Nahum Sule, Jalingo

As the Eid-el Kabir celebration draw nearer, marketers in Taraba State, especially those that deals with items that are high in demand during festive periods are lamenting the low level of patronage, People daily reports.


Festive periods which usually set aside for visiting loved ones and exchanging of gifts. It is a time when parents and husbands provide new clothes and prepare special dishes to mark the occasion unique.

But this time around the story was not the same as traders across major market and residents in Jalingo the State capital, have lamented that the economic realities have affected their purchasing power and is likely to dampen the enthusiasm that comes with the celebration.


Traders at major market such as Iware, and Mayo-reno in Ardo-Kola LGA, and Mutum-Byu market in Gassol LGA as well as Tashan Lua and Mayo-Gwoi Bus stop market which is almost always busy throughout the year, the perishable commodities such as onions, peppers and tomatoes, which usually record high sales are now the opposite.

During a visit to the market today, the traders said they have been witnessing low patronage as some of their custmers who comes to the market end up either not buying or buying few items because of the hike in prices of commodities.

In an interaction with our correspondent, some of the marketers lamented how custmers are now scanty and even the available ones are finding it difficult to buy food items such as rice, tomatoes, pepper, and onions which are the necessity to buy for the period.


At Tashan Lua Perishable commodity market, known to be one of the busiest area at the sallah, our correspondent observed that there was a low turnout of buyers. Many shopkeepers were seeing fiddling with their phones waiting for consumers, while others were busy gisting.

Speaking on the development, State Chairman of the perishable foods in Taraba, Alh. Abdullahi Tijani said they have never witnessed this level of low turnout of customers, especially during this period.

He said the problem could be the results of the fuel subsidy removal that is skyrocketing prices of many goods used during the festive period, which is beyond average Nigerians.

“You can see for yourself, last year you cannot even stand here because of congestion. People were busy buying while the sellers were busy attending to customers. Last year if you have come around this time, I would have not been able to listen to you because of the number of customers I have to attend to, but here we are.


“I want to also tell you that, a week before now, a bag of pepper was sold at N20,000 and it’s now N35,000. Onions was N16,000 now it’s N27,000 and N30,000 while tomatoes remain the same price”.

New National Star reports that, same story was also recorded at Mayo-Gwoi Bus stop market where as a seller, Abdullahi Abubakar was seen sleeping over the low patronage been observed because of hike in price of the commodities.