As Christmas and New Year festivities approach, prices of food and related items seem to remain beyond the reach of many Nigerians even with various efforts by government to ameliorate the situation.
Reports from across the country show that the prices of rice, beans, chicken, fish, vegetable oil, clothes and footwear are on the high side.
Families that love to do their Christmas/New Year shopping early are complaining about the high prices. So also are traders who say business has been slow.
Some traders fear that the prices of some items may even rise before Christmas.
The price of rice, which is much relished particularly at this time of the year in many homes, keeps fluctuating.
A 50kg bag of imported rice ranges between N85,000 and N100,000 at the Kaiyero Market, Otta, Ogun State, which is fast turning into a major market for smuggled rice and vegetable oil.
The price notwithstanding, traders make brisk business as retailers and consumers flock the market from time to time to make purchases.
Traders in the Lagos Central Business District blame the high prices of clothes and footwear in particular on the current high exchange rate.
Our correspondents reported that local food items are not cheap either, be it pepper, tomatoes, palm oil, garri, yam, cassava flour or meat.
A vegetable oil trader at the Kuto Market, Abeokuta said the price of the item had risen within the last one week.
“It is not our fault. We sell according to what we buy from distributors.
“It could be higher by next week as the Christmas draws closer.
“We are not enjoying it because it is affecting our sales and sometimes our turn over,” she said.
A market survey in Akure showed that a bag of garri, which went for N55,000 a few weeks ago, now goes for to N35,000 while a basket of tomatoes is down to N60,000 from N80,000.
The price of a 25-litre keg of palm oil increased from N37,000 to N54,000 while a basket of rodo pepper soared from N15,000 to N45,000.
Buyers in parts of Delta State are shocked that the prices of clothes and footwear are almost three times the amount they cost last year.
A woman identified simply as Vera, who was at Igbudu Market in Warri South Local Government area to shop for her children, said: “I want to buy things for my two boys. I’ve got tired from going from one shop to another.
“You heard me talking on the phone; it was my husband. The prices of things are far beyond our budget.
“He has told me to buy for one person and return. That is what I want to do now.”
Another mother, Mama Chinenye, said she had decided to go for fairly used stuff, but those were not cheap either.
The experience was no different at Effurun, Agbarho and Orhuwhorun markets in Uvwie, Ughelli North and Udu local government areas.
The prices of local food items have been relatively stable for the second week running in Niger State which is often touted as one of the country’s food baskets.
A measure of local rice goes for N2,700 while that of foreign rice costs between N3,300 and N3,500.
A measure of white beans ranges between N2,300 and N2,500 and brown beans N3,500.
Garri is N1,100 per measure, corn N1,700, millet N1,700, and groundnut N2,500.
Ten tubers of yam cost between N8,000 and N10,000 and a basket of onions N5,500.
The livestock markets in Lafia, Akwanga, Keffi and Karu in Nasarawa State have been flooded with fowls, goats, rams and cows, but the prices do not look friendly to the pockets of buyers.
At the Lafia International Market, the lowest price for a medium size cow is N300,000 while the big ones go for as high as N600,000 or more.
A resident, Esther Yamve, a business woman, told our correspondent on Friday that she was surprised at the cost of food items in the market.
She expressed shock that a kilogramme of meat which used to be N3,500 had gone up to N7,000.
Another resident, Danjuma Ade, said: “with the way food items are going up every day, I just hope that we will be able to celebrate the Christmas without a hole in our pockets.”
Food prices are also relatively stable in Enugu with the exception of vegetable oil and palm oil.
The prices of beans, eggs, bread and rice have remained almost the same since October, according to a survey by our reporter.
A resident of Lokoja, Audu Obansa, said the high prices of food items would not stop Nigerians from celebrating the festivities.
“I trust Nigerians. Their strong spirit and never-say-die attitude won’t stop them from celebrating,” he said.
A trader at the Kogi International Market, Lokoja, Mrs Mariama Aiguatine, appealed to government to do something about the prices of food items.
She said: “Prices are very unstable and people don’t have money to buy.
Many customers are owing me but I cannot send them away. We just keep on managing them.
“Kindly help us appeal to government to come to the aid of poor Nigerians.”
A civil servant in Lokoja, Benjamin Dan, asked the Federal Government to set up a price regulation agency to address the issue of arbitrary fixing of prices of items by traders.
Buyers in Anambra State, including the popular Eke-Awka Main Market and Ochanja Market in Onitsha, are also not happy at the high costs of items.
“I’ve told my household to forget about Christmas this year because things are very hard for many families now,” a resident, Mr Donald Chiagorom, told The Nation in Awka.
Residents of Abia State told The Nation that prices of various items were suffocating.
A basket of fresh pepper which ranged between N18,000 and N20,000 this time last year now goes for N50,500, while a basket of tomatoes is currently selling for N55,500 as against last year’s price of N15,000.
