Onitsha Main Market: What makes it boom in the West African sub-region


The Onitsha Main Market, Anambra State, is a melting point for business transactions (buying and selling) and constitutes the biggest in the West Africa sub-region. The AUTHORITY Correspondent, THEO RAYS , gives insight on what made the market boom.

The Onitsha Main Market is no doubt a world of its own. Noth­ing could be prompt enough to define the market believed to be the largest place of buying and selling in the West African sub region. Call it a city of aquatic splendor or the ocean of busi­ness or even the Biblical Canaan land you are not far from the truth. Which ever description ascribed to the mar­ket, the point is that the market often refered as Otu Nkwo by natives remain the pride of Onitsha Ado, the commer­cial nerve center East of the Niger.
For decades the Onitsha main mar­ket has not only continued to accom­modate the influx of people as traders into the commercial city, but also re­mains a sanctuary of life progress where people have the opportunity to rise from nobody to somebody and from puppets to millionaires. In most cases young boys who moved into the mar­ket empty handed as apprentice turned out to be millionaires after some years.
Truly speaking, Onitsha main mar­ket is a happening point of business with immeasurable structures and overwhelming population of traders. Clustered by the almighty River Niger, other sub markets and gigantic plazas, the market is expanding in size day by day as traders take every available op­portunity to erect big and small struc­tures to expand their businesses. The endless erection of structures has ap­parently turned the market from a well organized business environment to a planless society.
The Otu Nkwo has no doubt moved from a unique structure to heavily crowded environment with a bewil­dering look of goods, mostly men, la­dies and children’s wears as samples for sales at every turn of eyes. The crowded nature of the mar­ket shows the eternal interest of Ndigbo in buying and seek­ing business. The indiscrimi­nate erection of plazas around the market has turned the en­vironment to something else.
The sub markets surround­ing the main market like Ma­rine Modern market, Relief market, plazas like Emeka Offor,Young Shall Grow and others with Link roads like bright street, new market road, old market, Ajasa street. Johnson street, William street, Kano street, Sokoto road, Oga­lomye, More street, Bida road, Haruna street, Okwei street, Saniez street, and Pam Pam lane among others are crowd­ed with traders in such over­whelming look that strangers mistakenly see them as the main market itself.
All these faces among other many others have all combined together to give the market a status of a city of aquatic splen­dor. Again, the market has eve­ry evidence needed to be called ocean of business considering the high degree of businesses of buying and selling, impor­tation, supply and even man­ufacturing enterprise among traders in the market.
Further, Onitsha main market is like the Biblical Ca­naan land fully endowed with milk and honey for the wel­fare and progress of the in­habitants. Milk and honey in the sense that people always have the opportunity to make a progressive living. The mar­ket stands like an eternal bread feeder to the people from vari­ous part of Igbo land mostly. It is ever accommodating for be­ginners and that distinguished it from other markets.
It is interesting to realise that minor businesses are ful­ly part of the market’s day to day activities. In the market one could see people involved in various lower categories of businesses like petty trad­ing, hawking of sachet water, nylon bags, Coca Cola prod­ucts, pepsi and other bever­ages, gala, meat pie, and sau­sage rolls. Also, Moi moi, food vendors, lottery and raffle op­erators and what have you are doing wonderfully well in attending to their financial needs. And before you know it, they will start buying lands to build houses, buy cars and oth­er things to announce that they have arrived.
There are many unions in the market as people form such unions to regulate their busi­nesses. For instance, opera­tors of lottery and raffle busi­ness have a union that oversees their operations. Raffle is a popular and serious business in the market. These unions requires certain criteria for admission of people into their fold. Some have stringent con­ditions for admission so as to minimize the number of peo­ple involved in the kind of business they do.
The market also have var­ious structures of leadership such as line chairman and his executive, Zonal chairman and his executive and the market union otherwise called Onit­sha Main Market Amalgamat­ed Traders Union (OMMA­TU). They also have task force that enforce laws and order in the market. Each line have a task force made up of few young men in addition to the over all market task force team. Heavy fine and punishment awaits fighting and quarrel­ling in the market. Some lines impose fine of N5,000 on peo­ple that engage in two fighting. There are three zones of Zone A, B and C.
The traders who are pre­dominantly Christian rely on prayers for protection and progress in business. The en­tire market normally have prayer session every Mon­day from 7am to 9am. Simi­larly, most of the lines inside also do have prayer schedules within the week. Some chose Tuesday others Wednesday or thursday and so on. The trad­ers don’t joke with prayers even though there are people who practice traditional religion among them.
Unlike the previous years , traders in the market are now equipped with information and communication gadgets using laptops, iPad and an­droid phones to exchange in­formation and communicate their partners and customers around the world. And like the saying goes, that all works and no play makes jack a dull boy, the traders have television sets for watching home videos and European football as most of the traders are fans of nota­ble clubs like Manchester Unit­ed, Chelsea, Liverpool, Barce­lona and Real Madrid
A visit to the market shows that it is difficult to pin point where the market starts and where it ends as an entity be­cause everywhere is surround­ed with all kinds of faces of goods mostly men, ladies and babies wears displayed down­stairs and upstairs.
However despite the large size of the market, the envi­ronment is devoid of conges­tion and well cleaned and well sanitized. A visit to the market, one finds that there is easy flow of human and vehicular move­ment. Speaking to The AU­THORITY, Chairman of the market Union, wise Chidozie Okeke, said that his adminis­tration is repositioning back to its former glory with good waste managements, adequate security and measures for de­congesting the market.
Okeke’s administration which was recently elected into office assured that the market would enjoy adequate security, easy flow of traffic, good waste management and a decent business environment devoid of nefarious activities of crim­inals and touts, adding that his priority is to ensure that people always feel comfortable com­ing into the market to do their businesses .
Asked to comment on the relationship of traders and gov­ernment, Okeke said that the Amalgamated Market Market Traders Association of Anam­brs state (AMATAS) under chief Okwudili Ezenwankwo has bridged the gap between traders and government in all the markets in the state, add­ing that main market is not exempted. Further, he assured that there is presence of the state government in the mar­ket.
“We are enjoying the sup­port of government under our Governor Chief Willie Obi­ano. The Governor gave us fire service station and other things that have lifted the face of the market and most important­ly is that under the Governor, government is accessible to us as he gives us attention anytime we reach out to the state”
The chairman said that the market is open for business as ever, pointing out that the Igbo traders who were affected by demolition of Oshodi market and other places in Lagos have the opportunity to come back to the market and start busi­ness. “We have shops which are available at an affordable rate either for rent or outright buying”
Like any entity where the good, the bad and ugly are en­countered, traders and visitors in the market often encounter pick pockets, handset snatch­ers and outright armed robbers who rob people at gun point. There are many cases about people loosing their money and other valuable in the mar­ket. And although the market leadership is bent on ensuring adequate security, traders and visitors are always advised to be very careful to avoid loos­ing money and other valuable to thieves in the market. http://authorityngr.com/2016/07/Onitsha-Main-Market--What-makes-it-boom-in-the-West-African-sub-region/

K

ahia onitsha ahia kachasi na Africa nile.

with my loaded pistol waiting for any yellowbar fellow to come here and type rubbish

exaggeration at it peak

Space book