As Mabel came back to the hall, she thanked everyone seated then directed her attention to Mr. Abdul-Karin and said “I thank you so much my leader for granting my request. The reason I made this request that I should be released for a while is to make a difference, to leave an indelible mark in the hearts of my people, to make history, so that In the future, someone will rise and say, Mabel said it before, that such a thing will happen” “Please my father and leaders, do you permit me to make this remark?”
“My daughter we are very sorry for the embarrassment we caused you” said Papa Aderemi Politely, we didn’t mean to hurt you and we didn’t brought you out on your request because we wont send you back there to the dark room again. We didn’t bring you out just to make this remark you requested, rather! We ask you to come out because you don’t belong there. Nevertheless, if you have anything to tell us, we are listening”.
“I thank you so much big daddy. May you live long and see how great and successful every one of us will be. Please every body listens carefully to me: I have heard so much! I have seen so many atrocities being committed; I have wondered why we become so wicked to ourselves. I have learned my lesson. Bad things may start somewhere but don’t always end where it started. But I want you all to remember this day that those we relied on have failed us. Our elders who are supposed to be Mild tempers and gentle have become wicked and wild, they are even more violent than the youths. The people we tell our secret have turn around to expose us in the market place. Those we lie down together with in the same room as brothers and relations have gotten up in the middle of the night to open our door for robbers and kidnappers to come in. Oh!
What a life? A life of betrayal and deceit, a life where when someone known’s he’s wrong, instead of feeling sorry, he exonerate himself by force.
My elders, fathers, brothers, husbands and our leaders, do you know that we the Edunero’s, Yorinle’s, and Ibokele’s have been made miserable by our own blood brothers? Do you know that we have been disenfranchised for long? By our clansmen, our relatives. Even in our miserable state, our brothers do not allow us to reach our natural lifespan. They cut our lives short either through terrorism or by the cover of herdsmen. This is a challenge for us the Ibokele’s, Edunero’s and Yorinle’s. But whom do we challenge? Is it our brothers the Habekona’s, the Noribalu, or the Wabudu brothers that has been taunting us since the founding of this great empire? We are well aware that our other brothers have divided this nation and named the three clans that belong to them; Wabudu, Noribalu and Habekona the ARERE people. While the Ibokele, Yorinle and Edunero are tagged as, the UTARI people. We agree!
You understand quiet well my respected leader Mr. Abdul-Karin that our well knowledgeable father from the Edunero clan was the person that single handedly commence the process of calling for freedom from our foreign oppressors to the World Authority to intervene in our case. An Edunero man, our great grand father (papa Nico Immanuel Ada) actually starting the fight for freedom from them. But because of the genuineness, love of goodness and hospitality of our great grand fathers, now our deities, towards all, they pretended not to be aware while one of the sons of Arere people cunningly went behind our father and collected the power of attorney; the symbol of authority, of this empire, from the white men.
Do you our Utari people know what we represent in the eyes of the Arere people? We are just like a cart! A FARM HORSE!! They use us to carry any kind of load from one destination to another and when they are done with us, they throw us out. It is very clear now that all the pains and misfortune we the Utari people have been facing in this empire is as a result of their not willing to work and walk with us as their brothers and sisters. To be frank with you my fathers, my elders, no one of you is free from the claws of these tyrants we call our brothers.
The only people they freely wish to live with in this empire are they themselves and their immediate family members. But I assure you, they will never succeed. My people are you afraid to join voice with me to ask our ruler Mr. Abdul-Karin why he chooses to throw me into that dark room they call prison? Where someone can not even see the tip of his finger. As I was in that prison room, there were bones and the carcasses of people that have already rot away there without fair justice. There were also many still gnashing their teeth and wailing, pleading for mercy to be given freedom. I am well aware that these are people who were thrown in there because they spoke the truth. But for certainty do they really belong there? NO! on this basis, I believe we need justice in this regard. Come to think of it, do I deserve to be taking from a conference hall were I attended to the call of the head of my empire as an executive/representative of the youth wing to one dark room constructed by a fellow citizen just to overawe others? You all should look closely into my eyes please, and tell me whether my eyelid are not already swollen. It was as a result of the passionate cry I was crying for the innocent thrown into the darkroom because they don’t have anyone to fight for them. I was not crying for myself because I am practically sure that people are there to fight for me.
Papa Adeyemi, do you know that all these are happening in your very eyes and you seem not to be aware of it? I now realize what the white-man mean when he says “Tell me your friend and I will tell you the kind of person you are” for sincerity, none of you my elders are safe in this hand of this dictator who calls himself OUR RULER. He’s just waiting for your own time to come and when it comes, NO MERCY. He prefers to throw you into the grave he calls…. PRISON.
MR. Abdul-Karin flouts our laws with impunity. He finds pleasure in spilling the blood of the innocent ones, he maim and kills people for game. He serves as a judge in his own case; he commands and directs all matters for his favour. OH! Is this the land our fore fathers fought for? Was this the actual reason behind the setting up of this empire? Our ruler Mr. Abdul-karin is happy when others are grieving. The Arere people have succeeded in making all the Utari people ignorant of what true happiness is. They have made us miserable and turned us to slave in our own father’s house. Is this not the plain truth?
REVOLUTION! Yes the only way out is a revolution. My people even if we delay it now, I want you to put it on memoir that a day like this in history, I, Mabel one of the daughters of Utari from the Edunero clan once spoke about it that it is only rebellion that can vindicate the Utari people from the Arere people of Akogah empire. Unless everyone of us are made to live under the law. That’s (we should let the laws and constitution of our land to streamline all activities taking place in the land). You must put a seal to it that I am the mother of the revolution that acquitted the Utari people from the claws of Arere people. Rebellion or the law/constitution alone is the solution. We must chose one out of these two.
Why do we suffer? Why do we get hungry? Why are we not able to send our children to good schools? Why do you think majority of our people are very poor? Is it because nature wants it so? Is it because we don’t have enough resources to care for ourselves?
NO! These are not the reasons. I could say a million times that the reason is far from these. Because, our land is very fertile, our climate is favourable, we have abundant resources that are enormously greater enough to feed all sons and daughters of this land and even go as far as taking care of all the surrounding nations. Our resources can expediently take care of us to the extent that we will be living in comfort and dignity. But now, what has happened? What has really gone wrong?
I rest my case. My fathers, my elders, I thank you so much for giving me this great opportunity to speak my mind
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