Meet Alhaja Falolu Afusat
Lagos, Nigeria
Client of ACCION Microfinance Bank (AMfB)
Everywhere you walk in the Daleko Market there’s oil underfoot—so many layers of it that the ground feels like putty. Daleko is Lagos, Nigeria’s vegetable oil market—a beehive of stalls cascading down tightly spun alleys. Vendors slip and slide their way around, masterfully carrying heavy oil jugs.
Alhaja Falolu Afusat is queen bee at Daleko—head of the market. She’s been selling vegetable oil here since 1979. Aided by the name “King’s Vegetable Oil” for her business, she’s a formidable woman by any account.
But her tiny stall—a shack with 20 jugs—belies her key market role—not to mention the numerous obstacles she has overcome to reach her position. Since leaving school after 6th grade, she has sold everything from a local grain called “tuwu” to dry gin. However, these businesses earned her little income and were physically taxing. They became even more so when her husband died from typhoid fever, leaving her to support four young children on her own.
In 2007, loan officers from ACCION Microfinance Bank (AMfB) came to Daleko, going stall to stall to introduce the new bank’s services to vendors. Alhaja was interested, and also skeptical. But an AMfB loan officer took the time to learn her needs and earn her trust. With a loan of $400, she was able to purchase additional oil jugs and partly offset the cost of buying the high-priced commodity from Benin.
Support from AMfB is helping Alhaja to succeed in new ways: “With more profits, I have been able to save a little and it allows me to assist in my children’s school fees and eat more and better,” she says. Her young grandson—dressed in a school uniform and giggling in her arms—is a touching reminder of the future she is building for her family.
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Alhaja Falolu Afusat
Lagos, Nigeria
Client of ACCION Microfinance Bank (AMfB)