King Mswati and unlucky number 13
By Olaitan Ladipo
If a sadist is a person that derives pleasure in inflicting pain and suffering on fellow human beings, then on behalf of all red blooded men that have glimpsed his thirteen Queens in their festival attire (well, the little that passes for an attire), I declare that King Mswati of Swaziland is a major league, premier division, tear rubber, first class sadist.
Poor justice minister Ndumisco Mamba, after years of anguish, pain, torture, agony (sorry, I am repeating myself) and, unable to bear it any longer, finally yielded to temptation. Who can blame him? He had been the King’s best friend since primary school, his closest companion.
Imagine yourself (God forbid, I pray) going daily, in and out of a palace filled with the most beautiful women in Swaziland, exquisite damsels, wearing little more than their birthday suits (reportedly the King’s sartorial preference). Imagine doing that for years, the only barrier between you and their forbidden fruit, your loyalty to a childhood friend and duty to a totally selfish, wife-collecting, cradle-snatching, lecher of a king. Most Alhaji would go crazy in one week. I give Senators one month and they would be passing bills to cede the whole of the Niger Delta to the Cameroons.
Incidentally, I suggest that all legal matters presided by justice minister Mamba be brought back for a judicial review because decisions made by a man under such long-term torment, are suspect. I mean those cases he dealt with before he finally decided to deal with Queen Nothando Dube, if you see what I mean.
My interest in King Mswati intensified when I read, a few years ago, about a Swazi mother suing him, unsuccessfully, for abducting her daughter to make his 10th wife. I need to rephrase that. King Mswati is an absolute monarch, so terms like abduction do not apply to him. What the King wants, the King takes, God bless the King.
I used to marvel at Mswati’s physical prowess. What, with all of thirteen wives to service? Until I learnt a few days ago that the King had actually been getting by with a little help from his friend (apparently without the King’s knowledge). Not that he asked anybody’s help anyway. Poor king, who knows, there may still be other similarly helpful friends. So, when he got to know about this unsolicited help, King Mswati understandably went into a right royal rage.
That is my point about selfishness. When the king knew he was not up to it, he should have stopped at wife number 3, or 4 or 5. But no, he had to chase his father’s record of 50 wives! He forgot the old man did not sojourn abroad like King Mswati who spent years of private schooling in England eating fish and chips for lunch, potatoes, and half-cooked meat for dinner. Why do you think Englishmen do not dare even think of having 2 wives, let alone 13? It is fear of having to rely on friends to help with certain personal chores.
Mswati should thank his stars he is not king of Nigeria. How would he fend off overpaid legislators wanting to bribe his wives to cross carpet and, where money fails, don their boxing gloves at him?
Or randy majors and colonels who would use the guns he bought for them to overthrow him, then accuse him of having more than twelve wives, then pass a decree making it an offence to have more than 12 wives, then backdate the decree so that he will be guilty even before he had committed the offence, then throw him into Alagbon lest he should one day wander accidentally into an officer’s mess to behold the painful sight of his harem being plundered.
Not to talk of pubescent student cultists who would kidnap the Queens for a King’s ransom. I like the sound of that—a King’s ransom. Those are real risks in Nigeria especially as a couple of his Queens have, in the past, been known to try to fly the coop.
All the same, I sympathise with the King for losing a close friend and a serving minister. I put it down to the number 13. Maybe the King did not know it, 13 is an unlucky number. Certain airlines do not have seat number 13 on their planes for that reason. Some people would simply refuse to fly on such a plane, let alone sit in row 13.
You see, one of my own ancestors too had thirteen wives, just like King Mswati. There is common agreement in our family that he died before his time, and that dutiful consummation of his polygamy is generally to blame for that early demise. Somebody should have warned the King to stop at number 12.
Perhaps minister Mamba felt that, rather than warn him and hurt his famously delicate ego, the best way to help the King was to quietly relieve him of some of his conjugal burden. Pity about the minister’s tactics though. Now Mswati will never trust a soldier in uniform again.
We must not be too harsh on the King. I suppose when a man has tens of thousands of beautiful virgins parading their stuff in front of him every year (lucky devil), it is hard to say no to another free spare rib. Not the one in Hoi-Sin sauce from your local Chinese. I am talking about Adam’s rib. Did you not read that wives are made from men’s ribs? And since King Mswati, like all men, has only so many, it would be unfair to take another rib off him every year.
No wonder Mswati always has a smile on his face. Seriously, go and check all of his photographs. I guess if I too had 13 wives (and still counting!) I would be grinning from ear to ear all of the time.
Do you know that the King pointedly refuses to trade in any of the old Queens, even though some of them are now what you call in the motor trade, ‘fairly used’? In fact he had the Swazi secret service drag a couple of them back, screaming and kicking, when they fled the country to somewhere they knew they would not be on a sleeping rota with 12 other women. I think palace security became a bit tighter after that.
That is no reason to call him stingy; the King is simply a conservationist. An eco-warrior. No waste. No recycling. He is keeping them all. And any man that has seen the video of those Queens, will readily agree they are not your run-of-the-mill ‘fairly used’. Even looking at their photographs, it is easy to believe they have had only one careful owner.
In fact, they look as new as tear rubber, no gimmicks. Nothing hidden. You could see everything—back axle, shock absorber, bouncing headlights, and all. Even the paparazzi got publishing rights.
Now this is the interesting part. Every year after the king had taken his pick of one, there are still 79,999 nubile Swazi virgins remaining for other intending suitors. Yeah, because usually up to 80,000 delectable virgins come to do the yearly reed dance. Eat your heart out Al ’Qaeda and your measly 36 virgins.
Nevertheless and before anyone starts going to queue from 3 a.m. at the Swazi embassy for a visa, I strongly suggest that King Mswati’s Queens be made to carry a health warning: “tampering can be dangerous to your life”. For breaking that rule minister Mamba is now to be beheaded while Queen Nothando Dube gets house arrest.
Curiously though, I have not heard any women’s equal rights group protest and demand equal treatment for one of their own.
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