The problem of teenage hawking is already becoming an embarrasing menace on the society. In this special report, ALIYU BASHIR took a walk round Abuja and reports that the rising number of traffic junction hawkers is akin to Abuja sitting on keg of gunpowder.
Teenagers are often seen on the streets and roads of Abuja, the federal capital of Africa’s biggest economy. This reality has become customary to millions of individuals living in the large city of Nigeria’s capital. Taking a walk on the sideways or driving through Abuja’s massive highway roads, one cannot but notice the multitude of young men and women struggling for their daily bread. It seems to be a paradox at the heart of the nation’s capital with all its glamour.
As if in this modern city built and constructed by the Nigerian state, armed with enormous petroleum wealth, is glared at with the problem of widespread poverty and tendencies for social calamity.
Talking to a young teenage hawker who goes by the name Sanusi Dan Ali on his life as a hawker, one sees hunger and anger in their naked form. This, he deeply expressed while speaking to Blueprint about how he barely makes N1,000 naira daily which is about $2 dollars by selling face masks at traffic junctions.
Sanusi, without doubt, is a metaphor of the many young boys littering the streets of Abuja and other Nigerian major cities.
Asked whether he was an Almajiri, he answered in the affirmative, ‘yes’. This is not peculiar to him alone, but many hawkers seen all over Abuja are Almajiris who have moved from various rural parts of the country into the city hoping for a better living as life in the rural areas have become agonising, more so with insecurity situation like banditry, insurgency and kidnappings in many rural areas.
Asked about education, he replied sadly by nodding in the negative. What about his parents, Blueprint inquired, he answered, “They are both dead,” he said. According to Sanusi, he has no one to look after him except himself.
On whether he has tried tapping into government incentives, he gazed at this reporter with a stare as if to ask, “Why the question?” Nevertheless, he answered in resentment with a question “What government?” He added, “As far as the Talakawa (a Hausa term meaning poor people) are concerned, they are on their own.”
UN on out-of-school children
This boy represents the reality of millions of young boys spread not only within Abuja but virtually all over the country a development that calls for concern. Like numerous others, he is, in his views, not only a victim of the irresponsibility of government but also the victims of societal negligence.
A recent UN report showed that Nigeria has the highest number of out-of-school children-well over 10 million, with the young Sanusi as one of the numerous wandering children. This begs the question: What then is the future of a country’s youth with no proper education? One can only imagine, perhaps a prelude for disaster.
Government appears to be failing in its role to provide necessary incentives for the economic and social development of rural areas as encouraged by different development agencies. The development agencies of the United Nations such as FAO (Food andAgricultural Organisation) as well as IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development) have severally warned on the looming consequences of this government’s act of negligence. The huge influx of rural peasants to urban centres, also known as ‘rural-urban migration,’ could be detrimental to social stability, especially if this class of people aren’t meaningfully engaged to earn a living. Indeed, that is the case with Abuja.
Culture of laxity (negligence)
However, there is need to look carefully at the contemporary society. Abuja, the nation’s capital is a classic example of a modern city. No doubt, the Nigerian state has succeeded in bringing modernisation to its citizens. And what is meant by ‘modernisation’ is the transformation of traditional societies and way of life into urban large cosmopolitan cities like Abuja and Lagos. However, what is inherent in such modern atmosphere and environment like Abuja is the alienation of ‘man by man,’ which simply means individuals no longer feel connected to the wellbeing of others.
Perhaps, pointing to a ‘loss of sense of community’ which was cardinal to old traditional ways of life, personal interest seems to have substituted solidarity. Because of this, what constitutes priorities these days are simply ‘means to ends’. And to speak of ‘ends’ is to mean economic well-being. To put it more bluntly, ‘money’.
Therefore, in other words, individuals in modern cities such as Abuja are more concerned with making money so much so that the society has produced a culture of laxity (negligence). Scholars of sociology who study human social interaction in modern societies have made this declaration.
Hence in this case, the society as a whole seems unbothered with addressing an impending crisis that may befall not only Abuja but the country, all because every man and woman is for himself/herself and God for us all.
Perhaps, it is the reason crimes in the city is a fact of everyday life, as no day hardly passes by without cases of crimes not being reported in the media-social and traditional media inclusive.
As mentioned earlier, ‘loss of sense of community’ is a tragedy of a modern life style and the society as a whole increasingly drifts on this path. How then can notions such as patriotism thrive in such a condition when everyman is for himself? It shatters the very foundation of a healthy society particularly in a nation’s capital that prides itself as the ‘Centre of Unity’ seeking to unite the vast diverse peoples within its territory. As the economy shrinks, people are continually propelled towards a future of uncertainty; therefore, to lose touch with the larger community would only worsen the current situation.
Young people like Sanusi are immensely becoming dissatisfied with the reality they find themselves in. Drugs and crime are vices that they can easily resort to. Of course, this is already happening.
The future is a thing of worry but as a society, the people can begin to address these issues gradually, but so long as the situation continues like this, the society might as well expect the worse.
