There is usually no military camps, barracks or NYSC Orientation camps that is complete without a Mammy Market but have we ever stopped to ask how these shacks that sell wares in these camps came to be and how they got their names?
According to the story, Mammy Market was named after Mammy Ochefu, the wife of a soldier who took the initiative to start selling a non-alcoholic drink, enyi to officers in Enugu where she was stationed with her husband in 1955.
Mammy Ochefu confirmed this in an interview she had with Daily Trust in 2017.
‘After I got married, I decided to do something in order to earn a little money to take care of myself so I started brewing enyi (local non-alcoholic beverage similar to ‘Kunun Zaki’) business. The young soldiers then, including President Muhammadu Buhari, patronised my business in Kaduna. I started at my veranda in Abakpa barracks, Enugu State, before we moved to Kaduna. After a while, some top ranking soldiers complained that the drink attracted flies to the surrounding. So they asked me to stop making it.’
‘ After about a week, my customers began to ask why I discontinued so I told them. Later they took me to one corner of the 2 battalion barracks and erected a make-shift stall for me. That was between 1958 and 1959. When we moved from Kaduna to Ibadan I continued the business, and they also made me another make-shift stall there. From Ibadan, we moved to Zaria and they still built me the stall, then we returned to Kaduna, to the first shop, before we moved to Lagos,’ she continued.
The success of her venture, encouraged her to incorporate the name and register her business as ‘Mammy Market’ in 1971. The business went on to produce a supermarket and a transport business.
‘I opened a big shop in Lagos. It was at that point that I officially incorporated the name as Mammy Market and got my license. That is the story of mammy market in army formations nationwide,’ Mammy Ochefu explained.
Not only did she start a new venture but she also empowered other women as she always handed over the business to another woman as she followed her husband from one station to another
‘Whenever I was going on transfer with my husband, I would always invite one of the Idoma women to take over the business while the name remained mine,’ she explained.
So whenever you see a Mammy Market, remember Mammy Ochefu who took the initiative to start a business and also empower other people.
