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By Vivian Onyebukwa
Before now, only men drove commercial vehicles, especially the tricycle (more popularly known as Keke Marwa in Lagos), and the yellow minibus, otherwise known as Korope. like Keke and Korope But not anymore. The number of females in the tricycle business and Korope is steadily increasing in many parts of Lagos metropolis.
Nowadays, you see them virtually everywhere. If you look well, you’ll find them in places like Mushin, Yaba, Abule Egba, Agbado Crossing, Dalemo, Ogba, Ojodu, Jakande, Ejigbo, Ikotun, Ikeja, Ijesha, Ilasamaja and Fagba. With the development, they seem to be saying that what a man can do, a woman can do better.
But is this really the case? Saturday Sun enquiries show that why many went into it because of economic hardship, others see it as a stopgap in their pursuit of more satisfying jobs.
Why we operate Keke, Korope
Meet Mercy Effiong, a Korope driver plying the Ijesha/Lawanson route in Surulere, Lagos. In spite of challenges, she is determined to make the most of the job, she said. A single mother of two, she has been separated from her husband since 2018. On why she finds Korope driving such an attractive idea, she said: “This is what I use to take care of my kids. The man left me with two kids without taking care of them. What would I have done? I must feed them and take care of their needs. I have not had any other business since 
2020 when I started driving Korope. It is a good business if you are strong and willing. I make as much as N7, 000 every day after the deductions of expenses. I make it a full-time business. I am now familiar with the agberos, so they no longer disturb me as such. I thank God for my neighbour, a man who also drives Keke. He was the one who introduced me to this business.”
Another minibus female driver who identified herself as Mrs. Adeyinka is from Ondo State. She explained that she took to the commercial driving business to augment her meagre income. According to her, she started the job when her children secured admission into the university in 2018/19. She needed not only to help out with the payment of their school fees but to also relieve her husband of some domestic responsibilities. But it was just as well that she learned the ropes early enough before tragedy struck. She lost the man in September last year. She looked at you and added: “There is nothing I could have done than to put in more effort.”
She would want the state and federal governments to help women, especially widows who are into this business by calling their men, transport and traffic officers, to order. She explained: “There are lots of challenges we see on this job. Here, Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA), Vehicle Inspection Officer (VIO), and task force disturb us a lot. They claim that we are disrupting movements on the road. Government should help us on this.”
But despite the challenges, Adeyinka said she had been able to complete payment for the bus which she claimed to have acquired on hire purchase terms, and had been paying for by instalments. All the same, she confessed that her joy of owning the vehicle and driving it might soon be over. Reason? She said she wanted to start selling water and soft drinks with the proceeds from the transport business.
Ogechi Okafor, a Keke driver who has been doing business for the past four years plies the Cele/Jakande Gate route. Like Adeyinka, the woman who hails from Ihiala, Anambra State, confessed that she took up the job to help out financially in the family. She too bought the Keke on hire purchase terms, she claimed, and hoped to complete the payment by the end of the month. She also lamented the hostile attitude of her male colleagues and motor park touts (agberos) as one of the challenges she faces on the job. She said: “They said what a man can do, a woman can do better. But a woman is a woman. It is not easy for us; we are just managing.”
Like Adeyinka, she said she also has no plans to stay permanently on the job. She would rather work to garner some money from it and then establish some other businesses such as provisions store and beer parlour. But she relishes the popularity the commercial driving has brought to her. The woman, who is still single, is known as “Mama G.” She challenged Saturday Sun: “Just mention the name anywhere in Maza-Maza, Mile 2, Cele, Gate, and everybody will tell you that they know the person you are talking about and will bring you to me.”
Onyinyechi Joseph, a native of Ebonyi State is another Keke woman operator. A widow with four kids, she said that her husband’s death in March this year pushed her into the business to take care of her children. Like others, she too said she would want to go into the foodstuff business if she could make enough money to act as start-off capital. She claimed that part of her challenges is the menace of agberos who extort money from commercial drivers. “Just because one of them took some of us to where we borrowed Keke, he is using that opportunity to charge us N1, 000 every day.”
Ogechi Eke, from Abiriba, Abia State, ventured into the Keke business, some time ago. But she claimed that it had been a rough deal all the way. Recounting her misfortunes off her fingers, she said her Keke was stolen one night sometime last year from where she parked it in her house. She said she had to get another tricycle, a used one.
But even that has not in any way mitigated the hazards of the job, she said. “The business is not good for a woman. But because there is nothing we can do, we are just managing it. I have a 14-year-old boy, Wisdom, who is now in secondary school. Since I separated from my husband, I am the one taking care of him.” She prayed to God to bless her so she could start another business. She too blamed the challenges on the job on the agberos who she claimed demand all sorts of levies. “If you don’t give them, they are ready to fight you and to strip you naked; so you wouldn’t want that. You would have no alternative than to pay them whatever levy they are demanding. Another challenge is that as women, we may not wake up as early as men do; so we come a bit late. Then on Saturdays too, as a woman, you would want to do your house chores before leaving the house. But if we come out around 12 noon, they would still want to collect money from us by force.”
