BEYOND NEGOTIATION

CHAPTER 1As an great supporter and custodian of the culture and tradition of our people,I am poised to face odds with a"spartan -spirit,in this arduous journey of redemption. Though some of our young men have been sneaked up from us by the 'white pests' to be re-educated but I'll remain unperturbed because with the direction and inspiration of the gods,our victory is in sight. There was patriotic frenzy preceding the motivational declaration by the king of umudim kingdom,in his domain. The proliferation of the gospel in the hinterland was relegated to the dust by king who saw it as humiliation in one way and making a marionette of the people's beliefs and norms in the other fought assiduously to protect the people from any form of western education and colonialism. According to him,any form of education that deviated from the culture and tradition of the people must be banished or treated with absolute disdain because it was mundane and lacked every atom of divinity. The white men christened white pests by the king had resolved to pass their message of peace, hope,comfort and everlasting life to whoever would believe and repent of the craze to serve any made by man god instead of the true living God. The difference between the natives and the white men had plunged the kingdom in ferment over the years. At a time, some of the elders and chiefs began to decamp to the European side. This development was noticed at the return of the prominent men of the kingdom who had been on sojourn.This men came back to intensify the struggle for the liberation of their brother's whom they presumed had not seen the light. Men like Kelvin, Kenneth and Vincent had their baptism and changed their names and attached appellations: brother,to their new name; Timothy,Paul and Simon respectively.They were determined to die for their new found faith instead of to watch the king bathe the rest of their brother who were still in the dark with the water of culture and traditions. These new creatures were formally king's faithfuls who fell on the missionary's side and were camped where they were given enough formal education seasoned with good morals. Today,their slogans remains;old things have passed away behold all things are new. They were fortified with the gospel to the point that they led the whites to some of the shrines and they wrecked havoc to as many as they could locate. With the assistance of Simon, Timothy and Paul the message of the missionaries got to the nooks and crannies of the hunter land. it was against that back drop that the king resorted to g******e as the only way he could vent his fury. Reverend smith and Reverend Maxwell drew the attention of the youth with the gifts of clothes and shoes. The novelty of these baits made the youths who were the instruments of destruction and propagation of tradition lay down their bows and arrows. They had to juxtapose the religion of the whites and that of the natives and came up with the assertion that;any religion that spills blood is violent and diabolic and should be exterminated from the surface of the earth. With that assertion, the struggle for the emancipation of the kingdom intensified.To them,it's was war without gun. To the king and his men, it's a blood bath because their gods are thirsty and that thirst must be quenched if there must be peace in the land. What prompted the gathering of the saints was the barbaric killing of the missionaries who fell a snare to the king and his men and refused to compromise their faith against all odds. They king took that calculated risk that bred calamity in the kingdom.His decision and will power were propelled by his bodyguard,Akin whose struggle for the preservation of the culture and traditions of the people was void of mercenary reasons rather to memorialize the person of the king and his kingdom and to have their accolade and memoir for posterity.So where ever the king led,they followed.They watered the tree their so called liberty of the kingdom with the blood of the saints. CHAPTER 2The ferocious king earned people a precarious living after the bloody attack to the missionaries which made the missionaries resolve to be on his trail until the ever vain-glorious king went to exile where it was rumored that he finally became a vagrant and consequently died a happy man. Before his demise,he was able to appease the gods by ensuring that an indelible mark was left on the sands of time. He carved his name on the hearts of the traditionalist instead of on marbles. Before the transition of the king,as he would fondly say,he gathered his son and wife in his sojourn to another kingdom and commented; Reverend Maxwell and his group are white pests,who came to waste Africa and not west Africa. They have their books as glue boards their tongues are sugar coated,The gifts they gave are baits,what will separate us from our gods?The book ?sugar coated tongues?God forbid (he snaps his fingers) our eyes will not see abomination in the land ,our legs will not step into the white man's domain. We will soldier on for victory is on sight.They king smiled as though solace by the memory of his utterance. It was unfortunate that he crossed paths with his faithful and even his dear wife and never met.His only son and off spring, David could not give him succor he needed and so his sanity was reduced by half as his son discovered and began to keep him at arms length.It got to a point where his son had to close shave with death because he questioned the rationale behind his father's actions and reactions which launched them into the precarious life they were living. The questioning of his father's dispensation denied him his latitude even though the king could not give a vivid and convincing reason for acting the way he did to the whites and to some natives.His remarks betrayed a staggering contempt for the truth.When his son discovered that his father was desperate to exterminate the white pests as he fondly called the white men over the contention of religion and culture, he bottled up his emotion on the ground that his father's health condition which seemed to be a threat to his will power would cast a spell on him one day,thereby giving way for him to exercise his power in a different dimension. His son always had that conviction that the Europeans had their interest at heart.in the first place,it was the concerted efforts of the whites that he, David was able to read and write through the western education that meandered through the hinter land. It was through the efforts of his father's enemies that the vaccines for some epidemic that remained a threat to the well being of other kingdoms was nipped at the Bud .As a little child,he wished that his cover Zealous father, they king had seen things through the eyes of the Europeans and let the sleeping dog lie by redressing his misguided steps up to the cross. There was another woman that ever remained a stumbling block to the king desperate fight for the preservation of the people's culture and tradition. The woman's enmity with the king was borne out of the fact that she put up a heavy fight against the killing of twins and emerged victorious.What made Mary slessor thick remained the bone of contention and a puzzle to the king and his warriors. Having made nothing out of his sojourn to other kingdom where they other king granted him asylum, his battle with migraine for eight years was futile irrespective of the air tight medication by the warriors,yet he, the king submitted to the ugly monster called death. His son and the warriors of their kingdom who accompanied the late king on that sojourn had critical time trying to convey the remains of the deceased to his kingdom for a befitting burial because of the monumental and collosal damage which he was accused of by the European who had dominated his kingdom and bulldozed the native's culture and tradition which were contrary to the bible. It was a challenge to the other king who spent his brain, brawn and wealth trying to protect his kingdom from the western invasion.He had the premonition that his domain was next on the agenda of the Europeans. Against that back drop,he advised them to bury the late king in the cemetery. They complied with certain reluctance knowing fully well that the whites would never grant the deceased or any of his faithful amnesty unless they were ready to give up their belief and embrace the western culture.