TO WISH UPON A THRONE

A KINGDOM TOO EARLY
In Swaziland there used to be a King called Sobhuza 11. His was a character shrouded in so much mystery, witchcraft, and fear that the Nation would respond like trained slaves when summoned to either cultivate his fields, donate a beast out of the few they had, or for any other task Sobhuza 11 felt he was entitled to as King and absolute ruler.

King Sobhuza 11 The Warrior King?

Such was the shrewdness of Sobhuza 11 that he ordered the nation to contribute towards the establishment of a 'trust of the nation'. The trust was to insure that whenever the nation fall on bad times, or if there ever was some economic need, the trust would insure that the Nation had provisions to fall onto. An idea of a genius it might have seemed; if there was ever such a thing called evil ingenuity.

That promise was to add on to a medley of Sobhuza 11's empty promises that the Nation had heard time immemorial, but being mental slaves of Royal indoctrination the people continued passing praise and giving credit where credit was neither due nor deserved.

Such was the indoctrination in regard to his character that way after his death many kept repeating the praises that were embedded deep within their minds that had been molested from the cradle. But for a short time which was to prove perpetual, Sobhuza 11 seemed to have finally done something worth looking forward to. Some sort of undefined hope, but hope nonetheless; and so it seemed.

By dying Sobhuza 11 had done Swaziland the incalculable favor of allowing a new beginning, a new King, a sort of a Nation's rebirth, even though that rebirth was to be delayed by an interim uncertainty of a feudal traditional council that saw to a legitimate Queen Regent being held hostage and dethroned, and the installation of a rumored 'maid come baby mama', come mother of King, come Queen mother.

Nevertheless none of the power struggle mattered to the people as long as the promise of a new King was kept alive. As much as there was bitterness, and uncertainty in relation to evil exchanges within the Royal house, but if the promise of the Son was kept, then most sins could be forgiven.

Then rumors started filtering down to the people that the promised Son was alive and kicking and studying in the land of the English, and that in 1986, The Child (as he was affectionately called) would ascend the throne. So it was with much eagerness that the people donated towards the 'pencil' of The Child, when they were ordered to do so.

Fathers started whispering to their sons on the significance of The Child and what benefit he would bring with his overseas education. Mothers would occasionally brag on how the beauty of their girl child would catch the eye of The Child which would catapult the lucky family from peasantry to royalty in a moment. Hopeful were the times, and the waiting just seemed too long for Swaziland's personal Jesus Christ to come back from England.

On coronation day, The Child did not disappoint either. He looked the part. Lean in body, with clean defined facial features; a figure that would be described as handsome. He stood on the podium; all eighteen years of him, dripping with unearned medals, with the red carpet rolled from the podium to infinity.

The scene was Hollywood and the actor, a mixture of a young Denzel Washington and God himself. Swazis were cheering endlessly for a mere teenager. A child they did not know anything about; a stranger being welcomed like a conquering hero. The child should be commended though for not sinking a mile into the ground because the deceptive metal honor on his chest rendered him literally top heavy.

If there was one thing that the Swazi Nation has not received due credit for, is its gullibility. The moment The Child opened his mouth was the moment that the Swazi Nation was supposed to demand their 'pencil' money back, because it was clear from then that The Child hadn't grasped even the English Language when he had been among the English people, never mind the expensive English tuition.

Instead his poor command of English was to be echoed by Swazis after a few gulps of the neighbor's brew. Suddenly speaking with sleep inducing gaps in between words was considered Royalty by the Nation. Failure had turned viral as even government officials would try by all means to include as many as possible of the 'droning' gaps in between the words.

Gullible Swaziland was not the wiser that the 'ehhhh' was because The Child had to be at pains to string the words together because he hadn't adequate grasp of the language as to roll it without effort on the tongue. But such tongue gymnastics were to become fashionable as every Tom, Dick and Mama Jack tried their utmost to incorporate the 'ehhhhh' in their speeches.

The Child who then after was known as Mswati 111 did not waste anytime in proving his globe trotting capabilities, and the trust fund which he was supposed to be holding in trust for the nation became nothing but his personal bank account, as his father had been clear on his handling of the Fund that it had been a scam from the beginning; the trust fund was not for the Nation, but for Royal indulgence.

