TUNDE ODESOLA FROM PUNCH
Once upon a time, before money displaced Ifa in the Land of Oduduwa, decency was the crest on the Yoruba crown. This was before government’s filthy hands slowly opened the palace gate, grabbed the glittering crown and tore off the crest. So, the crown, crest-broken, tumbled into the mud, crestfallen.
Étiquette is not strange to monarchy. The word, ‘Étiquette’ was born in the French foremost palace at Versailles during the reign of King Louis XIV in the 1600s.
Every summer, King Louis invited the folk, who lived around his palace, for a big celebration. After each celebration, it was noticed that guests defiled the environment. They plucked the flowers, swam in the fountain, walked on the grass, littered the lawns, and laid to waste the entire palace grounds.
This got the king thinking. There must be a solution to the mess! So, he called his courtiers to a brainstorming session. Together, they devised a strategy of putting up little signs such as ‘Walk not on the grass’, ‘Leave the flowers to blossom’, ‘Don’t litter’, and ‘Fountain, not swimming pool’, at strategic points in the palace.
Thus, etymologically speaking, the noun, ‘etiquette’, which is a cautionary nugget, means ‘little signs.’ In the general sense of its meaning today, however, etiquette means the customary code of polite behaviour required by good breeding in society or among members of a particular profession or group.
Etiquette is the fragrance of decency. Decency doesn’t illuminate the differences in creed, colour and class. It clothes kings and peasants in dignity but disrobes the bombastic, the lousy and the thoughtless. I daresay decency frowns whenever a clown wears a crown.
Though today’s palace might have resident fools, as it was in Shakespearean times, foolish thoughts and actions, however, shouldn’t have permanent residency in the palace. The king must live above fools, not among fools, as we see today.
When he became king on October 26, 2015, at 41 years, Ooni Ogunwusi wasn’t the youngest in the history of Yoruba monarchy. That record belonged to Mary Stuart, the Queen of Scotland, who ascended the throne when she was six days old. Yes, six days.
Mary, who became queen in 1542 when her father, King James V of Scotland, died, was also the great-niece of King Henry VIII of England, making her eligible for the English throne, too.
It is also in the recorded history of Western aristocracy that Edward VI became king at the age of nine when his father, King Henry VIII, died.
Back home to Nigeria, the Awujale of Ijebu kingdom, Oba Sikiru Adetona, the Ogbagba Agbotewole II, was only 26 years old when he mounted the throne of his forebears in April 1960, and has, so far, chalked up 63 years of glorious reign, with birds chirping like birds, and rats squeaking like rats.
