Minkhail OLAITAN
In every standard home, the father is the ruler, right?
Now, imagine a father who detests his own children by keeping a sealed mouth in the face of a stranger harming his own.
First off, this stranger slaughters the last child of the family — at the end of a serious threatening, he finally admits, it’s by mistake and that he is possessed. Thus, the father acting a seasoned diplomat, waves the crime off.
Then, before the rotten smell of the initial killing vanishes, this despicable stranger murders the second child of the family. He is made to pass through hell. Yet, the moment he refers to his mind being possessed, the father as a diplomat and a staunch fan of peace, again waves it off.
Following, is this terrible day when this outlandish, vicious and unabashed stranger threatens the heir of the family that he indeed owns the larger part of the property he is hosted, that he just decided to stay in the boys’ quarters.
Though he heard this eccentric claim, the father, still cocooned in his peacekeeper’s role, said nothing but the following day, the stranger crossed the bridge, when he clubbed the heir to the family to death. The family members were shocked and sent this vicious stranger away…but when the father arrived, he fumed in anger, criticized his family members for taking such a hard step on the matter, reminding them of how much he loves peace — saying, ‘he (the murderer) is human too’. One aged man among the council of family elders retorts, ‘Are your children not humans too?’
When this trembling voice swerved into his ears, he flapped his ears, like an arrogant goat but he kept quiet again still defiant. This was when Mr. Heavy Voice, a man whose courage towards saying the truth is unflinching, in bitterness, explodes, “Are you on a mission? What relationship do you share with this stranger? Are you into ritualism? Or what? Oh, a diplomatic animal who feeds on his own blood.”
This is a poetic look at the attitude of Nigerian nay Yoruba leaders in the face of invasions by marauders.