The President, Muhammadu Buhari yet again blamed the hike in food prices on “exploitative behaviour by middlemen and other actors”.
He said this while announcing the release of 30,000 tons of maize from the national reserves to animal feed producers.
The President’s statement was released on his official Twitter account.
The statement read: “We are very mindful of the challenge of high food prices, at a time when the economy is already in a slowdown caused by the global coronavirus situation, and are doing everything in our power to bring down the prices of food items across the country”.
“Let me assure Nigerians that this situation of spiralling food prices will be a transient one. We are also engaging with food producers associations and groups to tackle the issue of, which is one of the factors responsible for the high food prices being experienced.”
To ease the current high cost of poultry production, I have approved the release of 30,000 tons of maize from the national reserves, to animal feed producers.
— Muhammadu Buhari (@MBuhari) September 3, 2020
We are also engaging with food producers associations and groups to tackle the issue of exploitative behaviour by middlemen and other actors, which is one of the factors responsible for the high food prices being experienced.
— Muhammadu Buhari (@MBuhari) September 3, 2020
Buhari’s statement however elicited a lot of outrage from different people on social media.
People compared his recent statement where he laid blames at the foot of “middlemen” to another statement he made in January 1984, where he also blamed “middlemen” for the food crises way back then.
The issue of exploitation by middle men can be handled by introducing a method of which all retail and wholesaler of food make use of weighing scale and the government would give out the particular kilo and the price, also government can provide a body that would monitor that.
— ATTAH OF IGALA ✳️ (@Adejoh19901) September 3, 2020
With all due respect, I submit thus: a government that cannot regulate prices of essential goods and services is NOT in control.
— Lucky Desmond (@ElDee_AO) September 3, 2020
How can we blame Middlemen? How, when and why did they become this powerful?
My president this is too much for Nigerians to bear.The main reason I voted for you is because I trust you and I know you are going to alleviate our suffering in https://t.co/wXE7zwKdXa iam writing this text to you iam weeping inside me.Standard of living is too high.Pls we need
— David Adebiyi (@DavidAdebiyi7) September 3, 2020
