As economies tumbled and hardship spread with the COVID-19 pandemic sweeping across the world, one group got hit in more ways than one. While operations and revenue making for many businesses took a downward spiral, like many places, schools were also shut, and making students stay home. In Nigeria, most university students stayed away from school for up to nine months from 2020; a combination of both the lockdown and a strike by public university lecturers, which compounded students’ woes.
For students who doubled as business owners, their loss was two-fold; loss of an academic year and their source of revenue. For some students, being in school is how they get to survive by rendering services for their fellow students. Studying, for some, exists alongside schooling being a means of livelihood for them, either because of financial limitations from their sponsors or lack of one and often not having bursaries or scholarships.
The endless list of businesses offered by students includes; printing (desktop publishing and photocopying), laundry services, photography, website/logo designing, fashion design, event planning and DJ, makeup artistes, selling gadgets among others. There were also the ‘real estate agents’, who would help their fellow students in searching for accommodation, a rather hot commodity that is almost always in demand by students. Also important were the food vendors, caterers, and confectionery makers, who made a business from ensuring their fellow students were fed.
The idea is often to meet the needs of fellow students across various backgrounds, from purely academic to personal and social needs. The school communities are in fact, economic units where service providers competing for the patronage of students, build their businesses around the 3-month semester cycle. Even during vacations, some look forward to skeletal operations as one group of students may be on campus for one reason or the other.
Without their peers around and specifically, in school, there was automatically no business for these students that owned businesses, some of whom also supported their family from their meagre earnings…
For students like Elizabeth Enilolobo-Taiwo, a hairstylist, they too have to partake in the opportunities offered by the school environment, but this was until COVID-19 dealt student-owned businesses like hers a blow they didn’t think they were mature enough to withstand.
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“I started the business because I wanted to make my mistakes and learn about the business before heading out to reality, then to make my own money,” said Elizabeth, a 400 level student of Computer Science Education at the University of Ilorin.
When the pandemic caused nationwide lockdowns, she says desperation to continue making money made her fall for a Ponzi scheme, which was disguised as forex trading. “It affected me a lot that I even fell into a scheme that took the money I have been saving, all in the name of looking for money. It wasn’t a good experience at all,” she recalls.
The length of time spent away from school varied by the type of tertiary institution, as the strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), prolonged the lockdown of most public universities. For other tertiary institutions like polytechnics, colleges of educations, and even privately owned universities, the woes of student-owned businesses were put solely at the feet of COVID-induced lockdowns.
Without their peers around and specifically, in school, there was automatically no business for these students that owned businesses, some of whom also supported their family from their meagre earnings.
Bimpe Sanni, a student of Business Administration at the National Open University of Nigeria, runs Tenur Haircastle, a hair business that started a few months before the pandemic broke out. “It was going really well even if the business can be somehow slow sometimes,” she recalls of the time before COVID-19 brought things to a halt.
Bimpe explains that she started the business, thinking of her future and trying to build a name for herself, so as to be able to afford things on her own. Even though her school is not residential and operates a network of campuses designed to offer distance and open learning, she was able to cultivate a clientele among her female colleagues.
“It ruined a lot, just always staying at home and had to spend the little I earned for food and family. It wasn’t a good moment,” she recalls. She could not sell to students or other people around, since “everywhere was closed, everybody was in it together.” Like others would reiterate, her major takeaway from the pandemic’s impact is, “Save up for the future.”
Samiat Sanni, an ND-2 student, studying Science Laboratory Technology at the Yaba College of Technology, started her “Surprise business”, few months before the pandemic struck. The business mostly entails offering services where on special occasions, celebrants are surprised with unexpected ceremonies or even serenaded. For students, it is a luxury some choose to indulge in, especially when they have love interests they want to impress in school. The luxury or vanity of her fellow students was for Samiat, a source of livelihood.
The services, however, went beyond school environments to everyday people who needed to create memorable moments for their loved ones.
“I wanted to make money to attend to my needs,” Samiat says of her reason for going into the business. However, with her school closed for months, and losing access to her clientele, the young business hit a rock.
“Because I couldn’t go out to work, it meant not making money,” she says, further lamenting, “I was already enjoying the little change (that is, money) and that was when covid happened.”
She could not find another way to continue making money until the lockdown was eased, and for her, the only lesson she learnt to survive if something like that were to happen again is; “always save up”.
Tolani Amoo, a 200-level student of Industrial Relations and Personnel Management at the University of Ilorin, started hairdressing and selling hair accessories, about a year before the pandemic.
“It was to make extra income apart from my allowance,” she says. But with the lockdowns, “I had no extra income because people weren’t looking to get their hair done,” she adds. Surviving became a function of taking what she described as side jobs that came her way, as well as helping out with her mother who runs a catering business. To survive another disruption like this, she told BusinessDay her abiding principle would be, “Don’t put your eggs in one basket and always have different options.”
Oreoluwa Adeyemi, a 200 level student of Business Administration at the University of Lagos describes himself as a “sneakerhead”, which saw him starting, Blvck_collection, an online fashion store that deals in sneakers, clothes, bags, and other trendy fashion items. Unlike other students interviewed, the business started during the lockdown when he had nothing to do.
“I decided to take it up since I had been thinking about it for a while,” he told BusinessDay. His business model revolved around posting online, Instagram adverts, WhatsApp adverts, referrals, telling his friends about the business, and using dispatch riders for deliveries. Considering purchasing power and limitations of many in his target market, he had to give discounts to encourage customers to patronize him.
“In order to avoid sapa (a slang for poverty), try and cultivate the saving habit,” he says of his plan going forward. “For instance, I save on Cowrywise through automatic saving. At least if anything comes up you will know something is somewhere for you.”
For Elizabeth at the University of Ilorin, however, she says, “I pray it doesn’t come around again because I have no idea on what to do.”
Unprepared, and untrained to manage the magnitude of disruptions caused to their businesses by the COVID-19 pandemic, the loss of income source was for most students interviewed their cue to cultivate a savings culture. For others, it was a challenge to innovate and find ways to survive when the next such disruption comes calling. One way some managed to navigate the unavailability of their ready-market; which is the school environment, was going online. This exposed them to a wider clientele, which they were able to service through dispatch riders.
Esther Adeyemi, an HND II student of Mass Communication at Abraham Adesanya Polytechnic, who sells hair extensions and accessories, and Akin Boaz, studying agriculture at the University of Ilorin, and into gift boxes and accessories, are some of the student-business owners who defied the lockdown to remain operational.
“I was able to do business despite the lockdown because my business was online,” says Esther. “I was able to take so many orders and I started making deliveries when the lockdown was relaxed a bit.”
For Esther, her future plan is to “save for the rainy day, then use every problem as an opportunity to your advantage, see what others see as a problem as an opportunity for you.”
While Akin encountered challenges including delivery problems and short inflow of cash, he recognises turning to the internet as a game-changer for him.
“I’ve learnt that tough times don’t last, only tough people do. So if it happens again, we’d manoeuvre it till it’s over,” says Akin.
This article was originally published in print under the headline, ‘As COVID-19 lockdowns pummelled student-owned businesses, survival took new meaning’
