Nathaniel Jonah
28 April 2009
Abdullah Gambo, 39, is a resident of Mpape, a hilltop community not far off Abuja's elite Maitama District.
He ekes out a living in the nation's capital selling fuel by the roadside of a mechanic village in Apo, the community where most members of the National Assembly live.
For Gambo who left his Kebbi State's Bunza village for the federal capital in search of the Golden Fleece, the business of survival in Abuja could be quite challenging. As a trained motorcycle mechanic who does not have the financial capacity to acquire the tools for the practice of his vocation, he took solace in doing all sorts of menial jobs to keep body and soul together.
He recalled, "I was one of the casual labourers that built the National Games Village. Upon the completion of the place, I had to look elsewhere for a means of livelihood. When an old friend introduced me to the business of selling fuel along major roadsides, I was skeptical at first but when he disclosed to me the financial prospects, I gave it a try. Since then, business has been good. I have been able to pay my house rents, feed my family, keep my son in the university and meet other basic needs."
The current fuel scarcity makes a lot more money for the Gambos of Abuja. They set up kiosks of different sizes along major roads. At Karu Site, a suburb of the federal capital city, for instance, Gabriel Okpara, a middle-aged motor mechanic places a kiosk by a street adjacent to a proposed mass housing estate.
Okpara took to the thriving trade because it's a means to make money while practising his motor mechanic profession. "Whenever I need to service my customers' cars, I simply buy from my kiosk which fetches me a lot of money, instead of patronising other fuel sellers. I attend to my customers from my kiosk," he explained
Beyond being a mere alternative for Okpala, the sale of fuel by the roadside has grown over the years to become his major source of income, more so because his mechanic trade has not been doing well.
"On the average, I make between N2,000 and N4,000 on a daily basis, depending on the market forces but whenever there is fuel scarcity, I make double of that amount," Okpala disclosed.
Prices of fuel in Abuja's black market rose astronomically when queues appeared at filling stations across the city penultimate week as the speculation of impending fuel shortage made the rounds.
Investigation by Daily Trust revealed that most black marketers who had before the fuel scarcity sold their products for 100 naira per litre now sell for as high as 350 and 450 naira per litre. The price could be more or less and the differences in price depend on many considerations. The sharp-minded fuel racketeers size you and your car up, the status of the particular part of the city, the length of the queues by the surrounding fuel stations, and so on, before they bill you.
One Yusuf Adegoke, a motorist, cried, "The unwholesome activities of these touts are really depressing. One cannot imagine where they get their fuel from because when you drive into most fuel stations, they tell you they have no fuel, yet these boys display gallons of fuel by the roadsides around these fuel stations for you to buy at cutthroat prices."
Daily Trust observed that most motorists buy at the high prices because of the inconvenience of waiting possibly for hours at filling stations.
Commercial drivers have little to lose, however. They can always pass the cost to their passengers. One Oladele Fabiyi, a commercial cab driver, minced no words about this. He told Daily Trust, "I will buy from black market and go out to increase transport fare. We are together in this country. It's sad that we have no easy access to ordinary fuel that we produce so much. But business must move."
Fabiyi blamed the current fuel scarcity on Mr. President. He said, "This scarcity of petrol will expose President Umaru Yar'adua's government if he fails to arrest the situation quickly. If Yar'adua wants to follow the footsteps of Obasanjo, let him do that, but he should be ready to face the rage of the people."
Many roadside fuel hawkers do not stop at selling petrol. They also sell other petroleum products such as diesel, kerosene, and engine oil.
They attend to different customers who use the different fuels. Bullamah Abdul who has his kiosk around Karu Site Roundabout reveals: "We normally sell fuel to mechanics who want to service engines and cannot go to the fuel stations to buy fuel in small quantities. We also sell to private individuals who use fuel in their generating sets and cannot get to the filling stations.
However, Abdul's occupation as a roadside fuel dispenser is constantly threatened by what he described as harassment from the police who often swoop on him and his colleagues to hijack their jerrycans containing fuel and other automobile lubricants. When Daily Trust visited the numerous roadside fuel hawkers at the Apo Mechanic Village, several black market operators were bemoaning their fate.
One of them who identified himself simply as Ejike complained that the police would often turn up brandishing riffles and demanding for fuel. "They always come here asking that we give them two litres each or they would lock us up in their cells; we oblige them because we don't want any police cell," Ejike said.
He could see no reason why the Police would not let them be. He sought to justify his opinion, "We are only trying to make a decent living. We are better than those who vandalise and break NNPC pipelines to steal fuel, but even at this, the Police still harass us daily.
But despite the position of the Police on the illegality of their trade, Gambo and his colleagues are determined to remain in business, either because 'no law specifically prohibits' fuel hawking by roadsides, as they insist, or because 'man must eat,' as they will tell you.
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