BlossomNigeria seeks Government intervention in the regulation of food prices across the country. This is as residents and foodstuff traders across the country have continued to lament and condemn the spate of rising food prices, as well as the inflation in the country. They have stressed the need for the authorities to do the needful before things get out of control.
Mr Nduka Ndubisi, an Abuja based food stuff trader at Aco AMAC Market, said that the unpredictability of food prices had limited the trade, as they could no longer take large stocks, which according to him, is tiring and frustrating.
Mr Victor Azikiwe, another trader who expressed concern that the price of petrol was not uniform, noted that some fuel stations sell a litre of petrol at N650, while others at N690, thereby affecting the cost of transportation of the goods. This, in his opinion, was responsible for the rising cost of food items in the market.
Noting the fluctuations in food prices, one of the traders said “We do not even understand the situation. Last week, we bought a basket-full for as high as N100,000; this week, it is N130,000 per basket, which means the price is high and unpredictable.
In the interim, Mohammed Idris, the Minister of Information and National Orientation, has recently said the Federal Government is working towards unlocking the national food reserves to ameliorate the effect of food inflation on the citizenry.
Speaking with journalists in an event, Idris said the Government is very concerned about what Nigerians are going through, which will involve unlocking the food, managed by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, that is available in most of the storage facilities around the country.
Idris said the Government has noticed that there is sufficient food in the country which is being hoarded on the basis of the depreciation of the naira. He stressed that the “Government will not fold its arms and see the way Nigerians are suffering in terms of the availability of these food items”.
This is one of the reasons the Minister of Information and National Orientation, has urged Labour to settle for a national minimum wage that will not undermine the economy and lead to mass retrenchment of workers.
Though BlossomNigeria acknowledge the Government planned strategy to curtail the rising food prices, we believe that much more can be done to regulate food prices, through market associations and groups that can work with the Government, for effective regulations. We look forward to more effective faster actions, that will yield the needed results in this direction.
