By Emman Ovuakporie
As Nigerians celebrate this year’s Yuletide, the prices of food items in the capital city, Abuja hit the rooftop.
TheNewsGuru.com, (TNG) visited some markets in Abuja satellite towns to carry out an on the spot assessment.
At the Gwagwa market, the prices of broiler was between N5k-N10k and bags of local rice were sold at between N25k and N28k.
Dutse market along Bwari road too had a semblance in prices of food items like chicken and rice across board.
Also at the three major markets in Kubwa, prices of chicken and rice remained constant like other markets in neighbouring satellite towns in Dutse, Gwagwa, Kaigini, Dede and Bwari.
Some of the traders who spoke to TNG attributed the rise in prices to insecurity on “our highways”.
A market woman in Dutse who simply gave her name as Moraimo from Kogi said”the prices are higher than last year because our roads are occupied by kidnappers and bandits.
“Poultry farmers are also complaining of the cost of feeds for chicken so they have to pass the difference to customers.
“These chickens we are selling for N7500.00 to N10,000.00 we sold them for between N5k to N6k last year.
“But this year it’s different because we don’t get supplies early and when they’re supplied they come with extra cost.
TNG recalls that earlier in the year poultry farmers had cried out that smaller poultry farmers are shutting down their farms because of the high cost of feeds.
Poultry farmers under the auspices of Poultry Association of Nigeria, PAN, had in June urged the Federal Government to come to their rescue, lamenting that their farms were crumbling over the rising cost of maize and soya beans.
They lamented that small poultry farms were closing down as a result of the high cost of feeds.
Delta State Chairman of PAN, Chief Alfred Mrakpor had earlier in the year appealed to the Federal government to save the local poultry industry from total collapse due to the high cost of poultry feeds.
Mrakpor lamented the large numbers of small scale poultry farms that have closed as a result of exorbitant prices of critical ingredients in poultry feed formulation.
The situation seems to have manifested in the high cost of poultry products in this year’s Yuletide.