Nigerians have been struggling for feeding as a result of over 100 per cent hike in the prices of key staple food prices since 2015 when President Muhammadu Buhari assumed office.

As shown by statistics, continuous depreciation of the macroeconomic indices of inflation, exchange and lending rates have been negatively impacting food prices.

Federal government’s interventions in vital sectors of the economy through the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) have not been helpful as impeding forces interplay to push up the rates and, consequently, also push up food prices.

The interventions include the Anchor Borrowers programme, in which the CBN has been sinking billions of naira on loans to farmers with a view to integrating backward on crops like rice and tomato, and conserve dollars the country had been spending on importing the items.

Unfortunately, attacks on farmers by bandits and Boko Haram insurgents have truncated the success level of the initiative.

The bandits have killed or kidnapped many farmers, destroyed farms and displaced the owners.

Statistics have it that in 2016 alone, bandits killed 2,500 people in Nasarawa, Kaduna, Benue and Plateau states, many of them farmers, while 62,000 were displaced. An estimate of $13.7 billion calculated on farms, crops, houses and cash was estimated to have been lost in the tragedies.

In Zamfara and Niger states, bandits’ attacks have been growing every year since 2015, with reports that many farmers are being forced by the bandits to pay regular levies to enable them cultivate and harvest their lands.

The situation has escalated so badly that the CBN disclosed that many beneficiaries had declared they would not be able to service their Anchor Borrowers loans because of the destructive activities of bandits’ activities on their farming ventures.

Like in farming, distribution of farm produce across the country has also been hampered by the activities of bandits, mostly kidnappers. This development has been affecting prices as sellers factor their losses into prices at the retail end of the chain.

A restaurant manager in Kubwa, the Federal Capital Territory, Oluchi Nwanegbo, told TheICIR how difficult it has become to make purchases of food items for the business.

“As much as we can, we appeal to customers to keep buying as they keep complaining of the high cost of living,” Nwanegbo said.

According to Nwanegbo, price surges in food consumables had made her to lose customers, many of whom had complained of their inability to meet her charges.

“From crayfish, gari, cooking gas, vegetables and castor oil to bitter leaf, the prices are almost 100 per cent increase; some are actually above 100 per cent over the last seven years. In the recent past, we we were serving a plate of gari and bitter leaf for N500, now we serve it for N900. Customers grumble all the time about rising prices, even when we try to give them a fairly stable price to enable us remain in the market,” she said.

Another restaurant manager in Dei-Dei, an outskirt of the Federal Capital Territory, Roselyn Okoromadu, told our reporter that food prices were on the rise with no sign of abating.

“I have been in this business for 20 years now. The present situation on cost of food items is putting us under intense pressure. It is only vegetable that has manoeuvred inflationary pressure; prices of other food items over the past seven years have more than doubled,” she said.

What prices of staple food reflect from 2015-2022

Survey checks conducted by the ICIR team showed that a kilogramme of chicken that sold for N1000 in 2015 is now sold at N2,200, an increase of over 100 per cent.

Also, the price of a 50kg measure of white gari that went for N6,000 in 2015 has a lot more than doubled to N17,000 in 2022.

A 50kg of rice sold for N10,000 in 2015, but it is now selling for N30,000, while a 50kg measure of beans that sold for N21,500 in 2015 is now selling for N34,000.

A litre of oil that could be purchased at N250 in 2015 now costs N800.

A big basket of fresh pepper, which sold at N11,000 in 2015 is now selling for N17,000.

Also, a big basket of tomatoes, which was sold for N10,000 in 2015, now costs N17,000.

Also up from N100 in 2015 to N170 in 2022 is 120 grammes of noodles.

A crate of egg, which sold for N600 in 2015, now sells for N2,200 in 2022, while a litre of vegetable oil which cost N300 in 2015 now goes for N1,700.

READ MORE HERE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/food-prices-rise-over-100-under-president-buhari/

Nigeria my country

100%?? Prices have tripled and u are talking of 100%