The price of food items, including cassava flakes (garri), and rice have recorded more than 50 per cent increase in Enugu metropolis.
Garri is made from cassava and is one of the staple foods in Nigeria that cuts across all tribes. It is made from processed cassava tuber. Majorly, it is taken as a cereal or made as eba.
A market survey conducted on Sunday reveals that a cup of garri, which was N120 in January, now sells for N150 while a 5-litre painter is sold for between N2,200 and N2,700.
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Similarly, the current price of a bag of the produce is N29,000 as against N18,500 sold in January.
At the Garki Market, Enugu, the price of a 50-kilogramme bag of foreign rice has increased from between N55,000 and N60,000 to between N78,000 and N80,000, depending on the brand.
Mrs Bridget Ugwu, a garri seller at New Market, said that the only way to reduce the high cost of garri would be by securing farmlands and stopping exportation of the produce to other countries.
Ugwu said exportation of the commodity had affected the availability of the produce in the country.
A rice seller, Mr Ochuba Ozor, at Mayor Market, said that the high cost of rice in the country would persist if the government did not do something urgently to address food insecurity.
Ozor said that the traffic of buyers of foodstuffs in his shop had reduced since prices of every item increased.
A buyer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, attributed the high cost of living in the country to subsidy removal from petroleum products.
