Yuletide: Transport fares, essential items’ prices soar in Taraba

With just hours to the Christmas, transport fares and prices of essential items have gone up in Taraba State, Daily Trust findings have revealed.

Shoppers who trooped to markets in Jalingo to make purchases for the Christmas and New Year were confronted with high prices. Among others, prices of palm oil, groundnut oil, meat, chickens, vegetables, onions and other items have almost doubled.

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Our reporter gathered that state civil servants received their December salary early for the festive period but their counterparts in local government councils were yet to receive theirs.

A civil servant, Mr Bulus Barnabas, told Daily Trust that in the history of Christmas this is the first time a single chicken was sold for N7000.

He said his wife went to the market to make purchases but returned home without buying a chicken and other items due to high prices.

Barnabas stated that prices of clothes and shoes were moderate but other essential items were beyond him, adding that the money he gave his wife could only purchase half of what he wanted.

A retired federal civil servant, Mrs Christy John, said she was yet to receive her pension for the month so with the high cost of things, she instead bought other varieties at lower prices.

“Yearly during the festive period I bought chickens but this year it is beyond my reach, so, I bought cow and goat meat which cost less,” she said.

At a vegetable market close to Lau motor park in Jalingo, traders told out reporter that many customers that came to the market complained of high prices of vegetables.

A trader, Malam Yakubu Maitumatur, said they got their supply mostly from Zaria, and Bauchi, Jigawa, Kano and Yobe states and prices of commodities increased in the past few months.

Similarly, many travellers were seen stranded at motor parks in Jalingo due to increase of passengers in the last few days with disproportionate number of vehicles to ferry them to their destinations even as transport fares increased.