From Temitope Adedeji, Akure
Market survey on prices of goods and commodities done by Kaftanpost Indicated that people of Ondo state are feeling the heat of the current economic crunch as inflation crisis has posed great challenge and threat against the purchase of food items as Sallah celebration draws closer.
Few days to the Eid-el-Adha celebration, Kaftan post ‘s survey in Akure, the state capital revealed that the prices of ram range from #100,000 to #180,000 while goats are between #40,000 to #60,000 at the popular Shasha and Mojere markets.
At Shasha market ,a ram seller, simply known as Bala lamented stress and difficulties experienced on the way from the North to the South over the transportation of the the goats and the ram.
“Just that we don’t have a choice in bringing down the rams because of the significance of ram to Muslims at Sallah , we would have opted out of the business completely” he said.
A poultry farmer , Mr John Adebayo who also spoke on probably if people could buy chicken as alternative to the rams said ,a fearly big chicken now goes for #7000 to #8000 .
He said the rationale behind that is the high cost of feeds in the market stating that a bag of feed though of different stages to the chicken is between #9000 to #10,000 which was initially sold between#4000 to #6000
Also at Oja Oba Market, a create of tomatoes that was being sold at #12 -#13,000 about three weeks ago is now #17 – #19, 000 base on the sizes.
A bag of local rice relatively stands between #28,000 to #31,000 compare to that of foreign rice of #35,000.
No doubt in the fact that new yams have started surfacing and many people prefer to buy as substitute to what they have on ground at home. One Mrs Aderonke Iwalola, a yam seller at the popular Erekesan market in Akure said though the harvesting of yam has not been that much at this time ,so the little one in market will be costly within the range of #4,000 to #5000.
According to her, it is frustrating and disheartening that people are no longer farming again because of the incessant killings of farmers on their farms by the so call Herdsmen”
Many of the Muslim fateful who spoke with Kaftanpost in the markets expressed worry over hike in the prices of goods most expecially, on rams.
Some of them accused the government of being responsible for the situation on economic crises.
A civil servant ,who doesn’t want his name mentioned said that the state government is not helping the matter over non payment of salaries.
” my concern is that, the state government is owing us, we have not received salaries since the beginning of the year, the governor just finished paying the backlog of last year’s own, then how do we celebrate? He lamented
However, market survey at Ikare Akoko, the northern part of the state that is predominantly a Muslim community indicated that the prices of rams in the area not different from that of the state capital.
Generally, it is assumed that the prices of commodities have gone a little higher compare to what it used to be in few weeks ago just as a result of the Sallah celebration which everyone believes probably that a little drop may come on the goods after the celebration.
