I almost gave up commercial tricycle business – Lady tricyclist

When 29-year-old Folorunso Oluwaseun left Efon Alaye in Ekiti State a couple of years ago over marriage issues for Ado-Ekiti, the capital city, venturing into riding a commercial tricycle for a living wasn’t just the last thing on her mind, such a business for women was completely alien to her.

Oluwaseun had arrived Ado-Ekiti with the intention to be selling fresh pepper and other soup ingredients but she didn’t understand a strand of the ropes. Those ropes she would learn from a mentor at the Oja-Oba market in the city, and she then became an independent trader.

But, as she said, she was unable to, after her apprenticeship, perform the ‘graduation’ ceremonies that the rules of the pepper sellers’ association in the market demanded, and as is the custom and tradition in markets all over the state. This would have given her complete freedom to do her trading. Owing to that hitch, the association’s leaders were always on her neck and the young woman found it difficult to continue in the pepper trade.

With two children, eight and six years old, to train alone, Oluwaseun had to think fast.

“The trouble from the association’s leaders became too much for me. I discussed the issue with some people, who asked if I could ride a commercial tricycle to free me from all the trouble from the pepper sellers. It first sounded strange. I didn’t even know how to ride a bicycle, let alone a tricycle. But I was assured I would learn it in no time. That was how I got into the keke Marwa (local name for commercial tricycle) business to earn a living.

She said, “I learnt riding keke Marwa for six months. I can now ride it perfectly.  I can ride it to Ikere-Ekiti and Efon Alaaye, my home town. Our chairman paid those who taught me. And my oga is Mrs Adeomi (Iya Ibeji), popularly called First Lady tricyclist. She was one of the first persons who taught me how to ride the tricycle. She encouraged me to drive round the town, but it was Omooba who perfected my riding ability.”

She, however, almost gave up the business at a point when she was involved in an accident. “I will not forget the accident I had at Omisanjana, which kept me at home for a month. The brakes of the tricycle I was using at that time were not very good. I had dropped off my passengers and was coming back when a person suddenly stopped in front of my tricycle. I didn’t want to hit him so I swerved to the other side. Before I knew it, I had fallen into a drainage by the roadside and was seriously injured,” she narrated.

Oluwaseun said she needed her own tricycle to be fully on ground in the business. “I collect a tricycle from other owners to ride every day, or a fellow tricyclist will give me his to work with for half a day. Sometimes, I work from only 3pm till evening and will have to manage the little the keke’s owner gives me. It’s a lot better than being lazy or losing my pride. As a woman tricyclist, everybody likes me here.

“I appeal to our governor, his wife and kind-hearted individuals to assist me have my own keke. I still find it difficult to pay my children’s school fees. If I have my own tricycle, I will be able to solve my problems easily,” she said.