Hustle! Hard!
African man arranging his tomatoes to sell.Image: The Fiscal Times. I am really irritated with able-bodied people who are lazy. Let me start by telling you a story of someone I am going to call Ahmad. I went out to get some eggs one evening. The shop which I usually get provisions from was out of eggs and I was directed to the nearest Mai Shayi. When I got there, I saw a line of men waiting to be served. The speed with which the noodles and eggs were prepared was a testament to constant practice. The Mai Shayi had all four of his stoves on, plus a firewood fire for the huge pot of tea. It was a study in efficiency. I am sure Ahmed must have thought I was waiting for dinner like the rest of the men. He didn’t speak to me immediately but I was fine with it. It was an opportunity to watch him and how he ran his business, how he interacted with his customers, how he timed his meals, and how he served said meals. I watched him for about 15 minutes before he saw me. He asked what I wanted. I said eggs. He asked if I wanted pepper with my eggs. I said I just wanted raw eggs. He said they were N35 each. At this point, I smiled. Even though most people sold eggs for N30 apiece, I told him to give me two. As soon as he had answered me, he completely deleted me from the framework of his mind. This was at 9:20pm. I went home quite impressed. He had shown a good degree of management in running his small business. I wished more young people were like him, eager to work hard and make that money. On another day, this time in the morning, I went out in search of a place to charge my phone. You see, we had not had power for days and though my Nokia battery was faithful, it had given up on me. As I walked down my street, I took my time to search for a phone shop. It wasn’t long before I got to Ahmed’s shop. He was already busy at his shop. As usual, he had a line of people waiting for him. As I registered the fact that this guy worked for at least 12 hours every day, I caught sight of a charging joint, which was a surprise to me because it was just adjacent to Ahmed’s shop. I quickly went there and realized that the shop belonged Usman; who turned out to be Ahmed’s brother. I felt really inspired by these two brothers. They ran businesses for at least 12 hours per day and they seemed to be doing well. What was really interesting to me was how obvious it was that they were not formally educated yet so industrious. On the flip side, many young people are unproductive because they feel they are graduates and should be paid at least six figures in a plush company with heavy benefits and vacation in Fiji before they should work. I must say I was quite impressed with Ahmad and his brother. Another thing I saw that really inspired me was a Mai Ruwa who was physically challenged. Now, for many people who do not understand the concept of a Mai Ruwa, let me explain it a bit. A Mai Ruwa is a person who pushes an Amalanke (a mini truck or maxi-wheelbarrow as the case may be) with about fourteen or sixteen 50-liter jerry-cans of water. It requires large upper-body strength to push the Amalanke uphill (as most Northern towns are). Most Mai Ruwa are lean, lithe and very strong. Back to my story. The Mai Ruwa, like I said, was physically challenged. He has just one hand. Looking at him, I could tell that it was a lot of hard work pushing his Amalenke to his customers, balancing it when he needed to stop, maneuvering it when it got stuck in sand or a collection of gravel and generally, transporting each jerry-can to the homes of his customers. Yet, with all these limitations, he still gets up every day, heads out to where he fetches the water, transports his goods and sells them. If that is not inspiring, I don’t know what is! One of the secretaries in my former office whose name is Mary is a very industrious and wonderful lady. I don’t know anything about her academic background but I know that she can hustle! Her 8-4 as a secretary is quite stressful but it doesn’t deter from going to her shop to sew clothes for people as soon as she closes. She seems to make lots of money from that venture – or so I assume – because most ladies in the office use her services for their African dresses. And to add to that, she bakes! And girl can bake! Her cakes are great; they might not stand a chance against Cake Boss’ but they are okay. And when she is free, she also plaits women’s hair. In essence, she is an enterprising young woman who knows how to get her hustle on. Why am I inspired by these people? It is quite simple. In a country where many youth are 25 and lazy, depending on the government to provide jobs, refusing to be innovative and what not, these people are shining examples of productivity. Nigerian youth are content with hand-me-downs instead of maximizing their exuberance. Quite frankly, it really is telling on our economy. I have to give it to the Igbo people though; they know how to hustle hard! They begin to groom their kids from about age ten in business and enterprise. Before they are eighten, these kids begin to branch out with their own side hustle and though I have never been to Aba or Onitsha, I know that great goods which could boost our economy are created there. Already, we have made-in-Nigeria cars by the Innoson group. Add that to the vast human
