Arresting The Rise in Prices of Foodstuffs and Other Essential Commodities: A duty for all in government -By Abdulazeez Alhassan

The hike in prices of foodstuffs and other essential commodities is alarming and unbearable. For many Nigerians, life and living is becoming extremely difficult. Many of them especially the vulnerable go through hardship to acquire the crucially needed basic necessities of food and other essential commodities. This in turn, has now mutated into a major threat like humanitarian crisis, security and developmental issues, in addition to the low nutritional status of Nigerians.

In the recent times, the rise in prices of foodstuffs and essential commodities in the country is being reported with deleterious effects on households. Nigerians are now in the mercy of these crisis, many live at the risks of malnutrition of children, thereby compromising their chances of living a dignified life.

One of the key drivers of the alarming uptick in food commodities is inflation, which is simply put, as the general and progressive increase in prices and a crash in the purchasing value of the local currency, the Naira. An increase in production cost can lead to inflation, a surge in demand in comparison with available supply can also lead to inflation. Nigeria’s core inflation is over 13 percent, while food inflation was 17.5 percent, in early 2021. In November 2021, it increased to 17.21 percent while in early January 2022, it further increased to 17.37 percent as of date,(NBS). This index is stunning and frustrating as the World Bank noted that food hike could push 6million more Nigerians into poverty

Other inflationary pressures include the series of insurgencies bedeviling the country especially in the Northern part where most of the essential food items for the nation comes from, these have also adversely contributed to the astronomic hike of prices of foodstuffs and other essential commodities, it also affects climate change and high transportation cost. It is evidently clear that the role of security in nation building cannot be over-emphasized, therefore, for a nation to be developed, it needs constant security.

More so, over population greatly portends an adverse effect on the common growth of our economy. Nigeria is a country where nothing is done to address the issues of population explosion, (though President Muhammadu Buhari spoke about it this week). In a situation like this, over population will undoubtedly light up a deposit of gun powder of our fragile economy and will subsequently head us to the chaos of over population.

The report on the ground of a recent market survey of Kasuwan Barchi – Kaduna, showed that high price commodities have in turn yielded negative impact both on the sellers and buyers. According to a source, Hadiza Adamu, 2-3 months before; we used to buy a bag of milk for 4700 naira. Now it is 5300 naira. If you want to buy noodles, a cartoon goes for 4000 naira, but now we are buying it for 4800 naira. Bag of local rice which was 16500 naira, now it is 18500 naira. Egg was 1500 naira now it is 1850. Bag of flour was 14500, now it is 20500. As traders, we are tired. We just sit under the sun getting nothing, Hadiza lamented. Cement was 3700 in 4-5 months, now it is 4800-5000, said by a cement dealer

In view of these problems bedeviling our economy, the concerned authorities; Federal, State and Local Governments in conjunction with lawmakers and other stakeholders should endeavour to properly manage the situation before it gets out of hand. They should emulate the initiative of Kano State Anti-Corruption Commission and BUA Group when they regulated price hike during the previous muslim fasting period(Ramadan). In addition, they should expedite action in reducing tax duties for importers, aimed at addressing the hike on the price of commodities.

The Consumer Protection Council(CPC) are not left out, they should also checkmate the reasons of hike in prices, and subsequently proffer solutions. Our leaders should remember the popular saying by Virginia Woolf “one cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well”.

Abdulazeez Alhassan writes from Rigasa Kaduna