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HomeNewsThe Nigerian wristwatch repairer misplaced in time in Kaduna

The Nigerian wristwatch repairer misplaced in time in Kaduna

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Ifiokabasi Ettang / ORIONEWS A close-up of Bala Muhammad looking at a watch through a special eye-glass in his right eyeIfiokabasi Ettang / ORIONEWS

Ticking is the predominant sound inside Bala Muhammad’s tiny watch-repair store, tucked away on a bustling road within the northern Nigerian metropolis of Kaduna.

It is sort of a time capsule from a special period with quite a few clocks hanging on the wall and small tables on the entrance filled with his instruments and watches in numerous states of restore.

His store is on one in every of Kaduna’s busiest buying streets – sandwiched between constructing materials suppliers.

Till just a few years in the past, he had a gradual stream of shoppers dropping by to get their watches mounted or get a brand new battery fitted.

“There have been occasions I get greater than 100 wristwatch-repair jobs in a day,” the 68-year-old, popularly often called Baba Bala, informed the ORIONEWS.

However he worries that his expertise – taught to him and his brother by their father – will die out.

“Some days there are zero clients,” he says, blaming folks utilizing their cell phones to test the time for the decline in his commerce.

“Telephones and know-how have taken away the one job I do know and it makes me very unhappy.”

However for greater than 50 years, the growth in watches allowed the household to make an excellent residing.

“I constructed my home and educated my kids all from the proceeds of wristwatch repairing,” he says.

His father would journey throughout West Africa for six months at a time – from Senegal to Sierra Leone – fixing timepieces.

At one stage Baba Bala was based mostly within the capital, Abuja, the place most of the nation’s elite stay – and he made an excellent residing tending to the watches of the rich.

He reckons his greatest clients have been prime officers of the state-owned oil agency Nigerian Nationwide Petroleum Firm (NNPC).

Some had Rolexes – these can range wildly in value however a mean one prices round $10,000 (£8,000).

He says they’re lovely – and encapsulate his love for all watches from Switzerland. He himself owns a Longines, one other prestigious Swiss model, which he solely removes when he sleeps.

“If I step out of my home and I forgot it, I’ve to return for it. I cannot be with out it – that’s how vital it’s to me.”

At his store, he retains a wonderful large framed picture of his father, Abdullahi Bala Isah, taken as he seemed up from his work bench just a few years earlier than his loss of life in 1988.

Ifiokabasi Ettang / ORIONEWS Bala Muhammad, wearing wire-rimmed glasses and a long-sleeved pin-stripped blue shirt, sits in a white-painted wooden chair holding up a wide-wooden framed black-and-white photograph of his father, who is pictured looking at the camera as he sits at his workshop bench. He is wearing a sleeveless boubou. A desk fan can be seen in the background and a pendulum clock hangs on the wallIfiokabasi Ettang / ORIONEWS

Baba Bala’s father, who died in 1988, was a famend horologist who travelled throughout West Africa fixing watches

Isah was a famend horologist and his contacts in Freetown and Dakar would name him to make a journey after they had sufficient watches for him to are inclined to.

He would additionally make common visits to Ibadan, a metropolis within the south-west of Nigeria – a literary hub and residential to the nation’s first college.

Baba Bala says no-one within the household is aware of the place his father learnt his experience – however it could have been on the time of British colonial rule.

He himself was born 4 years earlier than Nigeria’s independence in 1960.

“My father was a well-liked wristwatch repairer and his ability took him to many locations. He taught me once I was younger and I’m proud to have adopted his footsteps.”

Baba Bala began taking a detailed curiosity in understanding the intricacies of what the wheels and levers inside a watch do when he was 10 – and was delighted to find that as he obtained older it grew to become an excellent supply of pocket cash.

“When my fellow college students have been broke in secondary college, I had cash to spend on the time as a result of I used to be already repairing wristwatches.”

He remembers his ability even impressed one in every of his lecturers: “He had points with a few of his wristwatches and had taken them to a number of locations and so they could not do them. When he was informed about me I used to be in a position to repair all three of the watches by subsequent day.”

At one level, watches have been seen as vital as garments in Nigeria and many individuals felt misplaced with out one.

Ifiokabasi Ettang / ORIONEWS Various old wristwatches laid out on a wood tableIfiokabasi Ettang / ORIONEWS

Some clients left their watches for restore years in the past and have by no means returned

Kaduna used to have a devoted space the place many watch-sellers and repairers arrange their companies.

“The place has been demolished and is now empty,” say Baba Bala mournfully, including that almost all of his colleagues are both useless or have given up on the enterprise.

A type of who admitted defeat was Isa Sani.

“Going to my restore store every day meant sitting down and getting no work – that is why I made a decision to cease getting in 2019,” the 65-year-old informed the ORIONEWS.

“I’ve land and my kids assist me to farm on it – that’s how I’m able to get by lately.”

He laments: “I do not suppose wristwatches will ever make a comeback.”

The children working on the constructing provide outlets subsequent to Baba Bala agree.

Faisal Abdulkarim and Yusuf Yusha’u, each aged 18, have by no means owned watches as they’ve by no means seen a necessity for them.

“I can test the time on my cellphone every time I need to and it is all the time with me,” one mentioned.

Dr Umar Abdulmajid, a communications lecturer at Yusuf Maitama College in Kano, believes issues might change.

“Standard wristwatches are little question dying and with it jobs like wristwatch repairs too, however with the smartwatch I believe they may make a comeback.

“The very fact a smartwatch can do way more than simply present you the time means it might proceed to draw folks.”

He suggests outdated watch-repairers learn to grapple with this new know-how: “In case you do not transfer with the occasions you get left behind.”

However Baba Bala, who returned from Abuja to Kaduna to arrange his store about 20 years in the past as he needed to be nearer his rising household, says this doesn’t curiosity him.

“That is what I really like doing, I think about myself a health care provider for sick wristwatches – plus I’m not getting any youthful.”

Ifiokabasi Ettang / ORIONEWS Bala Muhammad holding a radio in his shopIfiokabasi Ettang / ORIONEWS

Baba Bala spends most of his time on the store listening to the information on his radio

His tight-knit household stay loyal to his occupation – his spouse and all his 5 kids put on watches and sometimes pop in to go to him on the store, the place a few of the timepieces on show are forgotten relics from outdated clients.

“Some introduced them a few years in the past and did not return for them,” he says.

However Baba Bala refuses to surrender and nonetheless opens up every day – his eldest daughter, who runs a profitable garments boutique close by, helps him with payments when his enterprise is sluggish.

With out a lot to maintain him busy – or the chatter and gossip of his clients, Baba Bala says he now typically listens to his radio for firm, having fun with the Hausa language programmes on the ORIONEWS World Service.

Within the afternoon his youngest son, Al-Ameen, comes to go to after college – the one one in every of his kids to point out an curiosity in studying the artwork of watch-repairing. However he wouldn’t encourage him to take it up as a occupation.

He’s happy that the 12-year-old has informed him he desires to be a pilot – persevering with the household custom of seeing extra of the world.

In a cockpit, he could be confronted with many watch-like dials – not in contrast to his dad’s workshop.

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Getty Images/ORIONEWS A woman looking at her mobile phone and the graphic ORIONEWS News AfricaGetty Photographs/ORIONEWS

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