The Abuja water boys

Lugbe, a satellite town of the Nigerian capital, lies right on the road to Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport. And although it is located in what is Africa’s largest oil-producing region, the community of over a hundred thousand residents lack access to pipe-borne water. While the circumstances are giving hundreds of young men the chance to earn a living, it’s coming at the cost of their own education.
By Idris Akinbajo, Abuja
Salisu Abubakar wakes up every morning at five. He says his daily Islamic prayers and then commences work. The 18 year old is one of the water boys or mai-ruwa, as they’re called. They can be seen hand-pushing carts containing ten units of 20-litre kegs to transport water to local households.
Most of Salisu’s earnings – a daily average of 2.50 euros – are sent to his family in Kashi in north-western Nigeria’s Katsina state. That money is pooled with his father’s salary from working on a maize farm to buy food for the household.
Only the madrasa
While the money Salisu brings is very welcome, his job also has a downside, since it’s coming at the cost of his own education. Salisu says he would not hesitate to return to school if the opportunity arose. “I went to madrasa and finished in 2006,” he says, speaking in Hausa. “I worked on my father’s maize farm till January when I came to Abuja.”
In fact, the only education Salisu got was at his local madrasa, the Qur’an school children begin at age four or five. “I have three sisters who are married, some of my brothers still work with my father on the farm, while others are in the madrasa,” Salisu says reluctantly about his polygamous household. His father has two wives and 11 children in total.
Living in Abuja
It was a friend who suggested Salisu come to Abuja. He has worked here every day since arriving in January. Fellow 18-year-old Ibrahim has been in Abuja for over a year. He is also from Kashi and only attended madrasa. He speaks passable Pidgin English.
“A cousin brought me here last year, so when I went home, I told Salisu about coming here and he agreed. I loaned him money to buy his kegs and the cart,” Ibrahim says. Virtually all the young men who do this job around Abuja come through the referral of a friend or family member.
The mai-ruwa business
Abuja is not unique in its lack of potable water; a 2012 report by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s fund (UNICEF) states that 66 million Nigerians lack access to it.
Lugbe’s residents must either dig bore-holes in their own properties or rely on others to fetch water. This is where the mai-ruwa come in. They buy water from individuals with their own bore-holes who have decided to commercialize it. “We pay N50 [25 euro cents] to buy the ten jerry-cans, or N60 [60 euro cents] if [the water] is [pumped with a] generator,” Salisu explains.
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M. Abimbola (who does not wish to give her first name), from whom Salisu buys water, says she is not bothered by the age or educational qualification of the mai-ruwa. “Many of them are from the far north where they don’t even go to school. Some are very young. I think they are just trying to survive,” she says.
“I just try to make a little money by the side, at least to fuel the generator with which I pump the water,” the mother of three says.
Making money
At about 7pm, when Salisu and his colleagues finish their day’s work, they park their carts by the roadside and return to what they call “our house.” The residence comprises four small huts made of aluminum sheets, which are remnants from houses built in Lugbe. Located in an open space alongside a dry canal, the “house” only serves as a part-time abode.
“When it does not rain, we sleep outside on our cartons or mats, depending on which one a person, or group can afford,” Salisu says, indifferent to hostile colleagues who are wary of his responding to a reporter. He also says is comfortable with his life here in Abuja because he “makes money”.
Yet he admits: “If my parents tell me to leave this work and go to school, I will.”