Local bread bakers, popularly known as Gurasa on Friday staged a peaceful protest in the ancient city of Kano, over hike in prices of flour which they say is threatening to force them out of business.
The bakers said they buy a bag of flour N10,000 in the past but now sold for N41,000 and which they can’t afford.
Leading the protest, the Chairperson of the association, Fatima Awwal called on the Federal Government to as a matter of urgency look into the incessant increment of prices of the commodity as failure would send them out of business.
In her words: “We are out here on the streets protesting to let the leaders know the economic hardship which we are facing at the moment.
“This is our small scale business facing deterioration due to rise in price of flour, it is a business for the poor that the rich cannot dare venture into.
“We are in a very difficult situation, we need help. This is a small-scale industry mostly run by women.
“Many have lost their capital. It is such that only 25 percent of us are now remaining in the business as many others have closed down due to lack of capital.
“We used to buy a bag of floor at the rate of N16,000 in the past but now it sells for N43,000. This is absurd. What we produce is a common food for the poor and is now becoming unaffordable. Any time we go to buy four we get an increase of N1,500 to N2,000.
“We are calling on the authorities and those concerned to look into this matter because we are running out of business and is affecting our families. Majority of us are widows. This is what we do to cater for our families. Life is becoming more difficult, we can hardly feed or send our children to school due to this hardship.
“Currently, we use the IRS flour produced by Abdussamad, it is the best for our products but we cannot afford it any longer. If nothing is done, we have no choice but to close down and this will affect the general public.
“We can not engage in an act that is not in tandem with the religion of Islam, hence the need for governments at all levels, talk about the federal government and even councillors to wade into this high price of flour by engaging those companies producing flour on the need to bring the price down.
“We call on government to find a positive ways to assist those Flour companies, to source for foreign exchange, so that the cost of production would be favourable to them,” Awwal said.
Gurasa is a local bread, produced with use of flour, yeast, sugar and water. It is a local staple and serves as jobs opportunity to many as it is sold almost every nooks and crannies such as market places, motor parks and road sides.
The protesters were seen carrying placards with inscriptions such as, “inflation is too high in the country,” “We are not in support of the hike of flour price,” “FG must act now, we are tired of increment of flour price,” “Look into flour prices hike,” “Nigerians are hungry” and “Gurasa is the only staple for the poor,” among others.
