The fact finding mission by the Federal Competition, Consumer Protection Commission [FCCPC] has lamented the rising decline of farm produce available to consumers nationwide.
The Commission made this discovery during a tour of duty by its team who traversed some of the nation’s major markets in some parts of the country.
Addressing journalists after one of the duty tours, Mrs. Suzzy Onwuka, a manager at FCCPC Lagos branch, drew a nexus between the availability of food products and the ability of the farmers to produce in quantum enough to service the consumers.
Onwuka assured that the Commission’s priority remains to unlock the markets and address key consumer protection and competition issues affecting the prices of commodities in the food sector.
While responding to questions on results of the market surveillance so far, she said that FCCPC’s surveillance efforts suggest participants in the food chain and distribution sector including wholesalers and retailers are allegedly engaged in conspiracy, price gauging, hoarding and other unfair tactics to restrict or distort competition in the market, restrict the supply of food, manipulate and inflate the price of food in an indiscriminate manner. These obnoxious, unscrupulous, exploitative practices are illegal under the FCCPA.
Following this exercise, the Commission would develop a concise report of its inquiry and make recommendation to the government in accordance with Section 17(b) of the FCCPA and initiate broad based policies and review economic activities in Nigeria to identify and address anti-competitive, anti-consumer protection and restrictive practices to make markets more competitive while also ensuring fair pricing for consumers.
In a related development, the chairman of Mile 12 International Perishable market in Ketu area Lagos, Alhaji Shehu Usman Jibril revealed that “Only 30 per cent of the total farmers that supply us food products are currently doing so now. There is even no more supply, people that are supposed to be in the farms are not there but in the Internally Displaced Persons [IDPs] camps.”
An estimated 40 per cent of IDPs live in 309 camps and camp-like settings and 60 per cent live in 2,072 host communities.
According to investigations, a staggering 1,087,875 individuals in rural communities have been displaced.
In Kaduna alone, according to the state government last month, bandits displaced 289375 residents of 551 Kaduna communities.
“Most of the reason food stuff are expensive is because the people in IDPs for instance in Zamfara, Bornu states, IDPs camps all over the country are all farmers. They have the job they are doing, they know nothing but farming but bandits have chased them away”, regretted Jubril.
Lamenting he said “they have been killed, maimed, chased away from their communities. Those are the farmers bringing food products to us to eat and any country that is not farming, the country will be in trouble, no matter how much reserve you have, the country must be in problem.”
Pleading with the Federal Government, he said there is need for the government to find a way of bringing those in the IDPs camps out and settle them in their farms or else things will continue to be very expensive.
“We are appealing to the Federal Government not to blame any Marketer or anyone selling perishable items. You cannot hide the products anywhere because they will spoil. People who are supposed to be in the farms are in the IDPs camps and as long as they remain there, Nigerians will continue to experience hunger”.
Apart from banditry, high cost of transportation and extortion of farmers by the supposed security officials on the high ways were also fingered as causes of the high prices of food products.
Speaking to journalists and members of the FCCPC, Mr. Olatunji Majester, the Secretary of the Ile Epo market association, Oke Odo in Oke Odo Local Government Council Area Lagos, said the cause of the hike in food products is due to the challenges the farmers are facing.
Speaking at the Ilepo market in Lagos, he said that farmers pay huge amounts of transport fare to bring their products from the farms to the market. “Majority of these farmers come from different parts of the country. Since the so called fuel subsidy removal, the cost of diesel fuel has gone up so much and this has impacted on the cost of transportation and this and many more things has impacted on the cost of food products.
The fact finding mission by the Federal Competition, Consumer Protection Commission [FCCPC] has lamented the rising decline of farm produce available to consumers nationwide.
The Commission made this discovery during a tour of duty by its team who traversed some of the nation’s major markets in some parts of the country.
Addressing journalists after one of the duty tours, Mrs. Suzzy Onwuka, a manager at FCCPC Lagos branch, drew a nexus between the availability of food products and the ability of the farmers to produce in quantum enough to service the consumers.
Onwuka assured that the Commission’s priority remains to unlock the markets and address key consumer protection and competition issues affecting the prices of commodities in the food sector.
