Interview

Olubadan’s good English was one of the attractions that wooed me —Olori Balogun

In this interview by Tunde Ayanda, Olori Olayinka Balogun narrated how she met her husband, Oba Olalekan Balogun, who is presently the Olubadan of Ibadan; what her becoming an Olori has deprived her of and her role and life generally inside the Olubadan’s palace. Excerpts:

How would you describe your experience in the palace so far?

I wasn’t ready for that. I will say it is neither easy and it is not too difficult also. It’s been like a mixture because there are some scenarios that we are able to manage quite easily but there are some times that we also have to be diplomatic, which means you might not get your outcomes easily. So, it’s been like both sides really.

What were you doing before your husband became the Olubadan?

I’m a nurse; I actually lived in the United Kingdom. Before he became the Kabiyesi, you know the lineage, they were already acting in that role, and all they were waiting for was to get to that stage where they will say Kabiyesi. As a high chief or a lower chief, if you know the Ibadan Obaship system, once they come from the lineage of the Mogaji, they actually behave like high chiefs, the high chiefs are very near to Kabiyesi. They comport themselves in a chiefly way.

That means you’ve been prepared for the role long ago?

Yes.

How long ago was that?

He was not even a Mogaji when I met him. My first son, Sheriff is now 36 years old, so it’s been a long time.

At a point, I relocated when he was a senator and he moved to Abuja and then I relocated too and from that point, it’s been like in and out because I took the children with me to the United Kingdom and you know in UK you have to look after your children.

And being an Ibadan man, there are other women, so I’ve been able to sit down with my own kids, look after them and shuttle, coming in and out, looking after him, looking after the children, looking after myself and working as a professional nurse, a specialist nurse in the UK and that’s what I’ve been doing.

A few years ago something told me he might become the king but I was a bit incapacitated because my work was still going on, the children were still there and I just felt I wanted to complete my pensionable years so that I could get something to fall on in the future. And in the UK, you’ve got to keep that 65 years before you are entitled to your pension and in actual fact, there are other wives who are looking after him. So, I just said let me just finish what I’m here for. I mean the children are getting married now, so I’m having less input in the UK and more input here, so that’s why I’ve been shuttling at least once in two months, I’ve been coming home trying to catch up.

What’s the daily life in the Olubadan palace like?

It can be very busy, busy in the fact that people are coming in, coming out, they want you to come and say hello, Kabiyesi can say he wants you to say hello to some people and you have to attend to other people, guests, visitors. It’s been quite hectic, I didn’t know it could be and of course, it’s political. Inside the palace, it is very, highly political.

When he was not the Kabiyesi and I read from other scenarios coming up from other palaces and I’m like why can’t they do this, you know with the British mentality but now that it is my turn, I can say it is not that easy. Yeah, it’s not easy.

How do you juggle your roles: caring for the family, the women and people coming to the palace and the political part in the palace you just mentioned?

Well, I am great at multi-tasking, I know that myself because even in the UK, I multitask as well because you know, I run a company, I work, I still look after people. I’ve always been like that. I can’t sit down and do one thing, I do business, I do my job, I travel a lot, I love travelling, I still run after my kids though I go to them. So it’s not hard for me right now because I’ve always been all over the place.

When I was working as a staff nurse, I was running my business. I was sewing clothes and it wasn’t too hard. I get a lot of support from my siblings, from my sister who is in the United States, Mrs Durotoye. She’s just like me and we’ve been together and I still run my NGO called the, Unicorn Respite Rehabilitation Centre.

What does it mean to be an Olori to the Olubadan, is it more than being a wife?

People expect a lot from you, support in every ramification, they expect a lot from you. The other day, some people came to see him and they were talking, talking, going back and forth that I had to step in. I just said let’s go women, so I brought them to the balcony and I started begging them because they were not making a headway with Kabiyesi. I took them and I asked them what they did. Most of them were just looking for money to set up businesses and I need to soft pedal sometimes because they are coming for Kabiyesi, but I know that we are running an NGO by the side, we could do something for these people but I can’t just hijack them. I need to work in partnership with him to say okay we are doing this on your behalf. So that is the kind of thing that I’m able to do because they must be able to see that it is Kabiyesi that is doing it but it is coming through another means.

So, most times we are looking at how we can support him to make sure that the people get what they want from him. He’s very magnanimous, he gives money a lot but sometimes from the way I see it, the people that really need the money are not getting it. You might have come two or three times and he is still saying oh come back, then somebody is just coming straight and he gets it. I don’t know what is causing that and I just felt there is a kind of imbalance. So sometimes, we have to make sure that we speak to him “Kabiyesi, this person has been coming twice or thrice please attend to them’. So, these are the areas where we are working together with him.

