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I have been thinking and trying to analyze what is really causing the high cost of food in Nigeria, I came to realize that monopoly is the major factors, Nigeria government are the enablers. How can one person be the sole major distributor, government should welcome competition in the business sector, every business person should be allowed to produce.

Monopolies can manipulate the price of foods and if government let a single food distributor control the market this will likely to happens. If there isn't any competition in the market then a single controller will raise the price and govt can't do anything about it. To prevent this kind of issue govt needs to motivate other player to come to this sector and create a friendly environment to join the competition. This type of action will force the market to balance between cost and customer needs.

I think you should've posted this on the Nigeria board since it's about Nigeria's economy. Anyway, the high cost of food in Nigeria comes from several reasons. One is the high cost of  transportation, which happened because increase in price of petrol. Also, big farms and food factories use machines that need a lot of energy, and since petrol is costly, they have to charge more for their products. The cost of electricity in Nigeria is also high, and some machines need it to work. People try to find other power source e.g solar, which raises product prices. Insecurity is also  big issue, as farmers who are the primary producers are scared to go to their farms due to the fear of the unknown. Lastly, there are high taxes on production. all these put together i think is the cause of high price of goods in the country.

How to reduce the price of goods? In short: stop the Russo-Ukrainian war. War makes fuel and energy prices soar, that causes inflation and prices are going up. Grain and fertilizers are getting more expensive due to port siege and sanctions. This war should be stopped ASAP and at any cost, while it's still possible to save Global economy from crumbling. 

The law of supply and demand is what makes things cheap and expensive. If there's no competition in your area now and there are only a few sellers or producers of those goods. That makes sense as to why they're expensive. But if there are a lot of supplies of those goods then the market is free and will make it cheaper for the cost of it. And that's why when there's a bunch of supply in the market. Hoarding is one reason why there will be less supply of a certain good and that's what the government should watch out. But when these hoarders will just do under the tables and the problem is also on the officials, the problem can't be gone and consumers like you and me will have to deal with the effect of it.

Monopoly is not the only problem that Nigeria has. One of the major issues that the country faces in terms of goods prices is that there are more consumers than producers. Let's take Nigeria and its mentality aside. In a place with about 10,000 populations, only 10 are producers, and the rest of the people are purely dependent on what the 10 produce for themselves to buy and feed themselves.

What do you expect from a society where there is a large increase in demand for goods every day and a low quantity of production? They will have to make the only available goods more expensive in order for those who are desperately in need of them to buy them off, leaving the poor to live on hunger and starvation.
 
Let's also look at the northern part of Nigeria. Other parts of the country are experiencing a high cost of goods, but this is not the case as there are a lot of farmers available in that area and a lot of consumable farm produce comes from there, which makes life easier for those who are based in the northern part of the country. If any country can be more productive in the aspect of their consumable goods and deal less on importation, they are likely to experience price reductions on goods even if the distribution is done by one licensed body.

Wished this is on the local board.. make I carry pidgin explain to ur understanding..

So, what will you do when you know that now? And if the government supports monopoly efforts, it seems you also need to find out why the government can support monopoly in business cases that only involve a single distributor. Because if other business actors can make their own production there, I think you and the community will definitely have a way out to fight the monopoly efforts of the sole distributor. If we don't fight against it, food prices will always increase and become high every month, because a single distributor can make the prices whatever he wants.

The government could consider breaking up monopolies in the sector. The government could take steps to increase competition in the food distribution sector. This could be done by reducing barriers to entry for new businesses and by encouraging foreign competition but it might also lead to job losses if companies cut costs by reducing their workforce.

The government could also provide financial assistance to farmers and food producers to help them reduce their costs. This could include subsidies for inputs such as fertilizer and seed, as well as investments in infrastructure storage facilities, irrigation systems, and transportation to reduce the cost of moving goods from production centers to consumers.

Competition does reduce the price of the service or products of a company, it also makes these company to do their best in terms of service but sadly those who have the money and influence are able to buy the rights to solely capture that market.  Making them the mere force that can manipulate and decide the price they want.

I think the solution for this kind of problem is to find a leader that is just and fair and doesn't tolerate corruption since this kind of problem cannot be solved by any common citizen but the leader that commands the government of a country.

sometime government intervention towards ensuring the price of goods and foods prominently to be cheap enough is needed.
this is why monopoly from some faction are always a bad thing, competition is always what makes world better, you get better quality with cheaper price.
with monopoly, its always forcing people to buy some obscure, low quality goods with fairly high price just to make one person richer.
but i'd argue that this kind of thing is really hard to solve after all in many countries such problem are structured from the top to the bottom.

Goods is a very broad term. The factors affecting their prices vary from one to another. There are local, national, and international factors involved in the prices. Some are much easier to address, some are even impossible.

However, what's frustrating or annoying, or even mind-boggling, is that there are factors that seem to be very much within the government's power to address and yet they either do nothing or implement something else.

Many governments operate like the Mafia. I think yours and mine are good examples. Many problems are left unattended because they benefit from it one way or another. They implement programs that are either useless or unsustainable because they get something from it. Or perhaps these problems are effects of the kind business or dealings they have.

Everyone agrees with the government's choice and the price of things in Nigeria, but did we really expect that Nigeria would change when we looked at the country itself? Or did Nigeria become one of the best nations in the world? I've never witnessed that outcome because, if Nigeria were to change, it would already have changed by now. Food prices are rising daily, and whenever a new administration takes power, its policies will be stricter than those of the outgoing one. If a nation is changing, you can tell right away when a new administration takes office by the way he treats the nation.

Since the beginning of 2023, the price of goods in Nigeria has changed and increased, most notably the price of fuel, which is the most important commodity in every nation and is especially so in Nigeria. Fuel in Nigeria is the root cause of all price increases for goods because, no matter how things are, if the price of fuel remains the same, nothing will change, but if the fuel price decreases, I don't believe the price of goods will follow suit.

The reason why they probably allow or enable monopoly is because someone who is influential and powerful in the government is allowing that to happen, that's the only explanation why there's a monopoly on that country or any country for that matter. But I do agree with you, we need to find ways to destroy monopolistic capitalism because if that's the norm, we will see our lives governed by few and our freedom restricted.

Monopoly is not only a problem in Nigeria, but most developing countries feel the same way. Business people who become collectors and accumulate certain products become price manipulators which cause prices to soar higher than they should. The government should be able to act as a regulator that limits business people from manipulating prices, but the problem is that business people have lobbied many parties so that no one disturbs their business. This is the irony of today and there is nothing anyone can do.

But the problem is that the government often plays behind the scenes with distributors in price games, so we often see spikes in the prices of goods and food and shortages of goods and food. They control the price and availability of goods and distribute them to the public.

So it is not surprising that if there is only one distributor for a particular item or even if the distributor has many items, they will dominate the market. This monopoly on goods and prices often makes it difficult for people to buy because prices can rise high or the goods are not available on the market. If the government gives permission to more distributors to provide goods, of course, distributors cannot play with prices and always provide goods. Otherwise, other distributors will try to meet market demand.

And it's true, it's a difficult thing to resolve because there are so many parties involved. Only by having a government that truly works for the people can it solve the problem.

Competition between businesses always benefits consumers, specifically the people, but the problem is that some products are produced and distributed exclusively, but the government never speaks up or intervenes. That is also happening in my country and I suspect that there are group interests behind it, and the people who benefit from it are most likely the government members or the government itself is behind it all. I see this situation happening in more third world countries because most do not have anti-monopoly laws like other developed countries.

