Those stress – looking, struggling to survive market women I saw receiving instructions from the palace messenger of Ooni not to sell above certain price didn’t look like market women with financial capacity to hoard goods like perishable pepper, because to hoard goods in order to inflate your own price and control the market, you must have financial capacity, you need financial muscles to store food and release to the market when you like. They are victims of price hikes as well due to the terrible IMF /World Bank SAP neo-liberal economic policies unleashed by Tinubu government.
If the palace felt any hanky-panky about pricing in the market after investigation and deliberation, I think such palace instruction should be directed to the source of supply and the big time distribution network controllers, definitely not to the smallest point of sales, those famished looking market women selling foods materials not more than N50.000, who may not even be able to consume what they are selling. In my village and place in Lagos, all those small, small peppersellers in the neighborhood have closed shops for now because they have spent their capitals to survive, can’t restock, or customers are no more buying since price hike.
May be the palace should assist these poor market people to buy in bulk from the source and sell to them to sell to the public at reduced price instead intimidating them into poverty because many of them may stop buying again to sell below their purchase price. Eventually, they may end up spending their small capitals and be back to “square one” of joblessness.
No feedback from the market women? That’s an old style, ineffective way of relaying palace messages to the people. I heard a woman trying to raise issues on rice to know if the directive applies to rice too. That shows the problem of price hike is general not with pepper sellers alone.. I think it’s a deliberate evasive style.
Kabiyesi ooo!!!! , when there’s more than enough to sell in the market as before, the market will flourish back for all to see and buy freely with lower prices.
“Adiyeloja ko lokan.
Oja ko po to loja ni awon kan nfi owo kun oja ti won. Ti oja bi ata, epo, ba po pupo loja, ko si eni to ma fi owo kun oja ti e. Bi be ko, ko ni ta rara”
Adeola Soetan
08037207856
