This is the young girl simply identified as Vicky, who sells newspapers to pay her fees.
According to Vanguard, Vicky, who said she started selling newspapers when she was nine years old and in Junior Secondary, JSS III in WAPI, disclosed that she made on the average N500 and N600 proceeds daily from the venture.
“I also gave the regular (daily) for N50.00 and sports newspaper for N20.00 to those who came here to read and return the paper and still sold the paper to those who wanted to buy,” she said.
She said her school runs two sessions and she attends the afternoon session, which affords her time to sell newspapers in the morning before leaving for school.
“Many prominent people live in this area, commissioners, House of Assembly members, judges, businessmen and even the present governor of our state before he became governor, Prof. Ben Ayade, used to buy papers from me,” she further said.
On how she gets the papers to sell, Vicky said she wakes up at 5.30 every morning and heads to Bassey Duke Street, the newspaper distribution point to collect the day’s papers when they arrive from Port Harcourt and Asaba every morning and by 8.00 am, she was already at her stand where some customers were waiting for her to arrive with the day’s papers.
“If there is a breaking news, before I get here, people are waiting for me, but some days, especially during the rainy season, because of the bad roads, papers arrive here late, except during weekends whether bad road or no bad road, the van drivers do manage to get here on time since the papers are produced early,” she said.
When she was asked what she does with the money, or if she hands it to her parents, the the fair-skinned girl retorted “No,” adding that she used the money to meet her needs in school and pay her fees, except when there was urgent need at home and her parents had no money, then she could help out.
Her words: “I use the money to meet my school needs, but sometimes, I help at home when my parents ask me to, may be they have no immediate cash at that time.”
She said she was yet to decide if she would continue being a vendor after her education, but for now, the business was quite lucrative.