Of Kings, King Kong and honour

Since 1933, when it hit the cinemas in the United States, the classic movie, King Kong, has undergone no fewer than 13 remakes. King Kong is a giant prehistoric ape ruling the mysterious Skull Island, where he is worshipped by dinosaurs, plesiosaurs, pterosaurs and numerous other monster creatures.

In the 1933 version, the story begins when an ambitious filmmaker, Carl Denham, takes his cast to Skull Island in the Indian Ocean territory for a jungle shoot, and the First Mate (assistant captain) of the ship, John ‘Jack’ Driscoll, falls in love with the deuteragonist, Ann Darrow. A deuteragonist is the second lead character while the protagonist is the lead character in a drama or movie.

The blond and beautiful Ann is captured by Skull Island natives who offer her to their king as a befitting sacrifice, setting humans and animals on a collision course which encapsulates the themes of man’s perpetual violation of nature, racism, exploitation, fear and love.

More powerful than any monster ever, the 25-foot tall King Kong falls in love with Ann, and gingerly holding her in his palm, remains determined to protect Ann from love-struck Jack and other crew members trying to rescue her. Though he’s a beast, King Kong navigates the intersection between primal instinct and civility by exuding love for blondie Ann, a human being, smoothening the jagged edges of animal-human borders.
In violation of nature, the crew captures King Kong, the protagonist, ships him to New York, and presents him to Broadway theatre audience in an exhibition dubbed “Kong, the 8th Wonder of the World,” with Jack and Ann posing beside Kong, rendered unconscious by a gas bomb since he was captured on Skull Island.

The blinding light from photographers’ cameras irritates the dazed Kong, who breaks loose, wrecking buildings, trains, vehicles, public utility poles and cables etc, as he picks Ann up like a piece of fried plantain and makes a dash for the 102-storey Empire Building which he climbs to the zenith.

Four planes face King Kong with fire, trying to shoot him off the building. He places Ann, his beloved, in a safe place and faces his adversaries, swatting and destroying one of the planes. In destroying the plane, Kong is injured while the gunfire intensifies. Momentarily, Kong takes his eyes off the planes and looks towards Ann, a fatal error that enables the three other planes to have good shots at him. He falls off to the ground, where a bewildered crowd quickly gathers in the final moments.
Fittingly, Jack reunites with his love, Ann. Denham, who makes his way to the scene of the fallen beast, overhears a policeman saying the planes got Kong, but he responds, “Oh, no, it wasn’t the planes. It was Beauty that killed the Beast.”

There are kings and there are kings. King Kong ruled his Skull Island. The eagle rules the air. The elephant rules the jungle. The blue whale rules the sea. I know an oba in Osun who rules with dignity and honour on the àpèrè of his forefathers.

Genealogically, the road to the palace is not paved with gold alone. It is also caked in the blood of revolution and hate. Faced with dwindling economic fortunes, the high cost of monarchy, political upheavals and the appeal democracy offers, many countries have consigned their kings and queens to the dustbin of history.

On January 21, 1793, King Louis XVI lost both his crown and head to the guillotine – in the aftermath of the 1792 French Revolution, making him the last monarch to live in the Palace of Versailles, taking to his grave the fitting nickname of ‘Louis the Last’.

The ruler of Russia, Tsar Nicholas II, bit the dust during the Russian Revolution of 1917, drawing the curtain on monarchy in the Soviet country. And in 1918, after World War I, Germany kicked out its king, Kaiser Wilhelm I, and locked the palace forever. After Mussolini fell and a republic was established in 1946, a referendum nailed the coffin of monarchy in Italy just as China transited to a republic in 1912 during the Xinhai Revolution which abolished the Qing Dynasty.

Brazil sacked its king in 1889 after a republican military coup while Greece showed King Constantine II the exit door of the palace in 1973, following a referendum by military coupists. But Spain, which abolished monarchy between 1931 and 1939, restored it in 1947. Indeed, red and gold are the road to the palace.

In the 20th Century, monarchies were abolished in Afghanistan (1973), the Ethiopian monarchy that lasted for almost 3,000 years ended with Haile Selassie in 1974, Vietnam (1945), and Iraq (1958). Recently, Nepal and Barbados kicked out the monarchy in 2008 and 2021 respectively.
Unlike Africa and Europe, monarchy remains strong and vibrant in the Middle East though social reforms are gradually tempering the sword of absolutism with change.

