Alate is a little village in the western part of Nigeria. The population of this village is so small, but the gods of the land endowed the village with several valuable minerals, such as gold, coal, and diamond. Apart from that, the village is also blessed with fertile land; the farm products are doing well, and this has attracted many other villages to Alate.
Towns and other foreign countries too are always visiting this little village, and this rapidly causes development for Alate village. All the villagers live together in peace, and they are also very accommodating. Alate village becomes the rejected stone that turned into the corner stone; everyone now wants to be associated with the small village.
In no time, Alate village becomes the envy of other neighboring villages. This was a village no one wanted to be reckoned with years ago because of the population. The alate village is ruled by a patient, caring, and intelligent king named King Olawusi, with his beautiful queen named Foworola and their beautiful daughter named Kikiola, popularly called Princess.
The village of Alate continues to flourish daily as many investors troop into the village to negotiate with the king over their mineral resources. A primary and secondary school building was erected in the village by foreigners for the children of Alate village to be educated.
This was the beginning of trouble for Alate Village. Their neighboring villages had quite a large population yet no development, which made them jealous of Alate village and join forces to ruin the village.
There are five neighboring villages to Alate, three of which are planning to wage war against Alate village, which has no armed equipment for war. A message was sent to King Olawusi to prepare for war. This made the king summon his subjects, as it was heartbreaking news to the king.
"Three of our neighboring villages had sent a message to us to prepare for war; what did we have to fight the war?" King Olawusi asked his subjects, who were surprised at what the king just said.
"What were their reasons for the war? Because I'm sure we did not trespass," one of the chiefs said.
"It's jealousy; what else? They are simply angry at our progress," another chief replied.
"What is the solution now?" the king asked, confused.
"We will fight them with whatever we have, or we should ask the other two villages for support with armed equipment," another chief suggested.
"That is a good one," another chief chipped in as the other chiefs chorused, "We'll go for that.".
The King of Alate and his subjects gathered armed equipment from the other two villages that were not at war with them, but they lacked skilled men. This became a source of concern to them, and amidst their preparation to train their able men how to fight and use the armed equipment, the other three villages waged war against Alate village.
It was a bad day in Alate village. The king and some of his subjects were the frontiers of the war. They fought with all their might and with everything they could, but they couldn't overcome the rival villages. At the end of the war, the king, the queen, two of his chiefs, and some villagers lost their lives in the process.
It was a bad day in the history of Alate village, but luckily for the princess, she was able to hide herself, and that saved her life. After that war, the foreigners felt bad about what had happened to Alate village, and they decided to train both able men and women on how to fight and defend themselves against the next attack.
Princess Kikiola had to take over her father's throne as the leader of Alate village; she became the queen, she was twenty-four years of age when the incident happened. She was young, beautiful, intelligent, and brave. She continued to lead the people of Alate judiciously.
The rival villages wanted to ruin Alate village completely and covet their lands because of the valuable resources and development in Alate village. They feel happy when the king is killed because they thought they had overcome Alate village. It was unknown to them that the foreigners had provided Alate village with powerful weapons and also trained their youths. They were also taught different strategies to defeat their enemies.
Queen Kikiola also joined in the training, as she was determined to restore glory to her father's land. She wanted to avenge her parents, who were brutally killed.
Four months after the first war ended, the three villages decided to rage war against Alate village for the second time, and this time, they wanted to ruin the village once and for all. Alate village had made the necessary preparations because they knew their enemies might strike them anytime.
Just as expected, their enemies came unexpectedly, but they weren't afraid because they had prepared themselves. The second war was more fierce than the first one, as Alate village overpowered their rivals because of the heavy and powerful machinery provided for them by their foreign friends. Their enemies weren't expecting to see this much; it was a big surprise to them. At the end of the war, Alate village became victorious as the villagers sang praises of Queen Kikiola for being a courageous leader. She leads the war just as her father did, and Alate village won over their enemies.
"We did it, thanks to Eledua (God) and our foreign friends; I'm sure no one will dare mess with our village anymore," the queen said to her chiefs after the war was over in her meeting with the chiefs.
Alate Village continues to flourish, and more developments have been achieved in the village. Queen Kikiola got married to one of the sons of the king of the neighboring village, who helped them during the first war, and gave birth to two male children.
After successfully ruling Alate village, Queen Kikiola died at the good age of ninety years, and a monument was erected for her at the center of the market square with the epitaphs of her good deeds for Alate village.
Here is my entry into #aprilinleo monthly and daily prompts. You can participate via this LINK
Thanks for your time and your comments will be appreciated.