Boko Haram: Traders’ Union Warns of Impending Food Shortage

The President of the Na
tional Traders and Market Leaders Council of Nigeria, Chief Adenike Lawal, has warned of an imminent food shortage if the persistent attacks by Boko Haram and other insurgents in the country was not nipped in the bud.
Chief Lawal who stated this while speaking to newsmen in Abuja recently said farming and farming communities in the country that were the main targets of the criminals said the development could cause food shortage and inflation.
The traders union which also sought for government’s approval to form a market taskforce to enable it check street trading as well as price control of goods said the killing of traders particularly in the Northern part of the country would affect the prices of agric products.
According to her, the activities of the terrorists has claimed over 200 lives of traders in the “senseless and unprovoked attacks on traders doing their legitimate businesses of commercial purchase of farm produce for distribution nationwide”.
She lamented that the development would cause food shortage and inflation which would increase poverty and unemployment even as she called on the authorities to build alternative markets in place of those that has been demolished.
“Developers hike government’s allotted prices for shops. We need a local market.
“I want to appeal to Nigerians that are aggrieved with Mr. President on any matter to avoid violence and seek dialogue as that is the best way for conflict resolution.
She further said that in Kano, Maiduguri and Yobe, many traders have been killed while on their way to buy livestock explaining that that was why the prices of cow and rams was increasing by the day.
While further expressing the fear by traders to embark on travelling up North for cattle and other food stuff the Traders Union President revealed that some months ago, 14 beans traders from Bodija market in Ibadan were killed in Bornu state by gunmen suspected to be Boko Haram members while on a trip to buy farm produce for markets in Lagos, Oyo, Ondo and Ogun States.
She said the killings has prompted the Ibadan Food Stuff Traders Association to ban indefinitely further travels to the North to purchase beans, a development that has made a bag of beans to cost N20,000 as against the usual N11,000.