The economy has affected my work because the cost of fuel discourages some people from using their cars’ air conditioning. When you replace the follow-come AC system with another one, it consumes a lot of fuel. Some avoid using their AC for this reason. Secondly, I’ve noticed that some people cannot afford the parts to repair their AC. I had a customer sometime in May. I told him we would need to change the pipe and buy a condenser and dryer. He asked how much the total was. I told him 28,000 Naira, and I gave him the breakdown. He snappily said I should couple his car back together and put the parts in the boot. Up to now, he has not fixed it.
Once you have money, you’ll enjoy your AC. It wasn’t like this before. Gas was 500/700 Naira back in 2011/12. Now, the same kind is between 7,000 and 7,500. Some are as high as 9,000 or 14,000, depending on the quality. I started noticing that people were discouraged by the high prices in 2022. I noticed that whenever I inflated the prices of parts, people would go to other places to double-check, and if the other person had a lower price, they would patronise them instead. That’s why I stopped inflating the prices. Instead, I would increase my workmanship fee. Instead of collecting 5,000 Naira, for example, I would charge 15,000 or 18,000.
Since morning, I haven’t done any work. Business is slow on some days, and on other days, there’ll be so many requests. Oftentimes, the work comes once or twice a week. So you have to budget and spend wisely. Because you make some money today doesn’t mean you will make some tomorrow. But you can’t say because you didn’t get any work for weeks, you would now extort the first customer you get. The day they realise what you did, they won’t come back. You that you’re complaining there is no work, you’re still chasing away the few customers you have.
This car repair work is all about trust. And we are not all the same. Some make their money from lies and it is working well for them, but there are also those who earn their living by being honest. Customers have their issues, and we, the artisans, also have our issues. The reason is that when we tell them this is the problem with their cars, it is usually difficult for them to trust us. This is why we tell them that something else that isn’t damaged is also bad. You understand what I’m saying? If we tell a customer this is the problem with their car and we fix it within five minutes (for example, if a fan socket gets loose and you fix it back), they tend to say, “What was the big deal in what you did that you’re asking for 5,000 Naira?” So, we sometimes delay some people’s work until evening so that they can think we’ve done a lot of work on the car. When we see that a customer does not like to deal fairly, next time they come, we will also start telling them lies. You know, some customers actually like to be deceived. They don’t trust you and appreciate your work despite your sincerity.
Most of the mechanics here, we don’t know where each person came from, and the customers also don’t know us from anywhere. Some customers don’t even know where we live. So when they leave their car with us, it is a matter of trust. And if someone’s car is stolen at a workshop, it affects everyone in that place.
I’ve seen many things in this work. I’ve seen an artisan sell someone’s car and it ended up being the customer’s friend who bought it. This is what happened. A customer brought his car to the mechanic, and the mechanic told him he needed to buy some parts. The customer did not have all the money, so he started paying in instalments. The car was to spend about a week with the mechanic. When the mechanic received a bit of money, he would buy some things and squander the remaining. By the time the customer made the final payment, the mechanic had no money left to buy the needed parts. When he went to the spare parts market, he overheard the trader saying someone was interested in buying a certain type of car. It happened to be the same car. So, the mechanic took the car to the dealer, who invited the interested buyer, who happened to be the owner’s colleague. It seems the owner had left both the original and duplicate documents in the glove compartment. When they completed the transaction, the buyer reached out to the owner, saying he had just bought his exact car model. This is a true story. It happened in Federal Housing here. When the owner saw the car, he observed that it had no plate number, but it was definitely his car. He immediately called the mechanic, but his line was switched off. They drove to the workshop and had the people at the garage arrested, threatening that they would be jailed if they could not produce the mechanic. They got information about his family in Abeokuta. He had not even left Abuja. He had spent most of the money. He sold the car – a Camry muscle – for about 4 million Naira. There was only over a million Naira left, wallahi. He did not leave town. He did not invest. He just lodged at a hotel and invited some sex workers. He also sent some money to his mother for her medical expenses. He removed his main SIM card from his phone and discarded it. This happened in 2024. He is young like me. I usually saw and greeted him whenever I went to buy parts. He was contacting his relatives with his second line. That was how his mom informed him that the police had arrested her and his father, which led him to surrender. He is in Kuje now. His prison sentence is for one year. He went to prison because he couldn’t pay up.
Since then, if I have someone’s car with me until late evening, I won’t leave it in the shop. I’ll drive it home. Because someone else might steal it, and I would be the one facing the consequences. I would take it home, wind it up, lock it, open the bonnet, remove the battery, and remove some sockets from the brainbox. At least, you can’t bring an extra battery because you want to steal a car. And even if you do that and you bring a master key, you still won’t be able to start it without the sockets. By the time you are struggling, I would have opened the window to confirm what is happening.
Another incident involved my friend. His head is not correct. They gave you a car. His colleagues had warned him not to test it. He knows how to drive, but he was high on ogogoro. It was shacking him. He insisted he would test the car. He got on the highway. His eyes were seeing double. He was too close to where people were turning, and he wasn’t moving fast enough, so he hit the brakes. The person turning brushed his trunk. He then accelerated and hit another car. It had a ripple effect, and about four cars were affected. He got out of the car. He said his eyes cleared immediately. The road was previously split into four, but they merged into one right away. He placed his hands on his head and thought, “Gbese re o.” He wanted to run away. He called me to ask for the key to our apartment, saying he wanted to go take some things. I asked what happened, and he said he had entered into sudden debt. You’re in trouble and you want to run away? Don’t you know I’d be the one they’d come for? There’s nothing to do; we have to find a way to resolve the issue. When I asked him to come and meet me at the shop, he didn’t come directly. He stayed back at the junction, observing to see if the police were laying an ambush for him. He explained that he was involved in an accident with a customer’s car. I had seen the accident scene before, close to the Dunamis church. I did not even know it was my friend who caused it. When we got there, they had towed all the cars to the VIO office nearby. At the office, they welcomed him with some slaps. Then someone said they should stop slapping him, so that he could go do a brain test. They realised he was drunk. The other affected drivers insisted he would have to pay for the damages. We started raising money. My wife sent some money. My mom sent some money. His own mom sent some money. And some of our friends. He also took out some loans. Later on, when the customer saw that things weren’t moving fast enough, he gave him an ultimatum and threatened to have him jailed. What was left then was to get a new bumper and two tyres. When he heard “prison”, he told me this was why he wanted to run away in the first place. “You told me not to go. I’ve never been to prison in my life, please help me.” That time, whenever I worked from morning to evening, I would save up the money. I contributed most of the money for the repairs, because it is during tough times that you know your friends. I had to be there for him, though I don’t pray that I would be in a similar situation where he would do the same for me. Now, whenever I call on him to say I am hungry, it is only if he doesn’t have that he won’t give. And if I have some money, I would help him too. I can call him and say, “Werey, where you do dey? I’m coming, let’s go and do faaji. You’re the one paying o.” If I don’t have money for transport, he might say I should take a bike and he’ll pay.
As narrated by: JAMIU (ABUJA, NIGERIA)
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