Soaring Food Prices: FCCPC Embarks on Nationwide Market Inquiries, Visits Food Markets in Lagos, Rivers

•Traders blame insecurity, petrol subsidy removal, multiple taxation

Dike Onwuamaeze in Lagos and Blessing Ibunge in Port Harcourt

The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) has embarked on nationwide inquiries to unearth factors behind the soaring food prices in Nigerian markets and be able to propose recommendations to the federal government on how to curb the festering food crisis.

In furtherance of these objectives, Head, of FCCPC, Lagos Office, Ms. Suzzy Onwuka, yesterday lead a team of the commission’s investigators on fact-finding interactions with marketers and traders’ associations in Lagos State to ascertain the factors responsible for the continuous hike in food prices.

Equally, in Rivers State, the FCCPC led by its South-South Zonal Coordinator, Uchegbu Chukwuma, also embarked on fact-finding interactions with traders’ associations and marketers to ascertain factors responsible for the continuous hike in food prices.

In Lagos, the fact-finding inquiry, which took place at the Mile 12 International Perishable Market and the Oke-Odo Market in Agbado/Oke-Odo Local Council Development Area (LCDA), according to Onwuka, was an investigative mission to gather information directly from the sources and stakeholders, including the executives of market unions, sellers and consumers in these major food markets.

A statement from the FCCPC yesterday, stated: “FCCPC’s surveillance efforts suggest that 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.”

Responding to questions raised by the FCCPC team, the Chairman of Mile 12 International Perishable Market, Lagos State, Mr. Shehu Usman Jibril, explained that the market is an international and open market where everyone who is interested to do business are welcomed without any restriction. 

Jibril said: “There is no kind of restriction of access to this market. We have people that bring food items like garlic from China; tomato and okra from Benin Republic; tomato from Cameroun; pepper from Ghana.  Others bring food stuff from north and south Nigeria also.”

He made it clear that factors responsible for escalating food prices were not hoarding or price manipulations but insecurity that chased many farmers from their farms to several Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps in several parts of the northern Nigeria.

“Items we sell are perishables. The people you see in the IDPs are largely farmers that only know how to farm. Now these farmers have been chased away from their communities by bandits and some of them had been killed.

“Any country that is not farming will be in trouble. There is need for the federal government to take those farmers in the IDPs camp back to their farms. Else, things will continue to be very expensive.

“Our supply has dropped by almost 70 per cent because people who are supposed to be in their farm are no longer in the farms.

“It is a difficult and the government should not blame anyone selling perishable items that cannot be hoarded because they will spoil.

“People that are supposed to be in the farm are not there. And as long as they remain in the IDPs camps Nigerians will remain in hunger.  That is it,” he said.

Jibril also disclosed that the association is in discussing with the Lagos State Government for lands that would be used for farming.

Speaking in the same vein, the Secretary General of Oke-Odo Market in Agbado/Oke-Odo LCDA, Mr. Olatunji Majester, attributed the skyrocketing food prices to insecurity and high cost of haulage due to the removal of petrol subsidies and high cost of diesel.

Meanwhile, in Rivers State, traders lamented that things were getting tougher on daily basis in the country.

Some of the traders that spoke with THISDAY at the various markets visited in Port Harcourt, pleaded with the President Bola Tinubu’s government to rescue the masses from the food crisis.

Chukwuma, said the Commission’s priority was to unlock the markets and address key consumer protection and competition issues affecting the prices of commodities in the food sector.

He said “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.”

Chukwuma, who spoke with journalists during the market survey, explained that 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.

He said the outcome of the exercise would “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.

During the visit at the popular Oil Mill Market, in Obio/Apkor LGA, Mr. Daniel Kalu, Secretary of the Fruit and Vegetables section of the market, said the major challenge they face as traders is double taxation.

Kalu, who disclosed that he has been in business for over 30 years, said, “the major challenge we face is multiple taxation. Everything you see in this market, we pay for it at the point of harvesting, in the market where we buy, we pay dues, on the roads we pay dues from pole to pole till we get to our final destination.”

Kalu added, “Insecurity is affecting food production in the North. Why I don’t travel to the north again is because of insecurity. Where I used to travel to buy tomatoes and pepper, I can’t go there because is the war zone of what is happening in the country. Presently, people are afraid to visit their farmland because of insecurity. We get much of these foods from the north”.

On his part, Mr. Sabinus Osigwe, Chairman of the Bishop Okoye Shop Owners Association, in Port Harcourt, said, “Government should do whatever they can to reduce this problem of inflation. If government can remove these people on the road that collects illegal money, it will go a long way because is seriously harming our business.”