How 15-Year-Old Gombe Boy Makes N60,000 Monthly From Sugarcane Business

At just 15, Muhammad Sani from Gombe’s Barunde community operates a mobile sugarcane-squeezing machine, a business venture that helps him save up to N60,000 every month. BABAJI USMAN BABAJI writes

As the morning breaks, Sani rolls out his cart, waits to see who needs sugarcane – its juice now. He tightens and wipes his hands on a clean cloth, and waits for the first customers of the day as the sun climbs gently over the dusty weather of Gombe’s rooftops. When evening draws in and the roadside traffic slows, Sani also arranges the remaining sugarcane stalks, wipes down his machine, and folds his small tarp.

While many of his peers are struggling in classrooms or procrastinating on the streets, Sani is pushing his mobile business, though ambitious to return to school.

On a sunny afternoon, he works on the device, extracting sweet juice from a heap of sugarcane stalks assembled under the device.

This local machine, acquired by his employer years ago for an estimated N40,000, has now become the sole engine of his daily earnings. “But now it will cost far more than this price,” he said.

He told LEADERSHIP Sunday that he started selling sugarcane juice two months ago, pushing his device across the Barunde community and into adjacent neighbourhoods. On an average profitable day, he nets about N2,000, translating to a potential monthly income of N60,000.

The teenager believed that this was a significant step up from his previous job in animal skin work, where his daily earnings rarely got up to N1,000. “This one is much better,” he affirmed while handing a customer a bottle of the juice sold for N300.

Sadly, with all the earnings, the young boy would return it to his “generous” Oga, as he called his boss, who would settle him depending on the day’s favourability. Thus, he needs to push more so can afford returning to school for his education.

Sani’s life is just a reflection of a widespread Nigerian reality that economic hardship is a developmental crisis that spares no age and does not wait for children to grow. After completing primary school, he was supposed to be enrolled in the local secondary school, but was forced to hold on.

The combined weight of school fees, books, uniforms, and the general costs of living normally proved too much for hundreds of families to bear, especially in Northern Nigeria.

As of September 2025, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and World Bank data showed that Gombe State alone has 787,619 out-of-school children, with the North-East region accounting for 15 per cent of Nigeria’s 13.5 million figure.

Can Sani balance his micro business and school? His answer is, “Yes, I can do.” But for now, the classroom ambition had to surrender to the demanding priorities of life. He is a child doing the work of an adult because life left him no other choice.

Yet, his spirit is strong, and he remains optimistic. He speaks with clarity about his dream: to one day resume his education and to run a business entirely on his own terms. “I want to do my own business by myself,” he emphasised. His aspirations are not extravagant; they are humble, achievable, and anchored in a rooted desire for self-reliance and dignity.

Sani is one face in a cohort of teenagers sustaining Nigeria’s informal labour market. Across cities, thousands of young people are visible – hawking sachet water, selling fruits, shining shoes, or pushing carts.

They fill this gap not by choice, but because their families are being crushed by relentless inflation, widespread unemployment, and deepening economic inequality.

In communities across Gombe, children like Sani often act as the critical financial backbone for families battling poverty. Their small, hard-earned wages are often the only buffer between the family and hunger.

However, every child forced into premature labour represents a failure of the state and community to provide a fundamental safety net – one that is meant to guarantee their rights to education, healthy development, and a proper childhood.

When asked the single most important support he requires, his response is: “Capital.” Sani believes that with financial assistance, he could purchase his own machine, scale his production, grow his customer base, and, crucially, afford to return to the classroom.

“If I can get support, I will continue this work and combine it with school.” He is convinced that a small, strategic investment would fundamentally alter the trajectory of his life.

Sani’s daily struggle compels a dialogue to identify what structured, sustainable solutions are needed to support young workers like him. And how can government and community resources be mobilised to keep ambitious youth in school while equipping them with valuable, marketable skills?

Social development experts agree that effective solutions must transition from temporary sympathy to permanent, structured empowerment. Providing holistic support to young entrepreneurs like Sani requires multifaceted interventions.

Offering small, interest-free capital or grants to enable young people to start, formalise, or expand their small businesses, creating skill acquisition pathways that lead to recognised certification, will improve their earning potential.

For some experts, developing flexible or part-time learning programs that allow school dropouts to catch up and return to formal education without sacrificing their necessary income streams can help.

To the casual observer, Sani is merely an out-of-school boy running a modest street business. But his story also reflects a larger national treasure: the vast, untapped potential within Nigeria’s youth population.

With adequate support, structured opportunities, and a helping hand, children like Sani possess the inherent drive to break the chains of generational poverty and transition into lives of stability and contribution.

All he needs, like several others, is a hand that sees him not just as a teenager squeezing juice, but as a future job creator, a dedicated student, and a young man poised to transform his fate.

“My dream is to stand on my own one day,” he concluded. And with the right policy support, that dream is entirely within reach for millions of Sani’s age who still have no dream for their future.