I’d like to start by telling you a story…

There was a king in the land of the plenty who considered himself above humanity to the extent his people even ascribed godlike attributes to him. He was daily showered with encomiums and adulation as an infallible king who can fetch a burning furnace with his bare hands and a running water with a basket.

At some point people began to worship him as they breath-in as a perfume the putrid gas that oozes from the foodie concoctions that rumble on his belly. To outdid others in this religious zeal, some went ahead to eat his ‘pooh’, use his urine to bathe and rob his excreta as a nourishing cream on their mortal bodies. They were subsumed in a child-like gratitude for having a King who pollutes to perfume the air and defecate for the good of his people!

Amused by the normalisation of this anomaly by the people, this king began to transcend from reality to the absurdity. He would sleep sometimes 96 hours at a stretch, tell his children to sleep with any maiden they chose to and slaughter any ‘unreasonable’ man or woman who opposes their orgy for a feast. In the face of enemies attack he would tell his soldiers to go to sleep as he has traded for their peace the recalcitrant subjects to these enemies.

Gradually, some of the people who had made him king began to wail and wallow in self pity but the Kings response to what he considered as ‘hypocritical wailing’ is to subject them to starvation as a lesson to others. Many understood this body language and behaved themselves by increasing the tempo of their adulation. They even added more tributes, poured a libation to the King now turned god and ate more of his excreta to the extent that the king felt he has actually transformed these humans to zombies. All by the charm of his divine attributes.

“Oh if I could turn humans to zombies what can’t I do”, the King exclaimed. He parted himself and began to soliloquize: “I do now know I can tell these my subjects to squat and walk with their heads and they will do it”, he told himself.

At this point, the King indulged himself the more while his subjects have nothing to eat except the excreta that comes from his gluttony. It was then something occurred to him, that his people were actually beneath him. “These people are subhuman and how dare they make these worthless clothes for me”. He disliked his royal apparel and began to undress himself in order to look different until he was naked. At this point he felt nobody born of a woman is fit to make a cloth worthy of his divine royalty.

He convinced himself it is even more majestic to walk around free from the clothes and oblivious of his nakedness to the bewilderment of the people. For the sake of being starved to death or fed with his efficacious feces, his royal singers even sang the more. “Oh King covered with the royal apparel you shall live long!”

However, there remained some courageous people who dared say to the King; “oh King cover thy nakedness and thou shall live long”! Furious that these self appointed patriots “who ought to see are actually blind” for assuming he was naked! He ordered that they be put into the dark chamber temporarily until he is convinced they could see otherwise.

Unfortunately, the wailing of these courageous people attracted neighbours and strangers from far away Kingdoms for words quickly spread that all is not well with once a mighty Kingdom. It was said that their king now roams round the street corners, public squares and his royal throne on two legs with a frontal tail that’s dangling enough to the naked eyes since his people proclaimed him god!

Baffled at such strange turn of events, strangers and neighbours alike even their kings’ representatives tried to urge the king who is now turned to a ‘godly object’ that he is naked. But he was adamant because he could only hear the adulation of his praise singers.

This was how once a mighty king became an object of caricature.

To be continued….

•Iroegbu is a journalist, security and public affairs analyst and can be reached via: senator.iroegbu@yahoo.co.uk

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