Kaduna Central Market

The Kaduna Central Market — officially the Abubakar Mahmud Gumi Market — is one of the largest markets in northern Nigeria and the commercial engine of the city. It occupies a huge area in the centre of Kaduna and sells everything: food, textiles, electronics, hardware, traditional crafts, leather goods, and much else. The textile section is particularly good, with bolts of fabric from across West Africa and beyond.

The market is chaotic, loud, and genuinely full of life. Navigating it with a local is easier than going alone, especially on a first visit, but the market has enough structure that a determined solo visitor can find their way. Mornings are the best time to go, before the afternoon heat. Watch your pockets in the denser sections.

things to do market
A story
The market is formally named the Abubakar Mahmud Gumi Market, after the influential Islamic scholar Sheikh Abubakar Gumi, who died in 1992 and whose reformist religious teaching shaped the Izala movement that spread across northern Nigeria in the 1970s and 1980s. The market named for him is one of the largest in the north — a fitting monument for a man whose influence on the region was similarly outsized.

Other places in Things to Do