*Traders speak out amid crackdown *Say hunger and poverty leave them with no choice By John Alechenu ABUJA- It is 1:45pm on Herbert Macaulay Way, one of the busiest roads in the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria. Top ranging vehicles ply here as a routine because of the presence of the National Oil company on this road. On this particular day a black colour Sports Utility Vehicle idles outside the popular NNPC Towers. Men in suits pace around them, shouting into phones. Across the road, cars crawl into a Total filling station. Horns blare ceaselessly in a bid to draw attention. But that causes more distraction of its own. However, beside the station, nylon sheets are spread on the ground. Sachet drinks, groundnuts, cucumber, roasted yam, boiled cassava and roasted corn are arranged in rows. Umbrellas and old campaign posters with faded faces provide shade for traders and customers. This is like a full market in session but it is not. It is actually the mini-market that hawkers have unwittingly created to make a living amid the soaring sun. “This sun can fry an egg,” Paul, a regular at the roadside eatery, says as he fans himself with a file. He shops here as a means of avoiding the high stakes supermarkets that dot the length and breadth of the city. Less than a metre away, Mama Ada, 52, arranges boiled corn and coconut in a plastic basin. Her customers are bankers, drivers and dispatch riders from offices in the old NITEL building. She is calling out prices when two white Abuja Environmental Protection Board, AEPB, vans screech to a stop nearby. Fifteen-year-old Hauwa is coming from the other direction with a plastic bowl on her head. Inside the container are various goods for her customers – Water, Gala, chewing gum and sweets inside. Men in a black car jump down and Hauwa drops everything and flees with the speed of light to avoid being taken away. She disappears between taxis in seconds, leaving her tray and her goods behind. Sachets of water and other items scatter on the road. A driver menacingly swerves to avoid brushing them. Other traders who see the task force in time also took off. Mama Ada drags her basin behind an SUV. A young man with phone chargers tucks his wares into a backpack and disappears into the crowd. In less than two minutes, the stretch is almost empty. This has become the daily routine of hawkers, who had since been barred by the FCTA and the Abuja Environmental Protection Board, AEPB. But they have refused to leave the road irrespective of measures churned out by the authorities. They flog the busy areas such as Wuse, Garki, Area 1, Berger, Area 3, Jabi. Hawkers defy government bans to sell in traffic, at bus stops and around government buildings. ‘How Do We Feed?’ For Hauwa, life as a teenager has been difficult and requires struggling to survive. She shares a single room with her two siblings and three cousins in a slum outside Mpape. The room has no running water. They fetch from a borehole 10 minutes away. At night, they sleep on mats on the floor. Her parents are farmers in Niger State. Two years ago, bandits attacked their village. They took food, money and two goats. Months later, drought destroyed the rest of the harvest. “School finish for JSS2,” Hauwa says quietly. “No money again.” She followed her aunt to Abuja. The aunt sells vegetables in Garki Market and sleeps in a shop. “People say money dey for Abuja. Nobody go tell you say e hard for poor person to get am,” she says, switching between broken English and Hausa as she sets up another tray 30 minutes after the raid. She borrowed the tray from another hawker. She admits that on a good day she makes between N3,500 and N6,000. Every Friday she sends N10,000 to N15,000 home through a bus driver to her aged parents. “My capital na N8,000,” she says, wiping sweat with the back of her hand. If they break my tray today, na two weeks food gone.” She knows the risks. Last month, a friend was hit by a motorcycle while running from AEPB in Wuse. The girl spent four days in hospital. No one paid the bill. The friend now hawks with a limp. Yet Hauwa is back on the same spot. “If I no come, how we go chop?” she asks. Her story is not different from that of Felicia who hails from Nasarawa State. “I am a secondary school student. I am selling this groundnut to help my family.” According to her, she has been “lucky enough” to evade the several raids by AEPB enforcement officers because, “I only sell cooked groundnuts and I don’t go near areas where they patrol.” ‘Task Force Collect My Okada’ At Berger roundabout, Musa, 28, moves between cars selling phone chargers, screen guards, earphones and car perfumes. He is fast. He knows which window will open and which driver will wave him off. Before the okada ban in 2023, Musa was a commercial motorcyclist in Mabushi. On a goo
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