Minister of Agriculture, Chief Audu
Ogbeh, yesterday blamed officers and men of the Nigeria Police, Army and
the Nigeria Customs Service at road blocks in the country for the
skyrocketing prices of food items.
The Minister, who stated
this while appearing before the National Assembly Joint Committee on
Agriculture and Rural Development, said unbearable extortion from truck
drivers conveying farm produce to various urban centres in the country
was responsible for the unending hike in food prices.
He,
however, noted that farmers, who were beneficiaries of the scandalous
price increases across the country, kicked against moves by the Federal
Government to effect reduction in the prices of food items.
Ogbeh
while lamenting the development in the food sector, said the unbearable
daily extortions by men of the police, army and customs service,
visited on truck drivers conveying farm produce from the hinterlands to
urban centres under the guise of carrying out security checks, was one
of the main factors fueling the high cost menace.
“These truck
drivers, based on lamentations made to the Ministry in recent time,
alleged that at every check points, they are always forced to part with
reasonable amount of money by any group of the security agencies, which
they said, made farmers to have no option than to factor cost of the
extortion into prices of the food items,” he added.
The
minister explained further that based on the complaints by the truck
drivers, his ministry wrote the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim
Idris and heads of the other security agencies to discourage their
operatives from such act. He said this intervention by his ministry
notwithstanding, daily reports available to him still showed that the
unlawful practice had continued unhindered.
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