THE REIGN OF A TERROR YOUTH KING

The lesson is for the uninformed youth who are deriding our elderly ones in the ongoing political environment. Old age is neither a minus nor youth a plus unless they are qualified for the job.

For a King who ascended the throne of his ancestors at the age of 45 and has inflicted the worst form of atrocity on the land on his subjects, sixteen years thereafter was the time to further bare his ugly fangs. His earlier atrocities included the murder of innocent young ones and dumping their bodies into flowing rivers, demolition of buildings of those who contested the royal stool with him, intolerance of his subjects, sodomy, and diversion of the kingdom's revenues to advance his and his family interests. Many of the young ones who stood up to him earlier had either disappeared and never to be seen again or ran away from the kingdom, never to return. Yet, he had always by decoy appeared to be the friend of the unassuming youth.

On the appointed day, dressed in his colourful flowing gown (agbada nla), with costly traditional beads (iyun) running down is his glossy thick ringed neck, open shoes of crocodile skin (salubata) and big stainless white horsetail (irukere) tightly gripped by his right hand, he was indeed majestic in an appearance on his stool. He looked down as his subjects stood before him in the Palace courtyard and waited for the Royal Order. They could only appear on his summons whenever he had instructions for them to carry out.

"After the next seven days, no adult over the age of seventy years must be alive in this kingdom," he bellowed. "It would be the responsibility of the young men to kill their fathers", he added for emphasis. All heads were bowed in utter resignation, not out of respect but out of fear. One by one without any murmur, the people of the kingdom departed from the palace.

They were left with no choice. Initially, the execution of the king's order was in trickles. However, by the fourth day, it had assumed a high level of urgency. Young men were openly boasting about how they killed their aged parents. Many called them ugly names, such as unproductive and useless in the kingdom. To some, their continued existence was denying the youth of opportunities to grow. To some of them uncouth, their parents were witches and wizards who had been sucking the blood of the young ones as a rite to keep looking fresh.

On the seventh day, there was no one over the age of seventy left in the kingdom. His Royal Majesty achieved his design. He became more draconic and unrelenting in his brutality. His wickedness had no limits. Young ladies became his romance pets as he picked and chose. None of the palace advisers survived the earlier order designed to eliminate all the elders in the kingdom.

The young ones were in no way better than slaves.

On one other occasion, he planned to humiliate some of his artisan subjects. He called all the masons of the kingdom and directed that he needed a new palace. The new palace was to have none like it in the whole world. It was to be grandiose and built suspended in the air. The masons were to be ready to commence the building in seven days’ time. All the masons were to face an undeclared fate if they failed to carry out the king's order

Come the appointed day and as usual, the entire subjects were at the designated site for the construction of the magical palace with the foundation suspended in the air. One by one, the young masons wore frowns or frozen looks. The palace guards were attentive to carrying out the royal order. As the masons tried one after the order to arrange mortar on blocks and suspended in the air, the blocks kept falling, some breaking in the process. This continued until it came to the turn of a middle-aged mason who appeared unfazed by what was happening around him.

Calmly he walked and proudly he bowed to the King when it was his turn to build. Your Royal Majesty, he cried loudly to the hearing of the audience subjects "the task of building a royal palace is not as difficult as my fellow artisans have been making it", He went on, "in the tradition of this kingdom, no matter how grandiose the palace is, it is a commoner's house unless the Majesty lay the first block". "The task before us masons in this community remain to continue after the King has laid the first block", he concluded.

The sound could be heard in silence that followed if a needle had fallen on the ground. The King's face quickly turned from a frown of deep anger to an amusing smile. He laughed loudly and beckoned to the mason to move further closer. Tell us artisan "where did this wisdom of yours that was the prerogatives of our elders come from"? The king went on "tell me the truth and I would spare you, where are your parents?" The artisan replied, "yes sir, I went to hide my parents in a faraway land on hearing of your order that they should be put to death like others." My Lord, he continued, "these parents had given me joy since I grew to know them, even if it appeared that they were hard on me."  "I could not by my hands put them to death. Therefore, in the silence of the night, I travelled to seek their wisdom when it became clear that in all my years as an experienced Mason, I would be unable to execute your royal order."

There and then the King reversed his order and directed that the elders should be allowed to live and have their respect and rights of place in the community. The Yoruba people say " agba kii wa ni'lu kii ilu baje", as long as there are elders in a community, there will always be solutions to issues that appear intractable.

The lesson is for the uninformed youth who are deriding our elderly ones in the ongoing political environment. Old age is neither a minus nor youth a plus unless they are qualified for the job. We have had exemplary leadership demonstrated by our elders and youth just as some of the youths had been an unmitigated disaster.

This story which I heard some years back and has been modified was from a Bini colleague and friend. I know he would not want to be named.

Adesina Akande is a public affairs commentator. He retired recently from the University of Jos.