The Nation Newspaper

Tag: HAWKERS

  • A crackdown on overhead bridge hawkers

    The Federal Capital Territory has taken steps to ensure that hawkers steer clear of overhead bridges, GRACE OBIKE reports

    The daily tragic drama on the roads is coming to end. Pedestrians often shun the overhead bridges and enact a sprint across the busy expressways at a huge cost to themselves. Many have been hit and injured or killed by fast-moving vehicles.

    The administration of the territory had long warned of the dangers of not using the bridges but many residents would not. Now, the administration is enforcing the order, by clearing the bridges of hawkers and the destitute.

    The FCT administration on its part has attempted on several occasions to implement laws that will force residents to use such bridges, in some cases, fences have been built in places like Nicon and some strategic locations in Abuja to prevent residents from crossing the road but such fences are in most cases pulled down.

    To prove the administration’s readiness to curb street hawkers and enforce the use of the overhead bridges, Minister of the FCT Malam Muhammad Bello visited the pedestrian bridge in Ludge, a village along the Airport Road.

    There, he reiterated that such bridges were constructed for easy movement and passage of residents crossing the highways but not meant for hawking, begging or for other nuisances and therefore a stop must be put to it forthwith.

    He directed the Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB) and the FCT Task Team on Environment to as a matter of urgency stop hawkers using pedestrian bridges for their activities in the Federal Capital Territory.

    Deputy Director/Chief Press Secretary FCT, Muhammad Sule made the revelation in a press statement where he credited the minister with warning warned that hawking and other activities are not acceptable on the Pedestrian bridges across the Territory and called for strict enforcement.

    He quoted the minister saying, “The Administration is not prepared to take excuses anymore; saying that they must carry out their statutory duty.

    “Malam Bello also instructed that the AEPB and the Task Team must also get rid of herdsmen still grazing in the Federal Capital City; noting, “you must find a way in dealing with that bizarre situation”.

    “He seized that opportunity to talk to the crowd gathered around the pedestrian bridge on why people should not use such places as shopping malls.

    “He told them that pedestrian bridges were also not constructed for miscreants and further warned that all activities must be very far away from the expressway ways.

    “These expressways are the gateway into the Federal Capital City and the seat of power of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and therefore everything must be done to keep Abuja clean from all environmental nuisances in line with the vision of its founding fathers,” Malam Bello stressed.

    The Director of the Abuja Environmental Protection Board, Mrs. Oluwatoyin Olanipekun and the Chairman of the FCT Task Team on Environment, Squadron Leader Abdullahi Adamu Monjel, accompanied the Minister on the unscheduled visit and promised to implement the law.

     

     

  • Can Nigerian child hawkers become child soldiers?

    Without any prevarication, my answer to thequestion above is a resounding yes. There is a great possibility that children who have suddenly become the breadwinners of their families can effectively morph into killing machines if and when the circumstance within which to do so presents itself. It is no moot point that children who have spent virtually all their childhood on chancy streets waging economic wars on behalf of their parents and carers will be easier recruits for psychopathic state and non-state actors dissatisfied with certain actions of the system.

    The towns of  many an African country appear to be incomplete without the unsightly scenes of children, all of them below the age of 18 and some as young as between seven and 12 years, hawking various items. In traffic snarls, they are there. You find them on many streets and in different corners of towns. Some of them sometimes rush up to you pushing their articles of sales to you and appealing to you, strongly in their child-like demeanours, to buy from them so that they can have some money to take home. Woe often betides many of them who return home without selling one or two sachets of a bag of pure water, a tray of 20 oranges, seven tubers of yams, among other items.

    Yet, there exist special laws that are meant to check the criminal abuse of childrenin many of these countries in which child hawkers abound. Many of them are even signatories to international treatiesand conventions on the rights of children, some of which comprisethe 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Geneva Conventions of 1949, the 1977 Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions, and the most celebrated 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child. In fact, many of the 54 African states have domesticated, through special laws,the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which is designed to safeguardthe innocence, spirit and human essence of childrenfrom being abused in any way.

