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| .Makoko traders plying their trade |
Toyin Oluwatobi wakes up in the morning at 6am and cooks a variety of food enough to feed 50 people. Then, she prepares her paddle and canoe for the day’s work; the only means of transport for her goods, which also serves as her shop.
One thing is sure though, by 3pm when she retires to her wooden house, the food would be completely sold, Oluwatobi told PUNCH Metro.
Life in Makoko, a Lagos riverine community in Yaba Local Government Area of the state is nothing like one would find within the metropolis.
Majority of the residents of this fishing community, depend on food vendors like Oluwatobi to eat daily.
When our correspondent visited the fishing community, it was noticed that the community live entirely on the goods sold by women and girls who paddle around the community in their canoes, laden with various goods.
By morning, most of Makoko’s men would be off to their fishing spots or sawmills. The boys would either be away to a school constructed with wood in the area, or at the loading dock, waiting for passengers to ferry around the community.
Makoko traders do not have the luxury of shops, which those who trade on land have. So, they load their items on their canoes and paddle around the community until they or the goods are exhausted.
Sweating as they rigorously steer around the corners of the community, these women provide the main economic sustenance, which the residents of Makoko depend on.
While they move about, anxious residents wait at the entrances or windows of their wooden houses and beckon on them.
A food vendor, Mrs. Seun Okueso, told PUNCH Metro, “What we cook is what the people eat. They do not have a choice because majority of the people here cannot afford to cook in their homes. You can see the reason why. If they do, what if they forget to put out the fire and it burns down the wooden house?
“Apart from that, it is easier for the people to buy the food from us than to cook in their houses. We save them a lot of stress. Cooking in our kind of houses is not as easy as it is in normal buildings.”
As our correspondent moved round the community, different canoes were encountered laden with food or household commodities that one would find in normal shops.
Explaining why the traders prefer to hawk the goods in canoes instead of setting up wooden shops at their homes, a woman selling beans cake, told our correspondent, “Who do you think the residents would prefer to buy from; A trader who brings the goods to their doorstep or the trader who expects them to get into their canoes and come to her house?”
Even though the traders seemed to be the only source of meals for the residents of Makoko, they said business is not as rosy for them as it seemed.
“I have eight children and I have to feed them all. I need to send some of them to school as well. Children are treasures in this community. The little I get as profit I use to feed my children. My husband is a fisherman. He takes care of the education of those who are schooling.”
Another trader, Mrs. Elizabeth Bajowa, said the trade was the only way she could support her five children.
“Two of them are schooling in Benue State and I have to send them money. The work starts by 6am and I don’t rest till 5pm. I sell a lot because the people don’t cook or have the time to go outside the community and buy these things we sell.
“Despite all these, livelihood is still a challenge here. What we get as profit from this trade is barely enough to feed us.”
Our correspondent also noticed that the girls, who take part in the business activities of the community, have become masters of the paddle.
Paddling with dexterity, some of them were seen in canoes laden with liquid soap, soup ingredient and other goods.
A girl who identified herself simply as Kate (not English), said her parents could not send her to school.
“I am six years old. I have two elder brothers who are in school. I’m helping my mother with her trading. She has two canoes. I take one to hawk soup ingredients while she uses the other for hawking food,” she said in her native Egun language, while our correspondent’s guide interpreted.
The guide,
In Makoko, the residents buy water from sellers, who get the commodity from boreholes in neighbouring communities.
The water sellers load them into boats that can accommodate big plastic tanks and move around the community. Some store the water in tanks in their houses and sell to other residents.
The scarcity of fresh water has to do with absence of pipe borne water in the community. For a community where all household wastes go into surrounding water on which their houses are built, a leaky potable water pipe can be hazardous.
One of the Baales (village heads) of Makoko community, Chief Abraham Mesu, told PUNCH Metro, that the traders need help from the government.
“We depend so much on these women daily but their business has not been that good. I think it would help them a lot if they can get loans from the government to improve their trades.
“Even their husbands who are mostly fishermen still use the fishing method that was passed down to them by their forefathers. Most of these men fish through the night and catch fish worth N150,000 sometimes.
“So, you can imagine how much fish they would catch if they are using modern fishing method. Another problem is that there is no storage system here. So, even if they catch fish worth N200,000. They have to sell everything that day or it would get spoilt.”
Mesu appealed to the government to come to the aid of the traders and fishermen of Makoko in order to make life a little easier for them.
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