Frozen food retailers have staged a peaceful protest against the high cost of the products in Warri, Delta State.
The protesters who were mainly women took the protest to some leading wholesalers of frozen foods (fish and chicken) in Warri South and Uvwie local government areas.
They carried green leaves, sang anti government songs and danced in the process.
A spokesperson of the aggrieved protesters, Mrs Onoriode Onokpite, complained that the prices of frozen foods were rising astronomically on daily basis.
She said the rising costs had adversely affected their businesses and that business was low.
“Customers no longer patronise us as they used to. It is suffocating us. Most of us are breadwinners in our families. We decided to take our protest to the wholesalers of frozen foods so that they can reduce prices for us. Government should wade into the matter, we are dying,” she added.
The spokesman of Ocean Lord Frozen Foods Company, Solomon Ogheneovo, said the aggrieved retailers had the right to protest.
He however noted that they protested in a wrong way, attributing the cause of the increase to the increase in exchange of the naira to the dollar.
He stated that if the exchange rate of the naira to dollar is low, the retail price of frozen foods would equally be low.
“Ocean Lord buys its products in foreign exchange. So they (protesters) should direct their protest to the government and not the wholesalers of frozen foods,” he said.