Amaka Stephanie, a school certificate holder from Obosi, Anambra State, operates a Keke from Cele off the Oshodi-Mile Expressay to Jakande Gate in Lagos. The lady who claimed she was taught to drive by a kind-hearted neighbour said she took to the job just to eke out a living. She said: “I started in February this year. It is not so that we can buy houses and cars with this job. We do it to at least find something with which to feed ourselves, pay the house rents and take care of our family. I have children, and I am taking care of them.”
According to her, a friend introduced her to the business and encouraged her to do it because she had been using it to take care of her own family. She said she intends to stay in the business for as long as she could gather enough money to do some other stuff. She gave her reasons. “It is a risky job because you have to stay on the road all day. But then, it is a good business. There’s no day you would come out and not go home with at least N5, 000. We call it ATM, meaning that you would never lack money as long as you drive Keke.”
She said she has no problem with hostile male colleagues. She added: “They treat us like their wives, except a few of them who are hard. Everybody cannot be the same.” From her experience as a Keke driver, she had some words of advice for jobless housewives: since there is economic hardship in town, she would want them to find something to do rather than depend on handouts from relatives.
Asked whether she was worried about people’s perception of her job, she said: “My relations in Lagos are the only ones that are aware that I do this job, and they call me a strong woman.”
Evan Nwakaego, a single mother of one from Mbaise, Imo State, said she met her life partner on the job. She said with a smile: “I am about to get married again. The man I want to marry is quite encouraging. He is a good man. When I was doing a salary job, I never met good people; all the ones I met were not serious.”
She insisted that she is never ashamed of doing the job as long as it is helping to put food on her table, and taking care of her family. She explained why she abandoned her former route, Ikotun to Isolo, and opted for Cele to Gate. “I have rest of mind now because Ikotun has many problems. Agberos there don’t consider women. But Cele people have human feelings. Even the chairman is a brother and father to us. No matter the challenges you take to him, he would handle them well. But at Ikotun, they would fight you. They don’t have time for women. To me, I love this place, and I love the job.”
The woman who started the Keke business after the 2020 pandemic said before then she used to be a caterer. But when her son gained admission into the university, she felt that to be able to cope with demands she would need to find a more lucrative business. She explained thus: “I don’t want a situation whereby there won’t be money to pay his school fees.”
But she added that not everybody was in support of her decision, especially her relations and neighbours. They feared for her life, but she was nonplussed. She said: “I didn’t care about what anybody had to say. My family members opposed it, including my compound people where I live. They would call my younger brother and tell him not to allow me to do the job so I won’t have problems on the way. But I would tell them not to worry. Today, the story has changed. As I am now, I cannot do salary work. If I dress up, you won’t believe I am a Keke driver. About nine of us have gathered, and planned that at the end of this year, we will go and pay a visit to motherless babies’ home, and give the authorities some items to take care of the orphans.” Though Evan revealed that the Keke she is driving belongs to her, she didn’t want to reveal how much she makes every day.
Stella Johnson Iruozo who claimed to have started driving Keke in 2019, also said she is not in it to stay. All the same, she said she prefers the job to being a salaried employee because “it gives me my daily bread, and I still have time for myself.” The woman, a holder of a secondary school certificate, hails from Mgbidi, Imo State, said she would want to further her education because she has three children to cater for. She said although agberos extort her and her fellow operators, she got more trouble from her bosses while she worked in an office.
So, how long was she planning to stay on the job? She shrugged her shoulders and said: “Until I gather myself together. It is not an easy job. It’s a job for men, not for women. But I will remain here for now since there is no alternative.
“We do pay agberos; not that we don’t pay at all. As for the police, our relationship with them is, if you don’t look for their trouble, they would not look for your own. Do what is right. Just obey all their rules. Stop or park where you are supposed to park, and you won’t have any issues with them. When you do what you are not supposed to do, and they catch you, you pay the ransom. That one is normal.”
She described her relationship with her passengers as cordial. She admitted: “My passengers do not look down on me as a woman. There is no job meant for men or women, especially in this Lagos State. Anyone you are capable of doing, do it. My passengers are really nice. I appreciate them. Some of them do give me tips for encouragement.”
She also advised unemployed women to wake up to their duties. She said: “No amount given to you will be enough. So you better wake up and look for something to do. Nothing is too small. Anything you know that can keep you, do it. There are a lot of things to do. If I stop doing this job, I would look for something else to do. I won’t sit at a place and wait for a man to give me because this time around, it is not easy for men to feed, much less extend their hands to someone else. So wake up and look for something to do. It is very important. It takes only encouragement and determination. Don’t look at anybody’s face.”