    In Nigeria, for example, the Child Rights Act,which was passed at the federal level in 2003 and enacted by about 16 State Houses of Assembly thereafter,is extant but its letters and spirit are consistently observed in breach. If there is any proof that the Nigerian state does not value its future, we need not look any further than to how in spite of the availability of the law on child rights and protection many of its children are still losing their humanity and are being consigned to the abyss of danger and irrelevance. Indeed, Nelson Mandela was right when he piquantly observed that, ‘There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children. By allowing many of their young to become the effective main sources of income for their kinfolks, Nigeria and many African countries reveal themselves as huge failures and disappointments. After all, as Pope Francis argued, ‘a society can be judged by the way it treats its children’.

    Something stands out for me in my ongoingresearch of the absurd phenomenon called child soldiers across many African countries. It is that the same factors that make the use of children as combatants in hostilities possible are very much the same catalysts that give rise to the use of many children as the active breadwinners of their varied families. Just as many warlords and rebel groups depend on children they have dangerously drugged and armed with brutally efficientAK-47s(now easier to wield by children) to make theircase with their states, so do many adults – parents, aunties, uncles, and guardians – wait endlessly on children who should be nurtured with education and nourished with sumptuous food for their daily growth. Thus, the childhood of many Nigerian children are way off from being paradisal.

    Modern warfare has changed profoundly. The unjustifiable involvement of children in hostilities is responsible for this change; in the same way that technological advance in weapon production contributes to it. And states that have lost the capacity to provide good governance, ensure strong institutions, and improve the socioeconomic conditions of their peoples arethe hotbed and fertile grounds for the breeding of children as vicious combatants and killers. Examples subsist in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, the Sudan, the Congo, Uganda, Myanmar, and Colombia. As examples from Sub-Saharan African countries like Liberia and Sierra Leone show, children become easy recruits as combatants when there is overwhelming failure of development.

    Therein is the homogeneity in the factors that inform the catastrophic aberrations of child soldiers and child hawkers. Countries where children become breadwinners are not those with preventablesocioeconomic disorders, decaying public infrastructure, foregrounded youth unemployment, political instability, and insecurity. They are thosein which the measures of the quality of life like security, income, education, homes, food, and water are in horribly low percentages.

    As P. W. Singer explains with available statistics from the US Department of Labor, the Bureau of International Labor Affairs and the UN Population Fund, a disproportionate numbers of children around the world, especially in Africa, are uneducated, malnourished, marginalised, and disaffected. More than 250 million children live on the street; over 211 million children must work to feed themselves and their families; and about 115 million children have never been to school. The unprecedented number of child hawkers and the UNICEF incredible figure of 10.5 million out-of-school children (between ages 6 and 11) in Nigeria clearly attest to the horrendous condition of many a Nigerian child.

    Another striking similarity: Demagogues, rebel groups, and warlords exploit the vulnerability of children. They indoctrinate them. They are easy to maintain as cheap labour. They are expendable and easily replaceable – among others, Romeo Dallaire, P.W. Singer, Donald Dunson, Michael Wessells, AlcindaHonwana, Chris Coulter, MyriamDenov, and Ishmael Beah revealingly expatiate this point in their various books.

    In the same vein, parents and guardians who use children to hawk and generate or supplement income do no less. They cash in on the vulnerability of the children and wrongly make them believe it is their duty to provide for the family. Those who use children to fight their senseless wars – political, religious, and economic – and those who fail in their duty to check the abusers of children all do terribly infernal evil to the tapestry of humanity.

    The challenge is for the Nigerian state to rouse itself from the lethargy of insensitivity and indifference to the plight of children in the country. It must protect its children by seriously applying the Child Rights Act against the unconscionable adults who enlist children in street hawking. Otherwise, the same adults who deem it apt to get them to fend for the family will recruit them as soldiers if and when the condition arises. States that have enacted the Child Rights Act must enforce it. Those yet to do so must give up their anaemic excuses and join the crusade against the destruction of children. We must be genuinely awaken to the legal, moral, and ethical implications of ensuring that some children grow well, receive sound education while a prohibitive number of others waste away on the streets seeking daily bread for adults.

