Once, the market square was more than a place of trade. It was the parliament of the poor, the university of the curious, the senate of elders, and the playground of children. Beneath the iroko tree, disputes were settled, wisdom was shared, and songs of ancestry were rehearsed for yet another generation.
Today, the market square is vanishing, not in bricks or dust, but in spirit. The chatter of dialogue has been replaced by the noise of decrees. Where stories once danced like palm wine in the calabash, billboards now scream promises no one intends to keep. The drum that called the people has been silenced by modern loudspeakers that sell propaganda.
The tragedy is not that the square has now disappeared, but that only a few actually notice it ever existed. We have traded the sacred circle of community for the cold geometry of digital platforms. Dialogue has been reduced to just hashtags, and the elders' wisdom is completely drowned in the flood of soundbites. Where people once gathered to hold leaders liable, it is now sadly replaced with online scroll, comment, follow, like, share, and move on.
A nation without a market square is like a nation without a mirror. For it was there that the farmer measured his worth against the weaver, also, the hunters analogised against the fisherman, and the chief against the commoner. In the absence of this mirror, we live in shadows and our leaders will be speaking to empty halls and citizens will be shouting into voids.
But history reminds us that every community needs its square. Athens had its Agora, the Ijaw their council beneath the moonlight, the Igbo their village assembly. These were not places simply built in ancient architectural styles, they were lifelines. Without them, power becomes arrogant, and the people become voiceless.
To restore our disappearing market square is not to rebuild a new physical place, but to rekindle a culture of listening, speaking truth without fear, and reminding our executives that the crown belongs not to the head, but to the people who fashioned it. For if the market square dies, so does the memory of who we are as a people.
“When the market square loses its voice, power no longer listens, it only announces. A nation without dialogue becomes a stage where actors shout but no audience remains.”
William Z. Bozimo
Veteran Journalist | Columnist | National Memory Keeper
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