I am writing this piece
after holding a series of conversations with Lagos street traders and hawkers
who seem not be aware of or are just indifferent to, or may be they are
intrigued by, the fact that the State Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode has declared
on television that the state government is prepared to enforce an existing law
banning street hawking.
The relevant law, the Lagos State Street Trading
and Illegal Market Prohibition Law, 2003 prescribes a punishment of N90, 000 or
a six-month jail term, for both the buyer and the seller of any goods or
services on the streets. So I asked this vendor, who kept pushing copies of the
day’s newspapers in my face, so close, you wouldn’t even be able to read the
headline free of charge.
“My friend, are you aware
that what you are doing is illegal? You never hear say Governor Ambode don ban
street trading?”
“That one no concern vendor
oh. Na these other people wey dey sell chewing gum and water dem dey talk
about”
“No. Street trading is
street trading. You are hawking your newspapers, why don’t you get a shop or a
stand?”
“Make I open shop to sell
newspaper? Na for inside traffic people dey buy newspaper, oga?’”
“I just hope they won’t
arrest you. The fine is N90, 000 or six months in jail.”
“Oga, you wan buy paper? Which
one you wan buy, I beg. See, the thing be say, for this Nigeria, anytime wey
anybody reach power, dem go just dey do wetin dey like. Dey no dey pity we poor
people at all.”
I laughed and drove off.
“Water! Water!”, I yelled
at a young man carrying a small basket of drinks. He ran to the car from the
other side of the road, side-stepping a Keke Marwa and almost colliding with a
motorcycle.
“How much?”
“N100”
“Can I buy because I hear
the Governor says they should arrest anybody that is hawking anything in Lagos.
And this is Agidingbi oh, too close to Alausa. Please.”
“Oga buy wetin you wan buy.
If we no sell water for traffic, you know how many people go don die for inside
go-slow. When traffic start now, even Ambode go buy water for inside traffic
drink.”
“Oya, bring it quickly.
Don’t let those LASTMA people see you.”
“Which LASTMA people? Oga,
relax. Na we-we. As we dey this street so, nobody fit remove us.“
As I listened to his
attempt to share his knowledge of the streets, I heard the clanging of a bell.
A bicyclist was approaching, a mini-cooler, hanging conspicuously in his front.
Fan Ice! Fan Milk! A young girl passed, carrying a tray of groundnuts. The
early morning traffic was beginning to build up, 24 hours after Governor Ambode
huffed and puffed on television about street hawking.
I immediately remembered
Olajumoke Orisaguna, the Nigerian Cinderella, who made it from street hawking
to the runway. It occurred to me to ask one of the hawkers.
“Do you know Olajumoke?”
“Olajumoke, oni bread. Oga
you sef, e ti jasi. Don Jazzy, Baba. If Olajumoke no sell bread for street, how
dem for discover say him get talent. Oga, as you me so, I be student oh for
Polytechnic. The money I make from the street, that ‘s what I use to maintain
myself and one day, if I become Governor in this country, I‘ll remember and I
will not ban street hawking.”
That was some sobering
thought. The sociology of street trading is worth understanding. It is mostly a
source of employment for many persons with low income and low education, and in
its more structured format, a large part of the informal sector in many parts
of the world. For the buyer who has been demonized along with the seller in the
Lagos state law, street trading actually provides easy access to a lot of goods
and services, and when you are trapped in the ubiquitous traffic hold-ups
across the city, running into hours oftentimes, it helps to just look out the
window and buy any food item ranging from fish, to fried meat and shrimps,
loaves of bread, biscuits, gala, meat pie, water, beer and any other drink. If
it is a rainy day and you need to step out of the vehicle, you can buy an
umbrella while in the traffic. You can also get served hot milk, tea or coffee,
or have a shoe-shiner give your shoes a new, clean, gleaming look.
On a sunny and humid day,
and you are thirsty, you can have very cold fan milk, or any other drink to
cool down your system. Pop-corn, roasted maize, walnuts, name it, everything is
available by the roadside, as the traffic crawls. If you have issues with your
phone, or your wrist-watch, or even your clothes, you can buy new ones on the
streets. Books, musical CDs, electronics, even sex toys, and aphrodisiacs.
There is a special connection between traffic and street trading. But there are
also challenges for all parties involved: for the buyer, you could get sold
fake or risky stuff, and your money could be stolen – always collect the goods
and your change before you hand over any amount.
