The residents of Lokoja, Kogi state capital, are lamenting over the unbearing hardship due to the increased cost of foodstuff, transport fare and electricity bills.
The cost of living, which started sometime last year due to the removal of fuel subsidies and the astronomical rise in dollars, may have been subsidized in many parts of the country, but the colonial city, which is a gateway to Abuja from 15 states of the South-West, South-South, and South-East is still in a challenge.
The prices of goods and foodstuffs differ from location to location in the town.
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For instance, a sachet of water is N60, and a bag is N600 in Nataco Junction, the ever-busy Lokoja- Abuja Road, whereas in Felele Community, which is located at Okene – Lokoja – Abuja Road, one will buy a sachet of water N 40 while a bag is N400.
The distance between these two places is one kilometre.
The prices of foodstuffs and essential commodities are arbitrarily charged in Lokoja without recourse to the human sense of decency.
Another example is a cup of garri, which is N150 in some places, while it is also sold at N200 in other stores within the same city.
Garri, once the most ignored food in this part of the country, has suddenly become a hot cake. Those who patronize the food now are seen as an averagely comfortable family in Lokoja.
Our correspondent who visited Nataco Junction in Lokoja spoke to Hajia Rabi Abdulmalik, a Roadside bean cake seller, to ask for her opinion on the rising inflation and the cost of foodstuff.
She said ” Sir, this wahala tires me too, I am not the cause of this increase in the prices of foodstuff. Before now I used to sell one cake of akara for N50 but now is N100 because the ingredients are very costly.
A keg of palm oil now, which is not more than a litre, costs N400, compared to N150 before the dollar issue and subsidy removal.
I don’t want to be sitting at home because my husband’s salary is not enough to support our family; if not, my suffering will be more than what I am gaining from this business.”
Rabi was not the only one facing the situation, another roadside hawker who joined the conversation lamented that she had not sold much since morning due to lack of money and the overbearing daily rise of food ingredient stuff.
“Oga tells Tinubu, who is tired, that we heard that the dollar has come down, yet we can not buy anything. Look at me now since there are only 15 people who came to eat in my shop. I decided to put the rice in the wheelbarrow to hawk to the motor park; maybe people will be,” she said.
The residents are said to be faced with epileptic power supply but unexplainable crazy bills from the Abuja Electricity Development Company, AEDC.
AEDC has not supplied meters to many houses, and those who paid for prepaid meters can not have them even though their money was not refunded.
A staff of a new generation bank working at one of the branches in Lokoja narrowly escaped being attacked by armed robbers who invaded his apartment last week in one of the suburbs in Lokoja.
The banker, who was tired of the excessive heat in his room due to a power outage, decided to start his generating set to enable it to power his Air conditioner.
Twenty minutes later, the generator packed up, but unknown to him, it was the daredevils who forced their way into his compound and off the generator, enabling him to come for them to pick him up.
He was lucky, as the dog, which belonged to his neighbour, saw the strange faces and began to bark. The banker, sensing danger, quickly went back to the door and called the police.
However, before help could come, the armed robbers escaped with the generator.
Some communities in Lokoja, especially Felele, have been in darkness for over 9 months now due to the AEDC blackout.
Business activities in the area, which constitutes a higher population of the middle class and the lowest class whose source of living depends on semi-skills, were rendered jobless.
The cost of transportation seems higher in Lokoja than in some places in Abuja.
A drop in Lokoja on a bike, no matter how short the distance, will cost you N200, while a journey from Marabara in Nasarawa to Garki in Abuja is N300.
Marabara to Garki is a 4-kilometre journey, and such movement within Lokoja may cost you N700.
The residents are therefore calling on the federal government to intervene in the ever-increasing population of Lokoja’s view of its strategy of Lokoja as a gateway to federal capital territory.
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