Lessons from the Fulani Market for Ghana’s 24-Hour Market Model

Dear Grandma, I know I don't write to you as often as I should. Work has a way of making days disappear. But today I remembered one of your stories.

You used to tell us a story about the Fulani and how they once tried to establish a market of their own.

I don't know whether the story was historically true, and perhaps that was never the point. What mattered was the lesson you wanted us to learn.

The story goes that one day, the Fulani decided they needed a market where they could buy and sell among themselves. They chose a particular day and a particular place.

On the appointed day, the first person arrived at the designated spot and found nobody there. She looked around and thought, "No one is here yet. I will go home and return when the others have arrived."

Then came the second person. He too found an empty marketplace.

"There is nobody here yet. I will come back when the market is full."

The third person did the same. Then the fourth. Then the fifth.

Everyone was waiting for someone else to make the first move.

By sunset, nobody had bought anything. Nobody had sold anything. The market had existed in their minds, but it had never really existed in practice.

They eventually abandoned the idea and continued using markets in the villages around them.

You told us that the lesson was simple: a group project cannot succeed when everyone is waiting for somebody else to begin it. Sometimes, one person must have the courage to make the first move.

I have encountered that lesson repeatedly in my academic journey. But as I have grown older, I have begun to see another lesson in your story—one that has very little to do with group work and a lot to do with economics, the field I am devoting my life to study.

A market is more than a marketplace

In economics class, I was taught that a market is where buyers and sellers interact to exchange goods and services. I remember the physical markets of home: Tindongo, where traders and customers converge every three days from about 3 p.m.; Pelungu, whose busiest hours begin much earlier and taper off around noon; Bolgatanga Market, one of the major commercial centres in the region; and even the small room of the woman who sold biscuits, akpeteshie, gari and sugar to everyone in our section of the community.

These were all markets.

But they did not become markets because somebody first constructed a building and declared, "This is a market."

People came. Traders followed. Goods were brought. Customers bought. More traders noticed the activity and joined.

I think of Alebna whenever I think about this.

Alebna was the man who started what is now the Tindongo market. He did not begin with several hectares of land or a government-built market complex. He began around an ebony tree.

Others eventually came.

Traders came because there were customers. Customers came because there were goods. More traders came because there was money to be made. The activity grew, and the physical market grew with it.

That is an important distinction as Ghana pursues its 24-hour economy.

Can we build a 24-hour economy?

I think the idea of a 24-hour economy is innovative and potentially transformative. A Ghana where transport, food services, logistics, manufacturing, retail, entertainment and agricultural processing can operate across different shifts could create jobs and unlock new economic opportunities.

But I wonder whether we have confused building the infrastructure for a market with creating a market.

The government can provide lights, shops, security and other facilities. Those things matter. But they do not, by themselves, give a trader a reason to open at 2 a.m.

Take Tindongo market.

How many people will want to buy Amani from Madam Talata at two in the morning?

More importantly, will there be enough customers to make it profitable for her to leave the comfort of her bed and husband, pay for electricity, bear the additional security risks and keep her business open through the night?

If the answer is no, a beautifully constructed 24-hour market could simply become a well-lit building that nobody uses at 2 a.m.

That is not an argument against infrastructure. It is an argument for putting demand before design.

The market gate is not where the problem begins

Even if Madam Talata is willing to stay open, there is another question: will the customers come?

Suppose the market itself has excellent security and lighting. What happens to the customer who lives five kilometres away and has to walk through dark streets, past fields of tall sorghum, at two in the morning?

A secure market does not automatically create a safe journey to the market.

A functioning 24-hour economy therefore requires more than buildings. It requires the conditions that make night-time commerce viable: transportation, roads, electricity, security, population movement and, above all, sufficient economic activity to make staying open worthwhile.

This is why the example of Accra is instructive.

Where I currently live, some food vendors and shops operate deep into the night. Trotro drivers are still working. You can find Waakye at 2 a.m.

Why?

Because there are people there who need it.

The area is close to a major transport hub. Travellers arrive. Drivers work late. Night workers need food. Other businesses operate around them.

The demand already exists, so entrepreneurs have an incentive to supply it.

Nobody needed to build a special 24-hour Waakye market first.

The economic activity came first.

That is the question I think Ghana's 24-hour economy policy should confront: where will the night-time demand come from?

Not every district needs the same answer

Ghana's districts are not economically identical.

What makes 2 a.m. commerce viable around a major transport hub in Accra may not exist in Namoalug. A border town may have different opportunities from an agricultural district. A university town may have a different night-time economy from a farming community.

So why should the solution necessarily be identical everywhere?

If an existing market is thriving, perhaps the priority should be to improve it—better sanitation, drainage, storage, electricity, roads and security.

If a market has outgrown its space, expand it.

If a location has genuine potential for night-time commerce but lacks the infrastructure to support it, provide that infrastructure.

But where there is little economic activity after sunset, perhaps the answer is not another building.

Perhaps the answer is to create the economic activity first.

This is where government policy can be more strategic. Instead of simply placing a 24-hour market in every district, government could identify the places where night-time commerce has the greatest potential—transport hubs, hospitals, universities, industrial areas, border towns, processing centres and other economic nodes—and concentrate the infrastructure and incentives that can make those activities grow.

The objective should not be to have a 24-hour market in every district.

The objective should be to have a 24-hour economy where the economics make it possible.

We should not build simply to tick a box

I am not opposed to market infrastructure.

Far from it.

A well-designed market can improve sanitation, security, storage and the general trading environment, whether or not it operates around the clock.

My concern is what happens when infrastructure becomes the measure of success.

If existing markets are functioning but need improvement, why build another one simply because the policy requires a new market?

If traders are already doing business successfully in one location, why destroy what works to construct something that looks better on paper?

And if public spaces, including school spaces, are being considered for market development, we should ask whether the benefits justify the opportunity cost.

Scarce public money should solve economic problems, not merely produce physical evidence that a policy has been implemented.

Grandma, perhaps the Fulani were onto something

Grandma, perhaps there is another lesson hidden in your story.

The Fulani gathered at a place and expected a market to emerge. But everyone waited for everyone else.

So nothing happened.

Alebna did something different.

He started.

He did not wait for a crowd before putting his goods out. He began around an ebony tree, and others eventually came because they had a reason to come.

That small beginning became Tindongo market.

Perhaps that is the lesson Ghana should take into its 24-hour economy.

We should not confuse creating a place for commerce with creating the conditions for commerce to thrive.

The government can build the marketplace.

It can provide the lights, roads, security and infrastructure.

It can create incentives and remove barriers.

But it cannot command customers to appear at 2 a.m. And it cannot make Madam Talata open her shop if there is no money to be made.

Markets grow when buyers and sellers have reasons to find one another.

So, Grandma, perhaps the question is not whether Ghana needs 24-hour markets.

Perhaps it is:

Do we need 24-hour markets everywhere, or do we first need to create the 24-hour economic activity that will make those markets worth having?

Because in the end, the government can build the marketplace. It cannot build the customers.