ABSTRACT:- This is an attempt at bringing focus and clarity to traditional Nigerian marketing systems and their economic and social settings they were embedded in. The objectives are to identify the marketing system existing prior to the advent of European and Arab trades. The paper attempts to identify the environments in which they operated and the structures and agencies that existed including governmental involvement and their relevance, functions and methods that explain their survival against all odds. It also attempts to identify the traditional practices and institutions that survived in order to make them more understood and appreciated. The significance of this paper is it’s rendering possible answers to why the Nigerian marketing system has experienced stunted development and why there is lack of significant positive impact of governmental policies. This paper identifies the Socio-economicus concept as more relevant to the understanding of the past. It identified three schools of thoughts in the debate about origins of trade in Africa; ‘Substantivists’, ‘Formalist’ and ‘Middlelist’. Traditional use and ownership of factors of production, banking, and credit as well as the structure of the economic and marketing systems existing prior to European and Arab trades were also explored. It discusses the effects of colonial interferences and concludes that significant aspects of our traditional Nigerian economic and marketing system still exist, and in future, policies should consider this and make it pivotal in getting future policies right. For marketing academics this paper also broadens the frontiers for research into African marketing thought and its expansion.

Keywords:- Nigerian Marketing System, European and Arab Trades, Sectoral Dualism, Traditional Institutions, African Marketing thought