As the Eid-el-Kabir festival inches closer, Muslim faithful lament the high cost of ram, as the prices increase in the major markets of Kaduna State.
Eid-el-Kabir is celebrated annually by Muslims all over the world through the slaughtering of animals to honour Prophet Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his beloved son, Ishmael, as commanded by Allah.
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A ram seller at the demolished Dubar Hotel area, Yusuf Ahmed, lamented low patronage, saying buyers are not forthcoming.
He said, “I came here last Tuesday, one week now, we came with 22 rams, we have just sold six, my partner sold five.
“We have been here since morning, no buyer has come to patronize us, but we are still hoping that buyers will still come and buy.
“The biggest ram here is sold for N700,000 to N650,000, the middle-size ram is between N100,000 to N150,000, the one for N120,000 was N80,000 last year.”
The price of a medium-sized ram, which cost N80,000 in 2022 is now going for N120,000, the large-size ram of N400,000 has gone up to N700, 000, while the smallest one that used to sell for N30,000 is now N70,000.
According to him, the removal of fuel subsidy is a major factor responsible for the hike in the prices of ram, the high cost of transportation and other logistics increased the prices of ram.
“I have been in this business for over 10 years now, when you compare the prices in the previous years you will discover that the prices are not the same, this year the cost of ram is very high. The place where we used to buy them, they sold to us at a very high price, the farmers there told us that the removal of subsidies affected them. The cost of transporting the ram is expensive.
“Their feeds are also expensive, we buy a sack of feed for N10,000 to N11,000, it used to be N7,000. The other cheap feed we buy for N7,000 as against N5,000,” he said.
At Abakpa Animal Market, one of the ram sellers known as Tukur Abdulkadir said the animals were available but buyers were not coming. He added that the prices ranged between N100,000 and N150, 000 for medium size.