Insurgency: How Borno youth are reviving businesses
Personal Finance
As the insurgency crisis in the Northeast abates following the Nigerian military’s successful series of raids on Boko Haram’s camps in the region, youths in Borno State have embarked on many entrepreneurial initiatives to revive the pieces of their businesses destroyed by the insurgents.
The youth, many of who spurned attempts by Boko Haram to recruit them as foot soldiers, have vowed to fight poverty and idleness to survive. They have the support of the state government as they take steps to make good that resolve.
Attacks on markets and other commercial centres, as well as on government and private institutions in Borno state have put a lot of people out of business, with their consequent increase in poverty level among the people. Menial jobs are not easy to come by, while local government staffs whose area councils have been taken over by insurgents were forced to take refuge in Maiduguri. Residents still live between the devil and the deep blue sea in form of possible attacks from the remnants of the Boko Haram sect and military harassment. One of the youth who spoke to the Daily Trust on Sunday, Modu Fannami, said, “If you are a young man with a beard, soldiers will accuse you of being a Boko Haram member. If you are not wearing a beard, Boko Haram will attack you thinking you are a security operative.”
Today across the state, the youth can be seen from dawn to dusk idling away under trees and in scrap vehicles with no meaningful ways of living. Fannami, an operator of the commercial tricycle, otherwise called keke NAPEP, informed, “You will go round the whole of Maiduguri and will not see anyone to give you a N200 job to do for him. You will be hungry and nobody will give you food or any financial support. It was a hopeless life. At a time, you will move freely only in your area where you are known. Nobody seems to trust any stranger.
“There is no farming activity in the state as most of the farmlands are no-go areas. Bulk buyers of everything in our markets are foreigners that mainly come from neighbouring Niger, Sudan, Chad and Cameroun. All the routes to those countries are closed. That has crippled commercial activities in the state. At a time, to feed in Maiduguri was a problem,” he said.
Apparently dissatisfied with the situation the Borno youth have found themselves, some philanthropists and the state government introduced several programmes aimed at creating jobs for the teeming youth as a way of fighting poverty, encouraging self-reliance, reducing frustration and providing jobs.
The tricycle business has taken over from motorcycles as the major means of transportation in the metropolis after the ban on the use of motorcycles, which most youth have embraced to earn a living. But currently, hundreds of commercial keke NAPEP can be seen on the streets of Maiduguri driven by the youth.
Shetima Isa Kadalla came into Maiduguri as an internally displaced person (IDP) from Gwoza. Kadalla told this reporter that he escaped from Gwoza about a year ago when Boko Haram insurgents invaded it.
“I was in a camp here in Maiduguri for about three weeks. But on a second thought, I left my wife and parents in the camp and entered town to start doing something.
“A Maiduguri-based classmate introduced me to his relation, a government worker who bought a keke NAPEP and offered it to me on the hire purchase model to use for commercial purpose. After I finished paying for that first one, I collected another. I have three of them now. I employed two others to ride my two keke NAPEP while I am riding the third. I have rented a house and removed my family and parents from the camp.
“I am also aware that majority of tricycle riders in Maiduguri collected their keke on hire purchase and a good number of them have since paid and are now the owners. There are several others working in the keke value chain as revenue collectors, unionists and ticket officers. We are all making a lot of money from the commercial tricycle business,” he said.
Apart from the commercial tricycle business, hundreds of other youth in Maiduguri are into other small-scale businesses that range from the call centre, mobile phone repair, mobile phone configuration and installation of assorted softwares in moble phones, to sales of phone accessories and the likes.
Though many youth engaged in the various aspects of the mobile phone business dot strategic areas in the town, the main GSM village is called ‘Jogol’ at the Post Office area. At the village, which is always congested, shop owners are always in a face-off with phone hawkers, who they allege undercut their business by offering customers low prices and quick services.
Zanna Kyarimi was, until he struck gold, so to speak, a mere SIM card seller who also registered new GSM lines for buyers. That was before he got a loan from the state government and opened a shop where he now sells both new and used phones.
“When I was only registering lines, I was making N1,000 to N1,700 every day. But now that I am selling phones, GSM lines, accessories and doing registration, I am making an average gain of N5,000 daily. The loans many of us got have assisted to uplift us. Majority of the people you see doing business here used the loans they collected from the state government to invest in their businesses,” he said.
Another beneficiary of the loan, Ahmed Abdulrahman disclosed that the state government gave interest-free loans ranging from N50,000 to N500,000 to each of the beneficiaries to be repaid within a year. Abdulrahman said the state governor assured them that as soon as they repay the loan, another set of beneficiaries would also be given.
Hamza Wakil, also a GSM business operator but who did not benefit from the government loan was optimistic it would soon be his turn. Wakil spoke of the traders’ long-term projection of the phone business: “When Governor Kashim Shetima noticed that Jogol is too congested and people are finding it difficult to do business here, he built a standard plaza for us along Maiduguri road that will comfortably contain all of us.
“I am sure the military and civilian JTF on patrol in the area that are using the place as shelter is what is delaying our occupation of the building. I am hopeful that by the time we take over the plaza where we are sure of guaranteed security of our property, we shall start importing phones and accessories directly from abroad so long as the state government’s gesture continues.”
The state government has also tried to capture unskilled traders in its Youth Empowerment Programme when it constructed corner shops at strategic locations in the state. The shops are being used for selling assorted fruits and vegetables.
At one of such corner shops in Maiduguri, a fruits trader, Gajimi Bakura told this reporter that he was selling clothes about three years ago with an investment of N80,000. But then, tragedy struck. Bakura narrated: “Eight days after I supplied clothes worth a total of N67,000 to some male and female staff of an area council in the state and was waiting for the month to end to collect my money, the council was invaded by insurgents.
“When the state government built this corner shop, a council staff assisted me to get one. I started with N3,000 fruits that I collected on credit. Today, I have an investment of N280,000 and my business is progressing daily. With a little more support from the state government, we shall make Maiduguri a hub of business again,” he said.
Many teenagers are also not left out as most of them are into the repair bicycles and sale of bicycle parts. Madu Sani, 16, is into the repair of bicycles at Bolori, along Baga road. He told his story: “I started repairing bicycles two years ago. Since the military banned the use of motorcycles, many people have resorted to the use of keke NAPEP for commercial purposes and bicycles for private use.
“With a drastic increase in the number of bicycles on the streets came the need for more markets for selling bicycle parts and for repairs. I won’t be able to know the spots for repairing bicycles along Baga road alone not to talk of Maiduguri as a whole. They are so many. I earn about N300 from repairing bicycles daily. The common complaint is flat tyres. To mend a tyre costs N50,” he said.