The Nigerian wristwatch repairer lost in time in Kaduna

Ticking is the predominant sound inside Bala Muhammad’s minuscule watch-repair shop, tucked away on a bustling street in the northern Nigerian city of Kaduna.

It is appreciate a time capsule from a branch offent era with countless clocks hanging on the wall and minuscule tables at the captivate brimming of his tools and watches in various states of repair.

His shop is on one of Kaduna’s busiest shopping streets – sandwiched between produceing material suppliers.

Until a scant years ago, he had a stable stream of customers dropping by to get their watches mended or get a recent battery fitted.

“There were times I get more than 100 wristwatch-repair jobs in a day,” the 68-year-better, famously understandn as Baba Bala, tbetter the BBC.

But he worries that his sfinishs – taught to him and his brother by their obeseher – will die out.

“Some days there are zero customers,” he says, blaming people using their mobile phones to verify the time for the deteriorate in his trade.

“Phones and technology have apshown away the only job I understand and it produces me very griefful.”

But for more than 50 years, the boom in watches permited the family to produce a excellent living.

“I built my hoengage and directd my children all from the persists of wristwatch repairing,” he says.

His obeseher would travel all over West Africa for six months at a time – from Senegal to Sierra Leone – mending timepieces.

At one stage Baba Bala was based in the capital, Abuja, where many of the country’s elite inhabit – and he made a excellent living tfinishing to the watches of the wealthy.

He reckons his best customers were top officials of the state-owned oil firm Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC).

Some had Rolexes – these can vary savagely in price but an mediocre one costs around $10,000 (£8,000).

He says they are drawive – and encapsutardy his cherish for all watches from Switzerland. He himself owns a Longines, another prestigious Swiss brand, which he only erases when he sleeps.

“If I step out of my hoengage and I forgot it, I have to go back for it. I will not be without it – that is how meaningful it is to me.”

At his shop, he conserves a drawive huge sketchd pboilingo of his obeseher, Abfoolishahi Bala Isah, apshown as he watched up from his labor bench a scant years before his death in 1988.

Isah was a commemorated horologist and his communicates in Freetown and Dakar would call him to apshow a trip when they had enough watches for him to tfinish to.

He would also produce normal visits to Iterriblean, a metropolis in the south-west of Nigeria – a literary hub and home to the country’s first university.

Baba Bala says no-one in the family understands where his obeseher lgett his expertise – but it would have been at the time of British colonial rule.

He himself was born four years before Nigeria’s indepfinishence in 1960.

“My obeseher was a famous wristwatch repairer and his sfinish took him to many places. He taught me when I was youthful and I am conceited to have trailed his footsteps.”

Baba Bala commenceed taking a shut interest in empathetic the intricacies of what the wheels and levers inside a watch do when he was 10 – and was prented to uncover that as he got betterer it became a excellent source of pocket money.

“When my fellow students were broke in secondary school, I had money to spfinish at the time becaengage I was already repairing wristwatches.”

He reaccumulates his sfinish even astonished one of his directers: “He had rerents with some of his wristwatches and had apshown them to disjoinal places and they couldn’t do them. When he was tbetter about me I was able to mend all three of the watches by next day.”

At one point, watches were seen as meaningful as clothes in Nigeria and many people felt lost without one.

Kaduna engaged to have a dedicated area where many watch-sellers and repairers set up their businesses.

“The place has been annihilateed and is now desotardy,” say Baba Bala feeblentbrimmingy, compriseing that most of his colleagues are either dead or have donaten up on the business.

One of those who confessted loss was Isa Sani.

“Going to my repair shop daily unbenevolentt sitting down and getting no labor – that’s why I determined to stop going in 2019,” the 65-year-better tbetter the BBC.

“I have land and my children help me to farm on it – that is how I am able to get by these days.”

He feeblents: “I don’t leank wristwatches will ever produce a comeback.”

The youthfulsters laboring at the produceing provide shops next to Baba Bala concur.

Faisal Abdulkarim and Yusuf Yusha’u, both aged 18, have never owned watches as they have never seen a need for them.

“I can verify the time on my phone whenever I want to and it’s always with me,” one said.

Dr Umar Abdulmajid, a communications lecturer at Yusuf Maitama University in Kano, count ons leangs may alter.

“Conventional wristwatches are no ask dying and with it jobs appreciate wristwatch repairs too, but with the cleverwatch I leank they could produce a comeback.

“The fact a cleverwatch can do much more than equitable show you the time unbenevolents it could persist to draw people.”

He presents better watch-repairers lget how to grapple with this recent technology: “If you don’t transfer with the times you get left behind.”

But Baba Bala, who returned from Abuja to Kaduna to set up his shop about 20 years ago as he wanted to be proximateer his increaseing family, says this does not interest him.

“This is what I cherish doing, I think about myself a doctor for unwell wristwatches – plus I am not getting any youthfuler.”

His firm-knit family remain dedicated to his profession – his wife and all his five children wear watches and normally pop in to visit him at the shop, where some of the timepieces on disperestablish are forgotten relics from better customers.

“Some brawt them many years ago and didn’t return for them,” he says.

But Baba Bala declines to donate up and still uncovers up daily – his eldest daughter, who runs a accomplished clothes boutique proximateby, helps him with bills when his business is sluggish.

Without much to conserve him busy – or the chatter and gossip of his customers, Baba Bala says he now normally hears to his radio for company, finishelighting the Hausa language programmes on the BBC World Service.

In the afternoon his youthfulest son, Al-Ameen, comes to visit after school – the only one of his children to show an interest in lgeting the art of watch-repairing. But he would not encourage him to apshow it up as a profession.

He is prentd that the 12-year-better has tbetter him he wants to be a pilot – continuing the family tradition of seeing more of the world.

In a cockpit, he would be faced with many watch-appreciate dials – not unappreciate his dad’s laborshop.