A cross section of traders in the Southwestern part of the country, especially Lagos, have blamed the hike in the prices of foodstuffs and other commodity items on the wanton killings and destructions perpetrated by armed herdsmen.
Findings by our correspondent at selected states nationwide showed that traders and residents were bitter about the biting effects of the herdsmen’s killings, occurring in the northern parts of the country, and its attendant multiplier effects on commodity items.
Those who spoke in separate interviews, blamed the recent increase in the prices of food items such as yam, onions, tomatoes and pepper on the menace.
At the Ketu Market in Lagos, a bag of rice which a few months back sold for N13, 000 is now N16, 000, while five tubers of yam that once sold for N3,000 now go for about N5000.
Elsewhere in Lagos, Osogbo, Osun State, and Ibadan, Oyo State markets, our correspondents observed that a bag of beans that was once N23,000 is now about N26,000.
A market woman in Ketu, Lagos, Mrs Chiwendu Ogbona, who deals in rice and vegetable oil, said apart from yam and the ingredients, the price of rice had not been on the rise, likewise that of vegetable oil.,
“The logic in the business is that, if the prices of the goods are higher, we make more gains, but when they come down, we lose; because the ones we have at hand that were bought at higher price will have to be sold at lesser price; but as for the buyers, they enjoy more, when the price of the commodity is coming down.”
“But we would plead on the government to at least let the goods be steady; it should be at a particular price because at that, both the buyers and the seller would enjoy from it.” Chiwendu said.
Mrs. Patricia Ezuma, who sells beans at the market, said, “Since the prices have gone higher, market ‘doesn’t flow’ the way it used to be, because people are not patronising us like before. I must confess, this present administration have not done well.”
Ezuma attributed the problem largely to the incessant Fulani herdsmen attacks rocking some states in the Middle Belt that can be classified as the food baskets of the nation.
She said with the preponderance of attacks in Benue, Taraba, Plateau and Nasarawa states, there was no way the nation could be self-sufficiency in food
production.
Besides, she said the activities of the Boko Haram insurgent group on some Northeastern states, especially Borno, was a disservice to the nation in terms of self-sufficiency.
Reacting, however, a trader in Osogbo, Osun State, Mr. Opeyemi Ayanwole, lamented, “The prices of goods are extremely high during Buhari’s regime, compared to Jonathan’s era because, we have some problems internally; and I am not saying it’s the bad administration of Buhari that caused it because when Buhari was appointed, the fuel price at the international market fell and I think it’s the one that really caused the hardship that we are experiencing in Nigeria
today.”
