She is a pretty woman, but 28 years old Miss Osazuwa Great Ehizibue, a final year student of University of Benin, is not carried away by her beauty, hence today she sells fruits on the roadside in the oil rich city of Warri when her school is not in session. Recently our crew of Tejiri Ebikeme and Frank Efe spoke with her right at her business place. As she was attending to our crew, she was also very busy giving the needed attention to her numerous customers. She is really “Great” and bound to go places
Please introduce yourself to us
My name is Osazuwa Great Ehizibue. I am twenty-eight years old and a final year Economics/Statistics student of the University of Benin.
You are selling fruits right now, how do you cope with school?
Despite the fact that I am a student, I am also a business woman. I have three businesses in school that helped me to take care of my school fees and other things. I am into selling of cosmetics, I bake cake and I also do makeup for those ladies who want to get married. I also have a salon where I make women hair; even my hair you are seeing right now, I made it myself about an hour ago.
How do you manage to create time for your studies?
Though it is a little bit stressful but it is something I like doing. I only do it when I am less busy in school. For instance, I only to go the Onitsha market during the weekend. And you know that marriages, burials and other festivities take place only in the weekend. And student only make their hair when they come back from lectures.
Tell us, how it all started.
I started making of hair when I was in primary school because then my teacher used to warn me not to come to school with tattered hair. I had no choice other than to make my hair myself because my mother was a very busy woman then. Ever since that time I started making hair and I went to learn more about hair making and after that I opened my own salon. My sister taught me how to bake cakes eleven years ago. I learnt the bridal make-up when I was learning how to make hair.
How come you are doing all these things to support yourself and to see yourself though school, where are your parents?
My parents are alive. My aged dad is no longer working and my mother works in a bank. These fruits that you see me selling belong to my mother and I have to support her.
From all indications, it looks like you like what you do and we see a situation whereby people are saying that there are no jobs while there are a lot of opportunities out there, what will be your advice to our youths of today?
Doing this makes me feel good because there is nothing like having your own business. My lecturer, Professor Ideh always tell me that there is nothing like paying yourself a salary instead of receiving it from somebody else because anything can happen. Girls, these days, instead of doing something good that will profit them, are fond of doing nothing other than hooking up to men. There are a lot of things that you can do out there that can fetch you money. Even if the capital to start is not there, you can pair up with someone. For example making of cloths, hair and other good things, you can pair up with people. If you have something doing people will respect you for who you are. It is good to go to school because you are going there to acquire more knowledge. Selling fruits is one of the fastest and quickest businesses in Nigeria now. If the place you are selling fruits is busy then you will have more customers. People are buying fruits everyday and instead of looking for white collar jobs that are not there, it is very necessary for ladies to delve into this business. We should not wait for government to create jobs for us. We can create jobs for ourselves and if we do that the nation will grow.
Why are you selling fruits? Do you like what you are doing?
Yes, I do. I really do because it makes me to get exposed to the ways of life of different people. It makes me understand the way and manner people buy fruits in Warri and Nigeria as a whole. And this gives me an idea of how I would want to be selling fruits in a big way after I graduate from school. And the idea is going to be all about selling fruits or doing other businesses. Even if I have a salon, I can as well be selling fruits on the road side because selling on the road side makes me happy as a lot of people come around to buy fruits and it exposes you to different kind of people. At least, in a day we can sell about ten thousand naira and that gives me joy. And even when people are telling me, “are you not ashamed to sell fruits outside”or“why are you selling outside?” I made them understand that the joy of a woman is for people to see her selling her wares outside so that people will not see her as an idle woman. And as a woman, I think selling fruits is one of the best businesses in Nigeria so far and I like doing it. Why I said this is that it is very quick to sell and it is not something you just put in somewhere and it will get spoilt. Everybody wants to buy fruits because everybody likes to eat fruits, and it is very good for the body. Apart from that, it makes your customers to know you better and even if you are no longer selling in a particular place, they will find a way to locate you and they will always like to patronize you. You can also be called for a catering business to come and present different kinds of fruits.
Since you have been selling fruits, what is the greatest challenge you are facing in the business?
