Pa Abraham Adesanya

By Ademola Adegbamigbe

 Alaafin Aole’s eyes were bloodshot. The tendons and biceps of the Emperor of the Old Oyo Kingdom bulged to an almost breaking point, even as sweat cascaded down his brow in serrated ranks. He brushed aside the genuflection of his wives, the wisecracks of his palace jesters, the panegyric renditions of his royal bards and the reverberating sound of his courtiers’ talking drums.

Instead of a flywhisk, the Alaafin materialised from his inner sanctum with a bow and arrow, made brown by blood of past games and endless passage of the weapon from one generation to the other. That day, the Alaafin did not smile. His forehead wore furrows. His face oscillated between the expressionlessness of a sphinx and the malignant scowl of a gargoyle. Something had gone wrong. What did the Kabiyesi need a bow and arrow for? Chiefs, courtiers and those who came to have their quarrels settled wondered.

The king moved to the forecourt of his palace and shot three arrows: one to the north, another to the south and the last to the west. He, thereafter rained curses on Afonja, his Aare Ona Kakanfo or generalissimo who manned the Ilorin security outpost. “My curse be on you for your disloyalty and disobedience, so let your children disobey you,” the Alaafin punctuated his statement with spittle, made viscous by a combination of chewed kolanut and alligator pepper. “If you send them on an errand, let them never return to bring you word again. To all the points I shot my arrows will you be carried as slaves. My curse will carry you to the sea and beyond the seas. Slaves will rule over you and you, their masters, will become slaves.”

For dramatic effect, the monarch smashed a pot. As the shards scattered capriciously in different directions, Aole spat again and pronounced: “Broken calabash can be mended, but not a broken dish. So let my words be irrevocable.” The Alaafin was bitter because his Field Marshal, who had colluded with enemies of the empire, sent him an empty calabash, a symbolic request that the Alaafin must commit suicide and also implying that he (Afonja) wanted to be independent of the monarch.

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