Mobile Tailoring – another occupation in Nigeria
In Nigeria, most times when your cloth gets torn and needs mending, or you need to replace your trouser Zip; the people who offer these services are the Mobile tailors which are mostly the Hausas. They are really talented in the Job and of-course, they do it better than any tribe in Nigeria. You get to pay around 20 naira, 30 naira, 50 naira and so on ( the bigger the quantity of cloth you need to mend, the bigger the amount you would be charged). WOW! This is real entrepreneurship.
I was upstairs in my house when I heard the sound made by the tailors to alert customers. That “Kian Kian“ sound that the mobile tailors make with their scissors. I went downstairs and called the young man I saw ( he thought I was calling him for a job, not knowing I was calling for a little interview).
Meet Ibrahim Muhammed; a mobile tailor who carrys out his job at Anambra State, Nigeria. He is 18 years old (when he told me,he was 18, I found it hard to believe because he looks bigger than his age sha) and his religion is Islam. Muhammed hails from Jigawa state, and has come all to way to the eastern part of the country in order to make a living. I was really surprised by his response when I asked him about his level of education and he said he finished secondary school and also did his N.C.E( a special A-Level grade Course intended for Secondary school leavers) – that is so impressive.
I was also very curious about how he learnt his handwork and when I inquired, Muhammed told me that he learnt tailoring from his father who carries out the job over there at Jigawa State (that’s one reason I advocate so much for parents to pass their knowledge down to their children, especially Handwork because it helps a lot)
Because of the popular belief about Muslims and how almost all of them despise Christians, I decided to ask a little further about how he sees me and he said ” I see you now, you look beautiful”. Hahaha, it was really funny because that wasn’t what I meant. After that I told him that I actually meant “How does he see me, because I am a christian”. This was his reply;
I love Christians and I don’t have anything against them, the only difference between a christian and a Muslim is the Religion and nothing else. I know that even Christians do not have anything against us – {this is good to know,thanks}.
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