Steel traders \u2013 popularly known as Ajaokuta \u2013 say people look down on them and think they are thieves.<\/p>\n
Umar Muhammed, a trader, told RNI that he was worried about the bad image the public had of the Ajaokuta, some of whom had given them an even worse reputation because they had bought steel from underage children.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the high levels of unemployment, people should see us in a positive light. After all, the steel trade is one of the businesses in Nigeria that has been able to employ many, mostly less-privileged people.\u201d<\/p>\n
But, he said, we never employ or buy from underage children.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said thousands of people had been killed and millions displaced, especially in Borno State which was most affected by violent encounters with extremists from the Jam\u0101\u2019at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da\u2019way Wa\u2019l-Jih\u0101d (JAS), more commonly referred to as Boko Haram, and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP). This had resulted in massive unemployment.<\/p>\n
Internally displaced persons, vulnerable and indigent people, the Almajiri, as well as ordinary residents had been left stranded when they lost their jobs, Muhammed said, adding that the steel industry had given these people a chance by employing them and enabling them to put food on their tables and cater for their needs.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, he said, some people in the steel trade had been found stealing other people\u2019s property, had made some \u201cshady deals\u201d and had used children to do their dirty work for them.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we catch someone stealing, he is dismissed immediately. We had a boy working for us once who was caught stealing an engine from one of the clean-water outlets that we service. He had been working for us for about three months. But when we caught him stealing, we dismissed him and reported his actions to the police. He is in prison now,\u201d Muhammed said.<\/p>\n
It was disheartening that people had a bad image of the steel business, he said.<\/p>\n
He had heard of cases that had been \u201cmade up\u201d by people. To get money, they had reported that an Ajaokuta dealer had stolen from them, which was not the case.<\/p>\n
Another trader, who asked to remain anonymous, told RNI that in an effort to beef up the industry and get rid of the wrong perceptions, he had given all his workers an identification card so that prospective buyers and sellers could see that they were authentic steel traders. In this way, if any of his traders were caught, they could be identified immediately and reported to the relevant authority.<\/p>\n
He gave his assurance they he did not buy steel from underage children.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Steel traders \u2013 popularly known as Ajaokuta \u2013 say people look down on them and think they are thieves. Umar Muhammed, a trader, told RNI that he was worried about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":16902,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16897"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16897"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26887,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16897\/revisions\/26887"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}