Is there anything that being an Olori has taken off you?

Yes, a lot! I can’t wear my jeans again, I like trousers a lot.

Even in the UK, you can’t wear trousers anymore?

I don’t because you don’t even know who you would meet. But sometimes when we meet for our NGO, I might get to be on the field, I might get away with that by wearing my jeans because it’s going to be part of the uniform for everybody-T-shirts and everything. But the way I dress has changed, but you know in the UK, nobody looks at you. I wear my mini, I wear my shorts but now I can’t because if you do that somebody is going to say ‘you see’. People know you and in my community there are so many Yorubas there, they know you. Again, I can’t leave my hair, I don’t know why because people just say ‘oh you are not suppose to do that’, It is the tradition.

When I’m going to church I put on my wig, I dress like a British but now I can’t. So it has taken a lot from me but those are not too difficult to adjust to really, but I’m a free dresser .

Apart from you being trained in the way of royalty, you seem to be many things rolled into one, what actual part of your background prepared you for the woman you are today?

I come from a very good Christian home, both my parents were Baptist, so right from childhood, we were trained in the Christian way. Then being a professional, as a professional, you can’t slap around, working in the UK, you can’t slap around. If you see me on the street where I walk around, you know it’s as if I’m running. We meet a lot of people and even he has molded me, you understand. What attracted me to him in the first instance was his phonetics, the way he speaks. I loved it and I started to emulate him and then travelling too now fired me up, so I just love good English and you can’t be in the UK and slap around, no.

Then, after my husband became the Mogaji I started a fashion place, but because of visitors and everything, he told me no, you can’t be working and then I’m looking for my wife to attend to visitors, so I retired from UCH, and then I started my sewing and my salon back then before I travelled. I recruited a lot of tailors and I was supervising. I know how to sew female dresses well but I didn’t know how to sew male dresses, so I got male tailors. We are all artistic in my family and my brother is a graphic artist, he was working with Wole Lagunju, he is now in the US, everybody has that flair for arts, we are all artists. Sewing didn’t take me too long to learn.

Kabiyesi means different things to many people, for you that have been with him for more than 36 years, how well would you describe him?

Kabiyesi is not stubborn, he is highly-disciplined. He is very brilliant and he is very funny, sometimes, he loves cuddling a lot, he likes to be like petting you know and touching, sometimes when he is free, he likes pulling his toes and if you really want to get something from him, I think those are the times you target. You work on his toes, massage them and then you ask for anything. Sometimes, if he could be saying something in a funny way and he means it, so it depends on his mood. He does not like people stealing around him, especially his workers, drivers and everything. He doesn’t like it. He loves reading, he used to read a lot before, all those British books and everything, he is always carrying them around.

You have mentioned his eloquence, his brilliance, these are things that will easily attract women to him, you also stated he likes women, how do you cope with that?

I’ve always coped with that right from when I met him. He is into politics as you know.

So how do you handle all these women?

I just say hello, I do as if I don’t know. That is if you want to have peace, it is not only about Kabiyesi but as a woman, because they are all men. Even if when women meet with other women or side chicks, you know there is always something, we will feel each other. Really, if they cannot marry him, why are you going to stress yourself or die? You understand? It is a free will, there is no point stressing over it. Secondly, when an Ibadan man is a politician, trust me there will be women, it’s only by God’s grace that you will not follow women. There are some who are coming for something else but they actually pretend as if they are looking for something. What would you do?

But people think I’m weird, but I think it’s wisdom because sometimes when people know that I know, then they run away. Once they know that, so this woman knows that I’m dating baba, they disappear. So sometimes it is wisdom. Some of them will still know and still hang around but you know, the main thing is the respect, if you want to enjoy yourself, just move away to a very far place.

But the only thing is that we women, we sense one other. Sometimes, there is something like that going through us when we see each other, we size each other up; I know you are one of them. So, if they feel uncomfortable, you don’t see them again, they don’t come near you. So, that is the way I’ve been able to cope. And Kabiyesi, with politics, he has always had women around him, how many do you want to start sizing up or looking at?

You mentioned that you grew up in a Christian home, but you are married to a Muslim, so how was it at that time, how were you able to convince your parents to allow you marry him?

