A burgeoning mall culture
Malls have become hangouts for youths and destinations for families in Nigeria, which is Africa’s biggest economy.
Groups of children wandered inside, wide-eyed at the plenty. Teenagers and adults took selfies and group photos, raving about the convenience, the security, the leisure and, not least, the air-conditioning — so silent, omnipresent and soothing.
Some had stepped inside places like this during trips to the United States, Europe or even Nigeria’s biggest city, Lagos, which got its first one just a couple of years ago.
Others were “Johnny-Just-Come” first-time visitors, standing confused before sensor-activated doors. They drew smiles from veterans who had already been once or twice to the newest and biggest attraction in this Nigerian city in recent memory: a gleaming shopping mall.
“I’m very, very, very excited,” said John Monday, who had travelled nearly 321 kilometres to visit the mall here on a recent Saturday afternoon, as a friend took a photo of him posing in front of a supermarket. “A middle-class person can come into this mall and feel a sense of belonging.”
Delta Mall opened last spring, bringing about a dozen the number of Western-style shopping malls catering to 180 million people in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation. Many enclosed malls, anchored by supermarkets and big box stores, with other tenants lining long hallways, may be struggling in the United States. But in Nigeria, which has Africa’s biggest economy and is projected to overtake the United States as the world’s third-most populous nation by 2050, malls are just taking off .
The emergence of malls — and mall culture — in Nigeria reflects broad trends on the continent, including a growing middle class with spending power and the rapid expansion of cities such as Warri that are little known outside the region.
As in America, malls in Nigeria have quickly become hangouts for the young and destinations for families. Their rarity also imbue a sense of exclusivity.
Pushing a shopping cart full of food and the latest Chinese smartphone, Wealth Mark, 22, strolled through Delta Mall with his younger sister, Confidence, and her friend, Franca, all with wide smiles. Mark stopped to take photos of the two young women with the smartphone, then a selfie of all three.
“When I am meeting my friends here or in Lagos, we always go to the mall,” said Mark, who does marketing for a bar-code company owned by an older sister. “We can just spend a few hours at the mall and relax.”
Even older Nigerians, who were skeptical about paying premium prices over traditional markets, saw the mall’s value as a family outing.
“My kids enjoyed it,” said Victor Omunu, 53, adding that he would never shop for himself at the mall. “I bought them ice cream. It’s not bad at all, the mall. I was happy because I was with my family.”
One of the main cities in Nigeria’s oil-producing region, Warri has grown rapidly in recent years, like many other medium-size cities in the country. New housing developments are clustered on the outskirts. Nigeria’s population, which is growing and urbanizing at one of the fastest rates in the world, is expected to increase to 400 million from 180 million by 2050, according to projections by the United Nations.