The Story Of Princess Diallo.

It was a bad news. It’s very far from what Toyosi was expecting. She wanted to be posted to Abuja for her NYSC service but she was thrown into one of the villages of Benue State, Samosa village.
It was more weird and shocking when she got into the village with two other girls, Tanwa and Taiwo.

“Hey. Take off your shoes. Women don’t wear shoes in this village,” the chief security officer commands the three girls to take off their shoes if they wanted to enter the village.

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There was no choice than to obey. If they didn’t obey, they would have to go back to where they were coming from but it was late to go back so the girls obliged.

In the room the government has provided for them to say, it was as 6:00 am when Toyosi peeped through her window and she saw different kinds of women who were walking barefooted.
Their legs have developed toughened skin, their foot shapes were bad and they’ve all developed ugly legs from walking barefooted.

As time went on, Toyosi got along with one of the village’s prettiest, Arike. Arike is the daughter of the chief security officer and betrothed to the prince of the village.

“Arike, can I ask a question?” Toyosi has never felt comfortable walking barefooted in the whole village.

“Yes, aunty teacher. You’re my friend and I like you so I’ll give you an answer to whatever you ask,” Toyosi’s presence has always unnerved Arike and she’s always eager to hear her talk.
In fact, Toyosi has been assigned to teach the whole community about hygiene for a whole year during her stay there and she has always done that.
As a result of that, Toyosi is called “aunty teacher” in the whole village.

“Why is it that the women in this village do not wear slippers or any other kind of footwear?,” suddenly, Arike bursts into hysterical laughter. Toyosi’s question sounded funny.
To Arike, not wearing footwear was a norm but to Toyosi, not wearing footwear is out of the ordinary.

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“Well, that happened so many years ago. In earlier times, we had a princess named Diallo. She was so beautiful that every man would want to lick the ground she walks on,” Arike took up the thread of her story.

“Was she that beautiful?” Toyosi inspected herself from top to bottom. She imagined how beautiful Princess Diallo was.

“Yes, aunty teacher. She was as beautiful as sunset. And during the colonial era, she fell in love with a white man, Austin. Then, after the colonial era, when Austin was going back to Britain, he gave Diallo a beautiful set of Cinderella heels,” Arike stood up. Looking around, in search of a beautiful material which can be compared to the beauty of Princess Diallo’s Cinderella’s heels.

“What are you looking for? And what then happened to Princess Diallo and her heels?” Toyosi, stood up as well. Looking around for the unknown item that Arike was in search of.

“Aunty teacher, sit down. I was looking for a material to compare the beauty of her heels with. As soon as Princess Diallo stepped her legs into the heels, she fell and broke her leg. That felt like a big set up. No matter how much they tried to revive Princess Diallo’s broken leg, their efforts were futile and Princess Diallo never walked again. Since then, females were banned from wearing footwears. Also, no man wished to get married to Princess Diallo again including her lover, Austin.,” what a flimsy excuse, Toyosi yelled.

“So because of an unfortunate incident that happened to Princess Diallo, all other women got affected and were asked not to put on footwears?” Toyosi asked.

Without further ado, she traveled back to Abuja and reported the state of Samosa village to the government. She wrote letters to different arms of government to know if this issue will be solved so they can have schools in the village, allow women to put on footwears and cure the ills of the society.

While carrying out a survey, Toyosi and her friends asked several women how they feel about not putting on footwear and most answers she got are; “I want to put on footwear like other women in other villages”.

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After talking through this with the king of Samosa village and the intervention of the government, the women in Samosa village were allowed to put on footwear again.
The government built schools and supplied the village with enough footwears after having a cencus count of how many people are there in the village.

Finally, Toyosi succeeded in reviving the old time of wearing footwear in the life of every woman of Samosa village.
The kids also had the opportunity to go to school and become educated.