Meet Jalingo women who break rocks for money

It is a dreary life breaking chunks of rocks into pieces with sledge hammer, but the women are not complaining since it is their only means of eking a living. Asenot Bariat has five children and they all work at the quarry. She told Weekly Trust that it is the only way she can sustain […]

It is a dreary life breaking chunks of rocks into pieces with sledge hammer, but the women are not complaining since it is their only means of eking a living. Asenot Bariat has five children and they all work at the quarry. She told Weekly Trust that it is the only way she can sustain her family. According to her, the father of her children works at Jalingo local government, but what he earns is not enough to feed and send the five children to school.

 

“It is a hard job for a woman to do, but I have children and I must take care of them. I am not educated so I cannot go and look for a more comfortable job. I do not have the money to start a business either. But I thank God that I have the strength to break stones and feed my children and send them to school. What else could I have done?” she queried. She said for a woman to hold a sledge hammer and blow the chunks of rocks, often risking the pieces smashing her face means she has no other means of survival.

“I wounded myself some few months ago, as I have nowhere to get food from, I have to come back here. A stone hit my right eye and it became bloodied. I had to spend over N10, 000 at the Specialist Hospital, Jalingo for treatment before I recovered. It is an accident-prone job, but when you are doing it, you don’t think of the risk. You think more about the money you will make,” she said.

Hope Buzu holds a National Diploma in Agricultural Technology from the Taraba State College of Agriculture, Jalingo, but she still survives by breaking stones. She said the business saw her through school so she has an emotional attachment to it.

“I don’t know what I would have done without breaking stones. It has become part of me and I don’t think I will ever leave it. It is a difficult job for a young girl like me, but I earn money from it to meet my financial needs, so I can’t complain. I was able to pay my school fees with this business and I have been living off it so it’s okay for me,” she said.

She, however, lamented that the PW Construction Company has spoilt the business for them, saying since the company came into town, the price of gravel has dipped from N25,000 a tipper load to about N18, 000 three years ago.

She said the cost of blasting the stones and conveying them to the quarry market by Specialist Hospital Road, Yanmusallah, Jalingo, has gone up, while marginal profit seems to have gone down.

“Before you blast rocks that when broken into gravel-like pieces will give you a full tipper load and conveying them here, you must have spent up to N16, 000 and the highest you can sell is N18, 000. The profit is no longer there and the market too has gone down, because the PW has opened many quarry sites across the state and they sell cheap to individuals,” she lamented.

Madam Hanatu Bayes who is the chairperson of the Stone Breakers Association said the only way they can begin to make profit again is when they are able to get a loan facility that will enable them to buy fireworks that can blast the rocks for them. “We pay men from our meager earnings to blast the big stones which we break into smaller pieces. If we have enough money, we will buy the fireworks and do the blasting ourselves. That way, the profit margin will go up,” she said.

She said the Taraba State government wanted to make their job easier by giving them a stone breaking machine, but lamented that it was not successful and never lasted up to a month. She said if any assistance is going to come from government, it should be a loan. “We need a loan of at least N5 million. We don’t want a stone breaking machine again. The one they gave us last time was old and rusty and never lasted a month,” she lamented.

She said the women are proud of their job and would not abandon it even if they are given a loan. “This is where we feed, clothe and send our children to schools, so we are proud of what we do. We thank God because we are better than thieves,” she added. A cement bag of gravel goes for N250 or N300 depending on the demand and it takes a hard working woman to break and fill two bags a day, Madam Bayes told Weekly Trust.

Efforts to get the State Commissioner for Cooperatives and Poverty Alleviation to comment on what his ministry is doing to improve the business of the women proved abortive as Mr. Musa Isah could not be met in his office after several visits by our correspondent.