If the government officials there are sensible, I'm sure they will find a way to reduce the price of your basic goods in that country. But if most of the government officials are corrupt, it is also certain that the prices of goods there will increase.

The buyers there will have a hard time with such high prices, and the inflation rates there are also very high, and the subjects of the country are poor for sure. So those who monopolize must have genuine concern for the people of Nigeria. Or you people there also need to be strategic in making income so that you don't lack in your expenses as well.

There are three main ways to reduce the price of goods.
1.Reduce money printing from the central bank in order to lower the inflation.
2.Fight monopolies and cartels, which are controlling the market prices.
3.Subsidize the agricultural sector. I'm not a big fan of agricultural subsidies, but most of the countries around the world are going it anyway.
Food prices went thru the roof because of the increased prices of fuel and fertilizers for the farmers. The global climate change also has a negative role. Many regions around the world are suffering from drought, while the fruit and vegetable production of other regions was destroyed by floods and storms.

Although supply and demand are the two factors that ultimately influence the standing of the price of goods in each area/country, there is another big factor that we should always be on the lookout and that is individuals who have the money and influence to manipulate the market. Market manipulation happens all the time and everywhere (in fact there is a more thorough discussion about this in a different post if you want more insights about it:https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5465009.0). Additionally, market manipulation can be done by different individuals or organizations such as big companies, wealthy and influential business individuals, and the government. Naturally, the main reason why they do so is due to the benefits market manipulation gives to them such as a rise in profit and sales. As to how we will be able to reduce the price of goods, the answer might lie on the government as they have a good hold on market manipulation.

You will encounter even more severe difficulties if the government becomes actively involved in such a monopoly. Any form of competition will cease to exist, as the government holds the key to permitting businesses to operate legitimately. Licenses become essential to avoid legal troubles. The government's course of action is flawed as it will result in economic inequality by monopolizing the market.

Monopolies are often associated with the most effective means of securing personal gains. It's also considered ruthless because competition becomes extremely unhealthy. Established businesses will continue to suppress emerging entrepreneurs. Consequently, the price of a product will be controlled by a single entity.

Consider staging a demonstration; I've heard Nigeria is also a democracy.

Monopoly Is like a ticking time bomb, Just waiting to explode and make things even more difficult for the Nigerian. And who's the detonator? Sadly, it seems to be the government. If they are indeed the enablers, as you've pointed out, then it's a clear call to action. How can a vibrant economy, with such diverse potential, be stifled by allowing just one major player to dominate? This isn't just about business; it's about livelihoods, access, affordability. Competition isn't just a fancy economic term; it's a lifeline. It drives prices down, boosts quality, and encourages innovation. The government's role? Facilitate! Encourage! Stimulate competition, and then, just maybe, we might see a shift towards affordability

Defining a high price may help you know whether the price is normal in your country or not. Food prices have risen globally in the past three years, either due to military-political conflicts, supply chain problems, or stagflation, which encourages people to consume more due to fear of an increase in the commodity. In the future or not available.
Search for the international price of the product, check the transfer price and withdraw taxes and profits. If the prices are reasonable, your problem cannot be solved except by improving your income. Otherwise, there is actually a problem with price manipulation in your country.
This manipulation can be minimized according to your country, as it is possible to buy in large quantities from ports and then ship to you, or the residents of a neighborhood or region agree to create a place for discounted sales based on tax exemptions or a reduction in transportation fees or profits.

When you talk of government involvement and how its handling the economy, you make this sound like the country is run as a socialist economy of which my research disagrees...

And from my research I also found that Nigeria is built
around a mixed economy which I found strange as this means there is so much government interference should we lean towards a free market economy in trying  to stimulate supply to counter the high prices of commodities.

Btw, Nigeria has been named to be among the fastest growing economy's today which means demand is very high and some business houses could be artificially limiting their supply in an effort to push price up, and if no one is putting an end to this bad practice then it's difficult to keep prices low...and monopoly being a problem boarders around the lack of capacity to compete with these big names hence entry barriers exist and this will remain as is because the small businesses/startups lack the capital to challenge the whales.

Of course, supply and demand are the two main factors that affect commodity prices everywhere. Whenever the price of a commodity is increased, its supply decreases, which causes its demand to increase and the price to rise. Often in such a situation the influence and power of the mafias play a major role, no doubt such manipulations are everywhere, but where the laws are strong and the government has a grip, such people cannot easily create such a situation.In a society or a place where law and justice are weak, such cases are common.

 
I don't know what the legal situation is in Nigeria, but there is no such thing as law and justice in our country Pakistan. Courts are only working to protect powerful people and capitalists. Due to which the prices of food items are often increased by creating food shortages, but no one takes steps to stop them. You are right that where the grip of the government is weak, the powerful mafias also have a strong grip,and always increase the prices of things at will.

Often such influential and powerful people have a lot of power at the government level and many of them occupy high government positions, which makes it difficult to take action against them.

Monopoly is part of the problem in Nigeria. I am aware that many companies were forced out of the market through strict regulation, taxation, and intimidation because they government wanted them to enjoy a monopoly. Many companies went bankrupt and some had to leave the country because the government was giving Dangote tax exemptions and other privileges to enable the company to enjoy monopoly. But there are other reasons for the high cost of goods in Nigeria.

The lack of a storage system is one of the reasons for the high cost of goods in Nigeria. A greater part of Nigeria's agricultural products end up in the waste bin. Food will be cheap in its season and become expensive after a few months because they were not preserved for future use.

Insecurity caused by terrorist groups in the agricultural-rich northern region is affecting food production. Farmers have been forced to flee their farms for fear of attack by these terrorists. Many agricultural lands have been destroyed due to this conflict.

Global warming is causing flooding in most of the country which has led to low agricultural production. Many farmlands have been submerged by flood leading to poor produce.

This is supposed to be a Nigeria local board thread but since you dropped it in economics, nothing bad.

Inflation is the primary reason why the price of goods increase, when the government fails to combat the things that swell inflation number, it will definitely make even the basic things become unaffordable, and the poor man continue to suffer the consequences. Another thing that makes the price of goods too costly is that Nigeria has dollarized her economy, when you ask an average seller why they increased the price of what they sell, they will tell you that the dollar to Naira has increased, meaning the Naira is becoming walking day by day in a country that is independent.  :-\

Another reason why the price of goods has increased is that Nigerians want luxury goods they cannot produce and then spend millions of dollars to have those goods and products imported back to Nigeria and it is killing the economy because that isn't strengthening the Naira but it keeps falling down every day. I checked Naira to a dollar today at the parallel market and it is now almost #1000 to a dollar, something that was around #380 3 years ago; This is why the price of goods has not been stable in Nigeria.

Maybe you should try to maintain a little level of pedigree for your country's integrity because this you're talking about is not a fault with your country alone, this is something common to many nations and they are not waiting on the government to take action before each individual make moves on how to evade this experience of deficit, inflation is one of the major causes why we may not have reduced or subsidized food items, you cannot expect deflated to take place like how inflation always occur, we should on our own side think of something new we can offer for the people to cherish and value it use on the economy in other to make us self sustainable.

Before reducing the price of goods, we need to know why their prices increase. And in this case it must be said that there are many reasons behind them, and no one can reduce the price of all these alone. If we talk about the current situation of my country, primarily because of the covid-19 effect and the Ukraine-Russia war, the prices of many things have increased. I think it has happened in most countries of the world.
When the demand increases and the product is less produced, then the price of goods increases, but in some cases, like in many countries, in my own country, some unscrupulous traders artificially store products and create a shortage in the market, and then the price of goods are also increasing. And to stop these, I think the efforts of the government are necessary. If the people who create these artificial shortages are brought under the law, I think the price of goods will decrease in the market.