    To prevent this present crop of child hawkers from becoming easy recruits for the devastating task of soldiering, governments at all levels in Nigeria must seek to improve the socioeconomic condition of the people. The poverty in the land is not natural. Something has to be done to transform this abominable condition. If the socioeconomic condition of the people continues to exacerbate,and if round and sound education is reserved for the children of the high and mighty, the rank of child hawkers will continue to swell, they will become easy and willing recruits for violent agitators and we may not have a country to call ours again. Now is the time to heed this call to action.

    • Ademola writes from ObafemiAwolowo University, Ile-Ife.

  • Hawkers make brisk business ahead of Lagos City Marathon

    With less than 48 hours to the Access Lagos City Marathon, hawkers make brisk business in front of the Teslim Balogun Stadium office and starting point for the race.

    The 42km race is scheduled for Feb. 6 by 7 a. m.

    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that soft drinks hawkers and snacks vendors were seen displaying their wares for athletes and enthusiasts visiting the stadium to buy.

    Some of them told NAN on Thursday that they used the opportunity to sell their items and make extra money.

    They said that they had made more gain because of the large number of people coming to the place in the last two days.

    Risikat Kola, a soft drink hawker, said when she heard that the marathon’s office was at the stadium, she knew she would make more sales.

    “I was selling at Barracks bus stop but when I heard that people are trooping to Teslim Balogun Stadium, I knew it was a great opportunity for me to sell.

    “I have made more money selling my drinks here in the last two days unlike when I was at Barracks bus stop,’’ she said.

    Another seller, Bisi Olowokere, said she was excited selling her goods, adding that she had gained more than while hawking.

    “I am happy that I am selling here; the people coming into the stadium have bought a lot from me. I have been here since Tuesday,’’ she said.

    Ganiyu Salman who hawks snacks said he used the opportunity to make brisk business, adding that such did not happen every day.

     

  • Herbal drug hawkers and public health

    Over the age’s faith healing, acupuncture, and many more alternative sources of medication existed. From Africa to Middle East, Asia mirror, Far East Asia and indeed the rest of the remote inhabited Earth, the story is the same. The holy bible also recorded a story of how Naaman, a captain in the then Syrian army who was affected with the dreaded disease of leprosy, was cured by dipping himself in the River Jordan for seven times.

    The way and manner herbal medicine and sometimes orthodox drugs are advertised and hawked in public places in Nigeria dishearten and calls for indicate attention from relevant authorities. In motor parks and markets places, both in urban and sub urban areas, the story is the same. All manner of information determination is employed by these merchants to trade and advertise their wares. The social and print media, radio and television, bill boards and megaphones mounted on top vehicles. The noise they generate in most cases is source of worry and discomfort to innocent citizens.

    The desperate mobile advertisers and marketers claim that their products have NAFDAC numbers and are capable of curing all known illnesses.

    Because of the NAFDAC name attacked to the medicine, the unsuspecting public falls prey. Many people now resort to self medication without going to hospitals for diagnosis and advice? Medical doctors and other certified health workers and paramedics complain that many people especially rural folks rush to hospital only when they are at the point of death. This has resulted to increased mortality among the down trodden in the society.

    • Dickson Nnaji Ogbodo

    Agbani Town,

    Enugu State.

     

  • Photo: Hustlers in Mile12 Traffic

    Photo: Hustlers in Mile12 Traffic

  • Bankers Committee moves against naira hawkers

    Bankers Committee moves against naira hawkers

    The Bankers’ Committee met in Lagos yesterday and decided that hawking of the naira will no longer be acceptable.

    Managing Director, Enterprise Bank Limited, Mrs. Mary Akpobome, who spoke on behalf of the Committee members, said it has been discovered that the naira is hawked by some merchants on the streets across the country, saying the practice has to stop.

    She said such practice, which is not permissible in advanced countries like the United States of America and United Kingdom, should not be encouraged in Nigeria.

    “We appeal to the people involved in this act to desist from buying and selling the naira on the streets or face the consequences of their actions,” she said.

