The federal government on
Thursday, February 9, blamed the rising prices of food items on officers
and men of the Nigerian Army, Nigeria Police and Nigeria Customs
Service at road blocks in the country, The Punch reports.
This
follows allegations from farmers, who have continuously complained
about being extorted while moving farm products to various locations, by
officers who several mounts roadblocks.
Chief Audu Ogbeh, the minister of
agriculture and rural development made this disclosure while speaking
before the National Assembly to defend the 2017 budget of his ministry.
According
to Ogbeh, farmers across the country had kicked against the move by the
federal government to effect reduction in the prices of food items.
This is as a result of high extortions they experience at road blocks.
While
addressing the Senate and House of Representatives Joint Committee on
Agriculture and Rural Development at the National Assembly, Ogbeh
pointed out that one of the factors responsible for high cost of food
prices in the country “is the daily unbearable extortions by men of
the Nigeria Police, their counterpart in the Army and Customs Service of
truck drivers conveying farm produce from the hinterlands to urban
centres under the guise of carrying out security checks.”
He added: “These truck
drivers, based on raw lamentations made to the ministry in recent time,
alleged that at every checkpoint they are always forced to part with
reasonable amount of money by any group of the security agencies, which
they said, made farmers to have no option than to factor cost of
extortion into prices of food items.”
Ogbeh
further said, based on the complaints by the truck drivers, the
ministry wrote the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, and heads
of the other security agencies to dissuade their operatives from the
act “but daily reports available to the ministry still show that extortion continues unabated.”
The minister also cited high cost
of Automobile General Oil, also known as diesel, which now sells for
N300 per litre, as another factor responsible for the skyrocketing
prices of food items in the country.
He stated that diesel consumption was inevitable since the trucks conveying farm produce were powered by diesel.
Meanwhile, the federal government says it has adopted some measures to reduce the price of food items.
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