A Nigerian watch repairer lost time in Kaduna

The comment is a common sound inside Bala Muhammad’s small watch repair shop, located on a busy street in the northern Nigerian city of Kaduna.

It’s like a time capsule of a different era with lots of clocks hanging on the wall and small tables at the door filled with his tools and clocks in various states of repair.

His shop is located on one of Kaduna’s busiest shopping streets – among construction material suppliers.

Until a few years ago, he had a lot of customers stop by to get their watches fixed or a new battery installed.

“There are times when I get over 100 wristwatch repair jobs a day,” the 68-year-old, known as Baba Bala, told the BBC.

But he worries that his skills – taught to him and his brother by their father – will disappear.

“Some days the customers are not there,” he said, accusing people who use mobile phones to check the time of his business decline.

“Phones and technology have taken over the job I only know and it makes me very sad.”

But for more than 50 years, the proliferation of watches allowed the family to make a living.

“I built my house and taught my children with everything I got by repairing wrist watches,” he said.

His father would travel across West Africa for six months at a time – from Senegal to Sierra Leone – repairing watches.

At one time Baba Bala was based in the capital, Abuja, where many of the country’s elite live – and he made a good living looking after the watches of the rich.

He thinks his best clients were the top executives of the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC).

Others had Rolexes – these can vary greatly in price but on average one costs around $10,000 (£8,000).

He says they are beautiful – and he combines his passion for all Swiss watches. He himself owns a Longines car, another prestigious Swiss brand, which he only takes off when he sleeps.

“If I leave my house and forget it, I have to go back. I can’t be without it – that’s very important to me.”

In his shop, he keeps a beautiful framed photograph of his father, Abdullah Bala Isah, taken when he was looking up at his workbench a few years before his death in 1988.

Isah was a well-known astrologer and his contacts in Freetown and Dakar would call him to make the trip when they had enough watches to look after.

He often visited Ibadan, a large city in southwestern Nigeria – a center of learning and home to the country’s first university.

Baba Bala says that no one in the family knows where his father learned his skills – but it must have happened during the British colonial rule.

He was also born four years before Nigeria gained independence in 1960.

“My father was a watchmaker and his skills took him to many places. He taught me when I was young and I am proud to follow in his footsteps.”

Baba Bala first became very interested in understanding the intricacies of what the wheels and bells do in a clock when he was 10 – and was delighted to discover that as he got older it became a good source of pocket money.

“When my classmates didn’t work in high school, I had money to spend at that time because I was fixing wristwatches.

He remembers his skill even impressed one of his teachers: “He had problems with some of his wrist watches and he had taken them to many places but he could not do them. When he was told about me I was able to fix all three of these watches. You will see the next day.”

At one time, watches were considered as important as clothes in Nigeria and many people felt lost without one.

Kaduna used to have a dedicated area where many watch dealers and repairers set up their businesses.

“The place has been demolished and now it’s empty,” Baba Bala said sadly, adding that most of his colleagues are dead or have given up on the business.

One of those who admitted defeat is Isa Sani.

“Going to my repair shop every day meant sitting down without a job – that’s why I decided to stop working in 2019,” the 65-year-old told the BBC.

“I have land and my children help me farm it – that’s how I can survive these days.”

He complains: “I don’t think wristwatches will ever come back.”

The young men who work in the shops selling the buildings near Baba Bala agree.

Faisal Abdulkarim and Yusuf Yusha’u, both 18 years old, never had watches as they never saw the need for them.

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

Dr. Umar Abdulmajid, who teaches communication at Yusuf Maitama University in Kano, believes that things may change.

“Conventional watches are no doubt dying and they also work as a wristwatch, but with the smartwatch I think it can make a comeback.

“The fact that a smartwatch can do more than just tell you the time means it can continue to attract people.”

He suggests that old watch repairers learn to deal with this new technology: “If you don’t keep up with the times you’re left behind.”

But Baba Bala, who returned from Abuja to Kaduna to open his shop 20 years ago as he wanted to be close to his growing family, says this does not bother him.

“This is what I love to do, I consider myself a doctor of sick wristwatches – and I’m not getting any younger.”

His close-knit family remains loyal to his work – his wife and all five of his children wear watches and often visit him in the shop, where some of the watches on display are leftovers from old customers.

“Some brought them many years ago but they never came back,” he said.

But Baba Bala refuses to give up and is still open every day – his eldest daughter, who owns a successful clothing store nearby, helps him with debts when his business is slow.

Without much to keep him busy – or the chatter and gossip of his customers, Baba Bala says he now regularly listens to his company radio, enjoying Hausa language programs on the BBC World Service.

In the afternoon his youngest son, Al-Ameen, comes to visit after school – the only one of his children to show interest in learning the art of watchmaking. But he wouldn’t encourage her to take it up as a career.

He is delighted that the 12-year-old has told him he wants to be a pilot – continuing the family tradition of seeing the world.

In the workers’ pit, he would face many clock-like dials – not unlike his father’s workshop.