By Peter Duru, Makurdi

Indications have emerged that some traders in Makurdi have resorted to hoarding essential food items and goods over the worsening inflation thereby exacerbating the food crisis and its attendant price increases.

It was gathered that those engaged in the practice were doing so to avoid losing their capital to the worsening inflation.

At the popular Wurukum and Wadata markets in Makurdi, buyers were seen openly lamenting that some dealers in goods such as rice, vegetable oil, noddles and other pasters were refusing to sell to ready buyers of the goods they have in stock claiming that they were waiting for increase in prices.

At the popular Wadata market a roadside bean cake (akara) seller, Mrs Janet Ijukwa said she was shocked when she walked into one of the shops where she buys vegetable oil for her business.

She said, “I asked for the oil which I saw at the shop, but the attendant told me to my face that she would not sell until her madam gives her clearance to do so.

“When I persisted, the girl told me that they were told not to sell for now but to wait for price increase. I couldn’t understand why they were doing that considering that it is making everyone suffer.”

Also at the Wurukum market, traders were seen checking what could be sold at a time. Some buyers were told that prices were changing and moving upward by the hour and that it would amount to economic suicide to sell and not be able to buy or replenish their stock from the proceed of the sale.

In her account, a woman who identified herself as Mama Felix, held back tears as she spoke saying “I wanted to buy a noddle that I cook for sale in my neighbourhood, to my surprise my customer told me that he would not sell to me because prices of goods are changing every hour.

“I then asked him when he would sell to me, he outrightly told me that it is when they notice that prices are stable.

“At another shop where I bought creations of eggs yesterday, I went back to get more at the same shop, I saw creations of eggs but the trader refused to the seller saying that the price might change tomorrow.

“It is a very sad development, they are refusing to sell thereby unknowingly forcing prices to increase. The egg seller told me that the amount he bought 100 creates a day before suddenly jump by almost 15 per cent.

“According to him, the situation is that when you buy goods in the morning and you go back in the evening for the same goods you will end up buying it for a higher price. That is the sad development in our markets and the ordinary people are at the receiving end.”

Also, a civil servant and father of four Mr James Terhemba who lamented his inability to buy all the groceries he wanted to purchase for his children decried the hyperinflation in the country.

According to him, “I made purchases just yesterday and because I forgot some of the things I wanted to buy for my children that they take to school daily, I came back to the market only to be told that the prices have changed. Some of the sellers told me that they were out of stock when I could see the things I wanted in their shops but were refusing to sell. That is what we are living with at the moment.”