Vendor Spotlight: Daniel Light Ezekiel (Lagos, Nigeria)

Daniel Light Ezekiel (28), a vendor of The Big Issue Lagos.Photo courtesy of The Big Issue Lagos

Daniel Light Ezekiel (28), a vendor of The Big Issue Lagos.Photo courtesy of The Big Issue Lagos

Daniel Light Ezekiel (28), a vendor of The Big Issue Lagos.Photo courtesy of The Big Issue Lagos

Daniel Light Ezekiel (28), a vendor of The Big Issue Lagos.Photo courtesy of The Big Issue Lagos

The best way to describe this dark-skinned petite, young man is to call him an enigma. Why? He's one man who has literally walked crooked paths, even where angels feared to tread. Daniel Light Ezekiel, 28, a vendor with The Big Issue Lagos, is not just your next door neighbour, he is much more.

Torn between working in an ethnic militia force in the Niger Delta creeks along with his peers and enjoying all the spoils that go with it, or choosing a more dignified life, where survival struggle is a metaphor of existence, he opted for the latter.

Determined to take his destiny in his own hands, Dan, as he is fondly called by his pals, left his homestead in Delta state a few years ago in search of greener pastures in the city of Lagos. With no help in sight, he has had to survive the hard way on the streets by juggling between different menial jobs like washing cars in the ever-busy Lagos traffic.

But in spite of his situation, he has big dreams and plans. Like Martin Luther King Jr., the foremost American iconoclast, he holds the view, and very strongly too, that if he prepares himself in earnest, one day he will become great. Hence his mantra remains: "work and pray."

As a determined, self-motivated man, he sees every challenge as an opportunity to achieve his goals in life. This is probably why, despite not having any prior skill as a newspaper vendor, his tenacity and sincerity of purpose has kept him going.

As a vendor, his typical day begins at 8am. "When I wake up in the morning after saying my prayers, I get prepared to go out and sell my Big Issue Magazine at the Stadium in Surulere. Depending on how I do that day - if I make sales I want to remain to make more but if I don't - I usually sign off for the day around noon," he says.

Much as he would have loved to market the magazine by moving around the Lagos metropolis, his bad leg, which is a result of Polio he suffered from childhood, has prevented him from doing so and he has had to restrict his movement to "Under Stadium Bridge doing my sales."

Besides being a vendor, he also keeps body and soul together by, "Recharging people's cell phone batteries under the Surulere Stadium Bridge. This helps to complement the times I don't sell," he explains.

Though the job of a vendor is not a high-paying job, Dan admitted that working as a vendor has its own benefits which cannot be quantified. "Now I can talk to people with renewed confidence. Also I now know I can do some other things I have not done before," he says with enthusiasm.

Though he is proud of his job as a vendor, he doesn't see it as a career he hopes to sustain for much longer. "Yes I'm proud to be a vendor. But I know I will not do this job for long because I know what I'm looking for has not yet come. But being a vendor is certainly better than doing nothing at all."

Dan, who also goes by the native name "Oghenemaro" meaning "My God is great", hopes to be a great musician someday. He writes Gospel songs and also sings.

"As a person that sings and writes music, one day I would like to see my music being played everywhere across the world", he says, rather self-assuredly. His role models in music are Kirk Franklin and Don Moen.

As to whether he would like to imitate any of these music greats, he answers deadpan: "No. I want to be myself."