Our greatest challenge in this business is that a lot of people like buying on credit which will take us some time to collect. Also sometimes some mad people will just walk up to our stores and pick any fruits and run away with them, and you know you cannot pursue them because of their mental state. Another big challenge is the male folks who will always walk up to you to tell you that they like the way you are selling fruits here and would want to be friends with you and if you are not careful they will want to take advantage of you. But if you apply wisdom and knowledge they will not find it easy to take advantage of you. Another challenge is the rain. Most of the fruits we sell do go well with water. If water touches them they get spoilt quickly.
How do you preserve these fruits?
Right now we do not concentrate on preservation because this is the raining season. During this time what you do is you study the weather before you buy any fruit. For example, watermelon and pineapple are not friendly with water. So what you do is you buy them in small quantity so that you can sell them quick.
What is your advice to ladies like you who want to go into business?
My advice for ladies is that they should sit down and think about what they really want to do in life. Going to school is very important and while they are at it, they should also think of something tangible to set their hands on that will fetch them money. They should stop flirting around because it will not solve the situation. It will only kill them, especially Warri girls. As we are talking right now, there are so many girls in the club, but that is not the best option. As a woman and a lady, you have to have something doing at hand even if you want to go to school. You can enroll yourself into different trainings to learn how to do a business or a trade. Even if you do not want to learn a trade you can start selling fruits and you can start with ten thousand naira instead of sitting at home doing nothing, prostituting and going out clubbing. Prostitution will not solve the problem in Nigeria. What will solve the problem in Nigeria is how to build a great nation by earning your own money. The youths of today make up the Nigeria that we have and if we are going to corrupt our nation today our children will also be affected. So my advice to the ladies is to look for something to do to earn a good living instead of prostituting or stealing around.
The reason some of these girls give for prostituting is that their parents do not have money to train them. Do you think this is enough reason for them to go into prostitution?
That is not an excuse because it will not solve anything. I was not born with any spoon at all and when I was growing up I discovered that depending on my parents will not help me at all. If your parents do not have money to train you to school, that is not an excuse for you to go into prostitution. What about those that are doing businesses and what about me that is selling fruits? Fine, my parents are training me, but it is not anything that I want that they will give me. I struggle to go to school and instead of calling my parents every now and then for money while I am in school, I still do things to earn money. I had to fend for myself so that when I graduate from school, it will not be difficult for me to attain a better goal in life. So, saying that because your parents do not have money that is why you are now using your body to get money is not an excuse. You have to set up yourself.
There are a lot of opportunities here in Warri. If you do not have money, you can work as a sales girl for two or three months – people are looking for sales girls every day. I worked as a sales girl in Plaza for some time and the money I realized I used to get myself to school. And when I was in school, I said to myself that instead of sitting down at home after lectures, I should set up a business and that was how I started my salon and it is working fine.
How much does it take to set up a fruit business?
With five thousand naira you can start a fruit business. It is just a matter of buying two water melon, some pineapple, and oranges and after the business has started growing you can add other fruits. You do not need so much money to start a fruit business. With five thousand naira you can start one.
What is your message to the government?
My message to government is that they should sit down and think of the lives of our youths who are perishing on the road. If I were the governor of the state, I will set up a poverty elevation programme. Since you cannot dash everybody money, you will give loans to the youths who you know will make use of the loan judiciously. If you do this, the youths will not be idle because an idle mind is the devils workshop, and that will make them to not to be thinking negative. The government should think of how to establish the youths so that they will not feel neglected. They youths are the future of tomorrow. The present government we have in place now will soon fade out in the next twenty years.
What is your final word for the Nigerian youth?
The key word is abstinence because as youths you should abstain from so many things. Sex is there, stealing, armed robbery, kidnapping, etc; if you do not abstain from all these negative things so many things could go wrong. If you go to the mortuary there are so many youths that there because of HIV and other things. It is high time our girls stopped jumping from one Chief to the other and begin to think of going to school and do a better business. To me, if do not go to school now, it is not a problem because you can always go later. But you should look for money and keep yourself busy so that your mind will not be dwelling on negative things. You should be thinking of counting millions and not all these small money that these chiefs give you. You should think of how to excel and stop the killing, murder, prostitution and other vices. Face the realities of life and have something doing think positive so that we can even be better than foreigners.
