In Lagos markets, the new week still starts with a calculation

Monday morning at Mile 12 still begins the same way: a trader opening a small notebook, a transporter naming a price, and a pause. The naira has had quieter sessions. Food has not always followed.

Pepper, tomatoes, garri, frozen fish — the items that actually feed the city — are a conversation about last week’s diesel, last night’s rain, and whether the truck from the North arrived. A woman selling tomatoes in three sizes told this newspaper she had dropped her price “a little” and still sold slower than in June.

In Balogun, the imported-goods end of the story, traders talk in dollars even when they take naira. “The rate on the board is not the rate in my pocket,” one fabric seller said, which is a more honest monetary policy than most communiqués.

Government statisticians will publish a print that may show cooling inflation. Markets have their own CPI: the face of the customer who puts two items back and walks away. That index has not yet turned.