You are right on this particular point and what is happening in Nigeria with the skyrocketing food prices, going like a bat out of hell, but this alone is not the only factor that has caused the price of goods to soar, However, If local production is encouraged by the government and more things are manufactured or produced locally without over-dependency on foreign imported goods that alone will settle the case of business monopoly in our system today and we will no longer rely on one entity, hence bring in the competition which will truly favor the price of goods.

Apart from the need for ways to eradicate monopoly capitalism in that country, I think the people there also need to unite to raise their own voice with the same goal. Because when the people have united to eradicate this, I am sure that it will disappear, although not instantly, because the form of protest from the people that must be accepted by the government will also be considered well enough rather than triggering unwanted commotion.

Monopoly is everywhere done by the oligarchs. It's hard to lose them as it's everywhere and the government will always have to go along with these big people because they bring money to their country.

But to address the issue of the rise of price of every good, the government needs to do something like giving subsidies to the manufacturers or those merchants so that there will be a discount.

In that solution, it will allow the market to move until everything has been set to the low price because it's just good for short term sustainability.

I don't know what is happening in Nigeria, are the prices of basic necessities rising? As far as I know, the government must immediately take action if basic food prices are too high, the government can provide subsidies and/or export from abroad so that market needs are met. Apart from that, if the price of basic commodities is too high it will have an impact on the stability of the country's economy. This does not apply if secondary needs increase, because they are not the basic needs of a country's population

When a monopoly is supported by the government, it is very difficult to get out of the grip that drains the entire community's economy to meet their daily needs. Increasing food prices indicate that food security and management in your country is very fragile. The government must act to improve the welfare of society by positioning itself as the main competitor for sole distributors.

The government must try to overcome price spikes by holding cheap markets in several places periodically. The government also needs to eliminate or take firm action against individuals who act as leeches who suck people's blood. When healthy competition occurs in food distribution, prices will be more affordable.

A person cannot change the price of goods in a country because that price is fixed by the government. If the government cannot import goods at low prices, then it is a complete failure of the government. 

Nigeria is already a very weak country in terms of economy and the Nigerian people are living in a lot of hardship due to the high speed of commodity prices. Nigeria has many mineral resources but Nigerians cannot extract those mineral resources and different companies from other countries extract mineral resources in their country but what kind of facilities those companies do not give to the people of the country. Companies from other countries and their governments may never care about the people of their countries. If they had thought about the people, the price of food would never have skyrocketed in their country.

Unfortunately, this has been happening in our country as well. The prices of our basic necessities are continuously rising and we have no choice but to deal with it. It's just a good thing that the local farmers and producers in our country are also taking over. Others are also planting their own food to survive. Things like this aren't controllable to be honest and we have to be tough enough to deal with it. We should look for other alternatives to survive because we can't always rely on the government.

However, that is part of the government's job, they must be able to regulate the prices of basic food ingredients so that their prices are stable and can be purchased by the public. If the state is no longer able to control the vital sector of food needs, then it is time for demonstrations to take to the streets.

There are three things that the government must fulfill for its people, firstly service and data collection needs, secondly security needs, and thirdly food needs. If they are unable to fulfill it, then what else can they expect from the government, they have failed

I am not going to lie and act like I understand that politics of Nigeria, but I do know it's a very corrupt nation which is sad because it's also an emerging economy with a ton of people but it seems corruption holds back it's potential progress a good bit. But here's the thing that is similar in the US.  Food companies in private get together and set market prices...ie manipulation. Now we do have monopoly laws here in the US, but they only help so much.  Food prices just like healthcare prices here in the US are just pure BS. 

The answer seems to be very simple, though not very satisfying:
In 2020, agriculture accounted for 35% of the employed population.
But rapid urban population growth and the cultivation of industrial crops have led to food shortages, not only in cities but also in rural areas...

I.e. no "enemies", purely internal, unwise management. It is probably profitable to grow technical varieties. I had such a problem in my country, but agrarians quickly realized that technical varieties, although they give profit, but..:
- the market is competitive and you can be out of business, except for unique varieties with good market positions.
- technical varieties wear out the land very badly, and it becomes low fertility for many years.... And this cannot be fixed quickly - the land needs a long period to recover.
- the consumer market - has a more stable demand, it is more flexible and liquid.

Therefore, the answer is very simple: "bias" of agrarians on "wrong varieties of products".... There are 2 ways out:
1. Either they will come to their senses and return to classic varieties.
2. The state will introduce regulation.

Otherwise products will be constantly expensive....

It's not exactly difficult to figure these things out, but some people try to think up elaborate reasons when the answer is staring everyone in the face. Russia's invasion and ongoing war on Ukraine have had massive impacts on global supply chains, started just after things were getting back to normal after the Covid lockdowns were ending - Putin caused great chaos again for zero benefit. Russia is forever getting weaker in it's current state. Besides that, these two countries were large exporters of food, much of it travelling through the black sea which is now too dangerous to traverse for cargo ships. So not only are crops not being tended due to the state of war, the fields have been ravaged and the farmers are now defending their land from invaders. It's all Russia's fault and will only start to get better when they leave the whole of Ukraine, along with the end of their dictator.

Price increases often have no serious economic justification. It is simply that suppliers and sellers often seek to maximize their profits on any currency appreciation. How to fight all this? In my opinion, very simply. Either by issuing large fines if the price rise has no reasonable justification, or simply by going to jail.

The government's mistakes in managing food are very painful for those who are unable to meet their needs. There needs to be improvements in management carried out by the government so that people can enjoy the natural resources they have and people must be able to manage the natural resources they have well. Holding a cheap market is a good solution to help people who cannot afford to buy their necessities because the prices of basic necessities are very high. As you said, it is the government's responsibility to control the prices of basic necessities so that they remain stable if the government does not care about this, people who have economic limitations will have great difficulty in meeting their needs.

Op, I think you should have posted this topic in the Nigerian board as Hatchy suggested it would have been more better since the subject of discussion is centered on our country Nigeria.

Now to answer your question, I think presently one of the reasons why the price of food and other things are very very expensive is because our government has allowed the production and distribution of food and other commodities to be solely dependent on a perticular company or should I say a person. For instance, the price of cement as at today is (#5700) that's five thousand seven hundred Nigerian naira this is because the production and distribution of the said cement is done by one man whose name is Dangote.

Now I think corruption is the main reason why the government has monopolized so many things because to I think they stand to benefit from the profits realized by the company since they determine the price they sell such commodities. Until there is competition and general price regulations for things I doubt if the high cost of food items and other commodities will ever be at a reduced price in my country Nigeria.

Food prices continue to skyrocket in monopoly countries, which is not one of the causes because if you look at the Nigerian National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), in a new report, it is said to be due to inflation. The government should be present and not blame the sudden surge in demand and the sharp increase in higher import costs.

Nigerian authorities should anticipate that inflation will remain in the double digits, averaging 17 next year. This economist says high prices are eroding people's savings. Inflation continues to rise and this has pushed Nigerians into poverty. The reason why this is happening. Inflation that is making Nigeria so poor is the fact that food inflation continues to increase from one state to another, from month to month comparison and that is a result of the increase in the price of diesel.Because it is diesel that is used to transport foodstuffs and also the level of insecurity in Nigeria is also making the inflation rate increase. Algeria's food import bill remains one of the highest on the continent.

