13/05/2011 (Allafrica.com) - Calabar — The people living along Bogobiri Street, a popular Hausa/Fulani neighbourhood in the Calabar South Local Government council, will soon be displaced by palm oil.

This is because the long street and its environs has gradually been taken over by the lucrative palm oil business, run by a cartel.

Almost every house and available shops on the street and around the adjoining streets, have now been converted for the storage of the oil, even though much of the neighbourhood have been taken over by trading activities. In short, the area is more known as a palm oil resort, than its original name of Hausa settlement.

Even though the business is a seasonal produce, it witnesses increasing booms almost every other time. The rate at which more and more people are interested in it and are joining the business, the sprawling settlement has not only been threatened, but has become a popular destination for housewives, restaurateurs, and big-time and small-time dealers.

This confirms the fear that in no time the area would turn into a full-fledged palm oil market, displacing the settlers as a result. This is especially as the government is apparently drawn by the huge rates that they also garner frequently from these dealers.

Investigation reveals that the business started as a small family business by a couple from Akwa Ibom State. This was more than 20 years ago. They would travel all the way to their home town to buy the palm oil in rubber containers or drums, bring them in hired vehicles to Bogobiri, and in turn sell same at a higher profit , especially when it was out of season. They actively continued in this business and over time, this brought them fortune. They bought family cars, educated their children and wards, built their houses, and as it looked, wealth smiled on them.

Seeing the turn-around in their lives, more people from Akwa Ibom became attracted by the success of the couple, whose names were not immediately disclosed, and enlarged it.

Though the trade is still being dominated by Akwa Ibom people, yet others, especially the Igbos have almost overtaken them. This is because the investments on it unlike other businesses, hardly fail, despite attendant high cost and stress of running it.

With a growing and mixed population of more than 40,000, Bogobiri town (where Bogobiri Street is) is situated in between the notorious Etim Edem motor park and market. The Street empties into a major, equally popular thoroughfare named after the Scottish woman, Mary Slessor who championed the abolition of the killing of twins in Calabar. Goldie Street, Queen Duke and Bassey Duke, where major newspapers distributors and agents are located, also back Bogobiri. The former zoological garden is beside it, while the Cultural Centre Calabar is opposite. The major banks, like Ecobank, Intercontinental and Diamond on Mary Slessor, service Bogobiri's thriving business community.

Businesses of different sorts, including trading on edible commodities like onions, tomatoes, hide and skin, suya and money changing businesses, by mostly the Hausas themselves, thrive here.

This community is becoming congested, yet there's pronounced peace amongst the different ethnic and tribal settlers these past 30 years.

You readily find that the low income earners, the dregs of the society, bad boys and miscreants also hide-away here. The traders and residents have devised their own way of maintaining security of their businesses and homes. This humble community has the picture of a slum where much of the houses here with rusty zinc, are very old, even then the palm oil traders are taking over dwelling apartments.

As the population is exploding in Bogobiri, hygiene is now questioned too, so that the ministry of environment in Calabar, will soon take them to task.

If this ministry pretends not to be aware of the environmental state of this community, not the Calabar South Local Government Council now headed by newly elected Hon. Henshaw Ekeng.

Our findings also show that the Council does not mind that the palm oil business is displacing the people, including the original inhabitants, the Hausas, because it generates huge revenue for them. Raking in revenue is Ekeng's priority. This, he told the press penultimate week, when he announced his budget and action plans.

According to one Mr. Daniel Udo, a middle aged man who has a palm oil depot on the street and is also a big time dealer, he pays as much as N25,000 monthly for his depot to the Council.

"This is in addition to registration fee and other rates for dealing in the palm oil business", he told this reporter.

There is no one who is into this business, he said, that does not pay substantial rates to the government. Asked if this is the reason, the Council officials do not come to harass them often, Udo answered in the affirmative, saying occasionally their agents, poised to extort money from them, would come, and even if you showed them your receipts from the Council, you would still need to part with some money to appease them.

Capital

On what could be initial sum of money a potential dealer could start the business with, Udo who said he 'exports' his consignment principally to Kano State where he has 'hungry' merchants, "it is possible to start the business with, say N30,000 or N50,000 at a small scale." He said that would mean you only need to buy few jerry cans of the oil.

They as big time dealers mostly buy their stock in large quantity from some places in Akamkpa, Akpabuyo, Odukpani LGAs of Cross River State, or from neighbouring Akwa Ibom, where there are larger oil palm plantations, and from small time dealers who would sell their small quantities to them.

Udo said there are two types of the palm oil, namely the industrial and the edible ones. The cost largely depends on the quality, said Udo. The industrial palm oil goes for N4000 per jerry can of 25 litres, while the generally edible one is cheaper and can be bought at N3,700 at the depot , although they hardly sell to individual buyers , who desire to buy only one or two jerry cans of the palm oil.

This means a truck-load of the jerry cans filled with the palm oil can fetch much more, he was asked. He initially laughed and hesitated to speak. "You can do the calculation yourself," he challenged. "There are some trucks that have capacity to load 3,000 jerry cans of the oil, while others can load up to 8,000 or more," Udo explained, adding "you then calculate what the big-time merchants get if one goes for N4,000 and then multiply it by say 8,000 jerry cans."

Udo confirms that at least every week three trucks leave the Bogobiri depot with the goods for mostly Kano, Sokoto, Kaduna, Bauchi states, etc. Why, mostly the north, he was asked. "That is where members of our union here have an assured market," he answered.

Since almost all of them export to the northern part of the country where they have ready buyers, the cost of hiring trucks, 'settlements of Police' on the road, vehicular breakdown and other hazards impact greatly on their supposed profits, and this he said is built into the cost borne by the end-users.

"Transportation is our major headache in this business," said Udo. "It consumes what ought to be our profit."

Yet, Udo who said he has spent close to 10 years in the business, does not easily get discouraged, because it has offered an alternative avenue for employment, with steady flow of profits.

"You find that increasing numbers of young people, men and women, who would otherwise have been plagued with unemployment or under-employment, are now making it with this business, and this is helping the society and the economy."

Emmanuel James, another dealer also from Akwa Ibom, said the profits close their eyes to the stress and hazards of getting the produce from sources in the villages.

"From the profit I have built my house, I maintain my family and support my dependants. We make more when its season ends, because the price would go up when it is in short supply," James said.

Going by the profits and progress of the business, does he not feel that soon Bogobiri would be sacked as it has almost become a major palm oil depot? No, James replied. The landlords decide whom to rent their spaces and apartments to. But he appeals to the government to allocate them a better area.

Relocation to a more conducive area would have been a better idea, but the Council seems too much interested in collecting money from us," James lamented.

The head of the Hausas in the state, Alhaji Jaafar Sarki Lawal had once said he did not express any fears about Bogobiri being taken over by the palm oil business, but would be happier if government allocated the dealers to a different place.

When this reporter visited the Calabar South LG headquarters in Anantigha, he was unable to interview Mr. Henshaw Ekeng to find out if his new administration has any plan to relocate the oil palm dealers of Bogobiri.