Lazy Youth
Photo by Retha Ferguson from Pexels I always hear stuff like, ‘There are no jobs in the country.’ In the past, I would have agreed to this. Now, not so much. I think there are jobs in this country…they just might not be the ones you want or are worth. You see, I used to be surrounded by many people who are above 25 who did not think they should apply themselves and work. They would sit all day at home doing nothing. They did not work, study, or keep themselves abreast of news and development stories from across the world. They spent almost all their time watching movies, goofing around or basically, wasting away. I remember one family that I used to know. They had all been through various levels of education, but they stayed at home rather than worked. The first daughter was different though. She would wake up, cook, clean, cook, do laundry and whatever else she needed to do. Then she would plait the hair of women and girls who came to visit her parents. She worked, but it was mostly free labor. It meant all that energy was for almost nothing. She was still dependent on her family for all her needs. Her siblings on the other hand? Pheww! They defined the term, ‘lazy’. They only seemed to watch television, eat, and sleep. When I lived with them in the same compound, I used to wake up early, head off to work and sometimes, return to the house very late. On one of my days off work, they were surprised to see me at home at that time. We got chatting and they chastised me for being a workaholic, saying they hoped I was paid lots of money. I laughed; I definitely wasn’t. They then said, ‘Don’t stress yourself oh’. For some reason, I remember being so mad at the statement. Don’t stress myself?! Really?! I wanted to retort that maybe they should stress themselves, apply themselves to something more productive than sitting around all day. But I stayed silent. As if to force me into talking, they went further to say they would only work hard when they expected to collect allowances of not less than a hundred thousand Naira. At that point, I got up and left. They had almost no value to add to any organization. They didn’t care that they were older and should be planning out their futures. They were content letting their parents fend for them; parents who were themselves old and barely surviving on retirement checks. I was, to say the least, quite disappointed with their entire outlook on life. I remember my first job after I graduated from school. The pay wasn’t even enough to cover transport expenses, so my dad had to take me halfway to work so that I could always have a little money. I didn’t need the job; my needs were pretty simple at that point. But I needed the independence! I didn’t want to ask my dad for things like sanitary pads or new underwear. I didn’t want my parents buying me clothes when I was a full-grown university graduate. And though the job was way beneath my pay grade, I took it and gave my best to it. I particularly want to address religious leaders, as their parents were Pastors and Preachers. Many of you use your ‘office’ as an excuse not to work. You ‘are doing full time ministry’ as you say. In my opinion, your everyday life should be your full-time ministry…whatever the faith you profess. That being said, get up and work! Write a book. Own a business. Work in a company. Do something other than live off the tithes, gifts and offerings of members who have decided to work. It is yours, no one argues that, but your congregation will respect you more if you were as industrious as they are. In fact, because leaders always lead by example, any religious leader who doesn’t work will have more unemployed people in the congregation than employed ones. I know first-hand that any religious leader that works has over 90% of his flock being hardworking. It really is a simple formula. We all need to work! It is not compulsory that it be a white-collar job in that plush office and with that fat bank account. Only a small percentage of the population will get those jobs anyway. Sometimes, taking a lower paying job can present an opportunity for greater improvement. Plus, it beats not having money and being dependent on people; especially if you are an adult. Done ranting! PS: This post is not to negate the economic factors that make living (and working) in Nigeria really tasking; because they are there. It is to address some of the entitlement of many young people who are not willing to put in the work to improve their lives.