You already know the cause of the hiking of services lingering to the inflation there in Nigeria that it is based on monopoly and backed up (approved) by the same Nigeria Govt.

Firstly, Monopoly is a marketing structural formula, where  a sole business is characterized to operate by its faction of  businesses .

Monopoly always stands at the advantage of making conciousless incomes in the markets because it faces no competitions.

Now let's look at the nature of the said Nigeria and its effect of a monopoly.
Outcomes of a monopoly to the societies :
* Discourages in innovations: this is an area where innovators or creativities tends of end their abilities to create a produce because they are not aurhorized to exhibit it's potentials due to the nature of a monopoly.
* High hike of good and services: This is an aspect where one as a monopoly has the ability to determine the cost of its services charges without undermining its high rate because it would be tolerated by the patronages where there is no other choice.
* Depreciation of customers patronage: Here, it tends to be minimizarion as a reduction in customers supports where produces are unaffordable by the common or and average society(s).

Monopoly is not harmful to itself but to the customers in the societies.
I will say only a selfish and hubris government would adoption such a monopoly marketing system after considering the challenges to be encountered by the society where demands are more than produces and otherwords produces are more than demands due to the unaffordability of the rising hike of good and services .

Most circumstances, the monopoly is organized and runs by the same government bodies otherwise they legally empowers the monopoly with an expectation of higher returns all to the feeding fats of the government bodies.

The situation of inflations can be beaten or minimized if there is said to be competitive in the markets and production sectors and also with the aids of the government to support an individual with the perspective to render solutions economical solutions to the society.

Op well that is you point of view but the high cost of living and increase in the food prices and other commodities are very far from what you are saying. Let me start from the taxation. Nigeria is a country of tax free citizens and that means the citizens are not paying tax directly but they are paying tax like any other  country in the world. Now how the Nigerian government tax the citizens. They tax heavily the manufacturing Companies so the manufacturing Companies in return increase the price of food and other commodities so the citizens pay the tax indirectly. Some people are saying that it is because of the importation of goods and the rise of the dollar.

But as for me all those ones are just Secondary to me  and the indirect tax is the cause of the cost of living in the country.

You have pointed out a very good point, citizens of my country also do not pay taxes directly, even small shops do not pay taxes and the government has difficulty collecting taxes directly from the people. But the government does not ignore it and they impose high taxes on companies, that way they collect taxes indirectly from the people.
But if there is a monopoly in Nigeria's food industry, that also causes prices to skyrocket. In my country, electricity is a monopoly business model and when they increase electricity prices we have almost no choice but to accept. Monopoly with government support is misery for the people.

The Nigerian government can do a lot to address the country's high prices. Only if the government desires it. One of them is the government's assistance to farmers in the area through subsidies. What else is there? Perhaps removing the tariff on food imports—these are just some of the things that the Nigerian government can do in light of what is now going on there.

Individuals in Nigeria can also contribute by assisting local farmers in their area. Apart from the Nigerian government's assistance, I believe it is a significant deal for the farmers at this point.

It is what it is business is always a business only those people that wants to manipulate the market can actually gain profit and people who supplied them didn't realize their loss well maybe they have their own reasons but government won't actually intervenes on it since they can also benefits to it.

This is totally different from us, our goods and services are being taxed at 12% called VAT (Value Added Tax), this is one good way to generate taxes from the masses but reflects badly on the poor. The government should start working with the taxes again, revise some tax laws because we're basically using it for a century and the world hasn't been similar for the past 100 years. I think this is also why crypto has been a thing now to the riches, they can easily dodge taxes which is comparably high to the transaction fee on blockchain. If the government impose high taxes on rich people and low taxes to poor people, this will be a new problem for the society making it unfair.

I know little about Nigeria, but I do know that they have a high inflation rate. Same with my country, people are having a hard life with less jobs and opportunities.

I was trying to find a news related to A Monopoly by private company but I can't seem to find it. All I can find is that energy distribution is indeed in monopoly, but it was by a government's company, and I think's energy distribution monopoly by government is actually a good thing. If OP want's a good discussion that leads to a concrete solution, I think he/she should give more specific and details regarding the monopoly

Reducing the price of goods for example food in a country like Nigeria is a complex challenge and there is the issue of monopoly which also contributes to raising the price of goods. So what does the govt of Nigeria have to do to reduce the price of goods? It's quite clear that prices increase due to less number of producers and the large number of consumers. The govt first and on an immediate basis should take serious action against monopolism and to stop it, The second one is to start trade with countries that need investment in the trade sector which encourages other countries to start trade with them, the third one is my views to invest largely in the agriculture section. This sector is not only beneficial for the people but also for the state. When they start trading with other countries they take an interest in the agricultural sector of Nigeria and they start buying agricultural food from them. These are just 3 factors that how they can reduce the price of goods, of course, there are a lot more but the above three are my opinions.

Reality of the society that we do have today on which government would really be always having the control most likely on which if there is really that a monopoly and then its really that been allowed by them then expect that corruption do really happens on which on the time that they are really that benefiting big time then expect that they would really be just letting things to let it slide and go as they pleases and this what really hurts the citizens even more and making living as a struggle specially into those people who do have only sufficient income for their needs and expenses and whatever increase or add up will really be an additional challenge which needs to be faced on.  Somewhat there are goods which prices cant really be that controlled because it would really be basing up with world market and  this is why we cant really be able to point out fingers that
every goods are really that been hoarded with those suppliers just to intend to mark up those prices.

If this is caused by inflation, of course the government must move quickly enough to overcome this so that it doesn't drag on for too long because now there are several methods that can be used by any government to overcome the inflation that occurs in their country. Even though this will not disappear immediately, at least the government is willing to show its efforts to fight inflation to the public so that people's feelings can be a little calmer in such difficult conditions.

The increase in fuel oil such as diesel actually has a very bad impact on the economic sector because the increase in price can cause excessive transportation costs which can result in an increase in food prices which makes it difficult for all people. Regardless of the neighboring country Nigeria or the states there, I think the government needs to move to overcome this as quickly as possible because they themselves definitely know where the basic causes are so that inflation can arise there.

Monopoly is just one part of the problem. But the main reason why commodities like food become so expensive later down the line even though the cost of production is cheap as fuck, is due to the logistics. Sometimes the price you pay for gas to have those items delivered to the market for purchase far outweigh the expenses you would incur to have those products created, and if that happens you would have no choice but to add more markup so you don't go under and lose your business.

So to actually help with reducing the price of goods, either you go create your own market by setting up one that's nearby so logistics doesn't have to  be a problem anymore, or find a way for gas/oil to be used efficiently throughout the transport process. For instance, better roads, faster vehicles, and maybe even electric modes of transportation could be looked upon as great solutions/alternatives.

While monopoly of the market system is a good way to get the prices up and quality down, healthy competition between organizations have helped deal with that. With competition, the quality of the product is put into consideration so as to please the consumers.
I then the removal of the monopoly some organizations enjoy would have more impact on the quality of product rather than the price.

I think there are other important factors to consider if the prices of goods are to be reduced. An economy that cannot provide for the needs of the people with locally sourced resources would continue to witness the rise in the prices of goods.

Increasing production, curbing syndicates of Businessmen, corruption, these will actually bring down the price of food automatically. Not only in Nigeria but also in Bangladesh, the price of food products is increasing at a huge rate. And the prices of all kinds of products, not only food products of Bangladesh, have increased several times. Bangladesh government is trying to control it but is not able to do so. The government of every country wants its people to live in peace, but due to the increase in population and various types of corruption in the country, the government alone is not able to control the prices of food products and other products. But the only way to bring down food prices is to increase production, prevent wastage and curb corruption

Can you name what goods you refer to? because each goods are different from one to another.

