Anonymous12:32
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…
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