It was moderately hard, not too hard and I will tell you when I met my husband, I’ve never dated a married man before but he was just stubborn, when he wants something, he just have to get it. So I met him when I was working as a staff nurse at the UCH and when they discharged him, I was not on duty but I knew when he was on admission because as a senior staff nurse then, they always allocated me to look after him, and his food, medication and personal care. So, he started making me to laugh because he is quite funny. When he left, I said thank God that man has gone and then there were always too many visitors. We had to manage the visitors coming to see him.

One day, I was working at the ward when this gentleman came and said he was asking for staff nurse Lagunju and then they called me, I said can I help you? He said I’m from Dr this and I said what for? He said oh he said I should come and meet you and ask where you stay. I said sorry, he can’t, he started pestering, pestering and I said second gate UI, just ask for the nurses there, I live there. I thought I had pushed them away, both Dr and the errand person. One day, I was in my house, the bell just rang and he was standing there and I’m like, who told you this place? So, apparently what happened was that because I just gave a hint that I lived around UI and you know there are nurses all over the place and by the time he was looking for UCH nurses those ones just sign posted me and said oh ,Yinka lives on that JKIC road, bla bla blah. So, he got my address through another person and then he came. And sometimes I look back and I’m like why didn’t I just tell this man that I don’t need you in my life like, you know, go away. But the thing is that having or coming from a Christian home, we should show respect that is due to one another. Then I was staying in a house with two other friends. We rented the house. Because he is so funny, you can’t just push him away, and from there he started coming and I even told him please don’t come, I have somebody I’m dating but he wouldn’t listen. He would say oh, I’m just passing by and when he is coming he would bring hampers of meat pie and he will say oh that is for you, I’m just passing by and it came to a stage that the person I was dating started getting annoyed because they started jamming and when I say please don’t come, he will still come. After a while, me and that one stopped seeing each other because he kept coming, he will pretend as if he was passing by and the other one will flare up and he too had a British background and you know this kind of thing doesn’t really match well at all. Now he had access, full access to me, morning, afternoon, day. Sometimes he will come and ask in the ward oh is she working? And they will say no then he will know that I’m at home. Because of his nice accent, he speaks good English, I started to like him. My parents, they didn’t like it, because one, he is an Ibadan man, two, being a Muslim, three, when I got closer he said he had been married, but explained what happened, he also said there was nobody and that he only had another Igbo lady that he was dating and he didn’t want to continue with that person. She had her own shortcomings and from there we started and I had my first child, my parents were still not taking him until I told them I had my second one. Then, my aunty started saying do you think you picked a woman on the street and then she doesn’t have family? You don’t know you need to go to the family and ask for her hand. And he said, but he wanted to ask for her hand and you people are acting funny, so from there we arranged and we went and so that was it.

That was after you’ve given birth to your second child?

Yes. So religious wise, he is not somebody that imposes, he is not rigid. He is not a rigid person at all, very flexible and he would want to make you happy. So we started talking about what am I going to do and he said you can practice your religion. Me, I cannot become a Muslim oh at least to show respect to my parents. So he said no, no, no, don’t worry. He served on the altar, on a Catholic altar when he was young and then he knows the Quran, so he is like that. He said I don’t feel like disturbing you just do whatever you want. So, I started going to church and then he was doing his own but the only thing is that when there are Muslim festivals we do it together. I go to eid, I go to prayer ground. I tried to learn a bit at a stage but the whole thing is from your heart and then at a point I started to realize that Islam and Christianity, they are very much alike. There is Mariam in the Quran, there is Mary in the Bible, other things, all the names in the Quran are in the Bible and I’m thinking the two religions are the same thing. It’s only, is it Prophet Mohammed and Jesus Christ or whatever.

Can you share a bit of your background?

I’m from Iree in Osun State, my parents are from Iree and my parents live in Oshogbo. I grew up in Aiyetoro in Ogun State. I went to Aiyetoro Comprehensive High School to a stage and then I went to Baptist High School, Ede because my aunty that brought me up is a wife of a lecturer in Comprehensive High School, Aiyetoro and because they moved around a lot, as WAEC inspectors, I found myself in and out of schools too. And then from Baptist High School, Ede, I came into school of Nursing to do my Nursing. I did my midwifery in School of Nursing, UCH, then I went to U.I, I did my advanced Diploma in Health Education. And then I went abroad where I also practise nursing, now I do light job, looking after older people in a nursing home in the UK.

What memories of Independence Day can you share with us?

Independence day in those days made me very proud. Why? We look very gay and happy on the day. Good grooming, uniform, white socks and all. A very special day for me after my birthday! I felt proud to be a Nigerian and the March past was wow. We were enthusiastic about October 1st. We planned for it as something special. If you are lucky, you get jollof rice and chicken at home. Very good memory!

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