If we talk about fuel, it's 100% because of manipulation and there's no way to reduce the price.

If we talk about foods, you can become a farmer, this will increase the supply of foods and make the price will decrease.

Usually the main cause are only two reasons: manipulation and scarcity.

Beyond the two reasons of manipulation and scarcity, the prime reason for the rise in price of each and everything is connected with taxation and corruption. Governments need to be good enough to provide transparency. Most of the governments doesn't have this, and this leads to corruption. When the corruption leads to accumulation of wealth, automatically common men were taxed heavily. This affects the increase in the price of each and everything.

Besides discussing corruption in government sector and monopoly on the market, can we turn discussion more to finding a way how to reduce goods (food) cost ? We can run debates how to end corruption (if it is even possible) for ages. Right away I see only two solutions - reduce transportation expenses and packaging expenses. Product package constitutes a significant portion of the price.

The monopoly of what? You should have explained yourself better and if I should be franked with you, your local board, if you are a Nigerian, is the best fitting section for this discussion.

Aside from that, monopoly is not good for the economy but it's not the main problem of Nigerian inflation, there has been monopoly in the country before now but the situation was never like this. Without mincing words, many factors are responsible for Nigeria's woes and inflation and some of them are;
1. Bad leadership dispencing bad policies
2. FX crisis
3. Negative trade balance, which includes refining offshore
4. Russian-Ukraine war
5. Political instability among others.

There is a lot of corruption in the government sector, the government should increase surveillance in this direction. In the short term there is no choice but to increase the price slightly it is possible to save money if irregularities corruption and wastage can be reduced in the supply of fuel oil gas electricity and water. Apart from this our power generation capacity is now double the demand. Many private production plants have to sit idle and pay capacity charges of several thousand crores annually. There is no need for this waste also traders should stop black market there are many complaints in the society that a class of business politicians are working to destabilize the government.

End corruption? It has been the dream of the people for thousands of years, but it has never been resolved and the government does not want to solve it because they are the most corrupt.

Reduce transportation expenses and packaging expenses? How about while fuel and commodity prices are rising globally? The government of a country cannot decide that. As long as the world still has political conflicts and no common voice, these things will continue and the people who suffer will still be us. In my opinion, there is no solution to the current situation other than hoping for the war to end and world relations to return to normal.

The price of other materials are related with the price of fuels and the devaluation of their currencies lead to the poverty in a country. Actually a country's economic situations are dependent on the citizens living in that country  if the citizens are educated they can use their education in order to reduce the poverty.

Agriculture sector should be made according to the needs of citizens and possibilities should be made to utilise the resources with planning. If there is reduction in the cost of fuels so it will have positive impact on the economy of overall world because we have experienced that whenever fuel reduces in cost then wo become able to purchase every other material with affordable costs.

Measures should be made to reduces such inflation because if it get worst then it will be difficult to overcome.

If there is corruption in every sector of the government, then who is going to increase that surveillance? A person don't form the government, it is a collective effort of the people and how they make it better is dependence on how everyone works in transparency, that way we will know how many is been manage and well spent. However, in a system where everyone embezle money and hide it in properties in international nations will be hard to improve the government, visibility start from individual person before it can be achieve collectively, there will always be a snitches around.

The president of Nigeria said it that Nigeria is very rich but we are very poor in managent, that is one of the problem that we have in this country and we if address it, resources will go to the right place at the right moment, people will not have the option to loot the treasury again because there is going to be questions and answers are going to be needed and by the time answers are not provided, there is going to be probs and arrest of the right people.

Not only is it a result of monopolies because in my opinion this is very normative, but other factors causing the decline in the economy in each country are caused by the Russia-Ukraine conflict, then geopolitical and climate changes are also the cause after the COVID19 pandemic which has also devastated all human life. Now the food problem is also plaguing the world, food prices are also soaring so it is very difficult to control, if this crisis continues then the economic collapse will become even more real.

The Nigerian government should have declared a state of emergency to enable their government to take immediate steps to improve security and food supplies. Due to the current status there are two problems occurring in Nigeria, namely price increases and hunger. The government must take action, including clearing forests for agricultural land, to increase agricultural output and reduce food inflation. Of course, corruption and monopoly are obstacles to stabilizing pagan prices, so the government must be serious about handling vital matters like this.

If it were not for selfishness among its leaders, the entire African continent would not be suffering from food insecurity due to wars outside the continent. Africa needs to rethink its position from a global perspective.

All governments in the world are currently looking for solutions to deal with this, because if the economic collapse becomes more real, it will cause more poverty in every country. So the leaders of each country need to find a solution to control this matter in stages, although in general it is not easy because the time required is not small. But the leadership must not be silent about this because a country's progress will be very visible when its economic sector is not disturbed and continues to develop rapidly as targeted by everyone.

I think all countries must be prepared to respond to global fluctuating situations that result in crises in several countries, such as what happened in Nigeria. If every country controls foreign debt, develops all fields appropriately, manages natural resources with qualified human resources, hard workers, a healthy government system from the center to the regions without any corruption. the accuracy of the data according to what exists in the field. God willing, all countries will survive the crisis and have their own pagan sovereignty.

Of course, it's not just the government that has to work, but the people also have to support the government so that it can focus on avoiding bankruptcy. The people must be optimistic that their country will definitely survive the economic crisis and the global crisis so that prices will start to stabilize.

The price of other materials are related with the price of fuels and the devaluation of their currencies lead to the poverty in a country. Actually a country's economic situations are dependent on the citizens living in that country  if the citizens are educated they can use their education in order to reduce the poverty.

Agriculture sector should be made according to the needs of citizens and possibilities should be made to utilize the resources with planning. If there is reduction in the cost of fuels so it will have positive impact on the economy of overall world because we have experienced that whenever fuel reduces in cost then wo become able to purchase every other material with affordable costs.

Measures should be made to reduces such inflation because if it get worst then it will be difficult to overcome.

I think this topic should be discussed with Nigerian people. They know well what's happening in Nigeria. Have you discussed with them about this?

I don't know if monopoly is the main factor that caused the expensive price of foods there, but it is commonly not a single factor to raise the foods prices. The policy made by the government can be another reason why the price foods increasing. For example in my country, the government rises the price of fuel oil that leads to increase of the prices both in foods and services. We have no problem with monopoly and we have good competition in each sector, but we can't avoid the rise of foods prices because of the policy made by the government.

Anyway, the recession and bad economic situation are also two reasons that can lead to increase of foods prices. I believe it is not only happening in Nigeria, but it happens in most countries in the world.

One thing is being allowed to produce, and another thing to consider is whether the person has the available resources to produce. For example, if there are only a few farmers farming rice because they could afford all the mechanized tools and equipment required to keep their farm and production running smoothly, some people might not have it either. If the government is giving privileges for the production of what is most needed in the country, they must also equip the people with the required resources to do so, even if it means giving loans to them. This is not just a problem in Nigeria; it's also common in some countries.

Their are lots of factors that affect the price of food, monopoly is a factor.  When their is serious economy in a country whereby the currency loses value on a regular,  and the means of transportation keeps going on  a regular and the price of petrol keeps going high it can also cause regular increase of the price of food in the market. The solution for the stability or reduction of food price is to work on the economy to be in a better shape.  Poor economy is always the cause for the skyrocketing of food price and other things.

