Educated and trained entrepreneurs functioning as articulated vendors have moved their business up in the Port Harcourt business district in the Niger Delta. They seek avenues and opportunities to showcase their products and win sales.
Now, a Port Harcourt trade fair, AWOOF FAIR NAIJA, has offered one of such avenues. The fair is set for its 5th edition in November, 2026, as organisers confirm that the platform has helped vendors move more than N114 million in goods across four previous outings since 2023.
The fair, which pairs small business vendors with shoppers looking for discounted but quality goods, holds this time on November 7 and 8, 2026, at Model Secondary School, GRA, Port Harcourt, under the theme ‘Everything Must Go.’
Organisers say the event has recorded 401 combined vendor registrations across its four editions so far, including a brief expansion into Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, last year.
The fair’s founder, Mandu Okon Ogolo, who runs a Port Harcourt decluttering business under the name DeclutterMama, said the idea for Awoof Fair Naija grew out of a simple problem she kept running into with her own clients.
‘Vendors needed to move stock, shoppers needed their money to stretch further; so we built a space where both things could happen at once,’ Ogolo said.
‘Nobody waited for policy to fix this. That’s the real independence story; people solving their own problems,’ she added.
The fair’s timing comes as Nigeria’s headline inflation eased to 15.43% in July, a four-month low, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). Food inflation for the same month, however, stayed above 20% year-on-year.
Analysts say that gap, between an easing headline figure and food prices that remain high, is part of what continues to drive demand for resale and discount-focused marketplaces like Awoof Fair Naija in cities such as Port Harcourt.
Vendor feedback shared by organisers after past editions includes reports of sales crossing N800,000 over two days for individual stands, along with accounts of first-time vendors selling out and having to restock mid-fair.
Beyond the main vendor marketplace, the fair also runs a Declutter Stand, where individuals, not registered businesses, can sell personal items directly, and a ‘Free Shopping Stand’, where attendees can pick selected items at no cost.