It’s a sorry sight. It was Tuesday morning. They move together in pairs. They are boys of an average age of 13. With some chains of magnet, they sniff around, as it were, for used metals in gutters, heaps of refuse, drainages, roadsides, just anywhere under the scorching sun. Welcome to the world of teenage scavengers in oil and gas-rich, but impoverished Warri, Delta State.
Looking dirty and sweaty, Pius Preye Gift and Peter Dosor, held a long axe, tilling a mount of sand by the roadside of Etuwewe in Warri, Warri South Local Government of Delta State. The area isn’t a slum; but it’s an admixture of sprawling wealth and abject penury. Saturday Tribune, on sighting the duo, approached them for a chat. Although it’s Yuletide season, pupils are already at home for holiday – a time so important for the kids, whose parents are indigent, to hustle for survival before school resumes.
One of the two offered to speak first: “My name is Pius (Preye) Gift. I’m 15 years old. I’m in SS1, Social Sciences class. I like English Language. I usually have excellent in it. I’m an Ijaw boy from Ayakoromo-Agbekobo in Burutu Local Government Area of Delta State.” He looks unkempt from head to toe – a gory absence of some motherly touch hovers through a boy, who however, longs to be a doctor without offering science subjects.
His background is his albatross. While the father hustles at Ayakoromo, an Ijaw coastal town by the River Niger, Pius is left to navigate through life all alone in Warri, having lost his mom to the cold hands of death over a decade ago. He practically began to fend for himself earlier in life.
“My dad is at Ayakoromo where he works. I lost my mom September 25, 2012. We’re seven in my family. Five boys, two girls.
“My dad sells kerosene in the river. My elder sister is married. Others are in the village.
“I want to be a doctor. I like to have my hospital. I’ll be needing help to accomplish this.
“I hustle by picking iron metals around town. We sell it at Etuwewe. We sell in kilos. I make about N1,500 or N1000 per day. A kilo is N130. I can get 10 kilos, sometimes, per day.
“I use the money to eat and take care of myself. I don’t know if my dad knows I do this. Although he pays my school fees. He’s not always at home. But even if he knows, so far I’m not stealing, he wouldn’t budge,” he noted with an aura of indifference.
Pius’s colleague in the scavenging hustle was a bit camera-shy. Peter Dosor is also Ijaw, but of the Arogbo stock in the coastal part of Ondo State.
He speaks: “I am Peter Dosor from Arogbo-Ijaw, Ondo State. I’m 15 years old. I live at Ogbodu Street at Kpolokor area. We’re four before my younger sister died.
“I want to be a tailor. I like designs. I’ll start learning tailoring next year. My parents pay my school fees. I’m a science student.
“Whether I go to school or not, I want to be a tailor. My mom buys kerosene in the river to sell. My mom knows I’m hustling. My father is in the village while my mother is in Warri here. My mom knows I hustle.”
Both Pius and Peter are products of a failing society. They have learnt, too early enough to take their destiny in their own hands if they must survive in an unfair world.
Like Pius and Peter, many under-privileged kids across the country might go unnoticed, hungry and angry during the festivities while their counterparts in wealthy homes have fun in excess.
How they feel when they see their age mates from influential homes in expensive, fully airconditioned SUVs while they sweat around scavenging used metals to make ends meet?
Pius was quick to interject thus:
“When I see children of rich people, I feel like being one of them. They are lucky. I wouldn’t know why my dad didn’t go to school.”
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