The Real Biography Of Alhaji Lamidi Mukaila(a. k. a Auxiliary), Park Management System Boss in Oyo State. Series 1..

The very core of Mukaila Lamidi’s earthly existence has its tap roots traced to a family tree of great adventurers and craftsmen whose pursuit of material prosperity and search for pastures new made them permanent residents of Ibadan, sequel to the fall of old Oyo (Oyo ile).

 The greater parts of the ancient Yoruba civilizations and towns had been obliterated by external conflicts and aggressions which necessitated the springing up of Ibadan in 1829 as a war camp which proved to be a safe haven for the adventurers, craftsmen and persons seeking to leave the bitter trails of war far behind them. Lamidi’s progenitors belonged in the group of early settlers and explorers of Ibadan, the land of divers ranges of lofty and protective hills. 

Mukaila’s forbearers lived and thrived alongside the strings of the new family units that emerged to make Ibadan a great metropolitan centre as well as the contemporary nucleus of the Yoruba socio-political life and point of reference. This historical amalgamation (in Ibadan) of various Yoruba tribes and peoples whose main intension was to shake off the hang-over of post Oyo conflicts and seek a new sense of community based interaction continued until the birth of a great son of the people of Ibadan, Mukaila Lamidi, just mid-way past the dawn of the 20th century. Born on the 12th of march 1964, Mukaila’s birth and consequent arrival to the universe , came as a prized gift as well as a call to duty and responsibility to his parents who had nothing but their stars to thank for being blessed with such a delightful dapper of a son. 

News about the birth of a beautiful boy child was all over the neighbourhood, and Mukaila’s immediate family, especially his father, was simply blown away by and overwhelmed by unconcealable joy and excitement. It was a point of the extraordinary sense of fulfillment that every parent felt when they held up their infant baby and wished it all the very best things of life after it was being born. It was also a starting point of man’s earthly struggles and challenges, the beginning of the beginning until somewhere in the middle or halfway to the end, when life happens again in a newer piece, and it is usually at this point that life begins to evolve. And for Mukaila, this phenomenon was no exception. 

 The journey of his life had begun, as it is the case of every new born in this part of the world, with an elaborate christening ceremony; a rite that both retains very strong religious and traditional undertones. So the new born child was named Mukaila Lamidi (other appendages or aliases will be made known as we go further into the story, especially at points where the need for such knowledge becomes pertinent ) yes, Mukaila, that is what his father called him when he was first welcomed to the world, on the eighth day in strict adherence to the Yoruba traditions. The entirety of the (the name of the neighbourhood where he lived as a child) neighbourhood had looked forward to a fixed promise of a sumptuous christening ceremony where there will be exciting tunes of traditional melodies to dance to, and a whole lot to chew and to drink as well. The child had been born on a good day, on one of those beautiful mornings in March, when the air spews forth its radiant atmospheric glory, accompanied by a refreshing sensation that leaves both body and soul rejuvenated. Body and souls of men who, tired and exhausted from the toils of their relentless search for greener pastures on the streets of the always bustling city, or in the thick of some very dense forests, tilling on parched farmlands. It was in the evenings of one of such glorious mornings that Mukaila had been born; a comely child, dark and sturdy with firm lips, that twitched momentarily and eyes that were shut most of the times, but blinked occasionally in obvious attempt to catch glimpses of happenings around. 

Apart from crying out loudly at the point of birth, baby Mukaila didn’t cry a lot as an infant. He tried at every given opportunity to peer his eyes out and to see the things around him or to study his immediate environment, perhaps. One of the first things his father had noticed about this new born son of his was the air of fearlessness that always hangs around him like a cloud. “He’s a true son of his father” Pa Lamidi had muttered, his grey –spangled black moustache twitching in a gentle smile. Pa Lamidi stroked the infants cheek fondly and picked it up in a glaring expression of the unspeakable love, tenderness and excitement. Like a movie, his mind has replayed back to the time when the traditional midwives had first broken the news about the birth of his child, he hadn’t asked if the child was a male or female, he had somehow, (either by a tinge of instinct or premonition) known that , that this seed born to him had been a boy. He had held the infant boy up, and stared blankly at him in the face, and upon seeing the bold and fearless eye that peered back at him, the old man knew at once, that this was the very child that he had always prayed and hoped to have. A child, who he was certain, would grow up brave and bold enough to confront life’s complexities as well as its whims and fancies. Holding the infant boy in his arms, he just couldn’t control the wave of excitement that flushed through his soul. This excitement wasn’t because the infant was his first to welcome, but majorly because the child was his first from his new teenage wife, whom he loved with all the bits and pieces of his heart and soul.