The results are shocking. These are the raw figures from the count. From 9am to seven minutes after 10 in the morning – a little over one hour – we counted a total of 813 people in motion, selling. Thirteen months ago on 23rd September 2009, when I first counted street youth hawkers between the same 9 and 10 am, the number stood at 489. The last time I did The Watchwoman Youth Hawkers Census was on 14th December, 2009. On that day, the number had increased to 638 from the September count. But this week, on 19th October, the quick count produced a whopping number of 813.
Percentages make interesting analysis. From September 2009 to December 2009, the increase was 30.47 percent. The figures from December 2009 to October 2010 showed an increase of 27.43 percent. The annual figure from September 2009 to October 2010 reflects a percentage increase of 66.26 percent. I acknowledge that my research assistants might have made some unintentional errors so let’s take these figures as approximations. We could approximate the annual increase at 60 percent or cut it lower to 50 percent which is still a supra-high annual increase of young people who hawk odd products on two street corridors of Accra, the capital city of 53 year-old Ghana. Chew on this.
Could it be that some or most of those who came to Accra last December to sell stuff did not return to their hometowns after Christmas, and have stayed on to add to the December 2009 number? Another Christmas is around the corner. Without a doubt, more young people would troupe down in search of ‘greener pastures’. Some or most of the new entrants might never return to what they call home but end up on the streets as petty traders.
The results of this week’s count must be troubling to every Ghanaian, especially the belly-full political elite who don’t seem to get it that our country has challenging and urgent problems that are screaming for solution. Whilst we remain captivated by NPP and NDC politics, playing referee to their petty and inconsequential details, the number of young people who sell by our roadsides are doubling. One day, we’ll wake up to find out that they’ve completely overtaken our roads.
A legitimate question: Were all these young people counted in the just-ended census? Was it even possible to have counted them all? They live in all sorts of unholy corners of our cities and big towns. Some of them take turns just to sleep. Some of them make love and babies in their corners. Without a doubt, counting all of them would be an enumerator’s nightmare.
There is also the sticky matter of the “Ground Zero” of youth street hawkers in Accra – between the Kwame Nkrumah Circle and Obetsebi Lamptey Circle. These are two of the Big Six – the Founding Fathers of Ghana. During their days, they could not have envisaged a time when the parts of Accra that bear their names would become the headquarters of youth street hawkers.
The phrase “Ground Zero” gained notoriety on September 11, 2000 when a bunch of terrorists hijacked two commercial airplanes and flew them into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. Ground zero is the nonsense point; the lowest of what is so painful, so bad and so ugly. My experience of counting hawkers at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle is that it’s a nightmarish exercise. There are too many of them and in the struggle to sell, some weave their way dangerously between vehicles. My research assistants always struggle to count them with any precision.
The story of youth hawkers is a major chapter of Ghana’s story. In these days when it is flattering to talk about branding Ghana, it should also be important to emphasize the chapter of young people who are hawkers as a career choice. What would these young people become five, ten, fifteen or twenty years from now? They can’t be ‘professional hawkers’ forever! At some point, they must settle down for their real careers. What would it be? What skill sets would they transfer to the life careers in a ‘Better Ghana’ in a ‘middle income economy’? Entrepreneurs?
On Tuesday when we were conducting the count, one incident that seemed like a footnote to the exercise was the sight of a very tall gorgeous man who was also walking the street. Clearly, ‘his thing had come.’ He was talking to himself. He looked disheveled. He would be someone’s heartthrob. Someone’s darling. Someone’s husband. Someone’s father. Someone’s uncle. But now, his ‘thing has come’ and he was alone, on his own, at a loss, walking the streets. Just wait until a vehicle knocks him dead! ‘Loved ones’ will have a grand funeral – God willing.
The wares for sale:
The types of products sold by the roadside vary, depending on the time of the year or what has been shipped in from China and the likes. There was the usual PK/Chewing Gum, toffees, doughnuts, yoghurt, pawpaw slices, soft drinks, plantain chips, toothpaste and the likes.
Compared to the previous times I’ve conducted this count, during this week’s count, only a few people were selling ‘pure water.’ I don’t know what explains it. The number of people selling telephone ‘scratch cards’ appears to have increased. Oh, so the telephone companies are taking advantage of our idle youth? Without a doubt, there are plusses and minuses to this development. Job creation?
Deep Thoughts:
Bangladeshi Nobel Laureate, Muhammad Yunus of the Grameen Bank fame, once said to the Indian Parliament: “Poor people are like bonsai trees. When anyone plants the best seed from the tallest tree in a tiny flower pot, he will get a replica of the tallest tree, only inches tall. There is nothing wrong with the seed planted, only the soil-base that was given it was inadequate. Poor people are bonsai people.”
We have various categories of our own ‘bonsai trees’ in Ghana. The increasing army of children and young adults who hawk an array of odd products on the streets of Ghana are our ‘bonsai trees’. As is said in computer parlance, “Garbage in, garbage out.” Since we are not investing in young people who, by no fault of theirs, were not given birth to by the privileged, we are setting them up for failure. We will get out of them in future what we are planting in them today.
There is nothing inherently wrong with the youth who have by default, taken to street hawking. They are our ‘internally displaced persons’ who hover around looking for opportunities, any opportunities! It’s amazing that we don’t have more armed robbery than we have today. It’s also amazing that these young people continue to smile.
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