Kuje scrap dealers turning junk into cash

Rubbish from homes and markets sit by the roadside in many parts of Kuje, a fast growing suburb in the FCT. They remain that way for days, even after the women of the Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB) that keep the streets clean come and go in the mornings, becoming mounds that seem to hold hands until they are a long irregular line of oozing torment. But from locations such as these, including those within the boundaries of residences, a group of men eke out a living.  
Kabiru Aminu pushes a trolley along a dirt path that leads through a motor park in Kuje. His every day mission is to visit residences in the morning, buy scrap, or get paid for taking away trash and also spend time rummaging at dump sites within the town. His target is to acquire aluminum and metal pieces and parts from once valuable items such as deep freezers and the like. “Sometimes the items I buy go between N500 and N2000,” he explains. After a hard day’s work, Aminu reports to his boss at the scrap centre.
There is a hierarchy at the scrap centre. At the bottom are the scavengers, which include young men like twentyish Aminu, who live in tent-like shacks made of sacks and wood. Here they sleep, with scrap that include empty cans of soft drinks and milk in piles before the encampment. Nearby, a measuring scale dangles between wood sunk into the ground. This is where they weigh the scrap in a sack before they are re-sold.
Dayabu Aliyu, 27, from Zamfara State, is one of such scavengers at the bottom of the hierarchy. Surprisingly, he started back in 2012 after his secondary school education. “People think that all they throw away is useless and watch us pick them or buy from them,” Aliyu says cheerfully. “But to us, they are of great value because almost everything we bring in we buy and sell at a price.”
He explained how copper, metal and aluminum have their different purposes after they are melted, and elaborated on how they work: “Your oga can give you money and send you out there to buy and pick and when you have exhausted your money you return, remove your profit and the oga takes his too. Then he gives you money again to go out there. For example, in a week I may be given N10, 000 if I am able to gather materials worth N20, 000. That’s how we operate.”
Chairman of the scrap business in Kuje, Surajo Mohammed, is the middleman in the hierarchy. He is both the collector and financier of the scavengers and reveals that they sell the collected scraps to companies. “From the onset, many of us had nothing doing,” he says. “Then we saw an opportunity to make something of ourselves through this business.”
All around Surajo are piles of scrap from vehicles and empty cans of drinks. “We sell in kilos after weighing. But before we weigh, they are beaten into smaller sizes. However, for empty paint containers, we sell them at N10 without beating.”
Ibrahim Dankwaman is one of those responsible for this labour. “We beat the scraps to smaller sizes in other to make them easy to transport when they are bought,” he intimates. “This makes them have more weight as they are transported. He explains how they buy the scraps and resell: “Sometimes we have to confirm that they are not stolen materials by getting in touch with the police before we acquire them. We have to be careful because we also buy cars that are condemned, but only as long as there are legal documents to it. Even without an engine it’s useful to us after we dismantle it.”
He adds that: “Among what we deal in are empty bottles of perfumes and iron materials. We buy some of them as cheap as N10. Every scrap you see here we buy.”
Faisal Auwal Ahmad is a third year student of Kano State University of Science and Technology on holiday and is involved in the business as a way of achieving his goal of becoming one who buys like the big companies. “We sell our scraps to a Chinese company and another on Kaduna road. They make all kinds of iron implements with what we sell to them. However, I still make a substantial amount here – as much as N50, 000 in a month.”
Ahmad adds that: “My dream is to open a company where I will buy-off such items from dealers and turn them into valuables. For example, companies that buy aluminum from us melt them and fashion them into containers that are used to export goods to different parts of the world.”
So, almost every morning, as early as seven o’clock, the scavengers set out and return around 4 pm. Their journey takes them along streets and inside estates where they hope to buy and scavenge. There, children from households eagerly sell items that have ceased to be of use to the family. One of the scavengers, Nasiru Ibrahim, describes their work as that of pure labour because they do not have direct access to the big buyers themselves except through their boss, the middleman. Thus, with the hierarchy beginning at the top with companies that buy the scrap, followed by the likes of the chairman who operate as middlemen, and those who buy or scavenge at the bottom, the scrap business thrives.