By HE was a jolly good neighbour — a vulcaniser with his roofless “office” at Ginuwa Junction, Warri–Sapele Road. Pieces of relics from his tools still litter that spot. His landlord is a cruel professor who collects rent from indigent hustlers trading along a government road setback in front of his inherited, rotting one-storey building. The professor is mean, heartless, crude, avaricious, and ugly like shigidi! If they wouldn’t pay their rent, he would confiscate some copies of newspapers from the vendor or seize tins of oil from the woman who had been widowed thrice. That’s a story for another day.
Inside the life of Amayo is squalor! In 2023, he said he was 68; an elderly neighbour quashed the claim! I used to see him struggle with two teen boys — his sons. I once saw a mother figure visit them. He could be hard on the boys, often with beatings. Across Amayo’s stall is a slum where he often went to sip monkey tail, shekpe, pami, and the like. Drunk, he would often stagger while attempting to cross the Warri–Sapele Road. With some good money in hand, he sometimes eased himself with women of easy virtue. Oh, dem plenty for Agbassa, from generation to generation. You wouldn’t blame him.
Peter alias Amayo the vulcaniser
Caring for the two boys was a heck! I often saw them in school uniforms. The younger one was handsome and ruddy. The elder once had his left hand fractured; it never got straightened by the native bone-setter who did a perfunctory job. He should be around ten or so. He helped his father push the air compressor on wheels from their abode — a shanty located on Igbi Street — to his working spot. I often saw him engaged in shows of might with a street boy called Chinedu. They’re roughly of the same age. Chinedu is a bad boy. With no father alive, he overwhelms his mother with his bad behaviour. He bullies his younger sister in the street and flees whenever his mother howls at him.
Amayo’s elder boy, Efosa, met his end early this year, I was told. I returned to Warri in early February after about ten months of caring for my bedridden wife, who eventually passed in November. The boy had gone acrobatic, as he usually did, even on concrete pavements. This time, he didn’t escape — he landed awkwardly and didn’t survive the outcome. He passed. It broke my heart when I heard it.
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Not long after, my friend Amayo took ill, so I was told. I saw his scattered tools at his usual spot and enquired about his whereabouts. While Amayo lived, I once had a chat with him — a short interview on June 17, 2023. Read the excerpts below as published in Saturday Tribune:
“ON a Sunday morning when the Christian faithful were trooping out to their various worship centres, Peter (Amayo) was at the spot where he does his vulcanising job. He is christened Peter, but he does not go to church. Faith and piety towards God reside in the heart, he claims. ‘I have no money to drop as offering. I don’t have money to give them. That is why I am in my “office” to try and earn a living for the day,’ Amayo said.
Amayo, as he is fondly called, is a ubiquitous vulcaniser in streets across the Warri South Local Government Area of Delta State. His present spot, after operating at Robert Road and Okere Road for some years, is Ginuwa Junction, Warri–Sapele Road.
Amayo in July 2023 at his office!
Dark-complexioned and of average height, the father of eleven is gradually ageing and losing hope of achieving his dreams, one of which is educating his last two male children, who have consistently drummed into his ears their ambitions to be a doctor and a lawyer. According to him, the boys, Efosa, 9, and Destiny, 7, are intelligent, and such brains must not be allowed to rot. But how will he bring the children’s dreams to fruition with his meagre daily earnings from vulcanising?
‘I am doing everything within my power to make sure that my children succeed, especially in their education. The two youngest boys in my family have said they want to be a doctor and a lawyer, and I will do everything to make sure their dreams come true,’ he vowed.
Amayo didn’t start out to be in the lowest rung of the social ladder. He had dreams — lofty ones — but fate had something else in store for him. In his early days, after finishing from the popular Urhobo College in 1973, he decided to learn a skill. Then, Warri was the hub of the manufacturing industry. The moribund Delta Steel Company (DSC), Aladja, was where he learnt how to operate cranes and do welding and vulcanising.
‘I have been doing this job for more than 40 years. I started in 1974. I learnt the job at Julius Berger, Aladja Steel Plant, for four years. I didn’t pay for the training; instead, they were paying me because I was working in their workshop at that time. I left in 1978 because it was a contract job. After that, I opened my own vulcanising spot at Robert Road, spent three years there, went to Okere Road, and so on,’ he told Saturday Tribune.
