I am worried for the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC). No, I am not worried about the party. My concern is for the party’s welfare in the long term. The way everybody wants to belong to APC is why I am worried.
When a man becomes so attractive to all the women in the village, old, young, married, single, widow, plump and slim, the man and his well-wishers should know there is danger looming. Whether the attraction is because of his looks, wealth or power, too many women will always spell doom and trouble for any man, no matter how highly placed. Women, we are powerfully made and one of us is a lot. A lot of us is always too much, too many. We come with too many power, mentionable and unmentionable.
Members of PDP and Labour Party who are suddenly in love with the APC, I deeply suspect the way they are all now going in and out of APC’s chamber to negotiate only-God-knows-what is not what APC should let get into his head. The party’s risk of dying by suffocation from voluptuous bosoms is very high and I don’t want APC to die in active service.
Sure, very few men can resist a well endowed woman who is saying I’m available. The problem is APC is behaving like it believes all these available curvy women are truly innocently available. Methinks APC should be singing Davido’s ‘I’m unavailable’. But the more these flirty women push their bosoms in APC’s face, the bigger his leer becomes. Does Uncle APC actually think that the overnight, sudden chase all the parties are giving it is genuine? Why is the ruling party also suddenly wearing show-me-your-muscle-tops and singing ‘money na water’.
All these new ‘lovers’ dancing show-me-your-back-side are not doing it for love. The ‘money-is-nothing’ that DJ APC is playing is the honeycomb that is making them do the beehive dance.
There once lived a king called Alaafin Jayin in the old Oyo Empire. He married many wives, many of who were of questionable character. One day, he caught one of his sons called Olusi on top or under one of his many wives. Prince Olusi was a much loved heir apparent and his father was already jealous of him. He must have been beyond livid to see this beloved of the people in the warm embrace of his queen.
Seeing red, his blood pressure shooting over the royal roof (measurement done only in my mind, I admit), Alaafin Jayin let down his guard as father and father of all. He blurted his frustration, ‘You villain, the citizens of Oyo prefer you to me, and you are at one with them against me’. According to an account by Rev. Samuel Johnson, in The History of the Yorubas, with a poisoned, spiked cub, pressed to the head of the prince, Alaafin ended the life of his own son. Another account reported that it was with poisoned ‘akara’ that Olusi met his end.
My point? A big household is ordinarily too difficult to manage, least of all one with strange characters who are not even related by blood. They can all pretend and smile to each other, but the poisonous blood inside of them will eventually show up to stain their pretentious white saliva. The Oyo chiefs suspected and even knew that Prince Olusi did not die of natural causes and went after Alaafin Jayin. Those Chiefs were both the police and the judiciary, even the executioner. They took the King’s explanation that his son died from kicks from his horse with a pinch of salt. They caused Olusi’s egungun, an apparition or spirit dressed in the burial clothes of the late Prince to visit the palace. The Alaafin knew the meaning of his deceased son’s spirit visiting him at the palace in broad daylight. He took the only available route out of public shame. O teri gbaso. He committed suicide.
The APC house is filling up and I worry that all the strange bedfellows will soon break all the beds. The tendencies that are congregating in the APC compound will one day soon sleep with the king’s wife and cause the king to open the calabash. Or am I overthinking it?
The views expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not of Law & Society Magazine.
