SHOPRITE has decided to close shop because it simply is not right for Nigeria.  Fifteen years after opening shops in Nigeria, Years before then, soon after the civil war ended, shops like SHOPRITE also closed and left the country. 

This followed the indigenisation decree that allocated some particular areas of economic activities to Nigerians. But long before the indigenisation decree was passed by the government of Gowon/Awolowo, there was a particular kind of economic activity that was for ever, by birth, willed to Nigerians. More clarification on this later.

There is a tradition of learning to sell for young boys when I was growing up. It is the sale of matches in small bundles of twenty match sticks for half-penny. For bigger boys who could carry the bottles of kerosine, this fuel was also sold. This was usually done in the evening between dinner and bedtime. This way, a schoolboy could make some pocket money to help himself and the family.

Out of a packet of ten boxes, one could make a profit of one shilling. With an outlay of two shillings and six pence that was a good way to spend an evening. If you could sell thirty or forty boxes a week you could be making five shillings a week. What logic lay behind this type of marketing?

They did not have refrigerators to keep perishable foods fresh. We did not have a fridge in the house and but for the Scottish doctor with whom I spent some parts of my holidays, I wouldn’t have seen a fridge until I went to the University of Ibadan in October 1964.

The African open market did for the Nigerians what KINGSWAY and the other SHOPRITE-like shops did for the colonial employees.

In South Africa where SHOPRITE and other such shops took root almost ‘naturally,’ they serviced the white population. Spaza shops provided for the African population the way open markets provided the needs of the Nigerians. Even today, people who live in shacks shop every day and buy their daily needs from the spaza shops.

It is of interest that SHOPRITE and PicknPay have expressed interest in spaza shops but Africans who service these shops have always opposed opening the market to them.

What then is the nature of our markets that only those who understand the needs of the minimal market can participate? Our households are small, bachelor households, small family units living in face-me-I-face-you housing units and then big households of polygamous families but with family wives organised around each wife. All these various units organise their lives and those of their children individually. They also shop individually.

The market services these various units with small parcels of salt, of pepper, of okra and other vegetables. It parcels match sticks in bundles of twenty, just as meat, fresh fish and dry are sold in these small portions.

If they prosper here and they wish to service the needs of the wealthy, they might go into selling jewelry, wristwatches, decorative ornaments and such like. Such is the nature of our markets, but the biggest part of it is that minimal part of it, which operates on the principle of many small buyers add up to most buyers. A lot of poor people make many rich people. Turn-over in the minimal market is quick and profit is small but fast. It is of interest that the famous people’s banks are usually located near open markets. Here, they can lend small sums to lenders who trade during the day and pay back at the close of the market.