I have been in the trading (electrical) business for quite some time. About 20 years now. I have seen it all in this business.
The average Igbo man loves business; his life is business. I love the business because it’s simple and it solves a problem – the problem of lighting. It meets people’s needs.
If any problem is encountered, we try to operate.
I don’t want to go into details, but when I was in my former shop close by, the local government would come with a lock-up permit, an advertisement signboard permit and then the LAWMA rates that apply to waste management.
Then, when you go to places like Oshodi to buy goods, area boys will ask you for money. When you are taking your goods from the market to the bus stop or taxi, they will stop you at several points. At each point, they collect money before you finally leave Oshodi.
Sometimes they will stop you at three or four different spots before you get out of the market.
The frequency of your visits to the market determines the total amount you must have spent over the years. If you go to the market weekly, you multiply the amount you pay per spot times the total times the number of weeks.
Sometimes these costs force us to increase the prices of our products, but at other times we cannot increase them because of competition. If I increase my prices too much, customers may go to other sellers.
So sometimes I bear the cost myself, even though it reduces my profit margin in the long run. That is part of the risk of doing business.
I haven’t experienced harassment or intimidation by tax collectors. Before they come out, I do pay.
At some point, I took out a loan to expand my business, and it worked at first. But later, I ran into a serious problem. The shop I used became embroiled in a legal dispute. The matter stayed in court for a long time.
During that period, I could not operate properly. There was no income, and the loan had already been invested in the business. It became very difficult for me to meet up with the repayment as promised.
Eventually, I managed to repay the loan little by little every month until I finished paying it. I thank God for helping me through that difficult period.
Since that experience, I have been very careful about taking loans again. For now, I prefer to manage my small shop until I find a better place.
Before you go into any business, you must have love for that business. What keeps you going in anything you do is passion. If the passion is there, that’s the driving force. Without passion, you cannot succeed in anything.
As narrated by: Udobi Kerian (Obalende, Lagos).
This snippet is published as part of the series, The Art of Taxing Poverty.
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