Thursday, May 21, 2009

For your shopping pleasure

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First, I want to apologize for the lack of posts lately. I went to Berlin last week for a great conference on street entrepreneurship, and now I am in Istanbul, where I stopped over for a little R&R before heading back to Lagos for my final two months.

One of the themes at the conference was the difference between street vendors and markets and how there is a continuum betweent the two. A "market" can be a few vendors lined in a row on the sidewalk, or it can be an highly planned space like Reading Terminal in Philadelphia or Pike Place in Seattle.



This is a mock-up of the new Tejuosho market in Yaba, which burned down in late 2007 and is currently being rebuilt to look like this. It shows that the Lagos authorities equate "market" with something akin to a Las Vegas shopping mall. I am no architectural critic, but I can tell you that their vision for Tejuosho market does not reflect Africa or Nigeria in any way imaginable. Except those do look like banana trees in front.

Time will tell whether it becomes "the pride of every Lagosian" or a white elephant, like the huge Tinapa project in Eastern Nigeria that was billed as "the next Dubai" when it opened last year and now apparently sits empty.

You can probably guess which outcome I would put my money on.


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8 comments:

  1. Looks like an 8-bit version of Grand Theft Auto: Yaba--a couple of those cars have jumped the curb and are running amok. And there's that strange one that looks like it's covered in powdered sugar.

    Hope you enjoyed Istanbul.

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  2. Good one, Chip! Except those cars are ok -- you are allowed to park on the sidewalk in Lagos.

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  3. Very interesting articles! Nice work Sean!

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  4. Tejusho is as different from Tinapa as Alaska from the Nevada desert. Firstly Tejuosho has always been a thriving market and has served the residents of Lagos mainland for decades, it locations is central and very accessible. Even if the government built the redeveloped centre as an igloo the space will still lease, and buyers will flock. Even Nigeria certain fundamental laws of property hold and "Location, Location, Location" is one of them.

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  6. this plae would certinly sell, this is lagos, i promise u dat most of the shops there have been sold out. Tinapa is way off.

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  7. I have seen that many people consider Tinapa a white elephant, some project that was and is fool's gold. You are recent in Nigeria so you probably do not understand the circumstances affecting Tinapa.

    Tinapa opened and had sold 40% of the spaces and had companies, foreign and local in the stalls. It was shut down in less than a month by the Nigerian Customs who said it was illegal for a state to have a free trade zone. Only the Federal Government was allowed to operate a FTZ. This is some old colonial law that was put in place by the British and someone dug up. Obviously, the Customs did not like the fact they would not getting anymore and no one settled them, so they worked against it.

    They had to go to court, amend the constitution then draw up a law that governs a FTZ because there was none which had to be approved by the Senate and passed by the President. Also the Customs Department has asked Cross Rivers State to build a separate Port entrance for goods coming in to Tinapa. They ahve to finance it and provide for teh Customs officials that will run it.

    As you can see, it takes time to get this all done. Why are the Customs being difficult? Why didn't someone foresee all this? That's Nigeria. I ain't making money so I'll make your life hell to make money.

    It has nothing to do with an inability to sell the stalls. But three years is a long time and they ahve to go back and lure and seek new investors again. You see it empty and you don't understand why but that is why.

    It will reopen. It might be this year, probably before the end of next year.

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  8. I don't like malls!

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