    Akpobome said the Committee notified various agencies to go after the perpetrators, adding that both the buyer and seller of the currency will face the wrath of the law.

    Kola Balogun, who represented the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Director, Banking Supervision, said the ongoing publication of the debtors’ list is to ensure that the financial sector is stable. He said the CBN will follow up on the prescribed sanction for the delinquent debtors, including ban from accessing the forex market, adding that the publication of bad debtors’ names on national dallies will continue on regular basis.

    He expressed surprise that a bank can publish the name of a non-existent borrower in the media, adding that where such is the case, the bank and customer should resolve it amicably. “Some delinquent debtors have been named. The banks followed their loan books and I will be surprised if a bank publishes non-existent debtor as owing,” he said.

    Managing Director, GTBank, Segun Agbaje, said nothing has changed in the operation of domiciliary accounts in the country, except that foreign currency deposits are no longer acceptable into the accounts.

    He said: “Interested persons will continue to pay school fees or medical bills through the official forex window. I want to assure you that legitimate transactions will pass through the official window. The forex is available in the banks people with legitimate demands should follow the right procedure and get it”.

    On the cash-less policy, Managing Director, Wema Bank Plc, Segun Oloketuyi, said only five states and Abuja are implementing the policy. The states are Lagos, Ogun, Kano, Rivers and Anambra. He said the Bankers’ Committee is working on getting the policy rolled out nationally and called on banks to embrace the policy nationally.

  • Relocate beggars, hawkers from highways, FRSC urges Amosun

    OGUN State Sector Commander of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) Adegoke Adetunji has appealed to Governor Ibikunle Amosun to assist in evacuating beggars off the Sango-Ota Bridge.

    No fewer than 100 beggars, he said, besieged the bridge daily, hindering the flow of traffic.

    Adegoke said this is against the traffic regulations.

    He spoke at the yearly campaign/enlightenment organised by Ota Unit Command in conjunction with Shell Nigeria Gas Limited for road users at the Sango Main Park.

    Adetunji was answering questions on the accident on the bridge that killed three and a similar mishap on Benin/Sagamu Expressway in which 13 Olabisi Onabanjo University students died.

    The Sango crash, he said, was caused by a Scania Truck with registration number TTD 219 XA which rammed into some commercial vehicles which have turned the bridge into a garage.

    The FRSC chief said the fatality could have been more, if the vehicle had run into the beggars on the bridge.

    He also appealed Amosun to relocate  hawkers on the expressway and all roads in the state, saying this would enhance free flow of traffic and enable haulage vehicles to manoeuvre in case of brake failure.

    He said: “75 per cent of the expressway starting from toll gate to Sango has been occupied by traders. This is dangerous and worrisome should accident occur.”

    Adetunji urged tipper owners and Independent Petroleum Marketers to stop using underage drivers and ensure that their vehicles are in good shape before embarking on a journey.

    The FRSC, he said, is partnering with the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), and Vehicle Inspection Officers (VIO) across all the states, to regulate the trucks that would be used for haulage and ensure that rickety ones are taken off the roads.

    Any haulage truck that doesn’t meet the required standard will not be allowed to move on the road, while any under-age driver would be arrested and prosecuted, Adetunji said.

    Adetunji enjoined all tipper/truck owners to ensure that speed limiters are installed in their vehicles before the September deadline.

    Any commercial vehicle caught without the device after the deadline, he said, would be impounded and the driver prosecuted.

    Adegoke said two drivers must henceforth accompany trucks embarking on a long journey.

    This, he said, would guarantee that no driver drives more than the normal four hours at a stretch and observe at least 30 minutes rest.

    The Ota Unit Commander, Mr Matthew Olonisaye, urged vehicle owners and other road users to respect traffic laws, especially during raining season.

    According to Olonisaye, the public enlightenment is imperative because the Corps is saddled with the responsibility of creating a safer motoring environment through sensitisation, education, regulation and enforcement of traffic laws.

    He appealed to motorists to ensure that their vehicles are in good condition before going on a journey to avoid endangering other road users.

    He urged vehicle owners to ensure they use good tyres.

