two beautiful daughters. The elder of the two had read many books and knew all the stories of the world. She decided that she would try to cure the King of his madness. She went to her father and said, ‘Father, I want to marry the King, please go and tell him. Her father was horrified and tried to persuade her to change her mind but she would not. She was determined. I shall marry the King she said, and perhaps I can make him stop this mad murder. If not I shall die myself. The King was delighted when the Chief Minister told him, and the marriage took place at once. After the wedding the new Queen said, ‘If I am going to die tomorrow, please let me have my Sister with me for a short time, so that I may say goodbye. The King agreed and the sister came. The Queen had told her sister about the plan and she knew what to do. She waited for night-time. The King tried to sleep but he could not. When she saw this, the sister said to the Queen, the King cannot sleep. Why don’t you tell us one of your stories? The Queen said, ‘No, the King may not want to listen.’ But the King said, ‘Yes, tell us a story.’ So the Queen began. It was a very exciting story, and when she reached the most exciting part of all she stopped. ‘Go on’ said the King. Its time to stop now, said the Queen.’ What a pity that I am going to be killed tomorrow’, the next part of the story is even more exciting. The king thought, ‘There is no need to kill her tomorrow’. I will wait until the day after, and then I can hear the end of the story’. But the second night, the Queen finished the story and began another, and again she stopped at a very exciting place. Again her life was saved. On the third night the same thing happened. This went on night after night until they had been married a whole year, and a beautiful son was born to the Queen. The King now loved his wife and understood that there were good and bad women just as there were good and bad men. He was ashamed of his actions and he killed no more women, and he and his wife lived peacefully together. The problems of life are sometimes so bizarre, take for example the people in the Niger-Delta are complaining of lack of water as part of the reasons they have gone into militancy; meanwhile Lagosians are daily complaining of Water causing erosion, flooding their streets, bringing down houses and causing numerous forms of destruction. This is the monotonous consistency of human nature. This goes a long way to show that nothing should be taken for granted in life as those things we feel do not count for anything usually turn to stumbling blocks to peace processes.
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