Bob MajiriOghene Etemiku Three years ago, Audu dropped out of school. His parents who once lived together in Kaduna in a one-bedroom flat recently divorced. When they moved their separate ways, Audu opted to move in with his mother.
Based on that move, his father has refused to continue to pay his school fees. He was in junior secondary school when the divorce happened and therefore he had no choice but drop out of school. Now as the man of the house, Audu has taken to cutting hair to make a living.
He is 18. Audu’s barbing salon is located in a place called Agwanberiberi – villagers who do not want trouble. But to others the town is known as Agwanfulani, apparently because the Fulani tribe are the dominant people in that town.
On the day we met Audu, we heard some of his customers conversing in either Yoruba, Ibo and Hausa. His salon which is built with cement bags and bamboo sticks is strategically located just at the corner of the entrance to the town. It has a large mirror, and a second hand revolving chair.
Two other chairs are on the right side as you enter the barbing salon. He told us that in a day he makes up to ten thousand naira. Each hair he cuts is N500.
But Audu’s barbing salon is not the only building built with empty cement sacks and bamboo sticks or pieces of stick. As we walk along the only road leading into the heart of the town, we were to observe that almost all the ‘houses’ in that town are made with empty cement bags and sticks or any piece of.