By then Swaziland had a airplane (a fokker 28 model), but Mswati did not find such a jalopy to be fit for Royalty, so when a more modern fokker 100 model was said to be part of the national budget, the nation went up in arms. But the nation was to come second in that situation too as Mswati 111 always had his way.

So in earnest Mswati 111 began putting together his entourage of concubines and traveled on chartered turbines that were to be nothing but a well engineered drainage system to both the fund and the taxpayer's money.

Not only did Mswati 111 help himself to the fund, but his ascension to the throne saw to the increase of evictions of the poor so he could control most of the land which was termed 'Swazi National Land'; that land too was supposed to be held in trust for the Nation. A more of a 'evict the poor from their land so that you can hold their land in trust for them" scenario. A tongue twister it might have seemed, but the Royal family wouldn't be where it was without the tongue of the snake. Before Nigeria had the 419, Swazi Royalty had already multiplied that number a thousand times over.

For twenty six years Mswati 111 has been ransacking Swazi money, and when recession presented itself, Swazi Royalty was not to be left behind on the 'wagon of opportunity'. They tried to sell the scam to the IMF, but the IMF being like Thomas of the bible was quick to rightly diagnose the opportunist's ailment; it wasn't a case of the "Greece Effect", but an obvious case of decades of gluttony. 'Control your appetite' is what IMF prescribed; 'first control appetite, then we talk.'

Swazi Royalty could not tolerate IMF's deprivation, and disrespect, so it ran to South Africa with 2.4 billion reasons why it couldn't control the need of sucking the blood of the Nation. 'Structure yourself in a manner that such funds can be guaranteed to filter to the people.' Is what South Africa said. That too was unacceptable to Swazi Royalty and home they went to 'ponder' on the misfortune. It seemed somehow that there was a confusion in the Royal House as to why the world was not buying the Royal scam anymore.

If we can then go back to the day of the coronation and try to track the people that were more expectant than a pregnant barren woman, then we may understand the discontent that is eating up Swazi people in present day.

After the people had praised endless 'Bayethe' at the coronation, it was then that the dreams and hopes had to result in reality and better life for the people. The eighteen year boy had to disembark the podium and provide the better life for the people. But such was not to be.

Instead of using his authority to garrison his unlimited troops to Human Development, the boy seemed to be on endless trips and such trips resulted in a pool of luxury cars that were valued in the millions. His birthdays parties became more and more extravagantly ridiculous. Palaces appeared like mushrooms after a thunderstorm. Out of the nothing that the people had, Mswati 111 kept demanding.

Children were dropping out of school, crops were poor and the chauvinist was a relentless burden on the shoulder of the woman that was already burdened with feeding a family when crops were not forthcoming. The 'eunuch' male took to the calabash, and the depressed woman followed suit. Cholera became rampant, and HIV was sowing its seeds. New-borns were dying on their mother's backs on the way to far away inadequate clinics. The girl child was being 'traditionally' raped on a daily basis, and the boy child had to be on standby to serve the local Chief through back-breaking toil. Such was the legacy that Mswati 111 was giving to the nations while he, his legion of wives and his children where wining and dining in the most luxurious hotels of the world.

The boy that had been whispered good news by his father kept on gazing at an empty horizon, and reed dance after reed dance the 'beautiful' girl child was not chosen by the King, but was forcibly married to an old pervert whose merit was the size of the herd of his cattle.

So let it not misconstrued as jealousy that the Swazi Nation is now up in arms. The Swazi Nation believed in the eighteen year old boy without even knowing him. The Swazi nation was willing to assist the boy in whatever Development of the Nation the boy chose to embark on. But the boy just refused to care about the welfare of the Swazi Nation.

The boy chose Selfishness, and as soon as he sat on the velvet throne, nothing mattered besides feeding the gluttony that worsened as the years passed. The boy became a man, but still he behaved like a boy. Let not anyone blame the Swazi nation for wanting to govern itself because the teenager that became a man but still remained a boy failed dismally at leading a nation. The Swazi Nation gave Mswati 111 more than enough time to prove himself as a leader but instead he plunged the nation into an economic crisis, a political sewer, and a social disaster.