Frozen fish and chicken sellers in Warri, Delta State, organized a demonstration to express their dissatisfaction with the state’s escalating cost of commodities. The protest took place on Thursday.
The traders, the most of whom were women, were armed with leaves and sung anti-government songs.
They attacked the premises of some of the main frozen food merchants in Warri South and Uvwie Local Government Areas.
The demonstrators said that the daily increases in frozen food costs were getting uncomfortable and were harming their businesses.
Mrs Onoriode Onokpite, a dealer, informed media that they now had minimal patronage on a regular basis.
She said, “Customers no longer patronise us as they used to. It is suffocating us. Most of us are bread winners of our families.
“We decided to take our protest to the wholesalers of frozen foods so that they can reduce prices of frozen foods for us. Government should wade into the matter. We are dying”.
A spokesperson of Ocean Lord Frozen Foods Company, Solomon Ogheneovo, while reacting to the protest, said the increase in exchange of the naira to dollar is to blame for the increase in the price of frozen goods.
While acknowledging the right of the retailers of frozen foods to protest, he however noted that they should direct their grievances at the government, not the wholesalers of frozen foods.
“If the exchange rate of the naira to dollar is low, the retail price of frozen foods will equally be low”, he said.