As a place where goods are bought and sold, popular markets are usually associated with all kinds of noise especially those found within and around motor-parks across the country. The growing use of loud speakers by motor park touts (agberos) in drawing the attention of passengers and in announcing different destinations can be very offensive to the ears and a major noise pollution. In continuation of this two part serial on the subject matter, we shall be looking at other meanings of maket.
Maket na agro
In Nigerian Pidgin (NP), the word agro means argument or disagreement. Whenever one finds oneself in a rowdy situation, one could ask; dis na maket? Once a group of people are engaged in a noisome discussion/argument (agro), e.g. like a father coming home to meet his children discussing in high pitched voices, he could simply caution in Pidgin “abeg mek una no ton mai haus to maket” (please don’t turn my house into another market).
In addition, and closely related to the foregoing, whenever someone else’ contribution to a discussion is perceived as unnecessarily loud, he/she could be asked the following, na maket wi de?: are we in a market? This could also serve as a polite way of shutting down any one whose contribution sounds “out of point”.
Maket na wetin pesin sel
Most traders in Nigeria commonly address their day’s sales as maket. If you hear a trader say; “tode na wa o! Maket no de, he/she is only expressing that the day’s business has been poor (No good sales). If a get beta maket tode, a go kom pe yu: Should I make good sales today, I will come and pay off whatever am owing you.
Maket na wetin de graund
Because markets are usually associated with business and returns on investments, reference could be jokingly made to burning issues or major topics for discussion as maket e.g. wich maket de nau?: what is the latest gist?
Maket na plenti plenti pipul
Since markets are usually a crowd of people, we generally refer to any crowd outside of the market as maket e.g. huge crowd of people that turned up for an event. This could be used in both the positive and negative senses. In the positive sense, if invitees to a programme are regarded as a “big maket”, it simply means that lots of people turned up for the event e.g. no bi smol pipul kom di pati. Na maket. Contrarily, “big maket” could mean that the invitees were an unorganized lot and most probably inconsequential. If regarded thus, we say maket na pipul we no arenj i.e. jaga jaga pipul.
Maket na pesin
When personalized, maket is anyone that has decided to use himself/herself as a business entity. Recently I used the toilet of an eatery and discovered the following advertisement on the door (inside): “You want hot sex or blow job? Call 080……). I was shocked. What else would you call this if not maket. Should you find girls hanging around red light spot anywhere in the country and overseas, na maket even though they are into what is now generally dubbed “hozulin”. All forms of hozulin that involves the conversion of oneself into an entity/item of trade are nothing but maket.
The following story as captured by Samuel Aruwan (Leadership, Thursday, September 2, 2010 p.2) would interest you. The Director-General of Kano State Censor Board, Mallam Abubakar Rabo Abdulkareem was reportedly arrested by the Police in Kano on August, 22, 2010 after a car chase during which he knocked down an employee of the State History and Culture Bureau. According to the story, “a teenage girl was found to be in his car when the chase began - after the Police had seen the car parked in a darkened area behind a building complex around 10pm”. The affected Mallam Rabo denied any wrong-doing saying the girl was the daughter of his deceased elder brother who accompanied him to see off some relatives that had broken their Ramadan fasting at his residence. As expected, there were insinuations that Rabo may be economical with the truth meaning na grama i(e) de spik. He was said to have travelled out immediately to Saudi Arabia for the lesser Hajj. Until he is found guilty by competent authorities, he is innocent of any allegation. But to be with a girl at such an odd hour in Kano of all places fo won dak ikoro (darkened area) speak volume of the entire matter. Wetin wi go kol dis? No bi maket?
Edwin Eriata Oribhabor
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(received 7/10/2010 — Published 13/10/2010)
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