It must be noted that reducing the prices of products may not always be a positive thing if it is the result of a culture of non-consumption, such as the Japanese situation today, in which prices never rise in order to encourage people to consume, and despite this, no progress has been achieved.
There are two important points that can be worked on in parallel to achieve low prices for basic commodities: first, by supporting the local currency and maintaining a good exchange rate to secure import products from the global market at differential prices. Secondly, it will be by supporting the agricultural system that provides basic materials for the needs of citizens, in addition to providing basic materials in the industrial sector.

Actually it happens across the globe we have that too, we're having a global recession and inflation due to the past events happen in our world. What we are feeling right now is we are starting to have the after effects of that event government can slow down the price increase or somehow it can stabilize the price but not so much so we should know that having a job now is not so sufficient we need other streams.

The government sector itself more corrupt and steal the money of poor people by the way of schemes and taxes.Even though we pay our taxes without fail,their will be huge corruption in the government chain itself.Which will have some hole in the complete system.The regulations with a certain time period is essential one.By the check and balances only the government officials can get captured by the higher authorities.If the hole in the system was managed,the government itself reduce taxes to the products.

You are absolutely right. Food has become much cheaper in developed countries precisely because of the competition in producing and supplying it. And when I say that it has become cheaper, I am referring to a time horizon of 100 years, and if we go further back we will see that it is much cheaper in relation to the income of the workers, where in ancient times everything they earned was spent on food. I say this because with inflation prices have been rising for a couple of years now, but if we look further back we see how much food prices have fallen for working families who, apart from eating, could afford other consumer goods such as washing machines or cars, apart from services such as going on holiday and things like that.

I wouldn't say that prices have come down. Now a very large part of expenses is paying for utilities. And food prices... Those countries whose currencies are pegged to the dollar (despite the supposed de-dollarization of their economies) are in big trouble now, and food prices there have risen a lot.

Do you really think that this fact can reassure poor workers?
You tell him that your grandfather spent his money only on food and did not have his own home. And now you should be proud that you live in such a good time, that you have your own home and car and can go on vacation sometimes.

Most likely this single food distributor offers a high percentage of profits to the government that other distributors have no chance to enter the market. However, in my own point of view, there’s nothing you can do about the costly prices of goods but you can actually save if you really want to. Grow your own garden on vegetables and fruits so that when they start bearing, you will never buy again those expensive foods sold in the market.

Only the government can prevent that high price or maybe slow it down. It is not just the inflation but because there are people who are hoarding some goods just to increase the price and that is when they sell them off and the government can't notice it. Consumers are really the ones affected by it and we have nothing to do with it. That is why it is best to rely on ourselves.

Finding another source of income right now is difficult due to the fact that tons of people are also looking but this is only the solution except for the government to make a move to ease the price of all goods. We need to work on ourselves because if we don't and are still waiting for the government we will starve and not be able to meet our needs.

This idea of yours to start a garden on vegetables and fruits is actually a good one, but know not everybody have backyard to plant all this things and again even though, the security challenges that is people disturbance coming to plug it without your notice. I don't really know the problem of Nigeria now because they are not doing monopoly again, there are many producers of food items which I believe will reduce the price of food but still the price are always pushing up. This day I noticed the price of diesel increase day by day with the additional of ₦10, this happen almost four consecutive days starting ₦950 and now ₦990. I think all this is from the government.

Demand and supply. That decides the price for everything. Low supply and high demand lead to high prices. While high supply and low demand lead to low prices. But for this to happen, we need competition in the market. If a single entity is controlling the whole supply, it can easily manipulate the market. Thus showing a low supply and increasing the price. As long as this exists, a single person or people in your country can't do anything about it. You guys can stop using those goods and not buy them. That will create an overflow of goods in the market. That could lead to low prices but if those goods are necessary, you can't do anything in that matter.

The best way to deal with this situation is to produce food products on your own if possible and cut costs by doing it so that you can buy other goods with that saved money. If all the people do not come together to go against it, nothing can be done. And that part is very difficult.

All countries in the world are closely interconnected and everything has its reasons.  there are countries that can produce this but cannot produce that and the relationship between them is to exchange goods with each other.  for a country that does not specialize in agriculture, food production is extremely difficult and if they could produce everything themselves, the world would never need connections between countries together.

Not to mention, every manufacturing industry needs energy and if your country cannot import cheap energy, how can it produce enough cheap goods to supply the people?  it's easy to say, but it's not easy to practice.

Every country wants to produce its own goods, but this is not possible. Every good has its varieties that are produced cheaply and distributed to other countries. Production habits that have not changed for years are also effective in this. These habits have also been determined by various agreements between countries.

It would be possible if the prices of goods were to be reduced and efforts were made to achieve this, but many countries buy goods that they do not produce from other countries and sell them to their own citizens at a higher price. For this to change, managers must change.

A fair government will continue to monitor food price movements in the market, the government can also act as a distributor by appointing a food department under the auspices of the Minister of Agriculture to maintain stable food prices in the market. A single distributor has complete control over pricing. When the market is monopolized by one party, it will be increasingly difficult for people to find goods at cheap prices.
The government must prevent monopoly, the fate of society must be taken into account by maintaining the stability of purchasing prices in the market. Business competition will provide a beautiful atmosphere between sellers and buyers and the public will feel that their aspirations are accommodated by the government.

If a country does not produce certain food products, then the government cannot control their prices.
If the government places restrictions on the quantity of goods purchased, this will only provoke a wave of fraud so that sellers can sell in-demand goods at a higher price.

monopoly is a dirty business strategy carried out by several parties to control the price of a need, there is also a scenario carried out by big players to monopolize food, that is by making fertilizer prices high, then the price of food that comes from first hand will automatically be high, then they try to make deliveries late, this is also usually the strategy they will use to make food prices soar because when there is a delay in delivery then demand will increase, well when demand increases then prices will automatically increase, usually dirty methods like this involves several corrupt elements from the government, so it requires strong action and also pressure from citizens to make the government provide their best policies for basic needs such as food.

I believe that the market monopoly is controlled by the mafia because they have the power of government officials. If the government is pro for the people then they can eradicate the mafia which is detrimental to society, but some government elements are like the mafia who hoard fertilizer when the need for fertilizer increases, but when farmers harvest, the mafia can influencing sabotage of market prices for the purpose of purchasing cheap food supplies from farmers.

The government should eradicate mafia practices that are detrimental to society, but because the mafia is also government officials, no community dares to interfere with their activities. Even the minister's statement said that many mafias have controlled the prices of goods but they do not have the power to follow up because they also work under their authority.

What needs to be improved is the legal framework that regulates this area and the government should sit down and discuss points that benefit the people, not create legal language and/or slashes that provide opportunities for those with interests.

We often hear words from stakeholders "we made this all for the people" and they always carry the name of the people, but the implication is just mere talk and this happens in almost all places where legal products are not well controlled.

It's really not easy to change a paradigm that has existed for thousands of years, and like I said, it's easy to say it, but to change anything we need to be realistic and not just talk about it, then it will be easy can solve.  if countries were self-sufficient in all goods, there would be no alliances and the world would never have a crisis or inflation like what is happening now.

Russia and OPEC own black gold, China owns rare earths and the US is the birthplace of thousands of new technologies...each country has its own strengths and to survive, they must rely on each other.

