[size=20pt]The African Marketplace

Salisu Suleiman
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July 24, 2009 06:26PMT
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I have not been to the market in quite a while. I have left that duty to others in my household. After all, I believe in devolution and delegation, especially of disagreeable duties.

And since the chore of shopping wasn't one I was sure of, I gladly left that chop to others. Mine is to eat what they bought from the market and cooked. I refuse to delegate that.

And so it was that for a many a year, I had no idea what it was like to be in the marketplace. Until that fateful day that is, when my sister insisted that I accompany her to the market.

Since she was not a person to whom you could say no, I tagged along with a reluctant heart and two shuffling feet. I followed her to the market.

After all these years, not much has changed. The approaches to the market are as usual crowded by the itinerant peddlers, trying to out shout themselves in an effort to be heard above the din.

Every inch of space was covered by goods competing for space with a thousand human feet, the wheel barrows of today's bearers and the trays of hawkers.

From every direction, I was assaulted by an assorted aroma of smells, some mildly familiar, some unpleasant and others still, distinctly nasty.

With that, and the mush-mush of the muddy mains, the mish-mash of market stalls and strong throng of energetic humanity, I knew I was in an African market-place.

But as I began to look closely at the goods on display, I saw that the only things on sale that were African were the perishables - fresh vegetables, fruits and a few other goods that could not be returned home after a day's sojourn in the marketplace.

They had to be sold, or otherwise disposed because of their perishable nature. That would explain the aggressive marketing of the sellers; sell or starve.

Every where I looked in this African marketplace, all I saw were things made in China.

The handkerchief I use to wipe my brow; the cotton buds I use to clean my ear; the toothpicks I use to pick my teeth - every daily tool from the mundane to the indispensable; electric bulbs, needles, cloth pegs, transistor radios, cooking ware, shoes, bags, vests and underwear, screwdrivers and other household appliances, floor mops, brooms, candles, the list is endless.

As we moved through the shops in the market, I looked for signs of goods made in Nigeria, or even any country in Africa, with little success.

At the clothing store, everything from socks, pajamas, shirts, vests, shoes, sandals, ‘gelabas' and many more all came from China.

I do not recall seeing anything made in my country in that shop in this African market, and very little from any other country as well, just China.

At the electronics store, the story was the same. Computers, printers, telephone sets, radios, VCDs and DVDs, standing and ceiling fans, air conditioners, refrigerators, cooking ovens, bathroom water heaters, blenders, electric kettles, lightings, lamp holders, electric fittings, voltage stabilizers, power inverters, wall clocks, adapters and indeed, just about everything else on display. I doubt if any Made-in-China trade fair could have done any better.

The motorcycles that conveyed goods and passengers to and from the market were Chinese. The trucks that conveyed the bulkier items carried a bland Chinese logo.

The goods being bought and sold were mostly Chinese, and naturally, the profits of the trade flowed back to China. The only thing absent from this marketplace in Africa was Mandarin.

My trip to the market was a lesson in contemporary African economy. In today's African marketplace, the throngs may be African, the peddlers African, the smells African and the atmosphere African, but none of the things on sale are African. Everything is made in China.

After my trip to the marketplace, I settled down for a meal of rice that at least wasn't Chinese; this was Thai.

After I finished my meal with a big belch, I saw staring at me from my dish, the symbol of the new African marketplace: Made in China.

source:http://www.234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/Opinion/Blogs/5438726-184/The_African_Marketplace___.csp

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Shame on a nation.

After my trip to the marketplace, I settled down for a meal of rice that at least wasn't Chinese; this was Thai.

Thank God for China.

nex:

Thank God for China.

. . . . . and Thailand.

If China should by some mystically disappear into the past, I'd be standing in the middle of my house stark naked staring at the wall.

I cannot explain why the countries of the west wanted us to buy audio discs for N3000 when China was rushing to deliver to us at N100. If audio CDs continued to be sold so crazily expensive, the Nigerian Home Video and Music industries would never have existed.


I was at The Palms shopping arcade in Lekki a couple of months ago and I saw some terribly made, bland looking T. M Lewin shirts at special offer price of N7500. There was nothing special about the shirts. I know top of the range TMs, but these were just too ordinary. I had to fold my cash back in my pocket and head to the Marina got 3 shirts and 3 cotton trousers for N7500.

The best thing about China is that after a while shipping these goods, they decide to finally ship in the machines to Alaba boys.

In the 90's when you look across the skyline of developing areas of Lagos state, you'd see all those rusted cranes which were hazardous to both operators, construction workers, neighbours, passersby and motorists. China has started importing brand new cranes.

The growth of China and India is very impota to the development of Africa and I'm happy that China has started to see that the development of Africa is very crucial to China's growth too.

We cannot keep begging Europe and the USA for goods and services with our money in hand.


Look at the telecommunications sector. Siemens, Alcatel and Motorola used to build base stations quite expensively. Huawei came and not only built them at a third of the price, they also built them on loan so the GSM companies can choose to pay for already built base stations as they earn from subscribers. The infrastructural arms of Motorola, Siemens and Alcatel have now run to strictly government contracts where they can bribe and produce second hand facilities at 3 times the cost.


We need another Nigeria Prays to thank God for China.

I do hope Nigeria borrows a leaf from South africa.

Kobojunkie:

I do hope Nigeria borrows a leaf from South africa.

It would be nice if you shed more light.

I hope Nigeria collects the whole tree from China. What do we need to be borrowing a leaf for when China is giving out trees to the whole world and their number 1 beneficiary is the USA itself (mr. China is bad).

A large percentage of goods consumed in South Africa are made in South Africa. That is because the government and people, a couple of years back, embarked on promoting goods made in the country. It paid off for the country in a big way. International companies like procter and gamble and the lot, manufacture most of the goods they sell in the south african market right there in south africa, employing local labor in the process.