The sellers always have to
contend with physical risk and sexual abuses, run-ins with extortionist law
enforcement officials, nerve-wracking exposure to the elements, and competition
for space. People sell on the streets because they cannot afford to rent shops
or erect structures, and in any case, government is often part of this problem.
Markets are taken over by the authorities with the intention to modernize them,
but when the shops and stalls are built, the original traders can no longer
afford them because they would have been taken over by the rich and prized beyond
the reach of the poor who are then forced onto the streets, thus deepening the
agony of the displaced and the marginalized. This is the story of Tejuoso
market in Lagos, as is the story of others across the country. If street
traders had a choice, they would also acquire permanent structures where they
can display their wares in safety. If they could help it, they will also sit in
the comfort of air-conditioned vehicles. Traffic and street trading further
define an existential part of the urban social order, and in Lagos as
elsewhere, the character, pulse and soul of the city.
The convenient tendency for
government officials is to dismiss the street as the haunt of miscreants,
criminals and the dubious and street trading as a nuisance to the social order.
This is what Governor Ambode of Lagos has done. The trigger for his televised
sanctimony is the recent clash in Lagos at Maryland and Ojota, involving the
law, traffic and street traders with tragic consequences. We are told that Kick
Against Indiscipline (KAI) officials had given a hawker the chase, that fateful
day. As the young man ran across the busy expressway, he found himself in front
of an on-coming state-government owned BRT bus, which crushed him instantly –
his intestines gouged out. This resulted in mob action.
In the process, 49 BRT
vehicles, belonging to the state government were torched, and according to the
Governor, it will cost the state government “almost N139 million to put those
buses back on the road.” The Governor sounds as if the loss of these buses is
more painful than the death of Nnamdi, the street hawker who was chased to his
death. Haba, Governor, se oro ni yen! The Governor needs to be reminded of the
over-zealousness of KAI-LASTMA officials and the recklessness, also, of BRT bus
drivers, and the fact that N139 million may replace buses, but it will not
replace a life that has been lost. It is also hard to believe that the
Governor’s position is based on the outcome of investigations, which try to
distance the state officials from the accident, and even if this is so, the
decision to exhume a law that is to all practical purposes, a dead law, only
enforced opportunistically, does not fully address the issue. A law is dead as
an instrument of social justice when it is openly defied, disregarded, resisted
and attempts to enforce it are openly ridiculed, and the state itself finds its
application difficult in the face of the people’s preferences and choices. The
test and impact of any true law is in its application.
To get hawkers off the
streets, government must provide alternative opportunities and invest more in
social capital. The menace of traffic hold ups should be addressed and a proper
transportation network must be in place. Shops and stalls must be affordable
and accessible and markets should be located in user-friendly locations. Street
hawkers are constrained by their social circumstances, most of all, by poverty.
To check street trading, government must also address the rising threat of
rural-urban migration. Lagos as a growing megalopolis is the destination of
choice for all kinds of adventurers from Nigeria’s hinterlands, they arrive in
the city, and having nothing to do, they manage to buy a basket, or a tray,
which they fill with goods that may not be up to N5,000, and they jump onto the
streets, struggling to earn a living as the traffic crawls.
To push them out is to
destroy the only dream they have of remaining human. The state government
should take a second look at the law: perhaps the most urgent thing is to
insist that anyone of school age, must not be found hawking, during school
hours. And no matter what, Governor Ambode should not rob us of the humour of
the streets, a rich therapeutic part of life and living in Lagos. I remember as
I say this, those young, nubile girls on the streets of Lagos who sell drugs
and local herbs. They all have the same qualifications: their front-lamps are
permanently in the North, staring directly into a man’s eyes. The girls are
coy, friendly, optically tempting, and they only target men as customers. Even
when you insist you don’t need what they sell, they won’t let you be.
“Oga, buy this tablet now.
Or taste this drink. Madam will thank you for it.”
“Madam? She must not even
know I spoke with you!”
“But she will thank you, I
swear.”
“You have used it before?”
“Hen hen.”
“Okay. But before I buy
anything, I must test it. And na me and you go test am. Enter moto, make we
go.”
“Hen, go where? Oga, go
test am with Madam for house.”
“No. I will test it on you
first. Fine girl, you dey fear?”
Oftentimes, this is
followed by much laughter with the girl scampering off…
No comments:
Post a Comment
Contact Us
Email: publisher@absolutehearts.com
Phone/whatsapp: +2348027922363