Frozen fish and chicken retailers in Warri, Delta State, on Thursday, staged a peaceful protest against the astronomical cost of the products in the metropolis.
The aggrieved traders, mostly women, armed with fresh green leaves, sang anti-government songs as they took their protest to some of the leading wholesalers of frozen foods in Warri South and Uvwie Local Government Areas of the state.
The protesters complained bitterly that the daily rise in prices of frozen foods was becoming unbearable as it adversely affected their businesses.
One of the leaders of the aggrieved protesters, Mrs Onoriode Onokpite, lamented that they now record low patronage daily.
She said, “Customers no longer patronise us as they used to. It is suffocating us. Most of us are breadwinners 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”.
The spokesperson for Ocean Lord Frozen Foods Company, Solomon Ogheneovo, while reacting to the protest, attributed the hike in the prices of frozen food to the unprecedented increase in the exchange of the naira to the dollar.
While acknowledging the right of the aggrieved retailers of frozen foods to protest, he however noted that they were misdirecting their grievances as, according to him, the wholesalers bought products in foreign exchange of currency.
According to him, the protesters should have directed their protest to the government and not the wholesalers.
“If the exchange rate of the naira to the dollar is low, the retail price of frozen foods will be equally below”, he said.
