…Their tears, toil and trauma

By HILDA UGWU and
PEACE RAHMAN

On the street, in marketplaces and inside high-end offices, the city of Lagos brims with women workers who expend equal sweat and sagacity as their male counterparts at their various works. Some of them have moved from contributing to the family’s financial pot to become de facto breadwinners of their households.

As a family’s primary provider, a woman daily juggles work and family obligations. Aside from the drudgery of eking out a living, many a woman is also overburdened with unending emotional distress.

Three women took difficult roads to the breadwinner role. They reveal to Saturday Sun their private hell––filled with tears, toil and trauma––that comes with being their families’ sole providers.

Victim of fortune reversal

Anyone familiar with Ganiyu Street, New Site, Ijegun, Lagos, will know of a small roadside restaurant that opens from sunrise to sunset, where the morning menu consists of rice and beans, and roasted corn and yam in the afternoon. Out of this Lilliputian business conducted in a small shed, a family is sustained.

The owner, Chiamaka Eze, fair-skinned, petite and thirtyish, will tell you “it has not been easy being a breadwinner. It is not a funny thing. It’s not an experience one wants to face.”

Her life started on a bright note in Nnewi, an enterprising city in southeast Nigeria. She remembers the good old days with nostalgia: “When I first married my husband, he was doing very well. He had a chemist store, and business was booming very well.”

Life took a bad turn when her husband was duped by 419ers (fraudsters). “We had to leave Nnewi. We relocated to the village, until one of my husband’s friends invited us to Lagos, to come and start life afresh.”

Her husband began his Lagos life as a driver of Keke Marwa (tricycle) procured on hire purchase. In no time, it became glaring earnings from a tricycle was insufficient to raise a family of three children.

“We could not even pay our rent. It dawned on me that I had to find something doing. I started selling roasted and cooked corn to supplement my husband’s income. Unfortunately, my husband was not lucky enough. His tricycle was always breaking down, to the extent that he would borrow money to repair and sometimes would not work for a whole month because of lack of money to fix his tricycle. The hardship drove me to intensify my efforts. I added roasted yam, plantain and potatoes.”

The harder they tried, the more difficult life became. At a point, the Keke was parked for three months, forcing the couple to think outside the box.  “I gave him the small amount of money I saved to start selling spare parts of Keke instead of him sitting at home. Still, the business did not work out.”

Left with no option, it was time to take a drastic step––with a leap of faith.  “I advised him to sell his Keke and inject the money realised into my own business. I added cooked beans and rice and turned the business into a mini restaurant.” With business booming, she invited her husband to join her at the restaurant instead of him idling at home.

Today, Chiamaka Eze counts her blessings, “The business I started with just N10, 000 now fetches me as much as N50, 000 at the end of a good day’s work.”

There is no rose without thorns. She pays the price in two ways.    

One: “My schedule is tight. I combine taking care of the family with the business. I wake up by 4:00 am every day to start preparing food to sell. At the same time, I prepare the children for school and also do a bit of housework. I rest only on Sundays.”

Two: “After selling the whole day, I would be so tired I go to sleep the moment I hit the bed. My husband only enjoys me on Sundays.” To make up for lost time, the couple worked out a weekly timeout when they stroll around. “We go to a restaurant and have a drink.”

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The curse of a lazy husband

Zainab Sani, a resident of Satellite Town, Lagos, earns a living as a tailor. A kiosk in front of her shop––containing foodstuff and household provision––serves as an alternative stream of income. To the question of being a family’s breadwinner, her answer comes out blunt and concise––“Honestly, I’m not comfortable with it.”

She spends the next few minutes venting her pent-up frustration, speaking in a halting, but coherent English heavily accented with the northern accent. What comes out of her is best described as the ‘ravings of an overburdened wife.’

“I married at the age of 35. I had been a seamstress before marriage. I have had my shop with apprentices working under me. Because I did not marry on time, there was pressure from my parents and friends to accept my husband’s offer when he asked for my hand in marriage. Sani had been coming to my shop every now and then to profess his love to me. I liked him, not loved him. But the pressure from my parents became too much, and I decided to accept his proposal without really knowing much about him.”

