Her Lordship, Chief Justice of the Supreme Pecking Council
Yèyé Àlàbá “The Settler of Perches”
Àlàbá Ọmọ́tọ́lá
Ẹni tí ó gbọ́n ju ẹjọ́ lọ, tí ìjà ń sá fún(The one wiser than the quarrel, from whom the quarrel itself flees)
Chief Justice, community elder, and the only authority both parties accept in the annual Best Perch dispute. Rules once, in proverbs, and is never appealed.
- Tribe
- Isa-Brown
- Age
- Elder hen
- Laying status
- Retired from laying
- Office
- Chief Justice of the Supreme Pecking Council
- Favourite food
- Bitter leaf, 'for perspective'
The story so far
Yèyé Àlàbá retired from laying years ago and ascended, by universal relief, to the judiciary. The Supreme Pecking Council under her leadership hears every case in the shade after the afternoon feed, on the principle that 'no bird is reasonable while hungry.'
Her most demanding docket is the annual Best Perch dispute, the high rail with the evening sun, contested every dry season since before the water tank. Her rulings rotate the perch by a formula she has never fully disclosed and no one has ever successfully challenged, partly because it appears to be fair and partly because challenging it requires understanding it.
She judges in proverbs, translates them for the chicks, and closes every session the same way: 'Court is risen. Go and share something.' On Sunday mornings she can be found beside Mama Gold under the mango tree, where the Republic's two longest memories gently correct each other's history.
Life events
11 June 2026
Voting under the mango tree
Chief Justice Yèyé Àlàbá presides over polling with a single rule: no bird votes hungry. Voting closes at the afternoon feed. Turnout is declared total, because she counted everyone on the way in.
20 June 2026
Mama Gold's Law passes second reading
Shade, trough priority, and freedom from sudden committee membership for every retired layer. The gallery sings; the Speaker conducts, eventually.
Coverage in The Coop Times →11 July 2026
Under the mango tree, without debate
The Assembly votes his resting place without a single speech against, the only such vote in the Republic's history. Sisi Ngozi organises it in an afternoon. The dusk whistle begins that evening.
23 July 2026
The teacher and the convener
Tadé the Foraging Master takes Youth and Chick Development; Rọ́nkẹ́ Mama Owambe takes Social Affairs. Elder Yèyé Àlàbá hands over the social advisory she held for years with relief and pride, and books the Reconciliation Bench for the afternoon, just in case.
7 August 2026
The whole flock must see
There is always a temptation, after something terrible, to settle it quietly and move on, and some in the Republic felt it now. Chief Justice Yèyé Àlàbá did not. The flock's first trial for the death of a citizen, she ruled, would be heard in the open, in the shade, after the afternoon feed, where anyone who wished could watch. 'We do not peck in the dark,' she said. She set a date, and that was that.
12 August 2026
The witnesses, and the evidence
When the trial began, Cindy's neighbours from Coop Three spoke first, quietly and clearly. They told of a hot week, a crowded roost, a fight that went too far, and a hen who had only ever kept the peace. Then Dr. Featherwell stood up with the facts, and the facts were not kind to anybody. Too many birds. One cool perch. Heat that made short tempers shorter. 'This coop,' she said, 'was a fight waiting to happen.' Nobody in the shade argued, because nobody could.
14 August 2026
Two truths, one sentence
The whole Republic came the next day, and Yèyé Àlàbá did not hurry a word of it. 'A bird is gone,' she began, 'and no ruling I give will bring her back. But we can still be just.' Her judgement held two truths at once and refused to drop either: the coop had failed Eseosa, and Eseosa had failed Cindy. Eseosa would leave the flock, not harmed, never harmed, but rehomed far from Coop Three where she could do no more damage. The Republic calls it exile. Then the Chief Justice looked up and made the rest a promise: 'We will build coops where this cannot happen. That is Cindy's justice too.'
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