Eid-el-Kabir: Ram sellers lament low patronage in Enugu
NAN-HE-18
Rams
Enugu, Aug. 30, 2017 (NAN) Ram dealers in Enugu have lamented over low patronage by customers, saying it was quite contrary to their expectations.
A cross section of them told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) at the New Artisan ram market that their worry was because the Eid-el-Kabir celebration, for which they had made grand preparations, was just two days away.
One of them, Mallam Kabir Sule, said though a possible reason was the high price of the rams, compared to the situation last year.
“Most ram prices had gone up by about 45 per cent when compared to that of last year’s celebration,” he said.
He said that a medium size ram was currently sold at N35,000 as against its previous price of N 17, 500 while a bigger one went for between N65, 000 and N95, 000.
Abubakar Lawal, the Secretary of the dealers association, absolved his members from the hike, saying it was occasioned by the increase in transportation costs.
He, however, said the increase had been affecting sales.
Adamu Mohammed, another dealer, further explained that the supply routes and major ram markets had been under periodic attacks by insurgents, saying that the dealers in the Northern part of the country were still afraid to come out fully for the business.
Mohammed said the least price one could get for a ram was N29,000 as against N15,000 it sold last year.
According to him, insecurity in the supply routes, from Niger Republic and Chad to Borno accounted for the hike in the price.
A buyer, Isiaka Adeleke, said he had budgeted N25,000 but on getting to the market, he found that the price had gone up.
“ It turned out to be more than what I had on my mind, so I decided to go for the one of N35,000 because this is celebrated only once in a year,” he said. (NAN)
OJI/AO/IA
(Edited by Idris Abdulrahman)