After this terse prologue of Zainab Sani’s life, more depressing chapters of a longsuffering wife unravel. “After our marriage, I found out Sani was a lazy man. He didn’t have a specific job. He’d go out in the morning for menial jobs and return in the evening with little money that could not sustain us till the next job. God blessed us immediately with children. We have three children.”

Her husband’s lack of a steady job is but one dimension of the problem. His personality has jagged facets. “Sani smokes and drinks a lot,” she says coolly.  “At times, his friends would call me to come and take him home when he is dead drunk. This has continued for a very long time. I tried to change him, but I found out he cannot be changed. I made up my mind to put in more efforts and enhance my business. I added provisions and soup ingredients at the front of my shop. I feed the family. I pay the children’s school fees. I pay all the bills. I have a tight daily schedule. I would prepare food before going to the shop. My husband assists me in taking the children to school.”

Continuing, she opens yet another appalling chapter.

“Sani’s flirtatious life is also a problem. It is either he is at one place with one girl or at a hotel with another. One day, he came home drunk as usual, went outside, grabbed our landlady’s daughter, trying to force himself on her before he was stopped by her father. He almost got himself killed, and he got us a quit notice. We were refunded our rent and asked to pack out. Yet, people say I’ve not tried. To be honest, I’m scared that one day he would misbehave with our daughter, the reason I can’t leave him alone in the house with the children anymore. That is why they spend the rest of the day after school with me at my shop.”

Unexpectedly, she breaks down. “People say all sorts of thing about me, that I don’t care about my marriage. I have nowhere else to go. What would happen to my children if I leave him? My relatives all wanted me to get married. Despite the sufferings, they want me to remain here so that I would not bring shame to the family. They would disown me if I leave him.” 

Is there any need to ask a question about her romantic life? Surprisingly, she gives another frank response. “I did not marry him out of love in the first place. I just married him hoping I would develop the love for him over time, but his character is not helping matters at all. I’m not enjoying the marriage, just managing it––for the children’s sake.”

The only consolation for the dead-end marriage, she says she found in her in-law’s good nature.

“My mother-in-law and sister-in-law, they love me so much they call me every day to know our welfare. This is one of the reasons I am still in the marriage. They know that I’m suffering in their brother’s house. They appreciate and encourage me, and constantly pray for him to change, and for Allah to give him a good job.”

A husband crippled by accident

A victim of the vagaries of life––that is the best summary of her travail. You would find her selling tomatoes at Alakija market, Festac Town. She started life unprepared, put in the family way at the tender age of 15 by a 24-year-old auto-mechanic apprentice. Today, the last of her four children is a Senior Secondary School 1 student.  For the Ogun State indigene who identified herself as Mrs Babatunde, the journey through life has been one hell of a tough ride.

“I married my husband, Anthony Babatunde because I got pregnant at a tender age, at the time he was 24 years old and a mechanic apprentice,” she begins in clear, honest voice. “His parents compelled him to marry me and I was staying with his parents until he was able to rent his own apartment after three years. From my mother-in-law, I learnt the business of trading in fresh pepper and tomatoes. My husband gave me money to start my own trading in pepper.”

The business prospered, she reminisces, to the extent that “I stopped demanding money from him.”  Within six years, they had three more children. Sadly, their life took a turn down the dark tunnel where “nothing good lasts forever.” Calamity came calling after they had their last child. Her husband had a ghastly accident that crippled him and left him with a speech disability.

“After the accident, my in-laws made our lives a living hell. They found a way to chase us from the house. Unable to move or talk, my husband was helpless. He watched them take everything from us. After much threat, we left the house for them and moved into a one-room apartment, my husband, four kids and I. I put more efforts in my trading and by God’s grace, my business prospered. My children are doing well.”

She did not mind responding to the intimacy question, albeit a sad, poignant response. “I don’t have a romantic life anymore,” she struggles for the right words. “Toni sometimes cries. Though he cannot speak, I understand he’s suffering severelly. It just happened there’s nothing we can do about it. It’s our cross to carry. I pray for the grace of God to continue guiding me and keeping me steadfast in His ways.”