    Tyres, according to him, come with expiry dates, once a tyre begins to wear-out, it becomes more likely to be slippery on a wet road and this can lead to accident.

    Tyres, Olonisaye said have four years life span and the expiration starts from the manufacturing date e.g.”4002″. The first two numbers “40”, he said, represents the year of manufacture.

    He urged the vehicles owners to note the manufacturing and expiring dates while buying tyres, and warned against the use of fairly used tyres.

    Olonisaye urged drivers to ensure greatest caution when driving in rain or at night. Windshield, wipers, pointers, headlights and rear lights must be working perfectly. He reiterated that eyes, hands and brains must be in good shape, adding that compliance to speed limits is required.

    He appealed to all drivers to ensure the use of seatbelts and avoid drunk driving and overloading.

    Commercial drivers are enjoined to comply strictly with the use of passengers’ manifest for the identification of all passengers in case of accidents.

    The Chairman, Ado/Odo-Ota Local Government, Mr Rotimi Abdulrahman, urged the drivers to be defensive drivers.

  • Kaduna bans beggars, hawkers for security measure‎s

    Kaduna bans beggars, hawkers for security measure‎s

    Kaduna State Government has commended the people of the state for promptly embracing the crucial necessity of watchful vigilance and attention to security.‎
    This was as the government announced further measures to enhance public security in the state. 
    It said: “All beggars and hawkers are to stay off the streets until further notice. Any beggar or hawker found on the streets will be arrested, until these measures are relaxed.”
    This was contained in statement issued by the Special Assistant to Governor Nasir El-Rufai, Samuel. It read that: “In addition, government reiterates that the ban on motorcycle taxis (achaba) remains in force, and the law will be strictly enforced in this regard.
    “The government hereby urges all citizens to report all suspicious persons and movements to the security agencies, and to afford these agencies their maximum cooperation. 
    “These measures take immediate effect,” the statement read.

  • Fagge: Govt policy has turned dons to butchers, hawkers

    Academic Staff of Nigerian Universities (ASUU) President Nasir Fagge has said the Federal Government policy for universities to generate funds internally has converted professors to butchers and hawkers.

    He said ASUU’s struggles were predicated on the belief that the university system is deformed, its driving philosophy mortally damaged and its established purpose stillborn.

    Fagge spoke at the 63rd University of Ibadan (UI) Postgraduate School Interdisciplinary discourse on the topic “ASUU struggles and the Revitilisation of Public University Education in Nigeria”.

    The ASUU president lamented that there was a systematic agenda to paralyse public university education to make way for a market-based privatisation of university education, adding that Nigeria’s leadership lacks integrity in governance.

    He said:”IGR policy of government has meant a shift of focus to production of bread, pure water, fish and meat sale.

    “Universities are now competing with the peasant traders they are supposed to serve. Some, such as the University of Ibadan, close their campuses to goods from outsiders and run a close economy while the Department of Economics teaches competition and free market.

    “Professors are appointed as butchers, hawkers and supervisors of enterprises that are at the best a waste of time and energy.

    “Scarce manpower is diverted from the classrooms and laboratories in the pursuit of enterprises that are incongruent with the university mission.”

    Fagge said the leadership quality since independence evinces the negative outcomes of the university system, adding that the irrelevant educational curricula, programmes and pedagogy in universities have succeeded in producing poor leaders and imitators rather than innovators.

    “More than seven panels have been set up by successive administrations to evaluate conditions in public universities.

    “The failure to implement reports of such panels was due to failure of integrity in governance.

    “Contemporary assessment of products of the system characterised them as unemployable and lacking in basic social, emotional and literacy skills.

    “The educational curricula, programmes and pedagogy today are as irrelevant and unrealistic as they were in colonial times.

    “However, we must agree that the system is effective in producing imitators, poor leaders and culturally disconnected individuals.”

    The ASUU president noted that private universities render below par services and engage in unwholesome practices to attract and retain students yet provide only three per cent access to university education, despite Federal Government’s approval of new ones.

