How 13 Igbo Traders Helped Build Alaba International Market From a Swamp

Alaba International Market grew from the displacement of electronics traders during Lagos’s late-1970s urban redevelopment. According to accounts of the market’s early history, 13 Igbo traders formed a committee after losing their trading spaces around Surulere, Iponri and other central Lagos areas. They secured a relocation site in the swampy Ojo area and began building with little public infrastructure support. The traders and their apprentices cleared bush, filled wetlands with sand, created access routes and protected the site while persuading other electronics merchants to relocate. Key pioneers included Chief Christopher Chika Ajokorom, Nze Ezeana Geoffrey S. M. Chukwujekwu and Nze Sunday Ekenulo Onuoha, also known as Nze Sunday Achonu. The growing market developed churches, a mosque, trader associations and cooperative finance systems that supported commerce and community life. By the 1980s and 1990s, Alaba had become a major centre for electronics, cross-border trade, music equipment and later Nollywood distribution. Its growth was also driven by the Igba Boi apprenticeship system, through which successful traders trained and settled new business owners.

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