Price Hike: Edo Residents Beat Up Garri Sellers Until They Reduced Prices

With the partial lockdown imposed on the state by the Edo State government, as part of efforts to curb the spread of
the deadly coronavirus, the price of garri rose from N 1,600 to N 2,800 per plastic while a bag which was previously sold for N8000 was now sold from about N12,000 and N15,000.

Trouble broke out on Thursday at Oregbeni market in the Ikpoba-Okha Local Government Area of Edo State as protesting buyers pounced on sellers of garri in the market who had increased their prices. They beat them thoroughly, forcing the sellers to reduce the cost of garri which they sold double the normal price.

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The residents, who had remained indoors, went to the market only to find the prices of food items has skyrocketed. Costs of food at road side canteens also rose from N100 a plate of rice to N150.

But the residents, angered by the sudden increase in the price of food items in the market, pounced on the market women and beat them up. With the outbreak of violence in the market, the market women association immediately met and reversed the prices of all the food items to the old prices.

Mr Osaze Okunbor, a resident in the area who witnessed the incident, said it was unfair on the part of the market women to increase the cost of food items knowing fully well that people could not go to work again because of coronavirus.

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Here's what he said;
“It was a tug of war, we begged the market women but they claimed that they were selling what they bought. We wondered why the price of food items would suddenly go up within such a short period.
“How can we survive as a country if we continue to treat ourselves this way ? Tell me , is garri an imported food item that its price suddenly jumped up ? I mean this is absolute rubbish.”

According to him, lots of people were happy by the actions of the youths which brought about the reversal of prices of food items.

The State Police Public Relations Officer Mr Chidi Nwabuzor is yet to comment on the incident.