Food inflation: FCT residents decry rising prices

Residents of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) have lamented high prices of food items in the aftermath of the removal of petrol subsidy by the Federal Government.

A check by Persecondnews at some markets revealed that the prices of some food items have increased by almost 50 percent.

A civil servant, Mrs. Charity Ugo, lamented the economic hardship in the country, adding that many poor people cannot afford two square meals per day.

According to her, the farmers-herders clashes, kidnapping, and banditry might have forced many farmers to abandon their farms thereby causing food shortage.

“Subsidy removal has pushed up the cost of transporting food items to the cities which has affected prices of foods in the market. Prices were better and stable before when subsidy was removed.

“I cannot boast of three square meals any longer. I don’t think many poor people can even afford three square meals this period. Personally, I cook just twice; breakfast and whatever I cook for lunch is what we will eat as dinner.

“I came to the market with N28,000, you can see the few things I have in my polythene bag. Before now, I will be carrying two big polythene bags.

Everything is very expensive now and it is really affecting people. I just pray this hardship ends soonest,” she said.

Also speaking, a teacher who simply gave his name as Wale, said he is barely surviving due to the hardship in the country.

He noted that due to the high cost of food items in the market, his salary is not enough to buy him food items that will last till the end of the month.

“The situation in the country is so serious as people without means are barely managing to survive. Some people can’t even afford a meal per day because the prices of foodstuffs are crazy.

“Imagine buying a mudu of rice for N1,700 or even a mudu of garri for N700. Before now, these items were sold for N1,000 and N450 respectively.

“I came to the market with N5,000, I’m struggling to manage the money to get a few items for some days,” he said.

A trader in Kubwa village market, Mr. Cletus Okey, who also spoke with Persecondnews, noted that the rising prices of foodstuffs is affecting not only buyers but also the traders.

He disclosed that a bag of local rice currently sells between N47,000 to N49,000, as against N36,000 it was formerly sold, while foreign rice goes for between N55,000 and N60,000, as against N46,000, the previous price.

”We currently sell a mudu of local rice for N1,600 while foreign rice is N1,700 or N1,800, depending on the one you want to buy.

“Before, we used to sell a bag of beans for N47,500, now a bag of beans is N68,000. We sell a mudu of beans for N1,300. We used to sell it N900 before.

“This economic hardship is also affecting us because right now the profit we make on most of these food items you see is not even enough to pay for our shop rent not to talk of other things” he added.

Also speaking, a tomato trader in the market, Bala Usman, also lamented the high cost of tomatoes in the market.

“I used to buy a big basket of tomatoes from Dei-Dei market for N17,000, now that same basket is N35,000. We make very little profit now.

“Bandits are not allowing farmers to go to the farms in Sokoto and Katsina, where they bring these tomatoes from. This has led to a reduction in production, and this is why the prices have gone up.”