She’s a septuagenarian. She was sighted comfortably sitting beside her wares of biscuits, sweets, groundnuts and other articles under a broad canopy right opposite the popular Traffic Light, Ikpa Road, Akwa Ibom State.
From a distance, one could see the widow gazing at the vast, endless, and ever-changing canvas of the sky colors. Her eyes were locked onto an imaginary object. She was simply lost in deep thoughts. Thoughts of life after her husband departed, thoughts of the good old days and thoughts about what life has apportioned her since inception and a drab business atmosphere flooded her subconscious!
The mother-of-three thus appeared idle, as she had no customers in sight to patronise her when Saturday Tribune walked up to her for a chat.
Like several struggling folks across the Niger Delta, the current economic debacle has taken its heavy toll on her. She has three mouths to feed! Life is simply tough; her voice betrayed this assertion. However, in the midst of the distressing atmosphere, she still betrayed some smiles and was willing to engage in a chat with our correspondent. She obliged a slice of her eventful life story and how she’s navigating the present reality:
“My name is Ekaite Akpan from Okono Local Government Area, Akwa Ibom State. I am 60 years old and my mother is still alive at Ikono.
“I am a widow, as my husband died some years ago when I was in Lagos, hustling. When my husband died, I left Lagos for Port Harcourt.
“I have three children. Before my husband died, I was selling cooked food at an Air Force Base in Ikeja, Lagos.
“Everything changed when my husband died because even though I was hustling to take care of some of the family bills, he was a support system; but when he died, the responsibility of training my three children fell solely on me.
“It was during that period that my family members asked me to come back to Port Harcourt where my children started and finished secondary school.
“When I was there, I was selling the same petty things I am selling here, but the difference is that the business was booming there and it was the proceeds I used in training them through secondary school.
“However, I left Port Harcourt because my first daughter wanted to start a job here. She complained of the discomfort and risk of Port Harcourt life as she was kidnapped twice when we were there.
“She was kidnapped because her paternal grandmother was a white woman and she got her complexion so the kidnappers thought that she was an American.
“She was taken to Aba from Port Harcourt by her kidnappers but by the Grace of God, she was brought back to Port Harcourt through prayers and fasting without paying a dime.
“It was because of this that my family insisted on us relocating back to Akwa Ibom State.
“So when I came back here, I started my business selling sweets, biscuits and other petty things because that was what I was selling in Port Harcourt.
“But the market here is very bad as people hardly patronize me. I think the problem is with the location so I have told my daughter to look for another place for me.
“The challenges I am facing here is lack of sales. Two of my children are in the university and if not that my eldest daughter is working to support us, I have no idea how I would have coped with life here. Sometimes, I still think that it is because I am just starting.
“Another challenge is the continuous increase in the prices of foodstuffs. If the prices of foodstuffs remain as they are, people working honestly to make money won’t complain, but imagine you are making N20,000 from your business at the end of every month and a basket of garri is N3,600, how much are you going to spend for feeding in taking care of yourself and your children in a month?
“The country is suffocating us; they want to choke us out of this life, we’ve never had it this bad, but with God, we will pull through.”