London reminded Mulikat of her nightmarish experience in Lagos with the lawyer’s wife. London became a burner. She worked from dawn to dusk cleaning offices around Embankment, Bank, London Wall, Canary Wharf, London Bridge, Whitehall and Pimlico areas of Central London.
By Taju Tijani
I sat musing in my white Buba and Sokoto. My bright red ofi cap sat menacingly towards the left side of my bald head. Momentarily, I was your typical elemu ngeton alatika from Orita Merin Ibadan – the typical Ibadan man lost in the survival jungle of UK. My sartorial mates littered the pulsating hall where the evergreen fuji music of the legend, Ayinde Barrister, ruled the airwaves. Merrymakers were milling around talking glowingly of the sterling character of the celebrant. Mulikat is a good egg. A clean skin. A merry heart who leaves goodness in every heart that crosses her path.
I was the first arrival from North London. A dedicated table with “North London” friends sat in the middle of the East London primary school where we had assembled for a feast of jollof rice and abula. By the time I started seeing weird, but craftily tied owambe geles, I knew my social skills will be facing massive test on the night. I saw Dr Denrele, my partner in crime when it comes to Owambe parties. We have boogied, busted, and bungled out of many parties across London. I called him Dr Ewele of abula parties.
“Man T, you don crash land,” Denrele quipped.
“Elewele of London…Ewele of jebo..jebo,” I teased.
“Ewo lowa ore,” he asked laughing. “I dey kampe elewele,” I answered.
Elewele is a womaniser. After he deported his wife from London to Manchester he has been moonlighting as a Casanova across his turf in Hackney, North London. He sat next to me. He smelled good in Paco Rabane. He wore a designer dress with matching cap. A gold ring was on his small left finger. He had a fitting Rado watch and showed so much pride in this pricey item.
Today, Mulikat is bewitching us all. The core reason for the party was a story of travail, pain, gloom, despair, discouragement and above all triumph against all odds. Mully came to London in the early 20s. In search of a greener pasture. She is your average cut and paste traveller – unsophisticated, uneducated, ready-to-do-any-kind-of job to stay afloat in the diaspora. She has done all kinds of things to keep body and soul together in a society that is truly a leveller.
Mully became an acquittance when she came to clean my shared apartment in Finchley in the early 20s. She was a dutiful cleaner beloved by all residents – black, brown, and white. She cleaned with dedication, passion, and professional gusto. She is cheerful to the core. She is a talkative and loves to regale any hearer about her London travail. About her past in Ibadan where she grew up. One thing though, I never knew the reason why she had me as Uncle Alamoran – an agony brother with encyclopaedic wisdom to find solution to all her existential problems.
Mully has shed rivers of tears on my frail shoulders. She once lived with a lawyer in Lagos as a housemaid. The wife of the lawyer was a terror. She oppressed Mulikat and took her through the grind from dawn to dusk. She was paid a little, fed a little, treated as a domestic slave and denied all forms of comfort. After years of man’s inhumanity to man, her mum eventually came for a visit. That day marked the end of her serfdom in the lawyer’s household.
At 19 she returned to Ibadan: tired, lean, fearful, shy, withdrawn, unsophisticated and untrusting. Oje area of Ibadan was not ready to accommodate a returned damaged good from Lagos. Lagos threw her under the bus of adversity. Ibadan will soon send her to her grave. She moved in with an uncle. Baba Lati the uncle was a Danfo driver plying Apata-Oke Ado- Bere. He lived on his own in a rundown face-me-I-face you accommodation around Ologuneru. He was a drunk. One day, Baba Lati was so tanked up that he came home and raped Mully. Mully fled in panic back to Oje.
READ ALSO: Jaiye (Jay Jay) Jalupon of Burnt Oak
Bunmi (Beluga) Belgore returns to London
She borrowed money and became a produce buyer. She rumbled the jungles of Shaki, Igboho, Iseyin, Abeoukuta buying plantain to ship to Mile 12 in Lagos. That was her Midas. The business grew in leaps and bounds and Mully’s fortune blossomed. Wearied and tired of plantain rustling, Mully had another idea. A visa agent near her house became a friend. That friendship sealed her passage to London. She arrived in London in early January 2000. She stayed with a family friend who later became monstrously unappeasable. Friendship later turned sour and Mully moved in with another friend.
London reminded Mulikat of her nightmarish experience in Lagos with the lawyer’s wife. London became a burner. She worked from dawn to dusk cleaning offices around Embankment, Bank, London Wall, Canary Wharf, London Bridge, Whitehall and Pimlico areas of Central London. She worked herself to the bones looking for money to cover her weekly accommodation, bills, food and savings for stay application. She lived a life of a paperless tiger docking and dodging across London. She began to run against time. At 56, she has had three kids for two men. They came as dupers with promises to get her legit in the UK. The first suitor was a Guyanese guy. He promised to marry Mully and through the union get her the papers that will give her a permanent residency in the UK.
The Guyanese was the ultimate Teflon don, the smooth talker, who, through guile, deceit and greed exploited the vulnerability of Mully. Mully wasted money, time, resources, and love waiting for an illusive paper. The Guyanese later fled. Then she fell for a playboy who got a baby from her. The Lothario also fled. The paperchase became a do or die affair. After spending close to £18,000 in a mad paperchase, Mully got lucky. She met a man by chance on a bus ride. The man got her a paper mate – “arrangee” marriage followed. Three years later, Mully called a gathering to celebrate the arrival of a brand new permanent stay given by her Majesty the Queen.
Mulikat, decked in her best gear amidst friends and well-wishers, strolled towards the North London friends.
“Teejay, Paddy mi to sure,” she flattered me.
“Mulli konko, mama to nyo eruku,” I teased back. She held my hands and gave me some party gifts. I pressed her hand with an envelope to show appreciation. She smiled at me and just said Teejay!!!
“Mowa”, I responded.
Across the dance floor I saw Dr Denrele, the Elewele of London, causing havoc on the dance floor. Ayinde Barrister’s Fuji Garbage brought out the animal in the crowd. How could an Ibadan man allow Elewele an immigrant from Ijebu to Ibadan steal the show under the nose of an authentic Orita Merin Cusin Ciar man?
Angrily, I teared into the stage and upstaged Elewele until somebody eavesdropped that someone wanted to elope with the two bottles of big Guinness I had reserved for the road. I raced back only to see the North London crew laughing their heads off as we all said goodbye to a character, who, after 20 years of cold, loneliness, exploitation, financial losses, disappointment, shame and hopelessness, became a proud possessor of British permanent residency papers.
