‘Hike In Onion Prices Unexplainable’

Some residents of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT have decried the rate at which onion prices are escalating in the market.

Speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Saturday in Abuja, residents said they cant explain they cause of the sudden increment in the price of onion which has become an issue of national concern.

Abdullahi Ahmed, an onion seller in the popular Karu market, said that the prices of onions in the market were unexplainable and difficult to access, therefore necessitating hike in prices.

“The amount I bought a bag of onions is now N55,000 and it was lesser than that before, a bowl of onions which used to be N200 is now N400 and it contains nine onions.

“The dustbin basket is N3,000 and some are selling them for N3,500, you can get different sizes of onions in them.

“The smallest of those onions are sold for six for N50, the other sizes are sold for six for N100 and other sizes are sold for four for N100, it is now difficult to get those big sizes of onions now.

“Onions are now expensive because we are not in the season and that is why the prices are expensive,” he said.

Yetunde Ogunbiyi, a retailer, said that onions had become “gold” because the dustbin basket you normally would get for N1,500 are N3,000.

“As a trader when I want to sell for myself, the small ones are four for N100 and it is bought or leave, it doesn’t even sell for N20 and rarely will you see anyone that will sell for that amount and even if you get it will be very tiny.

“As a housewife, the way I use onions now is different, I use only on very important meals, as you know onions makes the taste of food delicious, so I use them strictly because as a seller I know the cost and so I value them a lot.

“And if I find the role of onions necessary in the cooking, I just slice them in the food,” she said. Hafsat Adedeji, a customer, on her part said that onions were now extremely expensive.

“At home, sometimes I don’t cook with onion, I just get the pepper and onion paste to support the cooking because to get onion is like you are bargaining with a gold seller,” she said.

Ruth Sunday, another customer, said that the latest increase in prices of onions was really disturbing as well as tiring because these days, it’s never enough.

“The onions, we normally get for N50 then is enough to be used four times but now it is not enough to boil N1,000 meat,” she said. Scholar Udoh, a housewife, says the pandemic could be blamed for the price hike in onions.

“During the pandemic, there was inter-state lockdown which I believe contributed because farmers could not travel to sell their harvest and so there was no even distribution of food.

“There was also the issue of flooding which made farmers lose a lot of food because the flooding this year was really bad, so I believe these factors must have a direct effect to the scarcity of onions and other foodstuffs in the market,” she added.