Lokoja Intelligence — where Nigeria's markets meet

The price intelligence layer for Africa's food trade.

Know where to buy, what it should cost delivered, and where demand is moving.

Current prices across 67 Nigerian markets, verified weekly from inside them — corridor economics re-priced to diesel every week.

Nigeria: full intelligence network · Kenya: growing data coverage · demand signals in real time via WhatsApp

EnglishPidginHausaYorùbáIgbo
67markets monitored
140k+price data points
10staple commodities
5languages understood
For business

Where should you source this week?

The question every procurement desk actually asks — answered with numbers. Current market prices, field-calibrated haulage per corridor, and the landed cost per tonne, so a sourcing decision becomes a comparison instead of a phone-around.

Sourcing 300 tonnes of maize for Aba (Abia) — August 2026, from the live engine

Source marketMarket price / tHaulage / tLanded / t
Gwandu (Kebbi)₦509,600₦50,176₦559,776
Illela (Sokoto)₦539,400₦55,835₦595,235
Gombe (Gombe)₦600,970₦41,226₦642,196
Buying in Aba itself₦1,230,420—₦1,230,420

Best corridor vs buying at destination: ₦670,644/t — ₦201,193,191 on 300 tonnes.

Market medians with field-calibrated, diesel-indexed haulage — refreshed weekly, methodology here. A demo prices your own commodity, volumes and routes.

And see demand forming before anyone else does.

Every question asked through Lokoja becomes a structured, time-stamped demand signal — what commodity, where, at what trade size, in which language. Aggregated, that's a real-time map of Nigeria's food-trade intent that no survey can match.

timestamp 2026-08-09 09:41:07 commodity Maize location Kano trade_size 10-tyre lorry (30t) ← bulk buyer language Hausa channel WhatsApp answered yes

A trader asking about a lorry load is a bulk buyer moving 30 tonnes. One asking per bag is a retailer. Lokoja captures the difference — by commodity, by city, by day — including demand we couldn't serve yet: the clearest signal of where markets are underserved.

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Procurement & commodity buyers

Feed mills, flour mills, processors and FMCG sourcing desks: verify every broker quote against 67 markets, compare corridors on landed cost — not sticker price — and time positions with current data instead of last month's phone calls.

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Banks & lenders

Mark agricultural collateral to an actual local market: current price level, month-on-month volatility, and regional trade-activity signals — an alternative data layer for agri credit that lenders have never had.

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Logistics & aggregators

Real corridor math — the live example above is exactly how every route is priced: field-calibrated truck rates re-indexed to diesel weekly, net-of-cost spreads, conflict corridors flagged. Illusions stripped out before you see a number.

For traders — the Lokoja network

The intelligence starts as a free WhatsApp assistant.

Every signal on our platform begins with a real trader asking a real question. Lokoja answers in the units the market actually talks — 50kg bags, 100kg bags, 10-tyre lorries, 18-tyre trailers — and understands buhu, apo, akpa and taya.

1

Message the number

Tap the WhatsApp link — no app download, no sign-up form. Greet it in any of five languages and it explains itself.

2

Ask like you talk

"Price of maize in Kano." "Masara nawa ne a Kano." "How much be one bag of garri for Lagos." Typos and nicknames like Eko? Understood.

3

Trade with confidence

Get the current price in every trade size at once — then follow up with just "per bag" or "18 tyres" and it re-quotes instantly.

Our data

Honest numbers, built the hard way.

Most "price apps" quote raw spreads that evaporate the moment a truck is loaded. Lokoja Intelligence is built on the opposite principle: show only what survives real-world costs.

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Trusted public sources

World Bank Real-Time Food Prices and WFP market monitoring — 67 markets, refreshed monthly, cross-checked against on-the-ground trader quotes.

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Field-calibrated economics

Haulage costs measured from real Nigerian truck rates — fixed loading costs plus per-tonne-km rates from working transporters, not textbook estimates.

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Net-of-cost, always

Every arbitrage corridor is quoted after transport costs, with road-circuity correction. If a spread doesn't survive the journey, we don't show it.

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Honest about gaps

No data for your town yet? Lokoja says so — and quotes the nearest covered market with the distance, never pretending Aba is Onitsha.

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Verified by people in the markets

Contracted field ambassadors inside Dawanau, Mile 12 and Onitsha file structured weekly reports — per-bag prices, diesel and transport quotes, market conditions — under a personal-observation declaration. Ground truth no feed can fake.

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Signals sold as signals

Trader questions become aggregated demand signals — who is asking about what, where, this week. Published prices never come from queries; they come from observed sources, field-verified. The two never mix.

Full methodology — sources, verification loop, and how we compare to Tridge, AFEX & NBS →

Niger · Benue

Two rivers. One market.

At Lokoja, the River Niger meets the River Benue — the confluence where Nigeria's north meets its south. It is where the country was named, and where its trade has always converged: grain flowing down from Kano's ancient markets toward the demand of Lagos, Aba and Onitsha.

That confluence is what we build. Supply meets demand. A trader's question in Hausa meets an answer in seconds. Street-level truth meets boardroom intelligence. Lokoja — where Nigeria's markets meet.

Questions

Frequently asked questions

How do I check the current price of maize, rice or garri in Nigeria?

Message Lokoja on WhatsApp and ask in plain language — "price of maize in Kano", "how much be garri for Lagos", or "masara nawa ne a Kano". You get the current market price in seconds, quoted per 50kg bag, 100kg bag, tonne, or lorry load. It is free and works in English, Pidgin, Hausa, Yorùbá and Igbo.

Which markets and commodities does Lokoja Intelligence cover?

Ten staple commodities — maize, rice, sorghum, millet, garri, beans, yam, onions, maize flour and groundnuts — across 67 Nigerian markets, from Dawanau and Giwa in the north to Lagos, Ibadan and Aba in the south, refreshed monthly from World Bank and WFP market monitoring, cross-checked against trader quotes.

What is corridor economics and why does landed cost matter?

The price at the source market is only half the story — moving grain costs real money. Lokoja computes the landed cost of a tonne along every trade corridor in Nigeria: source price plus haulage, using truck rates calibrated with working transporters. In July 2026, the gap between the best and worst maize sourcing choice into Ibadan was ₦146,000 per tonne.

How do businesses use Lokoja Intelligence?

Feed millers and food processors verify broker quotes and pick the cheapest sourcing corridor; banks and lenders mark agricultural collateral to real local markets; development programmes replace one-off market surveys with standing intelligence. Request a demo and we will show live numbers for your commodity within 15 minutes.

See it live

The dashboard behind the answers.

Net-arbitrage corridors on a live map, market-pair drill-downs with full cost provenance, and the demand-intelligence view — the same engine that powers every WhatsApp reply.

Open the dashboard →

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