Ogegbo Taiwo AbdulAzeez mirrors the interesting lifestyle of late night food vendors on Lagos Island
Food business is big business anywhere in the world. Lagos, Nigeria, is no different. However hard the economy may get, or even the hard-biting recession, food business is one business that will always thrive, regardless. It does not matter whether the starving man is broke or not, after all, ‘man must wack’, like they say in the local parlance. Also, hunger has no respect for time, which is why food vendors are available at any hour and time in cities like Lagos – late nights inclusive.
In Ogba, Ikeja, Ojuelegba and especially Lagos Island, food vendors can be found meeting their customers’ need with assorted delicacies. Whether the customer wants rice and salad, or he is hankering after any of the swallows, the food vendors are available between seven in evening and six in the evening. They open for business at 5pm and close 6am, to return again at sunset.Their main clients rage from motor transport workers, workers who work late into the night or do night shifts, and night crawlers in general.
Berkeley Street, Lagos Island is one of the streets where you have such nocturnal food vendors. Her name is Molewu Basirat, widely known as Iya Basit. She is one of the popular food vendors in the area and has been in the business for 12 years. Pausing amidst her busy schedule to respond to this reporters enquiries, Iya Basit said, “I come here every night from 7:00pm till 2:00am. On Sundays, I come in the morning hours till night and this is the best day for business for me. I sell all types of rice delicacies, spaghetti, beans, porridge, pounded yam and white soup, semo, amala, asaro, salad, etc. I dont usually have leftovers and I make gains. The prices depend on what the customer wants. Meat, like chicken, is from N150 N200.”
Asked why she prefers to sell at night, rather than the conventional daytime, Iya Basit’s response was, “We dont come here in the daytime because we sometimes have functions and events. But between 6:00pm and 7:00pm, we are already open here. And we only leave when customers stop coming, and that cannot be earlier than 1:00am. So, usually, we leave this place around 1:30am.
” We do have security challenges, because the police sometimes come around to quiz our customers, but we try to talk to them to leave our customers alone. Sometimes the people around think our customers are thieves or yahoo boys because they are mostly guys. So, we constantly have to talk to the Police around, as well as the people around, to leave them alone because they have only come to eat.
One of Iya Basit’s customers, Rasheed Ajibola, who waited patiently through this interview, while food was being prepared, said: “I come here almost every day because I love their food. Sometimes, I come earlier (than 11pm) because I live
around. Their food is very good and keeps improving.”
Another customer, Azeezat said she patronises the woman once in a while because her food is very delicious. She comes around mostly whenever she is not able to do her cooking herself.
It was 11pm, but there was no indication that the milling crowd in the area was going to thin out anytime soon. One question that popped up in the mind of this reporter as he took in the whole scenario, was ‘how do the vendors cope with perpetual sleepless nights? How do they cope with the stress of staying awake virtually every day?’
Olayinka Funke, another late night food vendor provides an answer.
“I do not feel sleepy at all, not to talk of falling asleep. I’m used to it already. To tell the truth, I even get energised the more when I think of the money to be made. Besides, Lagos is a big city that never sleeps. Though it is not easy, but with the help of God, I have become used to it and it has become easier.