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Jega, a key commercial town in Kebbi State, has long served as a gateway to other parts of the country and beyond. Beyond its historic routes, it has also grown into one of the North’s most important agricultural trading hubs.
From its surrounding towns and villages, local farmers daily transport their harvests to Jega. From there, these trucks move to Sokoto, Lagos, Ghana, Niger, Benin Republic and Togo in unbroken chains.
Tasha Dagi, the pepper market that converges on Friday, is a major chapter in the business story of Jega. Without it, the narratives of Jega will be incomplete. The market sits at the southern end of the town, at the edge of where travellers and traders board or hire vehicles journeying to the South and other parts of West Africa.
By mid-morning on every Friday, the roads leading to the market are jam-packed with traffic and life. Farmers arrive in their hundreds with long and heavy sacks of dried pepper, carefully packed and stacked. Some ride in on motorcycles. Some arrive on their foot. Others pool their resources together to hire heavy trucks that bring harvests to the market.
When Daily Sun visited the market, last Friday, the whole market was like a festival: A babble of voices all over the spaces. Farmers stepping down from their trucks and wholesalers moving to check for the cleanest, best-dried pepper. It was a bubble of frenzied activities – but all for good.
At the far end, trailers bound for Lagos, Ilorin, Ibadan, Niger Republic and Togo waited patiently while wholesale traders, already done with the market deals, negotiated the fares to upload their goods.
Isa Marafa: “I am a pepper farmer from Maiyalo (Mayawa Local Government). After harvest I dry my own pepper and I also buy from other farmers. I started with two or three bags years ago. Little by little I grew to this level. If I am counting rightly, it is 20 years now and I have plans of retiring soon.”
He identified the rising cost of fuel as a factor that has suddenly inflated the cost of the pepper: “It has pushed a bag of pepper, which sold for around N30,000 to N35,000 three months ago, to about N55,000 today.
“Every Friday we bring our pepper harvest here. No matter the distance, if you are from Jega, Mayawa or Aliero, this is our market. A stranger may not find this place easily. Only old customers know this place. This is where many pepper farmers smile on Fridays ahead of the weekend.
“In the morning, the prices are high and upbeat and the bargain is right. By evening, it drops sharply- because no farmer wants to return home with the loads of pepper- the truck drivers will still charge for the return trip, which means losses.”
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Muhammad Masayabo has been a regular visitor to the market for 16 years, selling pepper. He hails from Gidi in Jega LG. He said the market has played significant role in his life: “I built my house, married wives and married off my daughters all from the proceeds from the market.
“Our biggest challenge is theft.” He cited the growing cases of farmers who lost their bags of pepper to thieves and the drawbacks it caused in their businesses. “But now, we have hired a set of young men to watch over our goods and we are better than where we were before.”
He appealed to the state government to support the pepper farmers in the same way it had supported the rice and maize farmers with inputs and free fertilizer: “That way, we would do better than what we are doing.”
Danbuga Musa who has traded in the market for 10 years, agreed that it has been prosperity for the farmers and the traders of the market all the way. But he felt that their greatest challenge is the hike in transport cost occasioned by the unending jump in the price of fuel:
“If government helps, we can produce more. I started with two bags. Now I bring 15 to 20 bags of pepper to the market. After harvest, I buy from other farmers and resell.”
He appealed to the government to construct a permanent site for the market, fearing that one day, “the land owner can ask us to leave.”
Hussaini Abbas, a truck driver on Ghana route for years now, said drivers heading to Togo, Dosso and Benin Republic often move in convoy for security reasons on their way home. Jafar Abdulsamad, another truck driver on Lagos route observed that five or six traders going to the South West usually share one truck to cut cost and ease the burdens of the trip.
He appealed to government to fasten the pace of work on the Mokwa-Kontagora Road and the Malando-Wara-Ngaski roads so that trips to South West will be faster, smoother and easier.
Tasha Dagi Pepper Market is not just a Friday market as the locals have come to brand it. It is a real time supply line to peoples and countries. It is a market that feeds many nations.
