Inside Tudun Hatsi, Gombe’s 80-year-old grain market

Daily Trust Saturday takes a look at Tudun Hatsi, a market in Gombe where almost only grains have been sold for the past 80 years.
Gombe’s Tudun Hatsi grain market is located at the city centre, along the Gombe Emir’s palace road and directly opposite the Gombe old market.  The market is situated on a hill -hence the name, ‘Tudun Hatsi’ (Grain Hill in Hausa) – at the premises of the first modern Jumu’at Mosque in Gombe.
The market where only grains is sold, is said to have been established over eight decades ago at the premises of the present Gombe old market (Tsohuwar Kasuwa), during the reign of Emir Haruna Umaru, who ruled Gombe between 1922 and 1935.
The market started as a collection centre where the emir’s grains were kept after being harvested from his farm. The grains are later sold to low income earners at a subsidized rate, especially during dry season when prices of food items were usually high.
As such, people from neighbouring villages who visited Gombe every Friday for Jumu’at prayers, saw it as an opportunity to buy the grains cheap but sold it back in their villages at a higher price.
As time went on, the market expanded as the number of villagers who patronized it increased until it was finally moved to its present location. At the time its current location was the premises of the then Jumu’at mosque at the eastern part of the old market, during the reign of Alhaji Abubakar Umar, Emir of Gombe from 1936 to 1984.
Tudun Hatsi is made up of temporarily constructed shops with corrugated roofing sheets and wood. The Jumu’at mosque, is the only permanent building in the entire market.
According to the oldest trader in the market, 70-year-old Alhaji Baba Galadima, the market was moved to its present location to decongest with the over flowing grain merchants who trooped into the market from all over the country and beyond.
Alhaji Galadima said since inception, cereals and legume grains are the only food items sold in the market.
“I started coming to this market over 50 years ago with my late father. According to the history of this market as narrated by our parents, since inception, only grains are sold in this market for merchants who came from across the country and the neighbouring countries -Niger and Chad Republic.
“Grains available in the market are: millet, maize, groundnut, beans, soya beans, sesame seeds, rice and guinea corn among others,” Alhaji Galadima said.
Abubakar Muhammad, 40, who has been a grain merchant for the last 25 years, told Daily Trust Saturday how they get the grains.
He said: “We go to other markets in rural villages within Gombe State, where farmers bring their farm produce on market days. We buy the grains and bring to the market here in Gombe for eventual sale to buyers.
“Also, there are other type of grains, like iron beans and sesame seeds, which we get from neighbouring states of Adamawa and Borno.
Muhammad said that beans are the most patronized items in the market, “because most of the merchants are from the south who don’t usually grow it in their lands. So they come here and buy it mainly for consumption.”
He added that despite the economic challenges there is still patronage, “because people must eat to survive, notwithstanding the difficulties grain merchants still come from other parts of the country to do business with us.”
He added that they are also patronized by companies and merchants from places like Port Harcourt, Onitsha, Aba, Jos, Lokoja, Anambra, Abia, Plateau and Kogi, and even as far as Ghana, Chad and Niger Republic.
Apart from traders who own shops in the market, other people also brought their goods to be sold on their behalf by the traders, after which they paid a commission of N40 per bag.
At the height of insurgency between 2012 and 2015, the market was badly affected and business activates were crippled for some time, with most customers, especially those from far places staying away from the market.
But with the aid of information technology, most of them now transact business with the traders via mobile phones and banks.
Mohammed Umaru JD explains how they now conduct business.
“The grain merchants used to come themselves, but as a result of the insurgency and advancement in technology, they no longer come personally. They only send us details and the kinds of goods they want.
On our part, we sent them the pictures of commodities at our disposal, if they are satisfy with the quality, they make deposits through banks, and we load it on trucks and send to them.”
However, he added that, this comes also with its problems, like default and delay in payment.
“Some of the problem encountered is that, sometimes we send the goods but some customers will not pay the remaining balance on time or even decline to pay especially if there is accident or it got damaged along the way,” he explained.
Michael Orji, came from Onitsha, Anambra State to buy grains, he told Daily Trust why he prefers Gombe than other grain markets.
“First of all, I prefer Gombe because the quality of the grain is better than those from other parts of the country. I come here to buy beans and soya. Secondly, it is cheaper here than in other places,” he said.
Over 1000 traders owns shop at the market, and are supported by over 600 labourers who work in the market for load and offloading of the grains into trucks for onward transportation.
Malam Abdulrazak Mohammed, is the chairman of Tudun Hatsi Labourers Association wo explained how they work in the market.
“Our job is not limited to unpacking and re-packaging bags and loading them into trucks for transporting to various.
“We charge from N120 to N200 depending on the size of the bag. We can package over 6000 bags daily. At the end of the working day, a labourer can go home with no less than N3000. In fact, some of us even sponsor our education from this work, others build houses and still shoulder the responsibility of our respective families,” Mohammed said.
Alhaji Usman Adamu, is the chairman of Tudun Hatsi Grain Merchant Association, he told Daily Trust that they pay Gombe Local Government Area, over N2.4 million as monthly revenue, while the state government get over N1.2 million every month.
“Over 10 trucks leave this market daily and on each bag we pay N20 to Gombe local government as revenue, while the state government get N10 per bag and each truck carried 400 bags.”
He said transaction worth millions of naira is being generated monthly from the marke and it’s difficult to give exact figures since traders mostly conduct business through banks.
He said the hike in foodstuff price felt all over the country, is as a result of insurgency which prevented many farmers from harvesting their crops for years.
“There is hike in price of foodstuff this year, especially grains because for the past three years, farmers in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe abandonned their homes and took shelter elsewhere, as such they couldn’t cultivate their farms.”
“At the peak of the insurgency, there was a time we couldn’t even open the market or closed by 4pm when we did, because a curfew imposed in the evening,” he said.
“Also the insurgency scared most customers away and a bag of beans hardly cost less than N7000 because the buyers were not coming. Then one had to beg before a bag of maize could be bought at N4000. But now security has improved people are coming to buy and the goods are not available. A bag of beans now sells for N15, 000 with maize reaching the unprecedented price of N14, 000 per bag.”
“But now everybody is back home and fully engaged in farming which hopefully will make food to be available and cheap before the end of the year,” he said.
He debunked the allegations that grain traders hoard foodstuff to generate more profit.
“People buy from us in large quantity and we don’t have the right to ask them what they will do with it. So we cannot know if they hoard it after they buy from us. However, in my opinion the more the commodity is expensive, the more it affects the market and people cannot buy in large quantity.
Daily Trust Saturday was told that in 2011, the then administration of Governor Danjuma Goje, attempted to move the market from the city centre to a location behind Bauchi Motor Park along Gombe-Bauchi Road to ease traffic congestion, because its present location has through the years posed serious traffic jams and was a nuisance to both pedestrians and motorists. But the traders rejected the idea.
However, the chairman said the present administration of Governor Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo, has a plan to relocate the market and build an ultramodern grain market at the outskirt of the town.
Asides an inferno that razed down over 200 shops in 2014, Gombe Tudun Hatsi market can be said to be progressing for the last 80 years, providing over 5000 people with a means of livelihood and feeding people from both within the country and beyond.