THE biting economic downturn in the country has no doubt continued to take its toll on families who toil day and night to put food on the table.
Aside food, families are facing hard times meeting other needs of members of their respective households.
It is no doubt a daunting challenge in most homes to meet the educational, medical and other essential needs of the family with what comes from parents. In the harsh economic environment in which most families have found themselves, they necessarily have to devise other strategies to make ends meet.
In Benue State, Arewa Voice has found out that young boys of school-going age now resort to pushing wheel barrows in order to raise some money for feeding their families and paying for other needs.
This development has openly manifested in a situation where most markets in the state capital, Makurdi, are flooded with young boys armed with wheel barrows dutifully ferry goods for customers as if their entire lives depend on doing so. But they do that with a sense of duty and commitment all in a bid to raise money and take care of themselves and their parents.
Although it reminds people of the slave trade days and triggers a feeling of dehumanisation to see these kids who should be in school, hustling with wheels to lift goods for customers with raw grit, the little cash they take home at the end of the day’s struggle, gives them some form of fulfilment and satisfaction.
AV notes that at the Makurdi Modern Market most of the children, who fall within the ages of 10 and 14, could be seen running from one point to the other in the crowded market trying to secure the attention of buyers who need their services by moving their goods from the point of purchase to their vehicles or points of departure.
Some of the children who volunteered information on why they took to pushing wheelbarrow, said they were forced to abandon school and take to the “business” by the current economic hardship.
AV learnt that the young ‘businessmen’ lease the barrows from owners at the cost of N200 per day. They are therefore free to use the barrows and make as much money as they can on a daily basis and return them to their owners at the close of business.
Eleven-year-old Ben (surname withheld) told AV that he is a primary four pupil of RCM Primary School Tyoshia Naka Road, in the outskirts of Makurdi town and only pushes barrow to make some money on holidays and weekends so as to concentrate on his school.
Ben said: “Sometimes I also come to do the business after school hours, especially on days when my mother cannot afford to give us food.
“But I do this because my mother who also buys and sells yams in small quantity encourages me to do it because of the money I make to support her.
”On the average I make N1,500 daily and I hire the wheelbarrow for N200 per day. But on school days, if I want to work, the barrow owner gives it out at N100 for half day.
”Most of those who are doing this business like me in the market, hire the wheel barrows in the morning from a man who owns many of them and at the close of the market at about 6pm we make enough to support our parents.
”But in my own case, I push to enable my mother pay all that needs to be paid in my school and for my other three siblings because I am their senior. And I also support the house because my father is in the village and he does nothing for us.”
Another minor, 14-year-old Sonter, who is a JSS 2 student of a popular government secondary in Makurdi, said he does the barrow pushing with the consent of his parents.
”I have been pushing barrow for over one year now since things became so difficult for my parents who find it hard to take care of us. In our house I have three brothers and two sisters. Two of my other brothers are also pushing wheelbarrow like me to assist our parents because things are too difficult.
“Sometime I make N1,700 depending on how hard I hustle. The least we charge customers is N100 for every haulage depending on the size of what we are carrying. But there is no day I don’t go back home with N1,600 after paying N200 for hiring the barrow from the owner.
“If we do not do this ‘business’ our parents might not be able to provide enough for us to eat and also take care of our other needs, including school fees.
“My father is a civil servant and my mother sells tomato and pepper at the Wadata Market. Before now, we were not doing this business but sometime last year my younger brothers and I told our parents that we wanted to go into the business and they gave us the go ahead. And since then we have been supporting our family from what we get daily,” he added.
Speaking on the trend, a trader at the Modern Market, Mr. Joseph Iyaweni, who decried the situation where under-aged children are made to labour to earn a living to support the family, however, blamed it on the present economic situation in the country.
He informed that in the past, those who engage in wheelbarrow pushing in the markets were matured men, “but suddenly we discovered that under-aged children have taken over the business and here in Modern Market like in most markets in town they have taken over.
“Parents push them into the market to hire wheelbarrows and hustle for those buying goods in order to help them push the goods to where they parked their vehicles or to the bus-stops.
“They carry the goods according to their sizes. The very small ones among them who are less than 12 years carry less weighty goods while the bigger ones among them carry heavier items.
“It is unfortunate that these children are engaged in this kind of activity at this time of their lives but their parents must be helpless in the present circumstance in the country to have the courage to send their children out to the market when they know that they can end up mixing with the wrong persons and indulge in social vices.
“You will find them in almost all the markets in Makurdi. Go to Wurukum, Wadata, North Bank, High Level markets; they are everywhere. There is nothing anybody can do about it. It is wrong but it is a creation of the harsh economic situation in the country.”