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Doing Life With… is a BellaNaija Features series that showcases how people are living, working, travelling, journalling, taking care of their families and… everything in between. We are documenting the lives of all people and ensuring everyone is well-represented at BN through storytelling.
Last week, we had a conversation with Opeyemi Famakin. Did you miss it? Read it here.
This week, Chibueze Damian, who has been in the Akara business for 25 years and is now known as Baba Akara is sharing his business journey with us, the challenges he faces and the best part of the business. Enjoy!
Hello Baba Akara, how are you feeling today?
I am feeling fine and okay. I give appreciation to God.
Give us a glimpse into your background
I am from Abakaliki, Ebonyi State. I came to Lagos to sell food and build my own restaurants.
How’s that going?
It’s all good, we thank God.
What food have you been selling since you came to Lagos?
I’ve been making and selling Akara. That’s why I’m called Baba Akara.
Interesting! How long have you been doing this?
About 25 years ago. I started this business in 1998.
Wow, that’s a long time ago. How did it come about?
I was working with a boss who refused to settle me. When I realised he had no intentions of settling me, I left and made up my mind not to roam the streets. So I joined my wife, who was my girlfriend then, to start frying akara. My girlfriend had experience selling akara because her mom was also an akara seller. So I just joined her, and then we started growing. We both hawked akara for a brief period of time before we got other employees to start hawking for us.
What business lessons have you learned along the way?
Every business will eventually grow if you have focus. Exert a lot of effort and have hope, you will achieve something with the business. You don’t start a business today and expect it to bloom tomorrow. It takes process. Don’t think because you are having little sales, you should pack up. No, it’s a gradual process.
What challenges have you faced since you started the business?
There’s the challenge of agberos and informal taxes. Anytime I am asked to pay for stuff, I pay immediately; I don’t argue with them. We also faced huge challenges in getting employees to help us. I found out long ago that many people don’t like working. They’d rather be spoon-fed and life doesn’t work that way. So getting workers to help us was a really tough challenge. We overcame this through personal effort. I’d wake up earlier and start on time. Most times, my two children help a lot when they are back home from the university for the holidays.
Hygiene is a very big deal when it comes to street food, what measures do you put in place to maintain good hygiene and safe food practices?
“This is public food, You need to be neat,” I keep this at the back of my mind always. Before we start and after each day’s work, we wash the frying pan, trays, spoons, buckets and bowls. We also wash our grinding machine every day before we grind the beans or pepper. We wash our drums where we store water every week. We don’t use bare hands to touch our akara or bread before it is served. Our hands are covered with nylon every time we need to touch the food we are sending out.
What does a typical day in your life look like?
I wake up by 3:00 a.m, do my personal hygiene and leave home to shop by 4:00 a.m. The next thing I do is wash the quantity of beans we will sell for the morning session. After washing it, Jeremiah, my son, goes over to the grinding mill to grind the beans. We start frying and selling by 6:00 a.m. From 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m., there is no time to sit down because we serve a lot of customers and mostly retailers during this time. Then I take a little rest until the afternoon when a lot of customers (resellers) would troop in again. After the afternoon session is done, we pack up and then I close by 6 p.m. Go home, eat and be in bed by 8:00 p.m.
What are the little things in your everyday life that bring you joy, get you excited or make you feel alive?
What makes me glad is the assistance I get from God every day. I also watch comedy skits on Facebook when I’m back from work. They make me happy.
What’s the best part of being Baba Akara
The best part of being Baba Akara is the type of people I get to meet every day: top business people, politicians – just many diverse people. and so many other people like that.
Thank you for being a part of Doing Life With…
Thank you, BellaNaija, for having me.
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Many thanks to Baba Akara for having this conversation with us. Do you love this content, have any feedback for us, want to be a BellaNaija Features contributor or want to be featured on Doing Life With…? We’d love to hear from you. Shoot us an email: [email protected]
Join us on Saturday for the next episode!
The post Chibueze Damian (Baba Akara) Talks to Us About Selling Street Food for 25 Years in Today’s Doing Life With… appeared first on BellaNaija – Showcasing Africa to the world. Read today!.
