Encounter with Kaduna’s ice seller on wheels

Asiya Ibrahim, a young girl in her twenties is daring the odds to ensure her future is brighter through a family inherited business of selling ice blocks. Arewa Trust Weekly caught up with the young lady as she was distributing ice blocks to her numerous customers around Kaduna metropolis.

Asia said she had watched her mother manage the business passionately at a younger age and decided to join five years ago. She now rides her tricycle to the nooks and crannies of the metropolis where she sells a block of ice at the cost of N50 a sachet.

Dressed in her hijab, Asiya said she saw how passionate her mother was about the business and so she made a decision to join after completing her secondary education from Government Girls Secondary School, Kawo, in 2018.

Even though she used an old tricycle, which often breaks down while conveying her ice blocks to clients, Asia was last year given a new branded tricycle for her business by a Good Samaritan and now says she is able to make deliveries much easier.

She said: “Normally, I take about 100 sachets of ice blocks, some days I sell all and other days I don’t, that’s how business works.”

With four siblings, Asiya says proceeds from her business will enable her and her siblings to further their education up to the university level.

Highlighting some challenges associated with the business, she said: “Electricity is a major challenge because I don’t have a generator. Then there are issues with customers not paying for the ice block as at when due. What I want to achieve in this business is to make it bigger so I can employ others.”

She called on youths to ensure they engage in trade instead of indulging in drugs and other crimes while also advising young girls to find small businesses they can go into, reminding them that women need not become liabilities in modern times.

“Government also needs to support small businesses to grow so that they can contribute their quota to the development of the state and the country at large. Small businesses are the bedrock of every society,” she said.