In Nigeria, the desirability or otherwise of monarchy is like the waves of the sea, rising and falling, peaking and ebbing, a mixed bag of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

Among the Ugly is the Canada-returnee jailbird king who oversmokes Indian hemp, beats his wife and royal colleague, and fights culture and tradition; a madcap desecrator of the throne who will never heed the caution of the odíderé until he perishes.

Among the Bad are the kings who run errands for politicians and support bad government policies – like that Abacha-dark-goggled king who advised the Igbo to go and perish in the lagoon so that the son of the owner of the brass mortar may reign. As a lover of culture, I won’t call for the abolition of monarchy in Nigeria though the temptation is high.

There are many good kings in Yorubaland, though the eyes cannot miss some black sheep among the flock. But lest I be accused of nepotism, I’ll name one oba in Osun, my state of origin, though Lagos is my state of birth; I’ll name one oba in Ondo, one in Ogun and one in Oyo as exemplars of nobility. This is not to say there are no good kings in Lagos and Ekiti states. There are many, but I’m probably not close enough to them – to talk about them.

At times, I wonder how lucky the Ekimogun people of the Ondo kingdom are by having as the Osemawe, Oba Adesimbo Kiladejo. Another worthy king I know is the late Towulade of Akinale kingdom in Ogun State, Oba Olufemi Iyanda Okesooto Ogunleye, journalist and lawyer, who died on June 19, 2024, after bagging a PhD at 80.

On October 22, 2024, I was strolling on Facebook Street when I saw a post by Diran Odeyemi, a popular Peoples Democratic Party chieftain in the South-West. The post says, “Do you know this school? Abolarin College, Oke-Ila, Osun State. No school fees. Free hostel. Free food. Free internet. Free uniform. Free laptop for every child. 24/7 power supply. All paid by the town’s king. The king teaches too in the school. We should celebrate such a Nigerian. What makes this school remarkable is that one major criterion for getting admitted is being poor. If your parents are rich, you cannot get admission. Unlike other schools, Abolarin College wants poor kids who are very brilliant…From what I gathered, the king has only one wife. He’s not using the money of the kingdom to accumulate wives or properties.”
Every Osun journalist worth their salt knows Oba Abolarin, whose nickname is Doxy. I got to know the 66-year-old king when I worked in Osun. I know his school, too. I know students from the North, East and West of Nigeria are in his school. I also know he has two first degrees – one in Political Science, the other in Law – both from the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.

As an honourable king and ègbón, I know Doxy up-close; he’s highly cerebral and doesn’t brook conflict or crave attention.  Like the almighty sun in heaven that dries up wet clothes on earth, you will see the actions of Doxy without seeing his person.

Two other Nigerians whose actions pleasantly shocked me in recent times are the Asiwaju of Igbajoland, Chief Adegboyega Awomolo, and a former House of Reps member from Ogun State, Hon. Lanre Laoshe, both of whom refunded a federal government student loan they received in the 1970s.

Asiwaju means leader and Awomolo leads on many fronts. He is Osun’s first Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice as well as Osun’s first Senior Advocate. He told me in an interview that he had been contacting the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation since 2012 to pay his student loan indebtedness but no official told him what account to pay into, adding that each time he saw his loan affidavit, he became weighed down.

“The idea behind student loans is good. I commend President Tinubu for resuscitating the scheme. I spoke with four different Accountant Generals of the Federation since 2012 when I wanted to pay N50k. In 2018, I wanted to pay N1m, but I just followed God’s direction and I’ve now paid N2m for a loan of N1,000 I took in 1975 If NELFUND wants me to pay more, I will.”

Laoshe, who took a student loan of N1,200 in 1976, repaid N3.1m, reportedly using a table of average annual exchange rates from 1972 to 1985 from the Central Bank of Nigeria to calculate what he owed the government.

My father and mother didn’t owe student loans. Please, ask your parents to pay up if they are owing. As we, the masses, hold government accountable, we should look at ourselves, too. Surely, Nigeria needs more men and women with conscience.