In the weeks following the double tragedy, the Heritage Group was a company in crisis. The stock price, already in freefall after Simon Parker’s injunction, bottomed out. The board of directors was in a panic, a group of suit-wearing vultures circling the remains of the empire. They wanted to install a new CEO, a figurehead they could control. Their pick was a young, Ivy League-educated man with no connection to the company’s spiritual foundation.
But the spiritual foundation was the very thing that had made the Heritage Group so successful. And the one person who still commanded the unwavering respect of the employees and the loyalty of the market women was Mrs. Iyalode. She refused to cede control. At an emergency board meeting, she walked in, not in a power suit, but in the traditional robes of a matriarch, her face serene but her eyes holding the weight of a thousand years of tradition.
"You speak of stock prices and market sentiment," she began, her voice cutting through the panic, "but you have forgotten the soul of this company. You let a foreign consultant, a man who sees only numbers, desecrate what is sacred. You allowed fear of ridicule to justify a profound spiritual crime."
The board members, a mix of Lagos elite and international investors, shifted uncomfortably. Simon Parker, whose career had been built on being the "expert," attempted to interject. "Mrs. Iyalode, we were protecting the company from a barbaric ritual."
"Barbaric?" she retorted. "You call a rite of spiritual passage barbaric, yet you stood by as your markets sent young men to war for profit. My son died with honor. Your ritual is a spreadsheet."
She revealed that before his death, Kunle had secretly organized a foundation, using a significant portion of his wealth, to support the employees and their families, a direct and final act of spiritual alignment. She announced that she, with the blessing of the company's elders, would take the helm, not as a corporate CEO, but as a transitional leader, to restore the company's honor. The employees, when they heard the news, rejoiced. Their faith in the company, though wounded, was not broken.
Meanwhile, Titi, the pregnant widow, was a world away from the boardrooms. The media that had once fawned over her now cast her as the "tragic bride" or the "catalyst for disaster." She was isolated and alone, but with a new sense of purpose. Mrs. Iyalode had taken her under her wing, teaching her the traditions she had dismissed as folklore. Titi began to understand the weight of Akinola’s betrayal and Kunle’s sacrifice.
A new beginning
Months later, Titi gave birth to a boy. He was not just Akinola's son, but a symbol of the future. Mrs. Iyalode held the baby, and for the first time since the tragedy, a fragile hope emerged. The boy represented the possibility of a new beginning, a chance for the spiritual core of the company to be reborn, free from the shame and failure of the past.
The Heritage Group, under Mrs. Iyalode's leadership, was rebuilt, not around profits and stock prices, but around its original values of community, family, and spiritual purpose. Simon Parker was fired, and the NGO that had interfered was discredited. The company found its equilibrium again, humbled but stronger.
The story of Akinola, Kunle, and Mrs. Iyalode became a modern-day fable, a reminder that the clash between tradition and modernity is not just an abstract debate but a living, breathing struggle with profound human consequences. The tragic end of the two brothers served as a testament to the power of tradition and the devastating price of forgetting one's spiritual roots. And in the eyes of the reborn company, the infant boy was not just an heir, but the living promise that the future could yet be salvaged
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