RESIDENTS of Kogi State are to pay more for bread as bakers called off their four-day-old strike and increased prices of the essential commodity in the state.
The bakers had last Tuesday in Lokoja, the state capital, embarked on strike to protest the high cost of flour, sugar and fuel, negatively affecting the production and distribution of bread across the state.
Chief Gabriel Bamidele, Chairman, Kogi Bakers Association, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Saturday that prices of all sizes of bread had increased following the harsh economic condition in the country.
Bamidele disclosed that the four-day strike had been called off with a slight increase in the prices of bread.
“As an association, we have resolved that the first three small categories/sizes of bread will attract only N50 increment while the bigger ones will attract a N100 increment.
“This means a bread that was sold for N100, N200 and N250 will now cost N150, 250 and N300.
“Also, the big ones that used to cost N800, N1000, N1200 and N1400 will now cost N900, N1100, N1300 and N1500 in the market.
“These increments became imperative in view of the high cost of flour, sugar, petrol and engine oil in the country today. We hope that the public will understand our plights and cooperate with us to keep us afloat in business,” he said.
Also in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, it was observed that prices of bread has increased steadily in the past one month and it’s expected that the prices will still go up.
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Findings show that a loaf of bread that was sold for N1000 Naira is now sold between N1200 -1300. The situation is the same in Lagos as the price of bread has also increased. Sunday Tribune observed that the prices rose from N850 to about 1500 depending on the size and type.
Nigerians are already paying the price as recently, the Zamfara State Confectionary and Bread Sellers Association also appealed to the federal government to intervene over a hike in the price of flour and other ingredients for bread making in the state and country at large.
The vice chairman of Zamfara State Chamber of Commerce Mine and Agriculture, Habibu Alfijir who is also the secretary of Alfijir Bread and Confectionary said the hike in the prices of bread-making ingredients has forced many Bakery Houses to shut down in the state.
According to him, “The hike in prices of sugar, flour and other ingredients has attributes to the relative increase in the price of bread in the state.”
In Kano, it was reported that some women who are local bread (Gurasa) bakers, staged a peaceful protest to express their displeasure over high cost of flour, saying the constant price hike is causing a serious financial hardship on their business.
Gurasa is a local bread in the northern part of Nigeria produced with flour yeast, sugar and water. This job is mostly done by women and sold at many markets and motor parks.
The protesters who throng the popular Yankasuma streets in ancient city of Kano, carried placards with inscriptions written in Hausa languages but translated into English language as; “we condemned the high price of flour ”
Others read: “This is where we get our daily bread, we will stop the production”, “Gurasa is mostly staple food in the north”, “Federal government, assist us,we are dying because of the high prices of flour.”
According to the protesters, life is becoming more difficult, “we can hardly feed or send our children to school due to this hardship”
Addressing the press on behalf of the protesters who were mostly women, Hajiya Fatimah Anwar said, “We are out here on the streets protesting to let the leaders know the deteriorating situation in which we are at the moment.
“This is our small scale-business facing deterioration due to rise in the price of flour, it is a business for the poor that the rich cannot dare venture into.
“We are in a very difficult situation, we need help. This is a small-scale industry mostly run by women.
“Many have lost their capital. It is such that only 25 percent of us are now remaining in the business as many others have closed down due to lack of capital.”
Speaking further, she lamented how a bag of flour which was sold at N16,000 before is now N43,000 in the market.
“We used to buy a bag of floor at the rate of N16,000 in the past but now it sells for N43,000. This is absurd. What we produce is a common food for the poor and is now becoming unaffordable. Anytime we go to buy flour, we get an increase of N1,500 to N2,000′
“We are calling on the authorities and those concerned to look into this matter because we are running out of business and is affecting our families.
“Currently, we use the IRS flour produced by Abdussamad, it is the best for our products but we cannot afford it any longer. If nothing is done, we have no choice but to close down and this will affect the general public.”
She therefore added, “We cannot engage in an act that is not in tandem with the religion of Islam, hence the need for various governments especially, to wade into this high price of flour by engaging those companies producing flour on the need to bring the price down.”
Hajiya Fatimah Anwar also called on government to find a positive ways to assist those Flour companies to source for foreign exchange, so that the cost of production would be favourable to them.
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