On a typical morning in Aba’s Ariaria Market, the voice of Mrs Chiamaka Ukaegbulam calling out to potential customers rings aloud, ‘Ezigbo nwoke, bịa zụta m ahịa, enwere m attache mara mma nke ukwuu.’ (Good man, come and buy from me… I have very nice hair extensions). Under the scorching morning sun, and even amid the deafening noise, with bodies pressing against you, her voice still floats over the chaos. ‘Nwoke oma. Nwoke ọcha, bịa zụta m ahịa.’ (Handsome man, fair man, come and buy from me.)

In 2012, Ukaegbulam quit her job helping her brother cook and distribute food for passengers at the domestic terminal of Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos. Then she moved to Aba, one of southeast Nigeria’s main commercial hubs. ‘We’d wake up as early as 4 a.m. to cook and package food, which we’d sell until around 10 p.m. at Lagos Airport,’ she said. ‘I was frustrated and… it wasn’t something I wanted to do. The sun and the cooking heat. The stress was just too much.’

After arriving in Aba, Ukaegbulam learned hairdressing and eventually opened her own shop in 2013. However, eight years later, at night on 08 September 2021, her shop and many others were demolished by the Abia State government as part of an effort to take down what they considered uninhabitable buildings. |Some of these buildings had been constructed nearly 50 years ago. Although the government promised compensation for shop owners, Ukaegbulam said her rent was never refunded. She found herself destitute. At the same time, her husband’s lace business collapsed.

‘Aka a da dim,’ she said, when we met in September 2024, using an Igbo idiom to express her severe financial setbacks. Her tone became more sombre as she fought off tears when she recounted her difficult experience. With five children to look after, Ukaegbulam turned to Igba Ọsọ Ahịa —an old business practice among Igbo people, where traders make money by attracting customers to other people’s shops and selling their goods on their behalf, at a higher price, for a cut of the profits.

But for Igbo people, Igba Ọsọ Ahịa is more than a business practice. Like all forms of Igbo entrepreneurial systems—from Igba Odibo to Igba Boi—Igba Ọsọ Ahịa thrives on community, friendship and trust, where business owners allow Igba Ọsọ Ahịa agents (often referred to as middlemen, or, when translated literally, market errand runners) who have neither shops nor goods of their own, to take ownership or claim a reasonable stake in their business, albeit momentarily. This practice is not just about economic survival; it is a social framework that reflects the values of mutual support and kinship in Igbo culture.

Each morning, Ukaegbulam, sometimes with her toddler strapped to her back, canvasses for customers to come and purchase hair extensions in ‘her shop’. But she does not have any goods of her own. Rather, she takes the customer to another person’s shop, with whom she has an arrangement—most times verbal—and is given unrestricted access to take full charge of the shop, from selling the goods to receiving the money, while the actual owner watches from a corner, helping where he or she can to convince the customer to purchase the goods. Pointing to some weave-on hanging on the wall of a nearby shop, ‘If this weave-on is ₦5,000, I can sell it for ₦6,000 or ₦5,500, or ₦5,200,’ she told me. ‘The added money, multiplied by the quantity the customer buys, would be mine. In some cases, I will claim that the owner is my elder sister and I am her apprentice. In others, I will claim to be the salesgirl.’

Ukaegbulam is one of the hundreds of Igba Ọsọ Ahịa agents in Ariaria Market. With over 37,000 shops, according to the Rural Electrification Agency, Ariaria is one of the largest daily markets in West Africa. Ariaria—where Igba Ọsọ Ahịa is practised in perhaps its most authentic form—is unlike a typical large Nigerian market. It was built in 1976 after a fire destroyed the old Ekeoha Market in Aba. The popular saying, ‘Name it, Aba will make it,’ is often attributed to this market.

Focusing on one sector—the shoe industry—helps contextualize the market’s economic potential and how it has become a window into understanding Igbo people’s entrepreneurial zeal. According to a 2022 Business Day’s report on the Aba shoe industry, Aba produces 48 million pairs of shoes annually, and with many of these shoes sold at Ariaria, the Aba shoe industry is valued at ₦120 billion.