    “It therefore shows that the direction of university education presently can only lead to loss of identity, national disintegration, sustenance of dependency economy and a political ideology of dominance and exploitation.”

    In his welcome address, the Dean, Postgraduate School, Prof Adeyinka Aderinto, said qualitative public education was not negotiable, adding that ASUU struggles have helped improved the infrastructural and manpower development in universities.

  • Hawkers take over Abuja streets

    Hawkers take over Abuja streets

    There is no food for the lazy man. No one knows this better than residents of Abuja where the cost of living is only suitable for the rich. Many of them took to hawking and have since become a ubiquious sight in the nation’s capital.

    In order to survive, the average residents try their hands on all sorts of businesses-tailoring, transportation, dry-cleaning, car washing, trading, among other things.

    While some traders have shops, some who do not have mount containers, kiosks or even make shades with umbrellas by the roadside, while some others run after a moving vehicle along with their goods.

    These diligent traders, unmindful of the implications of selling by the roadside, go about their businesses without the fear of being crushed by a moving vehicle.

    Worse still, some of them display their goods on the expressway irrespective of the heaps of dirt surrounding them.

    These road hawkers are never scarce in places such as Deidei Junction, Phase 3 Expressway, Second gate, Zuba, etc.

    What is surprising is that even young boys who should either be in school or with their parents at home are seen running after vehicles in motion just to sell their goods.

    They trade varieties of edibles such as gala snack, handkerchief, bottled drinks, fruits, while some others sell car wipers, picture frames, Teddy bears, etc.

    When our correspondent approached one of the young boys who hawks along Phase 3 Kubwa express road, he narrated he kicked-off hawking after the demise of his father 2 years ago.

    The 11 years old boy who schools in one of the primary schools in Kubwa said his business starts immediately after school and closes by 7pm, adding that he hawks other edibles such as fruits and satchet water.

    Asked if he is not scared of being hit by a vehicle, he said: “I get scared sometimes but God is my father and he knows my mummy needs this money to train me and my younger sisters  in school”.

    With smiles on his face, he continued: “I get plenty money from this thing I sell and people dash me money. Whenever I give the money to my mother she blesses me and I am happy.”

    For Mrs. Zitgwai Umar who who sells fruits by Deidei expressway, death is inevitable irrespective of were we are.

    Her words: “Anywhere you are, if God says your time is up, it is up. So if we are selling on the main road, if God says we will die, there is no way to escape from death. You come for it you go for it”.

    The fruit seller who seemed fearless of when death calls, revealed that she has witnessed several accidents on Deidei expressway.

    “I have seen many accidents on this road but what will I do? Are my God? Whenever there is a car accident, I run for my life and still come back because this is the only way I can survive.”

    Also, a road commuter who plies from Zuba to Wuse/Berger, Mr. Simon said that he has witnessed a lot of accidents condemn the lives of so many road hawkers.

    Citing instances, he said: “About three months ago, a trailer that failed break Dankogi, Zuba express road, ran into all these roadside sellers and killed so many of them while some sustained injuries. Again, a car recently hit one of them at deidei junction and from what I saw, I don’t think he would survive it”.

    Mr. Simon observed that road hawkers see using the pedestrial bridge as tiresome and so suggested that government should construct wires exactly the same way they did at NICON junction to prevent these hawkers from wasting their lives in the name of making money.

    For Mr. Shaibu, who sells car parts at Deidei junction, he said it is disheartening for people to sell goods where there are heaps of dirts especially when such goods are edibles.

    He said that those that sell edibles such as suya, tuwo, masa, awara, Gurasa, Denwake and the like usually come out every evening to sell not minding the dirt surrounding them.

    According to shaibu Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB) chase these roadside hawkers who litter everywhere with dirt but they still come back because this is their own way of getting their daily bread.

    He however praised the AEPB for a job well done but urged them to do more by providing a waste bin where the refuse will be dumped as it is detrimental to the health.

    He also recommended that government should provide a place, very close to the bus-stop, where the roadside food sellers would sell to hungry passengers, who would rush in to eat, as some of these roadside hawkers are victims of the ongoing demolition in Kubwa.”