Akure's main market area is the best place to feel the pulse of the city. Produce stalls sell the agricultural output of the surrounding Ondo State countryside: cocoa beans, rubber, palm oil, tropical fruits, dried fish, and bush meat. The market operates every day but is busiest in the mornings and on market days, which follow the traditional Yoruba four-day cycle.
This is a working market, not a tourist attraction, which is what makes it interesting. Traders in from the villages arrive on motorbike taxis with loads that would seem impossible; the money-changers and mobile-phone sellers occupy their own noisy corners; and the smell of frying akara (bean cakes) drifts from the food section. If you want a snapshot of small-scale Nigerian commerce and everyday Yoruba life, spend an hour here rather than looking for a formal sight.