For Mustapha Bello, a grain seller, fate may have brought him from Sokoto State, to Ibadan, Oyo State, but he would not be cowed by predicaments or allow the environment where he operates in Dugbe, affect his psyche and business.
He expressed frustration at the lack of sales occasioned by the poor economic condition and lack of financial capacity by many Nigerians. According to him, he will keep on with life even if it continues to throw him in directions he doesn’t want to turn.
He affirmed that as long as one is willing to fend for oneself, there was no distance such person cannot reach to make ends meet.
“We face a lot here, you know when you are away from home you would receive different kinds of treatments but one must be patient. Sometimes, people deliberately provoke us just to see our reaction and then mistreat us if we react timidly. What we face here are in different shades but we have no choice but to just hand them to God.
“Sometimes when we are treated badly and we talk, it takes an ethnic turn and cause more problems, which is not what we want. Therefore, we have no choice but to be patient in such instances because we believe that God brought us here, and we leave everything to Him.
“You see, this place where we sell our commodities, we pay different kinds of levies without question. But sometimes the levy collectors would come and ask us to leave without explanation. Some of them go as far as pushing our merchandise to the ground. Sometimes you realise that you are older than the person who treated you that badly but you just let it slide for the sake of peace. We do not want something like what is going on in the North to happen here, we want peace,” Bello told Saturday Tribune in an interview.
He said he had many unforgettable experiences of how bad some people had treated him at his stall but he believed that everything was only a reflection of those people and not him.
“There is a lot of mistreatments that I will never forget. One of them was at time I was measuring beans for a woman and someone just kicked the beans with his legs. When I complained, the man just slapped me. My beans were all over the ground and people and vehicles trampled on them. I packed the ones I could pack and left the rest on the ground.
“While all of that was going on, I thought to myself that if I retaliate, I would only be beaten and humiliated. After some time, the unruly man came back with his friends to mock me. They called me ‘were’ (madman). I didn’t bother because they were the ones who were acting like lunatics.
He also said his customers who used to make bulk purchase no longer came around, thereby causing a reduction in sales.
“The market has gone down drastically; people no longer buy like before. I used to make up to N150,000 but now we barely make N60,000. That is how bad sales have become. People who used to buy up to 20-30 measures of beans no longer come.”
He lamented how hard it is for him to be far away from his family and expressed the desire to return home sometime soon. He stressed that some situations back home required his presence but he could not be there because of the great distance.
“You know, there is no place that hustle will not take you to. I have never thought that I would come to this city to start a business. It is the will of God that brought me and when it is time to leave, He will direct us.
“I left my family in Sokoto. I visit them after every three or four months. I thank God because they are safe from the insecurity in the state. But I am praying that things will work out so that I can go back to my family. It is not easy to be away from them. There are things that require your presence but the distance makes it difficult and your attention is most times divided and there is no peace of mind,” he said.
He prayed that the new administration will do better than the last one and deliver on its campaign promises.
“For the new government, I pray that God will direct them and grant them the grace to do more than the last administration did. And I pray they will deliver on their campaign promises to the masses.”
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