Eid-el-Kabir: Nigerians face bleak celebration as prices of rams, foodstuff soar

*Buhari blames flooding, activities of middlemen, insecurity for rising cost of food items

*Assures FG working on remedying situation

As Muslim faithful mark this year’s Eid of Sacrifice, today, buyers and sellers of rams and other foodstuffs on Monday lamented the high cost of the animals and foodstuffs with sellers also complaining over poor patronage in Yobe, Kano, Oyo states and other parts of the country.

This is as President Muhammadu Buhari has blamed increase in the prices of food on flooding, middlemen, and insecurity, pledging to tackle the ravaging hardship in the country.

This year’s Sallah is coming at a difficult time for hundreds of families across the Yobe State who are already battling with rising costs of essential food items.

However, the high cost of rams in markets and low purchasing power of many people in the face of recent economic realities occasioned by rising cost of essential food items have created a huge vacuum between buyers and sellers of rams in markets across Yobe state.

One of the buyers of ram, Nanabe Yakubu lamented over the prices of the animals which he said are higher when compared to the prices of last year.

“The ram I bought last year at the cost of N30,000 now goes for N40,000 to N50,000”, he lamented.

A dealer of rams in the Damaturu livestock market, Alhaji Modu Bukar said that though they have many rams at their disposal, poor patronage from buyers is dashing their hope of making good profit.

He said even on last Sunday when many animals were brought to the market from different parts of the state, good number of sellers returned home with rams due to poor patronage and low prices for their animals form the few buyers in the state.

The ram dealer prayed that government will order large supply of the animals as done in the past so as to dispose them of their rams.

Market survey conducted showed that prices of rams ranges from the highest at the cost of over two hundred thousand naira to the lowest at twenty five thousand naira with others having price tags of 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 and 100 thousand naira all depending on breed, size, shape and maturity.

Also at the popular ram markets in Kano, sellers witnessed low patronage due to exorbitant prices of animal feeds, as well as the dwindling purchasing powers of Nigerians.

Some of the markets visited in Kano looked deserted as only sellers were sited taking refuge under shades due to rain or scorching sun in different parts of the state.

As a commercial hub in subSaharan Africa, Kano received an unprecedented number of rams, cattle and camels from neighbouring countries like Niger, Chad and Mali in anticipation of bumper sales and profit.

According to survey in some major ram markets, turnover has drastically reduced compared to previous years.

An average ram, which was sold last year at N50,000, now goes for N80,000, while an average cow, which sold for N180,000 last year, now goes for N250,000.

A camel that sold for N120,000 last year now goes for N200,000.

One of the ram sellers, Mallam Adamu, said from all indications, many faithful could not afford to sacrifice ram during the Salah period because of economic hardship in the country.

“As you can see yourself, people are coming in groups to either buy a camel or a cow to share among themselves on the Salah day. I must tell you this is a bad market for us.

“Another problem we encountered is the hike in animal feeds, which we fervently pray that the price should drastically come down so that our Muslim brothers would be able to afford without stress,” he said.

A resident, Ado Dorayi, said that he had been offering ram sacrifice for the past 20 years, but unfortunately, he cannot afford one ram this year.

“We are trying to put body and soul together.

Many families are thinking of what to eat. Salah would always come and Almighty God sees everyone’s heart and judges him accordingly,” he said.

Another resident, Adullahi Aminu, said they now combined resources to buy a cow, slaughter and share the meat since they don’t have enough to buy a ram each.

However, some residents who could not buy on Thursday are scheming to buy on the day of Salah because the price usually drops as the festivity draws to a close.

While some faithful count themselves lucky to have bought earlier times to fatten them at a cheaper rate for fear of a hike in price during the peak of Salah sales.

Meanwhile, residents of Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, have expressed concern over the high cost of foodstuffs and other commodities and services.

Price checks according to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) survey revealed the unstable nature of prices of goods and services.

At ram markets in New Ife Road, Egbeda, Adegbayi, and Alakia areas of Ibadan showed that an averagesized ram, which sold for N40,000 in 2020, now costs between N60,000 and N65,000.

It was also observed that a bigsized ram sold for between N80,000 and N120,000.

At Aleshinloye market, rams cost between N30,000 and N110,000, a price range which Mallam Abdullahi Hashim, a ram seller, considered to be exorbitant.

Hashim told NAN that the high price was due to the security condition in the northern part of the country as well as the high cost of transportation.

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Similarly, another ram seller, Ibrahim Jamiu, blamed transporters bringing the rams from the north for charging exorbitant fares.

Jamiu added: “Even the prices of rams we rear here are high because their feeds are costly too.