While responding to questions on results of the market surveillance so far, she said that FCCPC’s surveillance efforts suggest participants in the food chain and distribution sector including wholesalers and retailers are allegedly engaged in conspiracy, price gauging, hoarding and other unfair tactics to restrict or distort competition in the market, restrict the supply of food, manipulate and inflate the price of food in an indiscriminate manner. These obnoxious, unscrupulous, exploitative practices are illegal under the FCCPA.
Following this exercise, the Commission would develop a concise report of its inquiry and make recommendation to the government in accordance with Section 17(b) of the FCCPA and initiate broad based policies and review economic activities in Nigeria to identify and address anti-competitive, anti-consumer protection and restrictive practices to make markets more competitive while also ensuring fair pricing for consumers.
In a related development, the chairman of Mile 12 International Perishable market in Ketu area Lagos, Alhaji Shehu Usman Jibril revealed that “Only 30 per cent of the total farmers that supply us food products are currently doing so now. There is even no more supply, people that are supposed to be in the farms are not there but in the Internally Displaced Persons [IDPs] camps.”
An estimated 40 per cent of IDPs live in 309 camps and camp-like settings and 60 per cent live in 2,072 host communities.
According to investigations, a staggering 1,087,875 individuals in rural communities have been displaced.
In Kaduna alone, according to the state government last month, bandits displaced 289375 residents of 551 Kaduna communities.
“Most of the reason food stuff are expensive is because the people in IDPs for instance in Zamfara, Bornu states, IDPs camps all over the country are all farmers. They have the job they are doing, they know nothing but farming but bandits have chased them away”, regretted Jubril.
Lamenting he said “they have been killed, maimed, chased away from their communities. Those are the farmers bringing food products to us to eat and any country that is not farming, the country will be in trouble, no matter how much reserve you have, the country must be in problem.”
Pleading with the Federal Government, he said there is need for the government to find a way of bringing those in the IDPs camps out and settle them in their farms or else things will continue to be very expensive.
“We are appealing to the Federal Government not to blame any Marketer or anyone selling perishable items. You cannot hide the products anywhere because they will spoil. People who are supposed to be in the farms are in the IDPs camps and as long as they remain there, Nigerians will continue to experience hunger”.
Apart from banditry, high cost of transportation and extortion of farmers by the supposed security officials on the high ways were also fingered as causes of the high prices of food products.
Speaking to journalists and members of the FCCPC, Mr. Olatunji Majester, the Secretary of the Ile Epo market association, Oke Odo in Oke Odo Local Government Council Area Lagos, said the cause of the hike in food products is due to the challenges the farmers are facing.
Speaking at the Ilepo market in Lagos, he said that farmers pay huge amounts of transport fare to bring their products from the farms to the market. “Majority of these farmers come from different parts of the country. Since the so called fuel subsidy removal, the cost of diesel fuel has gone up so much and this has impacted on the cost of transportation and this and many more things has impacted on the cost of food products.
“A basket of fresh tomatoes that was previously selling for between N27,000-N35,000 is now selling for between N60,000-N80,000. Most of us cannot afford to buy ordinary ‘Rodo’, that is pepper.
“We are pleading with the Federal, State, Local Governments to come to the aid of the farmers. We are calling on organisations and influential people in Nigeria to come to the aid of the masses.”
Speaking further he stressed that Government should provide security for the farmers as they cannot do it by themselves adding that security is the duty of the Government.
Also the chairman of the market association, Alhaji Taofeek Olurunkemi Babaoja IIe Epo market said what was happening was very unfortunate. “Today the farmers will bring goods and tag it N100,000, next tomorrow they will bring the same products and claim the price is N200,000. If you ask them why, they will say that security officials on the High ways collected much money from them.”
The FCCPC has been engaging in a nationwide fact-finding interactions with Traders’ Associations and Marketers to ascertain factors responsible for the continuous hike in food prices.
This fact-finding inquiry is an investigative mission to gather information directly from the sources and stakeholders in major markets, particularly executives, market unions, sellers and consumers.
