Ooni of Ife bans market associations over high cost of food

The Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi, has banned market associations in the ancient town of Ile-Ife, Osun State, following their roles in the current high cost of food items in the community.

D’Gallery gathered that the highly revered monarch sent Akinwade Olanire, the Babaloja of Ejigbomekun Market also known as Oja Tuntun across the markets to pass the message to the traders.

The leader of market heads in the town, Akinwande Olajire, stated this in a video which has gone viral, while addressing traders in a neighborhood on Saturday.

Olajire, who spoke in Yoruba language said Oba Ogunwusi had suspended market groups, because their activities had been allegedly responsible for the high cost of food items.

According to him, groups of traders dealing in various food items had been fixing cost of goods, despite that they bought the items cheaply from farms.

“Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi, sent me to the markets across Ife. You must have seen one of the videos that we recorded during the visits. I am the Babaloja of Ejigbomekun market also known as Oja Tuntun. I am the leader of Babalojas in Ife,” he said.

“Baba Ooni and his chiefs have been told of unjustifiable amount traders are selling food items in markets in the town and one of the measures to check this is the ban he placed on market groups. These groups are fixing prices for their members and we don’t want that. Traders should be free to sell at cheap rate, if they are able to buy at cheap rate from farms. The groups have been banned.

“We have locked all the identified places these markets groups are using for their meetings and we will keeping monitoring them. If anyone is caught acting to intimidate traders for selling at costly prices, such a person will face consequences.

“We also received several complaints from these traders about how motorists and others are extorting them. We will act on their complaint but they cant sell at prices we consider too high in our markets.”