Gikomba: Vast market that churns out millionaires

Nairobi, Kenya: The mere mention of Gikomba brings to mind images of crowds flipping and tossing clothes items to get the best bargains. For those who hate being in crowded places, Gikomba is to be avoided like the plague. And with good reason.

A quick check in cyberspace reveals the devastation brought upon Gikomba by last month’s grenade attack that killed ten people and injured 70 others. In the past, traders have lost millions of shillings worth of goods through fires. This is not to mention the quagmire that the busy market becomes after the slightest rain.

All these misfortunes aside, Gikomba is home to thousands of businesspeople who throng here each day in order to make hay while the sun shines.

What you may not know is that this vast market has made tycoons and keeps churning them out every other day. These shrewd business people collect hundreds of thousands of shillings every month by providing vital services for the shoppers and traders of Gikomba each day.

A number of these “service providers” who range from food vendors, tailors, couriers and even preachers would shame some of our well-paid civil servants.

From their profits, the traders have formed the ever popular chamas through which they are saving and borrowing money, and making huge investments outside their businesses.

Others, based on their business turnover, have been able to take bank loans and invested big time in real estate and even bought shares in blue chip companies.

So next time you sneer at a Gikomba trader, think again.

There are many business opportunities in Gikomba. Take, for example, some hawk-eyed people who have taken advantage of the county government’s inability to provide vital services such as toilets or well-drained walkways to make money. Daily, they get many customers looking for clean toilets or someone to keep their workspace clean of murky water.

John Nyaga, who has been plying his trade off Sakwa Road in Gikomba since 1995, has made a his fortune by providing rubber boots to people who would not dare step in the muddy puddles that Gikomba is synonymous with.

Nyaga’s investment consists of 70 rubber boots that he rents out for Sh50 a pair. If you do your math right when all the boots are taken, then he stands to make Sh3,500 each time he hires them out. By the time I got to meet him, all the boots had been hired out. It should be borne in mind that the market operates seven days a week, meaning Nyaga can easily take home more than Sh100,000 in a good month.

But is it not unhygienic to share footwear with hundreds of people regularly? Well, Nyaga has this figured out as well. Hanging on a pole nearby are new polythene bags that his customers use as extra protection for the feet. 

When the boots are hired out, Nyaga spends his day cleaning shoes for those who may have missed out on the gumboots and trudged into the market in their shoes. For this service, he charges Sh20.

If just 50 people come for this service in one day, that translates to Sh1,000, which translates to Sh30,000 in a month if were he to clean the shoes every day of the week. Few people in the city make over Sh130,000 a month.

Nyaga is also a baggage handler. If you deposit your stuff with him as you do your shopping in the busy market, expect to fork out another Sh50 on your way out. Talk about job creation!

“I dropped out of school in Standard Six due to lack of fees. I was actually a very bright child in school and would have gone places had I completed my education,” he tells me.

Still he has no regrets about the decision he made to eke out a living this way.

“Apart from going through the formal education system, one can still build an empire through hard work. Hustling here requires the proper use of your God-given brain,” adds the father of two boys aged 13 and 18. He says he would not exchange his job for anything else.

Further inside the market, I meet Masinde with three hot irons by his side. He gets a bit cagey when I introduce myself as a journalist. He refuses to give me his first name or have his picture taken.

He confides in Kiswahili: “I have told people at home that I work as a police officer in Nairobi. What will they think if they see me ironing second-hand clothes in Gikomba?”

Masinde’s job is simple; when traders buy second-hand clothes for resale in other parts of the country, they often find the clothes are too creased for their clients.

For “value addition”, Masinde and his ilk iron them – for a small fee, of course. On a good day, he can iron between 200 and 300 garments, charging an average of Sh5 per piece. That is more than Sh1,000 daily or an average of Sh30,000 monthly. His only expense is a small bag of charcoal.

Then there is Mama Kim, a wholesaler of second-hand clothes. She sells her wares in bales and every day is pay day for her. How much does she make? I ask. “Good money,” she says, “business is good.”

On every corner of the market, there is a preacher spreading the prosperity message or end time edicts.

As their mouths spit fire and saliva, the listeners give their sadaka. Doing this every day fills their pockets with money for personal improvement projects, all in the name of God.

My attention shifts to a young man standing next to a set of latrines. Patrick Mwanzia, a father of two, came to Gikomba from Matuu five years ago.

Due to lack of proper toilets in the market, suave businesspeople like Mwanzia have put up such facilities that people use for a fee – Sh10 for every visit. With hundreds of people visiting the latrines every single day, Mwanzia is not about to look for another job any time soon.

There are many more in themarket who, just like Nyaga, Mama Kim, Masinde, the preachers and Mwanzia, have found Gikomba to be the real gold mine that lines their prosperity.