A bag of garri goes for between N80,000 and N90,000 while a 50kg bag of imported rice costs between N80,000 and N150,000.
In Ilorin, a trader, Felicia Ige, told our correspondent that there was little or nothing in the air to suggest that Christmas and New Year festivities were around.
Jos residents are particularly disturbed by the high cost of vegetable oil and the fact that there is no ready alternative to it.
Evangelist Moses Dung said: “We have survived years of inflation, but this year’s is something else.
“This is supposed to be a season of joy and merriment, but prices of food items are killing our expectations.”
Improved harvest in Adamawa State seems to have stabilised the prices of grain ahead of the festivities.
Rice, which rose to as much as N3,300 per measure a couple of months ago, has now crashed to N2,500 while a measure of beans costs between N2,800 and N3,000, down from between N3,500 and N4,000.
A tailor, James Japhet, said: “I should not complain this season because I am a beneficiary of the coming festivities. I’m getting a lot of cloths to sew, although the price tags of what I also need to purchase for the period are crazy.”
Another Yola resident, Hyelda Stephen, a civil servant, said he had managed to get Christmas dresses for his children but could not say he would meet other needs when the anticipated Christmas and New Year days eventually arrive.
“I am waiting to see how I will cross the bridge,” he said, stressing that his expected income would not accommodate his needs.
“When we get there, I will see, because it is in any case what I can afford that I will eventually get,” he explained.
The current prices of basic items in Kano State as the Christmas and New Year festivities approach vary because of several factors.
Prices in the rural markets are different from prices in the metropolitan markets and shopping malls. The Nation also observed that the prices depend on the quality of the items in question.
A 25kg bag of foreign parboiled rice goes for N45,000 in the open markets and N48,000 in shops, while 100kg of foreign parboiled rice was sold for N105,000 on Saturday.
150kg of local rice remains between N150,000 to N170,000 in local markets like Dawuna.
A 100kg bag of white beans is now sold for between N170,000 and N185,000, depending on the quality.
The brown beans is however sold for between N200,000 and N215,000 per bag.
A bowl of white beans goes for between N3,000 and N4,000. A bowl of brown beans that was sold for N7,000 has now gone down to N5,000.
The price of a bag of garri has reduced to between N52,000 and N57,000 depending on the quality. It was previously sold for as high as N63,000 per bag.
A bowl of white garri, previously sold for N3,500 was sold for N3,000 on Saturday.
Prices of meat (beef), chicken and fish per kg have relatively risen as demands for them increase. For example, a chicken that could be sold for N7,500 in Sabon Gari Market last month now goes for N9,000.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported last month that the most prevalent shock affecting households across Nigeria is the price increases on major food items.
The NBS said 71 per cent of households reported this shock
The bureau in itss General Household Survey- Panel (GHS-Panel) Wave 5 2023/2024 said urban households experienced the shock of food price increases at 75.5 per cent more than rural households at 68.9 per cent.
It said the issue was most pronounced in the South-East and South-South zones at 83.6 per cent and 79.3 per cent, respectively.
“In general, the data indicate that price hikes on essential goods are a major concern for households nationwide,” it said.
The report revealed the other top most common economic shocks were increase in price of oil and fuel at 52 per cent, and increase in prices of other fuels at 32.2 per cent.
“This was followed by increase in price of farming/business inputs at 28.8 per cent, floods at 8.8 per cent, droughts at 5.8 per cent, and pest and plant disease at 5.7 per cent.
“Shortage/scarcity of petrol at 5.3 per cent, irregular rains at 4.7 per cent and very high temperatures (40°C) at 4.7 per cent.”
It said these households dealt with shocks in a variety of ways, but the main coping mechanism was reducing food consumption at 48. 8 per cent.
“To cushion shock effects, some households also received assistance from friends and family at 36.1 per cent and reduced purchased quantities compared to the last at 32.6 per cent.
“In contrast, a significant proportion of households did nothing to deal with the shocks at 28.3 per cent.”
The report revealed that only 4.0 per cent of households nationwide received safety-net assistance, a decline compared to GHS-Panel Wave 4 at 10. 4 per cent.
The report showed that households in the urban areas had a higher coverage of receiving assistance at 5.2 per cent compared to rural areas, which has a coverage of 3.5 per cent
“Also households in the urban areas had a stronger reliance on cash assistance at 60.5 per cent compared to the rural areas at 49.6 per cent.”
The report said at the zonal level, the South-South and North-West zones recorded the highest share of households with safety nets at 6.7 per cent and 5.6 per cent, respectively.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the GHS-Panel is Nigeria’s nationally representative longitudinal household survey which commenced in 2010 and the NBS has implemented five waves of the survey.
The panel nature of the data enables tracking household-level changes in critical areas of welfare, work, and socio-economic outcomes over time, yielding insights for policy.
