Chioma Zikora wished she had the chance to a University education; her life would have been better if she got a chance at getting a University education, she thought.
“Things are very hard for me, I was kobo-less, so I think to myself what I can be doing, so I borrowed money and start frying Akara (bean cake), it was from frying the Akara that I saved up to 6,000 naira that I used to travel to Rivers State, I bought banana and groundnut, brought them here to Owerri in 2008 and started selling; things are still tough” Chioma affirms. The strain on her forehead, the wrinkles on her palm, and the sprinkle of white hair on her head tell how tough life had been.
Chioma arranged her banana and groundnut neatly on a tray on top of a rough wooden table. She beckons to passers-by, urging them to buy. Her 3 children also joined her. “We have been managing” the widowed mother of 3 explained: “I have been using the small money I make to train my children in school, my late husband’s family did not give me or my children any questions, it has not been easy but we have been managing”
She noted that as a petty trader on the roadside, she is exposed to the harsh treatment from the State tax authorities who she said are impatient, brash and rude: “those people that use to come and collect money from us, they say they are from the government people, they use to disturb us so much, they can even seize your market” she queried why the government should tax struggling businesses.
“COVID -19 affected me so much, before COVID 19; I have been going far in the business, before COVID- 19 it is the money that I was making that I used to train this my daughter- (she points at a young lady gazing intensely at the camera) she is in IMSU (Imo State University) and others, her brother has finished his Secondary School.
We were living fine but when COVID-19 came everything fell, we cannot go to the market, we thought we were going to just die, things are not easy at all at the time of COVID 19” she recalled how she survived on farming during the lockdown period. “we only got help from our church, they shared rice, and also a few things from friends that love you; that was how we managed our self that period, no single thing from government; myself particularly I did not benefit anything from the government during the time of the COVID-19” she maintained.
Still heavily impacted by the pandemic, Chioma ask for government empowerment: “For us as women doing petty business, the government is supposed to help us, they are supposed to remember us because when business is good, we will train our children better than the men can do” she said.
