offers, don’t worry. Just gather them up. Whenever you go to the UK, sue Kellogg’s for not thinking that their products get out of the UK. As for me, I just know Kellogg’s owes me a swim, bit time!
By: PHILLIP ISAKPA