Lamentations over the soaring prices of food have continued in Zamfara State, especially in markets, as both sellers and buyers complain of inability to source commodities.
OsunDailyNG gathered that most traders of food items cannot enter the villages to buy the items over fear of banditry while many farmers have refused to return to their farms.
Usman Isah, a resident of Zamfara, told our reporter that in some villages, bandits demand levies before they allow farmers access to their farming activities, saying that the farmers would add the levies to their production cost.
Another farmer, Ibrahim Yahaya, said even the Federal and State Governments cannot determine the price of food, because they do not produce and that only the food producers can determine what it costs them to farm and the prices of their commodity.
“If both the Federal and State Governments are promising citizens that they can force down the prices of foodstuffs, they are not sincere to Nigerians because they are not producers”, he insisted.
“The governments can only bring down the escalating prices of foodstuffs by eliminating banditry and supplying farming inputs to farmers.”
He insisted that the price of foodstuffs will continue to skyrocket until both the federal and state governments decide to end banditry and other forms of criminalities in the entire country.
“Most of the food we eat today is from the local farmers and they aren’t allowed to access their farmlands by the ravaging bandits. So there is no competition in the market because of banditry activities.”
According to one Lawali Ishiaku, the government does not want to end Insecurity because no individual can boast of being more powerful than the government unless the government does not want to act.
“The banditry activities have become a viable business in Nigeria because almost everybody wants to become rich overnight, so many prominent individuals that sponsor banditry would not agree to drop the business because of the juicy rewards.
“The millions they collect from ransom through their bandits would not allow them to listen to the voice of reasonings.
“The government has to find out first if the terrorists are on their own or they are being sponsored by powerful individuals in the country because most of these terrorists cannot afford to buy AK47, AK49 for their operations.
“Let’s not deceive ourselves, the ants eating the flowers are very much living in the flowers, so our enemies are also living among us.”
He appealed to both the federal and state governments not to make anyone, irrespective of his or her position, a sacred cow or an untouchable, saying that the common man is at the receiving end now in Nigeria.
According to him, if those who fought seriously for the independence of Nigeria and have died should resurrect, they would be filled with surprise as if this is not the same country they fought for and left behind for the benefit of all.
Ishiaku called on both the federal and state governments to do something against the present security and economic woes facing Nigerians, saying now is the better time to correct all the wrongs.