“We are only appealing to the government to let its economic policies allow businesses to grow.”

Alhaji Abdulazeez Adeleke, who bought a ram for N63,000 at Adegbayi, also lamented its high price and those of other items.

According to him, the high cost of rams, food items, and other consumables might not allow many families to celebrate the Salah as they would have loved to.

Another ram buyer, AbdulRashid Jimoh, said although rams were very much available, the prices were out of reach. He, however, said that he could not but buy for his parents, no matter the cost.

In his opinion, Mr Sanusi Hassan, a ram buyer at Aleshinloye market, linked the scarcity and high cost of the animal with the cancellation of the 2021 hajj pilgrimage by Saudi Arabian Government.

This, he said, had created room for more Muslim faithful, who would have celebrated Salah in Saudi Arabia, to be at home for the festival.

Morufu Sani, an intending ram buyer at Ojo-Oba market, regrettably said he could not afford to buy a ram due to its high cost.

“A big ram of my choice is sold for N140,000. Where do I get such money? Any meat we see, no matter how small, my family and I will manage it,” he said.

However, a rice seller at Oja-Oba market, Alhaja Olugbade Salami, said that prices of all foodstuffs, including rice, had increased even before the onset of the festive period.

“A bag of rice that we used to sell at below N20,000 is now sold for N26,000 and it is quite unfortunate that there’s no patronage now like before,” she said.

Meanwhile, Mrs Bisola Salawu, an onion seller, said that buyers were no longer buying in bulk due to the hike in price of the item.

“Forty pieces of onion that we used to sell for N2,000 before now sell for N2,500, and you will hardly see people buying in bulk as they used to,” she said.

As for tomatoes, a seller, Mrs Kawa Aminat, told NAN that a bucket of tomatoes, which sold for N800 in 2020, now sold for between N1,500 and N2,000.

“Almost all the prices of commodities brought from the North have gone up due to COVID-19 issues, transportation cost and farmers/herders’ crises.

For instance, six pieces of yam that used to sell for N4,500 now went for N6,000, resulting in reduced patronage,” she said.

Secretary, Arewa Pepper Sellers Association of Oyo State, Mallam Illiasu Bala, also said that Tatashe (Bell pepper) and Bawa (Sombo), which formerly sold at N7,000 per bag, had each increased to N20,000 per bag.

Also, Chairman, Oyo State Onion Sellers’ Association, Alhaji Azeez Ademola, who explained that onion was not in season, said that a small bag of onions was now N20,000, while the big bag was now N30,000.

A vegetable oil seller at Ojo-Oba market, who simply identified herself as Alhaja, said she had not sold anything since she opened her shop in the morning.

“A five-litre Kings Oil that was around N3,500 before is now sold for N5,000, and there’s no market. I have been sitting down like this since morning.

“Everywhere is dry. Whether Ileya or not, customers are not coming. Many people are even living on loans,” she said.

NAN, however, reports that prices of textile materials at Gbagi textile market remained stable, with 12 yards of locally-made Ankara fabric selling for between N3,000 and N7,000, depending on the quality.

Reacting to the increasing cost of basic necessities on Monday while felicitating with Muslims on the occasion of the Eid El-Adha, President Buhari called for more patience among Nigerians.

Buhari in a statement issued by his spokesman, Garba Shehu, noted that flooding, middlemen, and insecurity, as well as the COVID-19, have ballooned the prices of food items in Nigeria.

“Apart from the destruction caused to rice farms by floods, middlemen have also taken advantage of the local rice production to exploit fellow Nigerians, thereby undermining our goal of supporting local food production at affordable prices,” the President was quoted as saying.

“COVID-19 pandemic has taken a heavy toll on the economies of all countries, including Nigeria, in addition to the fact that floods have caused large scale destruction to agricultural farmlands, thereby impacting negatively on our efforts to boost local production in line with our policy to drastically reduce food importation.

“No government in our recent history has invested as heavily as we are doing to promote local production of about 20 other commodities, through the provision of loans and several other forms of support to our farmers.”

The Nigerian leader assured that as an elected President who enjoys the goodwill of the ordinary people, he would continue “to bring relief to Nigerians, including making fertilizer available at affordable prices to our farmers,” he stated.

While lamenting the deteriorating insecurity in the country, Buhari lamented that it “has produced severe and adverse effects on agriculture because farmers are prevented from accessing their farms by bandits and terrorists.

“Let me also use this opportunity to reassure Nigerians that we are taking measures to address our security challenges.

We have started taking delivery of fighter aircraft and other necessary military equipment and hardware to improve the capacity of our security forces to confront terrorism and banditry.”