Lord, when did the Old Lady stop being grandma?

Dear Father:

Uh, I know it has been long since I last communicated with you. Actually I have been globetrotting trying to admire your creations elsewhere because I can’t understand why this village will be lagging behind in almost everything. Anyway, I am back home now.

But have you heard that the Old Lady have started firing up these few days?

What do you mean my son?

Oh, you haven’t heard how she has been sacking some of her kitchen staffs for eating over the Village people cake. They say some of them have eaten so much that they have gone out of control and the Old Lady says enough is enough!

Mm, son, when did she realized that her kitchen cooks had been stealing the village cake?

Father, that is a very good question and I wish I knew the answer. But I tell you this Father, I think she has stopped being a grandma and now want to be a mother.

What do you mean my son?

Father , you know it is the grandmother who sees nothing wrong in her grand children; she allows them to do whatever they want and even protect them from the disciplinary actions of the mother.

You see, our people say when you spare the rod, you spoil the child and this Old Lady has for the past 10 years been sparing the rod and so all her kitchen staffers have picked up bad behaviors, while some have now gone astray.

My son what are you talking about?

Father, the Old Lady knows me, I don’t bite my tongue. You see when she first became head at the Castle overseeing our village, she allowed every kitchen staffers to bring in their own deputies and therefore these deputies and other auxiliary were only loyal to their immediate bosses as a form of gratitude-meaning their loyalties have never been to the village. How will you undermined a man or woman who brings you to prominence? 

Whenever there was some form of report against these deputies or even the proper kitchen staffers, the Old Lady would rise up to their defense -making many of them to feel untouchable. 

Now, some of these kitchen staffers have grown so large beyond measure. They have built their own empires over the years and are now using those very powers to hurt her regime. But this was something she had indirectly encouraged in the past 10 years.

Today, as we look around Father, many of those she had helped by bringing them onboard to serve in our village are the most power, the modern sheiks in our village.

I heard the other day that one of them have bought a fleet of pick-ups for a particular political party, while serving in her kitchen. So where you think that person took that money from over night?

Have you seen why her most recent actions of suspensions and sackings are so belated? I mean these people have hurt her image over the years, some building their own empires, while she plays grandma. Now that the people know she gat barely two more years, you think they will have any fear? All they are now thinking is how to invest in any arrangement for 2017 that will enable them to be in the next village leadership.

So, you are saying had the Old Lady been a mother, things would have been much better than this?

Trust me Father, a mother who does not want her children to disgrace her outside there will surely give them some home training-because you see in our African setting, if the child misbehaves out there, they will say, the parents did not train you well. They will never say, the grandma, because everyone knows it is the grandmother who is so weak to discipline her grand children.

So, let see whether she has the strength to continue with this momentum, because as we always say when the stick is young it is when you can bend it, but when it has grown into a tree it is hard.

Right now most of these people are after their future in the next regime so they don’t care spoiling her legacy. So let see if she will want to protect her little legacy, something she has worked for tirelessly or allow the few greedy self seeking kitchen staffers to ruin it.