The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) has embarked on nationwide inquiries to unearth factors behind the soaring food prices in Nigerian markets and be able to propose recommendations to the federal government on how to curb the festering food crisis. In furtherance of these objectives, Head, of FCCPC, Lagos Office, Ms. Suzzy Onwuka, on Wednesday led a team of the commission’s investigators on fact-finding interactions with marketers and traders’ associations in Lagos State to ascertain the factors responsible for the continuous hike in food prices.

Equally, in Rivers State, the FCCPC led by its South-South Zonal Coordinator, Uchegbu Chukwuma, also embarked on fact-finding interactions with traders’ associations and marketers to ascertain factors responsible for the continuous hike in food prices.

In Lagos, the fact-finding inquiry, which took place at the Mile 12 International Perishable Market and the Oke-Odo Market in Agbado/Oke-Odo Local Council Development Area (LCDA), according to Onwuka, was an investigative mission to gather information directly from the sources and stakeholders, including the executives of market unions, sellers and consumers in these major food markets.

A statement from the FCCPC on Wednesday stated: “FCCPC’s surveillance efforts suggest that participants in the food chain and distribution sector, including wholesalers and retailers, are allegedly engaged in conspiracy, price gauging, hoarding and other unfair tactics to restrict or distort competition in the market, restrict the supply of food, manipulate and inflate the price of food in an indiscriminate manner.