She was spotted sitting comfortably on a stool under a medium-sized umbrella by the roadside staring at a small tray containing wrapped pieces of bitter kola. Without a second guess, one could tell that the content of the tray was what she was living by – her only source of income.
Though shy, Mfon Aniefiok Mkpana, agreed to speak to our correspondent, on how even at 30, she took to hawking bitter kola on the streets for survival.
Hear her: “My name is Mfon Aniefiok Mkpana. I’m 30 years old. I’m from Akwa Ibom State. I am not married and I don’t have children yet.
“I started hustling immediately I left secondary school because I knew that that was the only way for me to survive.
“There was no hope for me going to the university even though it was a dream I have held on to since I was little.
“My father is dead so my mother is a retired teacher living in the village and I didn’t want to stay in the village and suffer that was why I started out by hawking popcorn and groundnut.
“Then, I would buy the raw groundnut from the market and cook it or fry it myself to save cost. This was in 2016.
“Then I would buy dry corn of N2,000, buy sugar, prepare the popcorn myself and I will get a reasonable amount of profit from it because things were still less costly than they are now.
“After two years, I wasn’t making much profit from the business again and that was when I switched to selling bitter kola in 2018 at Aka Road, Uyo.
“I don’t have a shade or a shop so all I have is my sitting stool and my umbrella to weather the rain and the sun.
“Sometimes, when the rain is too heavy, I just close business for that day. The few times I have had to stay in my spot while it was raining heavily was because I needed money to pay my rent. And I ended up very sick that I couldn’t come out for a few days.
“Bitter kola is so costly which makes it discouraging for some of us who are into the business, but whenever I think of quitting, I’m at a loss as to what to start because of capital and because of the way the price of everything is skyrocketing these days.
“A basket (four litre paint cup) of bitter kola that I used to buy for less than N3,000 as of when I started is now sold for almost N18,000.
“The bitter kola I was selling for N200 then, is now N1000 now. There is always an increment whenever we go to the market to buy.
“Sometimes, I am unable to afford the full basket so I buy in smaller quantity. This one you see here, I got it for N7, 000 and after selling, I will make N4,000 profit from it.
“Sometimes, customers will get angry and ask us if bitter kola is being imported and ask us the reason for the increment.
“What they don’t understand is that we can’t sell it cheap when we get it expensive; we can’t sell it cheap when every other foodstuff in the market is adding money on a daily basis.
“So, we sell to complement other things that we the sellers need in our daily lives, also. I mean, I can’t sell the bitter kola at the same amount I used to sell when garri was N800 for a basket now that garri is N3,500 for a basket.
“That is to say every item that is sold in the market today is being sold at a rate that complements the prices of other items.
“If I sell my goods cheaply, how do I get money to buy rice that is costly or even detergent that is adding money every day?
“The only thing I want the government to do for me is to make an effort in improving the lives of its citizens.
“They should make an effort in improving the economy of the country.
“The only people living well in this country are the politicians and rich people, the poor people are barely living.
“Living from hand to mouth is the word to describe what we are going through in this country, today.
“There are people who can’t afford more than two cups of garri daily and guess what, those cups amount to N400. It’s that bad!”
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