[1] A wide array of products is sold in the markets and its surrounding streets, from car parts to land snails.

Dominated by women traders, the market sells fresh produce, manufactured and imported foods, clothes, shoes, tools, medicines, and pots and pans.

The market was the main wholesale and retail marketplace in Accra, the epicenter of trade in the country and one of the nation's most important social and cultural institutions.

[6] The Rawlings government that agreed on the demolition of the centre of trade in Ghana thought that devastating Makola would improve the economy.

[9] In 2017 the Minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, stated that some traders had resorted to using formalin, a cancer-causing agent, to preserve salted tilapia, commonly known as "koobi".