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…
Article by: Reuben Abati
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