On a Friday evening in Onitsha, as the beer market is closing, a man carefully straps six cases of Hero lager and two cases of Pepsi to the pannier of his moped. Another rolls away his purchases by wheelbarrow. Coaches parked nearby will soon be filled with day-trippers and their cases of booze. Each day a vast quantity of beer is sold from this closely packed warren of stores. It is part of a sprawl of specialist markets in the city, a commercial hub on the Niger river, which draws in traders from across southern Nigeria. It was the bustle of Onitsha that persuaded SABMiller, the world's second-largest beer company, to set up a brewery here. The market takes a slice of sab's local production and sells it on to small traders who are otherwise hard to reach. The company had been late in coming to Nigeria. First it acquired a rundown brewery in Port Har-court in 2009 and then another in Ilesha before it built a brand-new plant in Onitsha in 2012. Already, its capacity is being increased, to slake locals' ever-growing thirst.
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