15/12/2025
The Price of a Crown.
They once called him "Father of the Land".
When King Adanoye walked through the market square, mothers lifted their children so they could see him. Old men stood despite their aching bones. The earth itself seemed to listen when he spoke, because his words used to carry truth.
But time is a cruel mirror. It shows a man not who he was, but who he is becoming.
Years passed, and the songs grew quieter. The king noticed it first in the silence after his speeches. He noticed it in the way traders bowed quickly and looked away. Relevance, once given freely by love, began to slip through his fingers like dry sand.
And fear crept in.
Beyond the hills were powerful men-men with smooth tongues, shining cars, and pockets heavy with money. They came at night, not with armies, but with promises.
“Your Majesty,” they said softly, “the world is changing. Your people are poor. Your influence is fading. Let us help you remain important.”
They placed bags of money at his feet. They spoke of deals, of land, of resources buried beneath the soil his ancestors had sworn to protect. All they needed was his signature… and his silence.
That night, the king did not sleep. He told himself lies dressed as wisdom.
If I take this money, I can still help my people.
If I refuse, I will be forgotten.
What is a little sacrifice for survival?
At dawn, he signed.
The land began to bleed quietly.
Farms were taken. Rivers turned bitter. Young men disappeared into prisons or shallow graves. When the people cried out, the king raised his voice not to defend them, but to calm them into submission.
“Be patient,” he said.
“Trust me,” he said.
“This pain is necessary,” he said.
Each lie paid him well.
His palace grew taller, but his heart grew smaller. His crown became heavier, not with honor, but with shame. Still, he smiled for cameras, shook hands with strangers, and counted his money in rooms far away from the cries of his people.
Then one day, the songs stopped completely.
No protests. No praise. Only silence.
When he finally went out among his people again, no one knelt. No one cursed him. They simply did not see him anymore. To them, he was already dead.
That night, alone in his palace, the king stood before a mirror. The face staring back was richly dressed, but hollow. He reached for his crown, hoping it would remind him who he was.
But it felt cold.
He remembered the old proverb his father once told him:
A king who trades his people for gold will one day rule only his shadow.
By the time he realized that relevance earned by betrayal is the most expensive lie of all, the money meant nothing, the power meant nothing and the people he sold were gone forever.
And so history remembered him not as a king who reigned, but as a cautionary tale whispered to future generations:
That a crown survives only on the loyalty of the people and once that is sold, no amount of money can buy it back.
