His striking, vulnerable eyes pounced on every object in the large earthen compound where he gathered his toys. Mojeed flocked around his 25-year-old mother, Taiwo Abduljelil, while she got busy with cloth weaving. His father was also seated at the entrance of the compound where he was weaving a bundle of polychrome threads.

Mojeed was born a few months after Nigeria announced its first total lockdown in March 2020 as part of measures to check the spread of the COVID-19 in the country. So, they call him “Corobaby”. A happy child, Mojeed, teetered from one end of the compound to the other as though on an undercover mission – from his mother to the father and paternal grandmother who weaned him.

Although the lockdown was not observed in Iseyin, a rustic Yoruba community in Oyo State, South-west Nigeria, where Mojeed and his parents live, the effect of the economic shutdown in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, and the nation’s capital city was felt everywhere. States locked their borders to curb the spread of the virus; there were travel restrictions and businesses began to nosedive.

For most households in Iseyin where traditional cloth weaving is the major source of livelihood, they all disembarked from the wooden loom. They had woven enough clothing materials at home, but there was no one to buy them. Hands akimbo, they stared at the horizon. Some rested on their window frames lost in thought; hunger and frustration dealt a massive blow.

Mrs Abduljelil and her husband, Jelil, had nowhere to go. They had no other business or means of survival and life became unbearable. Yet, they welcomed Mojeed into the world with open hands.

“It was a tough time for us. The pandemic and the restrictions came to us unexpectedly. We had to stop working and we were sleeping all day. That was when we had our third child, Mojeed. I do not pray to witness such a pandemic in my lifetime again,” she said.

“We suffered. We sold out the materials we had at home for peanuts just to feed. I took my children to my mother-in-law to take care of them. Businesses have started picking up again, but so many of us have not recovered from the shock of COVID-19.”

Before COVID-19 disrupted the traditional cloth weaving business in the community, Mrs Abduljelil, who only attended a basic primary school, would wake up at 6 a.m., cook for the family, feed the children and step out into the compound to begin the business of the day. She used to weave two packs of materials daily. A pack, which consists of eight pieces of woven materials, is sold for N800. In other words, she used to make about N1,600 daily.

The pandemic altered everything.

It was 4 p.m. and the blazing sun was already lowering its gaze. Under a huge mango tree, 40-year-old Oluwayemisi Kehinde was at her best as she shuttled a small wooding boat across threads and locked them with the reed. Her feet were swift on the pedals of the ‘ofi’, which is the local name for a loom. The warp was long, about ten metres away from the ofi where she sat to knot it with the weft to form a beautiful pattern.

In Yoruba language, aso means cloth; so, aso-ofi loosely translates as the hand-woven textile from the loom. The process is hectic and takes days, from sorting the raw cotton or synthetic fibres to combing, spinning and warping — all done manually.

Ms Kehinde has been making aso-ofi for over 20 years. She works from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily and only rests on Sundays. Her dexterity and energy were contagious as she answered questions smoothly without a break from weaving. She learnt the job when she dropped out of school after her primary education.

According to her, the height of the COVID-19 pandemic was the toughest period she has ever experienced over two decades of making aso-ofi. She sold out all the materials she had in store for lesser amounts. At some point, Ms Kehinde said, she fed her six children with mangoes. Schools were shut, so they all woke every morning thinking about where the next meal would come from.

“We feed our family and also pay children’s school fees with proceeds from this business. Customers used to come to Iseyin from different parts of the country to order various designs, quality and brands of our material. Suddenly, they disappeared, and we starved,” Ms Kehinde said.

“I used to sell a pack of aso-ofi for N5,000 or 6,000 depending on the quality because I use 100 per cent cotton. I can make ten packs in three days. So, things were good for us and we were able to meet our needs. Now, the profit has thinned owing to the recent increase in the materials we use, but the demand is increasing because we make quality aso-ofi here.”

CHECK OUR STORE