By EUNICE IBRAHIM & REJOICE BITRUS
Despite the crash in foodstuff prices, consumers in Plateau State continue to face persistently high provision costs, prompting urgent calls for government intervention.
Shoppers and traders alike report that while essential items like sugar and noodles have seen slight price reductions, many provisions remain expensive due to factors such as fuel cost and market control.
They argue that the situation calls for fairer pricing policies to ease the financial strain on households.
In an interview with THE NIGERIA STANDARD recently, Miss Christiana Charles said, “I feel very bad relating to the fact that prices of foodstuffs have drastically reduced but the provisions have not reduced.
“I am appealing to the government to urgently look into the non-reduction of these items because some provision sellers use monopoly of market to add prices of things at their will, which I think is bad for us as a people.”
Mr Daniel Musa was of the opinion that, to some extent, the prices of provisions had remained stable but expensive.
“I wish the prices of provision will reduce so that people will be able to afford them. I urge the government to reduce the price of fuel, because it is one of the reasons why prices of provisions are still high,” he said.
A wholesaler, Ifeoma Stella, explained that the price of sugar used to be ₦68,000 per bag but now sold at ₦67,000.
“As at last week, we sold Supreme Noodles ₦12,950 but now we sell it ₦12,900 per carton.
A pack of bottled water was initially sold at the rate of ₦1,750 but now we sell ₦1,700.”
She further explained, “At some point, we sold a carton of pasta (Crown) for ₦14,500, now it is sold ₦14,000, and Coca-Cola, which was sold ₦4,600 per pack, now sells at ₦4,450.”
Mrs Chris Best, a provision store owner, lamented over the lack of reduction in the prices of provisions.
“I used to buy a bag of flour at the rate of ₦51,000 but now I buy a bag at the rate of ₦59,000. A bag of salt used to be ₦8,300 and I’m still buying it at the same rate,” Best stated.
“Early this year we sold a crate of eggs ₦6,000, now we sell it ₦5,000. You cannot predict the prices of provisions in the market, sometimes it’s high and sometimes it’s low,” she added, noting that this fluctuation could result in either loss or gain if one was lucky.
Mr Ephraim Akintola noted that there was a little drop in the prices of some goods like margarine (Golden Penny).
He said, “Though it has different sizes, we have the one of 900g, 450g, and 250g. I used to sell them ₦3,000, ₦1,200 and ₦1,100 but now I sell them at the rate of ₦2,600, ₦1,100 and ₦900 respectively,” he explained, noting that it all depends on the cost of buying them.
“I used to sell a carton of milk for ₦35,000 and a carton of Milo for ₦34,500 but I’m still selling at the same rate.”
According to Big Mama, Mrs Daniel and Mr Izang, some of the provision shop owners “believe in nothing but exploitation, because there is no difference between old and new stocks. What was bought at a cheap rate is not usually sold to reflect that, as the moment there is an increase in the price, for no just reason, the traders decide to maximise profit.”
They lamented that the price fluctuations seemed to defy President Tinubu’s efforts.