Oba Adelalu had just passed on.
The town crier took the attention of market men and women who listened to the news with wrapt attention.
The Agidigbo drum that heralds the departure of an Olulu, the king of Elulu town sounded from the igboro.
Business at the market quickly closed. People went home in droves, chatting in hushed tones.
Ojuju, the King’s Masquerade will soon take to the streets.
The High Chiefs are seen heading to the palace.
A meeting must hold immediately with the kingmakers.
Funeral arrangements must start without delay.
Oba Adelalu was buried the next market day.
Then the jostle started.
There are three princes eminently qualified to be King.
l Adeselu
l Adeogun
l Adebola
The king makers hold the power to ordain any one of them to be king. Without being a king, they suddenly became king-like.
Nocturnal visits by the aspirants was not uncommon. Gifts of all sizes, shapes and values exchanged hands.
The future kings prostrated more than a dozen times a day for anybody seen as capable of influencing the kingmakers.
Afobaje is also a kingmaker. He straddles the town like a collosus. Whoever he supported always became king. He had never been wrong.
Citizens watched him for any inkling of the “Choice of the gods”, either from his speech or even body language.
On the twentieth day, Afobaje and the Kingmakers convoked a meeting of the high chiefs.
The people waited in the village square.
Music and dance filled the air with pomp and pageantry.
The Aspirants waited in their houses as the tradition required.
Afobaje had investigated and examined the aspirants. He had even consulted the gods as well as humans. He had done his homework.
After all protoccols and ceremonies, he stood up and made the pronouncement:
Adeselu will be King.
Some silence followed, then some consultations and now a rousing applause.
Afobaje’s words are trusted.
The king will, barring any unforeseen circumstances, be crowned in seven days.
The reverred men of means moved in a procession for the market square.
A thundering roar welcomed them as the drumming and dancing reaches a frenzy.
The wise ones called for the aspirants, and in their presence announced Adeselu has been chosen by the gods.
More dancing and drumming greeted the king to be.
The next seven days featured a lot of ceremony and preparations.
Adeselu and Afobaje communed and conferred a thousand times and Adeselu paid obeisance to Afobaje as many times.
The king in waiting consulted Afobaje even before he ate or drank.
The coronation came and went.
King Adeselu became the Olulu of Elulu town.
He wielded the power due a king. His word was law. He cannot bow to any mortal again, including the Afobaje.
There the trouble started.
Afobaje was no more consulted. His advices were no more considered.
His welcome in the palace became luke warm.
So many things he could get away with were sanctioned by the king.
Afobaje was irked. He was sore vexed.
But what can he do?
His angst that “I made him king” fell on deaf ears.
He lived everyday feeling helplessly bitter and beaten.
Who do we blame then?
Adeselu who must exercise his kingly powers?
Afobaje who wants to extract the benefits of making him king?
Afobajes and Adeselus abound in our society today especially in politics and business.
Godfathers work to get their godchildren to office. They don’t want to let go of the strings. The godson refuses to be a puppet and cuts the strings.
Depending whether you see the cup as half full or half empty, its both good to remember the ladder you climbed up with and at the same time its good to take control and take charge because the buck stops on your table.
Without Afobaje, Adeselu may not have become King. Yet History will not rate Afobaje but the King for the failure or success of the reign.
O, for contests to be free of influences and everybody went in on his own merit.
That aspirants and contestants don’t have to bow at shrines or make promises they can’t keep to curry the support of Afobajes.
That the influential and the opinion moulders will refuse to back the less qualified Adeselus agains the Adeoguns and Adeolas and allow a free and fair contest.
Until these things happen, there will always be rancour at the end of the day.
The gods are not to blame.
