By Josephine Ella
Kabu-Kabu would have been the least option for Mr. Richard Bature, if he had an alternative. The father of five and a civil servant in Abuja opted to engage his car at night for this purpose when it became obvious that it was the only way out of his financial adversity.
It is easy to understand why Bature, a level 10 officer, working at the Federal Secretariat, was initially not keen about the Kabu-Kabu business.
Kabu-Kabu is one of the jobs that a lot of people consider to be for the un-educated or people with minimal academic qualification.
For self ego and considering the physical stress involved, on a normal circumstance, a graduate (degree holder), would not contemplate this as a choice of business.
In his case, it was even more difficult for him to settle for the business, having despised the job earlier, before his neighbours and relatives.
Hear him, “When one of my neighbours first suggested that since I have a car I should use it to pick people after work hour to raise money to tackle some of my family problems, I told him vehemently that it was something I vowed never to do.
“It was like returning to my own vomits when I finally made up my mind to do the job, so it was not easy for me because one or two of such persons are bound to make mockery of you when they see you doing the same job you have looked down on.”
However, today, he has no regrets for engaging in the Kabu- Kabu job, as it paid off after all. He says at the end of every month, he realises not less that N80, 000 from the business.
“I do not regret my decision because since I started driving at night, I have not lacked money like before. At least every day after driving from 5.30pm - 10.00pm every day, I go home with nothing less than N3000-N4000 profit after deducting the fuel expenses,” he said with contentment.
Bature is one out of the many civil servants in Abuja who use their private vehicles at night to pick passengers from various locations in the city to their destinations.
While their colleagues proceed home after work hours, for these civil servants, it is just the beginning of the day's business as they head towards major bus stops within the city to pick passengers.
They would have loved to retire home to rest from the stress of the day's work but this is a luxury they cannot afford, at least not when their monthly take home pay is not enough to foot their bills.
To circumvent the Directorate of Road Traffic Services (DRTS), popularly called the VIO, officials of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) and touts who parade themselves at strategic bus stops, most of them prefer to work only at night when the officials would have closed from work.
The reason is that they are not registered with the relevant authorities as commercial drivers and if arrested they would be made to pay heavy fines or face the law, so they wait for the night fall before starting off.
A crop of civil servants in Abuja who are engaging in the business told Peoples Daily that it is very lucrative because passengers are everywhere at peak hours after work; you don't have to look for them.
This explains why despite the stress involved, many of them are now falling back at the business to diversify their source of income to be able to meet the increasing needs of their family.
Asked why he is engaging his car for the business, Bature who resorted to the business to augment his salary, said: “For over 10 years that I have worked in the civil service, I have been feeding from hand to mouth.
You are in this country so you know how meager salaries of civil servants are. My salary is not enough to take care of one-third of the expenses my family incurs every month.”
Another civil servant, Salifu Mohammed says there is hardly any month he does not source for loan from one person or the other to settle some family needs.
Payback time at the end of the month was often the sore side for him, because he would have accumulated so much debt, sometimes up to half of his salary.
In a desperate move to end his financial embarrassment, Mohammed, who said he started the business after so much persuasion, said one day he sat his wife down to brainstorm on what they could probably do to overcome their financial predicament.
“I have colleagues in the service who engage in the business. One of them had advised me before on this but I refused because I felt it would demean me before other colleagues, but when my wife made the same suggestion. I decided to give it a try,” he said.
It paid off, as the very day he gave it a trial he testified thus, “the first day after work, I waited till 7pm before starting because I was shy that I would be seen by people who know me. I worked for only four hours but at the end of my trips that day I went home with N3000.”
On how he usually get his passengers a civil servants, who simply identified himself as Mr. Philip, says he often targets the Federal Secretariat, Area 11 eleven junction where there is often handful of passengers after work hours, waiting to board a vehicle , adding, “whenever they are no passengers, I move down to Wuse area.”
While some of the civil servants engage in several trips for 5-6 hours after work, a few others only pick passengers while going home from the office to raise money to buy fuel that will run their car the next day.
For others who cannot cope with the stress involved in running several trips around the city after the fatigue from the office work earlier in the day, they choose to run only a few trips and retire home to rest for tomorrow’s work.
No matter how few the trips they may make, one interesting thing is that Kabu-Kabu is a business that is thriving for the civil servants who have discovered it. If in doubt ask those involved.
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