Before he left Delta Steel Company, he had had relationships that birthed nine children. According to him, he had it relatively rosy then, as Warri was booming with wealth and economic activities. The two youngest kids are from two concubines. His oldest child, he said, is based abroad. ‘I have one wife, two concubines, and eleven children. The oldest one is out of the country,’ Amayo noted, adding that the boy abroad gives him handouts once in a while.
‘I hail from Uhunmwonde Local Government Area of Edo State. The headquarters of the local government is Ehor. I was born to an Itsekiri mother in Warri in 1955. I have 12 siblings,’ he claimed.
As an artisan, Saturday Tribune sought to know if he had added value or trained others in the trade he plies. This is relevant owing to the fact that, except for young girls apprenticing in occupations like confectionery and tailoring, young boys are hardly interested in learning a trade, even when they have dropped out of school.
Responding, Amayo said: ‘I have trained two persons since I learnt the work, but I have not trained any other since those two left because Warri boys don’t like learning a trade. What they like doing is Yahoo Yahoo or pilfering, and sometimes, for some of the girls, following men, because that is where quick money is.’
With the dream of owning a house, what are his daily earnings like, especially amid the ongoing economic hardship in the country? He said: ‘There is money in the trade sometimes. For instance, recently, the daily money I went home with was just ₦500 because there were not many customers. But if there is work, on a good day, I go home with ₦3,000 or ₦4,000.
‘I don’t have a house, but I hope to build one. How? I can’t tell. I did crane operating, but I can’t do it again because of age. I can also do welding, but in welding, when you get to a particular age, you have to stop, else your eyes are gone.’
‘Amayo’s workshop, which is a “rented” open spot at a setback of an ancient house managed by a retired professor, is a bare ground which also serves as a footpath. The traders, who are indigent folks like Amayo, plying their menial trade on the government setback, cough up at least ₦10,000 per annum to the professor whose late parents actually owned the house. In a bid to eke out a living for his two boys and himself, Amayo endures clement and inclement weather yearly — in the sun and in the rain.
‘Because I don’t have a workshop with a roof to shield me from rain or sun, I always look for a shade to wait in the rain or scorching sun. If it is raining and there is a customer, one must enter the rain to do the job, because if you don’t, that means you are not ready to eat that day,’ he stated.
Speaking on his ugly moments in life, the 68-year-old said: ‘One of the few challenges I have passed through is sickness, and that was malaria and typhoid fever. It was so serious that I had to stay at home for months. I suffered hunger during those trying times, but I survived.
‘I would like some assistance in acquiring a shop where I can be selling tubes and tyres in addition to doing my vulcanising job,’ he pleaded.
Amayo, however, dropped a piece of advice to Nigerian youths: ‘My advice to young guys, especially in Warri, is to learn a trade so that they can be independent in their old age. If you can’t go to school, it is advisable to learn a craft. No matter how unfulfilled I may appear, I don’t beg before I can eat.’”
Amayo has gone to rest from the labour of this meaningless world. He was bedridden for some months. I couldn’t visit him on his sickbed, as I was unable to withstand another sight of a terminally ill patient just weeks after my wife passed in similar circumstances. Was he admitted to a hospital? I doubt it. Who footed the bill? I was told he lay critically in a native doctor’s harem till he eventually passed.
Amayo, the vulcaniser, is gone. His son, Efosa, is also in his company. His “office” at Ginuwa Junction is empty. Was I good to him? I think, twice or so, I bought him something to refresh. Once, I gave him some clothing. His shoe size was way larger than mine, so he couldn’t get any from me. He never got his dream of having a shop to sell tubes and tyres. He never fulfilled the dream of owning a house.
Life is ultimately about choices. His choices, from the moment of self-awareness, over time, probably defined how he ended. Would his second boy achieve his lawyer dream?
Amayo, if you can read this, as I behold where you once held sway from my vantage point — no more vehicles are waiting to have their tyres gauged. Mr Landlord is no longer after you. Mama Chinedu is not railing at you for some space.
Rest well, Amayo Peter — the rock!
Ebenezer writes from Warri, Delta State.
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