Coronavirus: Produce distributors in Lagos run out of stock

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that President Muhammadu Buhari on Sunday ordered the cessation of all movements in Lagos, FCT and Ogun for 14 days from 11 p.m. on Monday, March 30, 2020.

The measure was to check further spread of Coronavirus also known as COVID-19 through personal contacts.

The residents of the two affected states and the Federal Capital were the most vulnerable with the number of infected persons increasing daily.

Mr Adeoye Alabi, Sector Chairman, Iyana Iba Yam and Plantain Distributors Association, told NAN that the lockdown caught them unaware.

“Many of us have exhausted our stock over the weekend with the hope of going to market this week to replace the stock. The remnant of it was what consumers had just finished buying this morning.

“There is no yam, plantain and other produce in the market because of the upsurge in demand for food items ahead of the lockdown.

“Many vehicles carrying goods such as yam, groundnut, corn and vegetables from the North to this market are still in transit.

“There is no hope that the vehicles will be here before the lockdown commences,’’ he said.

Alabi said that the announcement to lockdown the city should have been given two days earlier for people to prepare as people were in the middle of the previous partial lockdown by the state government.

Mrs Grace Udokaogu, a Garri seller, said that in spite of N300 increase in the price of the staple food item in the past four days, the demand for it had remained high.

Udokaogu added that many people would go home without buying the food items they needed as many of the sellers no longer had them in stock.

The Mammy Market, Ojo Barracks, presented the same scenario, where many people that thronged the market to buy food items were disappointed because stock had been exhausted.

Mrs Ozioma Amadi, who could not buy many of the things she projected to last her family of four for the restriction period, appealed to the Federal Government for relief measures for people to cope.