The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission conducted a surprise enforcement operation at two supermarkets in Abuja to ensure compliance with regulations on price display and quantity.

The Executive Secretary of the Commission, Dr. Adamu Abdullahi, stated that the aim of the exercise was to reduce the high cost of food items nationwide and that similar operations would be carried out in Lagos, Port Harcourt, Ibadan, Kano, Kaduna, and other cities in the near future.

The Commission plans to conduct unannounced inspections at stores and open markets across various states to control abnormal price surges that have not responded to the recent appreciation of the naira.

In addition, the FCCPC intends to raid some major open markets in the FCT on Friday to prevent traders from arbitrarily increasing the prices of consumables.

During the operation, 4U Supermarket was sealed, and 33 bags of suspected fake stallion and caprice rice infested with weevils were confiscated from one of its branches located at 58 Adetokunbo Ademola Crescent, Wuse II.

The commission had earlier on Thursday, instructed its operatives to intensify monitoring of both formal and informal markets to identify businesses involved in unjustifiably inflating prices, in response to consumer concerns about the rising costs of goods despite the appreciation of the naira.

Food inflation has been a persistent issue contributing to Nigeria's headline inflation rate of 33.2 percent and an unprecedented food inflation rate of 40 percent in March 2024.

The situation was worsened by the significant depreciation of the naira against the dollar in January and February, leading to soaring prices of essential goods and services and pushing the cost of living to a record high.

Despite the Presidency's commitment to addressing these challenges, the issue of food inflation remains a significant concern.

Speaking on the ongoing operation, Abdullahi said, “This exercise is in continuation of our efforts to ensure that prices in the market reflect what is displayed. Nowadays, we have found out that there is a lot of pretence in what’s happening especially for markets around the major cities in the country.

“You have seen what we have done earlier with other supermarkets and sealing them but despite these efforts, some supermarkets still engage in this practice. You go to a shelf and the price displayed is different from what appears when you come to pay at the counter.

“That is not acceptable because you are frisking consumers and some of the items don’t have price tags attached to them at all. So, you are at the mercy of whoever is operating the counter. He can input whatever price you want there, and that’s not acceptable. That’s why we’re here so that practice should no longer continue.

“In addition, we found out another thing that really baffles us. Nobody knows that stallion group which has been comatose for a very long time is still in the market. What’s happening is that some people bagged their local rice in the guise that it is the same stallion or kappa that people are used to that people are buying, which is wrong.

“You are still frisking consumers, you’re collecting from them what is not due because what you want to pretend to be selling is not what you’re selling and that is bad. It is when people get home to cook that they would see they bought something else.

“Essentially, we are evacuating all the rice and they (4U Supermarket) would come to explain to us how they got that rice and we would get to the root of it. Both the producers and baggers are culpable and we would take necessary sanctions as appropriate with the Act establishing FCCPC. Every violation has its sanction and we would look at our books along with them.”

Section 69 of the FCCPC Act, 2018, states, “A person who violates any of the provisions of this part commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding N50m. A body corporate that violates any of the provisions of this part commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding 10 per cent of the turnover of the body corporate in the business year preceding the date of the commission of the offence.”

Due to the limited staff strength, Abdullahi noted that the commission would target select stores and open markets during the enforcement exercise.

He added, “We can’t go to all supermarkets at the same time due to our (limited) staff strength. We will be going to other general markets from tomorrow (Friday) and you will see us in the open market and what we want to do is find out what associations are doing about it.

“Cartels are not allowed in our law and we will make sure that food and commodity prices come down in this country and this is part of that effort to ensure both formal and formal markets comply with the rules of engagement. The dollar has come down and prices of goods must also come down.’’

 “Yes, this is happening in Abuja in the meantime but the last time we carried out the operation in Port-Harcourt and Lagos.

This time around, Kano is on our radar. We would go to Kano, Port-Harcourt again, Lagos, Ibadan, and Kaduna and these are places that we have to check out first and other states would follow.’’

The FCCPC boss announced plans to introduce a price tracker to address the extortion of consumers by major supermarkets in the country.

“There is going to be what we call a price tracker and it will be domiciled with the Bank of Industry and it will take off the beginning of next week.

In that way, we can track the prices of commodities across the country and whenever there is any hike in products we would find out why and if it is not worth it, we would know that there is hanky-panky and we can stop it fast,” Abdullahi added.