Four days into a food blockade by The Amalgamated Union of Foodstuff and Cattle Dealers of Nigeria and the heat is already touching my family, social and economic life.
Madam has quickly reverted to fish and chicken and the demand for those two protein alternatives is already driving prices up.
I can no longer pass through the kitchen and steal one meat from the pot without madam telling me that things are expensive oo. That play has become expensive.
Yesterday, as traffic held me inside DLine, I decided to get our usual boys days Agidi and cow tail pepper soup from nwa nwa’s place on Orominke street. Then I noticed that prices have increased and ration has also reduced .
Upon that, when i tried to select my favorite part from the pot, the woman said “Oga, chop small make others chop too”. I quickly carried my take away and left before someone insults me on top pepeper soup.
Then the restaurant manager at my office held a meeting with me yesterday asking if they should suspend production cos prices are changing daily and they can’t afford to be changing prices daily for customers. If they suspend production, salary won’t be paid. Profit will be non existent too.
Someone once said if the blockade happens, we will block our ‘oyel’ too.
Same ‘oyel’ that kept us away from farming and fishing.
Oyel that we don’t even produce( Petroleum profucts are mostly imported), apart from kpofire that we can’t use to make tea when nobody buys from us.
The traders are protesting the killings of their members during the Endsars protest and members killed during the Shasha riots. The army is working to stop the blockade and the DSS have detained their leader but they are still adamant.
The truth is that of those people killed are not even aware of the criminality allegations upon certain members of their region.
That is the evil of ethnic profiling. You can just be coming out from your house and an angry mob will hack you to death just because someone who speaks the same language or worships the same god as you, has committed a crime somewhere.
Once again, I applaud the north for not carrying out reprisal any killings as they are used to in the past.
It seems like all the bad people or killers from the north has joined either bandits or boko haram.
I empathize with them . It is the worst time for the north.
In their region, they and their children are picked up like tom tom and sold or auctioned off by bandits and Boko Haram.
The less luckier ones are killed daily or forcefully conscripted into these gangs.
The other day Boko Haram shot a missile at little boys playing football in Maiduguri , turning them into a mesh of body parts and broken bones. How horrendous?
Their farmers now pay taxes to bandits before they can harvest their crops while their elites are endangered as they leave the region and run to either Abuja or Niger republic.
Rustlers have unhearded most of their original headsmen, leaving a bunch of angry killer gang who couldn’t beat them and joined them.
Down south, they are profiled as a bunch of enemies and killer herdsmen.
It was profiling that led to the killing of 11 of them just because of a minor scuffle between artisans in Sharaha market.
It was the same profiling that led to their targeting during endsars. I don’t even know the relationship between ENDSARS and poor traders in Oyibo.
There is so much suspicion going on in the country and the situation is that of a terrible weather and a terrible pilot.
Nigerians need to start realizing that their are only two kinds of people in this world and they can be found amongst every tribe, sex and religion.
There are only good and bad people.
