The Nigerian wristwatch repairer lost in time in Kaduna

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

It is like a time capsule from another era with numerous clocks hanging on the wall and small tables in the entrance full of his tools and clocks in various states of preservation.

His shop is on one of the busiest shopping streets in Kaduna, among building materials suppliers.

Until a few years ago, he had a constant flow of customers coming to get their watches fixed or a new battery installed.

“There were times when I received more than 100 wristwatch repair jobs in one day,” the 68-year-old, popularly known as Baba Bala, told the BBC.

But he worries that his skills, which his father taught him and his brother, will disappear.

“Some days there are no customers,” he says, blaming people who use their cell phones to check the time for the decline in his business.

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

But for more than 50 years, the watch boom allowed the family to make a good living.

“I built my house and raised my children with the income from repairing wristwatches,” he says.

His father traveled throughout West Africa for six months at a time, from Senegal to Sierra Leone, fixing watches.

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

He believes that his best clients were senior officials of the state oil company Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC).

Some had Rolexes; Their price can vary wildly, but one costs on average around $10,000 (£8,000).

He says they are beautiful and sum up his love for all Swiss watches. He himself owns a Longines, another prestigious Swiss brand, which he only takes off when he sleeps.

“If I leave the house and forget it, I have to go back and look for it. I won’t be without it, that’s how important it is to me.”

In his shop, he keeps a beautiful large framed photo of his father, Abdullahi Bala Isah, taken while he watched from his workbench a few years before his death in 1988.

Isah was a renowned watchmaker and his contacts in Freetown and Dakar called him to travel when they had enough watches to attend to.

He would also periodically visit Ibadan, a metropolis in southwestern Nigeria, a literary center and home to the country’s first university.

Baba Bala says no one in the family knows where his father learned his expertise, but it would have been during the time of British colonial rule.

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

“My father was a popular wristwatch repairman and his skill took him many places. He taught me when I was young and I am proud to have followed in his footsteps.”

Baba Bala became very interested in understanding the intricacies of what the wheels and levers do inside a watch when he was 10 years old, and was delighted to discover that as he grew older it became a good source of pocket money.

“When my high school classmates were broke, I had money to spend because I was already repairing wristwatches.”

He remembers that his skill impressed even one of his teachers: “He had problems with some of his wristwatches and he had taken them to various places and they couldn’t make them. When they told him about me, I was able to fix all three.” watches for the next day.”

There was a time when watches were considered as important as clothes in Nigeria and many people felt lost without one.

Kaduna used to have an exclusive area where many watch sellers and repairers set up their businesses.

“The place was demolished and is now empty,” Baba Bala says sadly, adding that most of his colleagues are dead or have abandoned the business.

One of those who admitted defeat was Isa Sani.

“Going to my repair shop every day meant sitting and not getting work – that’s why I decided to stop going in 2019,” the 65-year-old told the BBC.

“I have land and my children help me cultivate it; that’s how I can get by today.”

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

The young people who work in the construction materials stores next to Baba Bala agree.

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

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

Dr Umar Abdulmajid, professor of communications at Yusuf Maitama University in Kano, believes things can change.

“No doubt, conventional wristwatches are dying and with it jobs like wristwatch repair, but with the smartwatch I think they could come back.

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

He suggests that former watch repairers learn to deal with this new technology: “If you don’t adapt to the times, you will be left behind.”

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

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

His close-knit family remains loyal to his profession: his wife and five children wear watches and often come to visit him at the store, where some of the watches on display are forgotten relics of former customers.

“Some brought them many years ago and didn’t come back for them,” he says.

But Baba Bala refuses to give up and continues to open daily: his eldest daughter, who runs a successful clothing boutique nearby, helps him with the bills when his business is slow.

Without much to keep him busy, not even the chatter and gossip of his clients, Baba Bala says he now often listens to his radio for company and enjoys Hausa 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 who shows interest in learning the art of watch repair. But I wouldn’t encourage him to dedicate himself to it.

He’s glad the 12-year-old boy told him he wants to be a pilot, continuing the family tradition of seeing more of the world.

In a cabin, he would be faced with many clock-like dials, not unlike his father’s workshop.