Demand and supply controlling well by politician and they are trying how to get much profitable to increasing price of goods, its happening in my country where price or rice up drastically and the politician have good opportunity for opening import rice from other country. They will get much profitable and fees commission actually many their company are working with import and export of rice and other daily needs. Not easy how to stop with some people want to make manipulate or market because they have full power and controlling all price in the market and we are citizen only acceptable with their regulation.

Best ideas is make by self our production, in my region we have large farm and not necessary for buying rice every day but we got difficult with fertilizer have lower prices.

High cost of things in certain places is inevitable. The goal should be to be blessed with the wisdom to get what you need cheaply or at a very reduced price. You need to know where and how to get them. I think people who are too attached to high and attractive things will find it hard to get good quality things cheaply or at reduced prices.

the major factor is this
instead of local farmer making his own produce with just his costs to get it to the local store included.. many farms have been taken over by big-agri where they have foremen, supervisors, managers, admin at their international hubs. they also price the goods not at the local price but they include costs of transport internationally and create an average price for international cost. and then make locals pay the international cost.

we see it here in the UK with fuel costs. the UK self produces its own gas and electric. but it has to pay the international market rate
yep UK gas and electric didnt see large demand increase. nor actual cost from source increase. but due to international economics of inflation and ukraine fears the market decided to double/triple all prices meaning many suppliers made huge profits

although in previous decades mass production of multi-nation companies offered discount compared to bespoke small production locally..(efficiency=cost saving) but now that has flipped where the international market pricing has been inflated not due to production costs but due to economic fears, of number speculation due to inflation and policy.

to reduce costs things need to get back to local markets and have competition to make the large multinational companies have to lower their prices or have their produce not bought.. basically de-monopolise the market

Usually this is because there are so many companies that produce and sell goods that the price continues to fall because this is a matter of their business competitors. they always compete with cheaper prices to buy. but sometimes it actually destroys the actual market price sooner or later. Unfortunately, there is still no solution for how they can overcome their business competitors. if they sell too expensively the goods will not sell, on the other hand it causes the value of the goods to fall.

Most of the countries have got local production, but the demand can't be met by those small scale manufacturing companies. This leads to the dependence over the multinational companies supply of food and other things. If the demand gets fulfilled by the local production a huge amount can be saved from transportation and other charges. Another thing is the corporate network's being the monopoly. This is common around the world, the corporate network doesn't allow farmers and local production to sell it. The corporate fix a price and buy it from the local production and further fix the profit with added profit. This burden common people with double the spending than buying from local production.

Certain things are easier to reduce, but you can't make it all for everything. Like even if we talk about something as simple as vegetables, one nation can't have ALL vegetables for cheap, your climate and soil quality matters and even though you could have some of them for cheaper if you work harder and smarter, no matter what you do some of them will stay expensive because it is not your nations product.

Like for example in my nation it is nearly impossible to raise mangos, that is not really a bad thing, I can't care any less about that, not like I need mango in my life, BUT it is still a thing, so you can't make it cheaper here. You have to consider what is possible and only focus on those things to make them cheaper.

Maybe it is not about reducing the price of goods but more about increasing the purchasing power globally? Look at Switzerland, they are one of the most expensive nations in the world, but they are earning as much as the yare spending, sure there must be some poor people there too, but they are making insane amount of salary compared to rest of the world, which means that even a minimum wage worker there, even someone who other nations "deem" bad and low income stuff, can buy whatever they want globally.

Look at Norway, look at Japan, all these nations make a lot of money even though their expenses could be huge, that means it is not about reducing the price of goods, let them be expensive if you have to, but make people richer.

Supply and demand? They play a big influence, but what about the hidden affluent and powerful market manipulators? It must be considered. Major corporations, affluent individuals, and governments are involved. They continually and everywhere distort the market for personal gain. They care little about the common guy and focus on money and sales.

How to lower product prices? Here, government engagement is crucial. But can we trust them fully? Despite their control, they often have different objectives and agendas than the public. The situation won't change immediately. Keeping up with industry trends, plans, and updates is vital. It requires exposing and rejecting exploitation and working toward openness and justice. Though long, the path ahead is right.  ;) ;)

Monopoly kills competition especially if it's been sponsored by the government.
In the general market, there is supposed to be competition among marketers, not by making one person incharge of the a particular supply chain. It Then means that the person can fix a certain price on a particular product and the price regulatory body won't do anything about it, Although before it gets to that stage, just know that the government has their hands fully in it. For example, a particular company is given the licence to be the  sole producer of cement in a country, it then means for every building that is erected in that country, the cement company has a hand in it.  This kind of situation kills the spirit of competition and it's never healthy for an economy.

I am not talking about mass production or a whole country doing it. I am talking about individual people growing their own food items. This may seem a very little change that you can make, but when you look at it from a different perspective things start to change. Imagine 70-80% of people in a country growing their own food. They won't have to buy costly food from the market. And where the price is already manipulated, doing this will save a lot of money. All you need to buy then is those items or goods that you can't make on your own.
Individual changes come together in order to create a revolution. That's what history tells us. Fix your own economy and if others around you do the same, it could make a huge difference. If you fix your own economy, that will fix your country's economy. If this happens worldwide then the world economy will be fixed.

I haven't been to Switzerland, but I think there are inexpensive clothes and products there. There are very expensive real estate, real estate rentals, insurance and services that people often use. And if you work remotely in Switzerland, you can choose many countries for a good and comfortable life.

This is the advantage of high cost of living, high salary countries, you have the option to live somewhere where the cost is living is low just like in Bali Indonesia. There are foreigners who are living for good there given that they can spend the luxury life they can't afford in their own countries. Having a work from home set up is a blessing to many people, it's just that not everyone can have the same set up. Sometimes living in another country make your cost of living very affordable. One way to enjoy life.

There are also some virtue of having all those huge companies which is the employment rate is going up as well. By demonopolizing the market from this companies, that also means they need to cut some of their workers thus creating huge gap in employment rate which could affect the country in bigger scale which is also why some countries are pretty lenient on bending their law for these type of things

Well at some point having all those companies around also means that there will be tons of goods produced so the country doesnt need to worry about the lack of goods products supply for the country

Oh that is just very unfortunate to hear.

When a business owns several factors of certain products, they have full control over the prices of goods on the market. Since there is no competition at all, they have all the discretion whether to increase/decrease their prices since customers would always be compelled to buy such products/goods to them. This is the reason on why competition is highly recommended- but it must be a "healthy" competition to preserve the economy and market.

If the Nigerian government supports this monopoly, then it speaks on how corruption works on your country. I just hope that there will be change that is enacted to counter and address this very difficult issue as this can cause a financial turmoil to everyone.

the big agri decades ago turned multiple FAMILIES manual labour farms into one single harvester driven plot of land. where by XXX people working turns to just 1-2.. this WAS the 'efficiency cost saving' that helped decades ago to produce cheap food, but made hundreds of thousands of locals displaced and jobless, losing their land and culture.....(but thats a whole different debate for another time)..  but it is now the international market price speculation of inflation that has caused retail price rises.. so now FAMILY owned farms could come back and toil land again and grow crops and make produce for locals cheaper

OP If the supplier of the goods monopolizes the market will be very difficult to reduce the price because he is the only distributor for procurement of goods, especially since the government supports the actions of that, of course it will be very difficult in your country, there is no competition so the provider of goods will be very arrogant In playing the price at will, that is the impact of the market monopoly.
Government support also makes them act arbitrarily which makes small competitors immediately killed easily.

