Mile 12 market: Preferred destination for Lagos wholesalers, retailers
The popular Mile12 Market located along Ikorodu end of Lagos State is a market that has been in existence for the past 40 years and has become one that houses different foodstuffs ranging from pepper, tomatoes, yams, onions, plantain and so on.
Being the terminus of foodstuff brought in from the northern parts of the country, the availability of food stuffs in cheap and wholesale volume has made this market the most popular in Lagos. Before its existence, there had been the Iddo Market situated on Lagos Island but Iddo Market grew so large that it could not accommodate the sellers in the market and their food stuffs anymore, hence the emergence of Mile 12 Market.
According to Mohammed Abdul, the general secretary of food stuff traders at Mile 12 Market, the market is the meeting point of traders across the country. “We get our goods straight from the farmers – from the northern states across Nigeria and neighbouring countries and since all these are gotten at a reduced prices. We ensure that it is given out to both the wholesalers, retailers and consumers alike at cheap and easily affordable prices,” Abdul explained.
This is why people from far and wide find their way to the market to buy different food items. Though there are other major and international markets in Lagos and its environs, many Lagosians seem to prefer Mile 12 to others.
According to Chinelo Ejiofor, a caterer who stays at Satellite Town but prefers to drive down to Mile12, due the nature of her job, it is easier for her to buy food items in large and cheaper quantity.
Though things have really changed now in terms of business because the prices of food items have suddenly gone up compared to how it used to be some years back. For instance, a basket of tomatoes now sells for between N19,500 and N18,00 as against N8,500 and N9,500 not too long ago; while onions have ranges, they were selling for between N3,000 and N7,000 depending on their sizes but now they sell for between N10,000 and N17,000. Plantains used to be sold for N500, N700 depending on the size of the bunch but now they go around N2,500 upwards.
Ejiofor added that if she buys her food stuffs from other markets close to her, these items will be about 70 percent more expensive than what she would get at Mile12 Market. She says that she is guaranteed fresh items at the market because she usually targets when the trailers offload.
Banke Adesola, who buys in large quantities and then resells at a market close to where she lives, says she goes to Mile12 Market all the way from Ogba to buy goods because they are so cheap. She also added: “If I buy a basket of pepper at the rate of N4,500 at Mile12
Market, I cannot get it that cheap elsewhere, thus making me not to have little or no profit on what I am selling because if there is no profit, then there is no reason for doing business,” she concluded.
Also, one of the traders at the Mile 12 Market who gave his name simply as Josiah, stated that though food stuffs are cheaper at the market than in other markets, one major challenge the market presents is the poor state of its roads which become worse during after any rainfall. This one challenge, according to Joshiah, kept more customers away. The situation gets so bad that many customers and traders are forced to come to the market with rainboots and rain coats when it rains.
Josiah who sells plantains in bulk at the Mile 12 Market, explained that even if he does not have too much profits on his wares, his turnover is more important to him.
He said that people come from different places to see what the market looks like and at the end of the day they end up buying things before they leave the place and such times “they even buy from my plantain, especially those who makes different recipes from plantain for sale. I also have a complimentary card that states my phone number and location so that when you are inside the market, you can give me a call which is my own marketing strategy,” Joshiah revealed.
Abdul concluded that the poor state of the Mile 12 Market road network is due to the heavy duty trucks and lorries that drive in and out of the market several times every day as labourers remove baskets of perishable farm produce, carrying them from trucks to their respective buyers. “You can also see food merchants driving hard bargains with big-time buyers who in turn sell to market women who retail the farm produce to the final consumers,” he said.
Anne Agbaje