Bakers under the aegis of Premium BreadMakers Association of Nigeria are mulling a total shutdown of operations, following steady and fast increases in the price of diesel in the past few days.

The association said the continued rise in the price of diesel had made the price of the commodity to be doubled, warning that a total shutdown of operations by break-makers was imminent.

The PBAN President, Emmanuel Onuorah, made the declaration during an interview with our correspondent.

He explained that the diesel prices hikes were taking a serious toll on bread production for its members.

As a result, he called on the Federal Government to urgently accelerate efforts towards tackling the problem to avoid a shutdown of operations by its members.

He said, “This country may collapse on everybody. Industries will shut down operations, and all of us will go down. Imagine the price of diesel going towards N850/litre. Remember, I said wheat is not the problem, and that it is energy that will be the major problem in this Russian-Ukraine war. Almost N850 for a litre of diesel, and they are still increasing it every day.”

“Is it that marketers just brought in this product and this is why they are increasing the price by the day? Our businesses will just begin to shut down one after the other. That’s what I’m contemplating doing now. I will shut down all the bakeries. Diesel is what we use in running our generators, diesel is what we use in running our oven. What we were buying N350 is now about N850 in less than a week.”