It’s no longer news that two months ago,the Nigerian government closed its land’s borders to all goods.
In fact according to the Comptroller General of the Nigerian Customs Hameed Ali, the border closure was necessary to stop the influx of smuggled goods like Rice,tomatoes,second hand cars,clothings etc into the Country.
This is actually a hard pill for Nigerians to swallow as imported Rice is one of the most craved food of most Nigerians, talk about Jollof Rice!.
But then Nigerian Local farmers say not to worry that they are capable of producing enough rice to feed the Nation.
We all know Nigerians love things Imported. So this switch to Local rice is basically inevitable
However the prices of the local Rice have consequently shot up due to the border closure. A 50kg bag of rice ranges from N17,000 to N25,000.
The festive season is here already and will definitely make these local rice more expensive. The local Rice farmers are apparently taking advantage of the border closure to increase their price.
Also there has been reports of people buying the locally produced rice for as high as N27,000 from N9,000 which it was sold two months ago. Increased demand surely led to this price hike.
I really do not know how families are going to cope with this Increase in prices of the Local rice and surely this might continue into the Christmas season and the new year as well.
However, the President of the rice Farmers association of Nigeria RIFAN, Aminu Goronyo has promised that a bag of 50kg rice will soon sell for N9,000 and assured Nigerians that Rice will be made available and will soon flood the market to bring the price down.
Well, it looks like the Rice Farmers have come under attack by Nigerians. They have been accused of hoarding Rice and creating artificial scarcity thereby inflicting unnecessary hardship on Nigerians.
Let’s have your take though…..Have you eaten local rice lately ?