All you have to do is encourage the government not to support this monopoly, and market regulations must be updated so that everything can run fairly as the market has a lot of competition as a controller of the price of goods is not excessive.
This will be much more difficult in the future if it continues to leave, I hope you can start a movement with the community and entrepreneurs affected by this to break the monopoly in your country.

When a country still depends on the government system to be able to solve existing economic problems. So what we need to pay attention to is the policy of the government itself. Because government policies have a huge influence on the country's economy and the government also has full control over these policies, it is necessary to supervise and guard the policies issued by the government, because sometimes a policy is considered good for advancing the economy of a country. However, the result is that this policy is still unable to solve existing economic problems because in reality the implementation of this policy has not been optimal so that the expected goals have not been achieved.

This is very different from America, where even though the government system is dilapidated, this does not really affect the country's economy, because there is a system that plays a role behind the existing government system.

Well, government is involved so... yeah there's nothing that you can do with that I guess.
After all, you are being given a power to vote for your president, and yet you are still voting the wrong one... or I guess it's safe to say that there's no correct one in the list.

Monopoly, followed by lack of resources, and of course inflation. I guess these are the reasons why prices of not only goods, but everything is increasing. Government don't want competition because that might affect their profit. If there's another competitor on a business that they're supporting with, unfortunately they will try to do everything just to shut it down. After all, they have the power to do it since they're the authority.

I think how can a government support people who create problems for their people,This may happen in poor countries but such monopoly cannot be allowed in developed countries.Whose responsibility is to stop such people who create problems in the country's conditions and things, if the government supports these people, then who will take steps to stop such monopolistic people.

In my opinion, we should not support the government to take action against the monopolists, but the government should support the people, that they should raise their voice against such people, not support those who create problems for them,and mark such people so that the government can take action against such people.All governments have a responsibility to protect their people from all kinds of problems.

Resources that are managed by only a few people will certainly create unstable prices in the market and this will really make people with low incomes unable to meet their needs they do unsportsmanlike things in trading because they collaborate with some unscrupulous policy holders so they can do it easily. You are right, the Government must use its policies well so that small entrepreneurs can still use their capital to run their businesses, not only use their policies for certain groups so that entrepreneurs with small capital cannot buy goods for them to resell because the prices of goods are very high.

Reduce the cost of logistics, that's the biggest reason why food costs or any product that needs to be transported have an increase in price, if we were to make the logistics shorter or efficient or cheaper, we might be able to produce a result that will reduce the price of any product. Imagine if there are Bugatti factories in my country, the price would drastically go down to a buy a Bugatti because there's no need to import one which is really expensive to do.

Like you mentioned, if a nation is depending on the government to solve its economic problems, then, such policies should be investigated. Policies - they may either lift the country up or simply hammer it down. The truth is that not every policy that seems promising is effective. Sometimes they are all show and no go. On paper, they seem great, but in reality? They cannot fight their way out of a wet paper bag. Just dead in the water.

Oh well, the government is all over the place, but guess what? The state of the economy is "I do my own thing, thank you very much". Another machine working in the background keeps everything from sinking. A mess? Sure. But despite being a mess, it functions in a peculiar way. So, pay close attention to such policies. And sometimes? You must be honest and say that everything is all messed up.

The prices will be stabilized when there are more distributors in the market. When there is competition in the market, product quality as well as services will also improve. Single distributors can change the prices at will. To reduce this monopoly, the government should play its part. They should make new rules and invite more people by making laws to protect their investments and increase the ease of doing business. It is also important that locals should record their protests against these issues.
At the moment, inflation is a global phenomenon, and every country in the world is facing this issue due to increased energy and oil prices. But, governments should play their role to ease the suffering of their citizens. 

The fiercer the competition between businesses, the more consumers benefit and that is why developed countries like Europe hate and oppose monopolies. This is basic knowledge that even a 3 year old child can understand, the government is not stupid enough to not know that. But in third world countries, where the government stands behind some businesses to monopolize certain goods, it will be a serious problem for the people. Therefore, people's protests or objections will have no effect other than forcing them to reluctantly accept its use.

Yeah this sounds like a good approach, not every nation could drop it for everything, but as long as you can drop it for the bare minimum stuff for your nation, that would be good enough. Some nations have cheap rice, some have cheap pasta, some have cheap bread or meat, or some nation could have cheap broccoli, it doesn't matter what it is, it doesn't matter which type of food we are talking about, as long as there are few products that are incredibly cheap, people could have an alternative.

Sure you can go for the expensive one if you want to, that is your own option if you prefer that and have the money for it, but for poor people there should be a few good cheap products they can consume without getting broke to buy them.

I understand you very much and indeed for the front guard stopping this is the government as the holder of the policy and power in the country, but the problem is like what is conveyed by the OP is the government that gives support to the monopoly actors, it is clear, surely behind the support carried out by the Nigerian government there must be a profit/ bribery transaction to the government to give freedom to entrepreneurs who carry out this monopoly.

Then where do people have to run and complain? then tactically the community must carry out massive demonstrations when there is no place to complain, in a democratic understanding when the authorities no longer prioritize the sovereignty and welfare of the community, the demonstration is a step to voic the aspirations of the community to urge that the government makes a fair policy to eliminate entrepreneurs which monopolizes the market in Negeria.

Its because governments are getting money from those businesses that they protect and with exchange they can monopolize some goods and even price them by hoarding goods that people or consurmers are struggling with. They aren't thinking of people they are only after their profit and this is the reason why the economy of the country is not improving because of this kind of corruption. No matter how you protest if they are still getting elected every election it is still useless as they are always carried away when a politician gives them money.

the most reasonable reason is so they can compete with their business rivals. Unfortunately this is quite dangerous for small traders who sell the same product from different factories. they may not be able to drop prices because they are constrained by the capital they have. but if you don't lower the price there is usually very little buying interest. That's right, this is actually a monopoly of those at the top.

If there is no competition in business then it is not possible to get better service and if the government selects any of its nominees only for a specific business, then syndicates will be formed and the price of the product will increase. Not only Nigeria but the government of every country should create competitive services in all types of business so that the people will get better service there as well as the government can benefit. But at present, Some governments of different countries are not able to coordinate well in those areas, so it is not possible to stop the upward movement of goods.

Reduce the price just to benefit someone else, it is not how a fair market work. Obviously you can make them reduce the price when you have armed force, the traders who is helpless but to give their valuable away at loss, or even free of charge! Even an animal know how to negotiate in the wild and get the food for free, you see how the tiger work very hard to hunt down the wild deer during the daylight, all of a sudden a lion appear and steal all the show, and took all the meat for himself, the tiger have no choice but to give up his lunch to the big bully lion.

Are you purely talking about Nigeria or the worldwide economy? As Nigeria is the biggest economy in Africa if I recall correctly, however they are still relatively small when compared against many other countries outside of Africa. Unfortunately certain countries have been so corrupted and maybe classified as "democracies" in name only, as the leadership will often manipulate their inherent advantages when they have been entrenched for a long time. It's very difficult to build a strong country with independent judiciaries, police forces, institutions and politicians - taking generations or even centuries to achieve the right level of stability. However they can often be broken by people abusing certain powers in unexpected ways.

Yes... it is true that a policy must be investigated and supervised as well and effectively as possible. However, sometimes games between the supervisory team and the implementing team (government) often occur, so that the programs implemented are merely ceremonial so that there is material to report to their leaders.

It is true what you say that the government is everywhere, in fact a government can be called a complex system because they are present from the highest level, namely the president, to the lowest level which is in direct contact with the community. And it is true that even though this government system is very complex, the implementation of policies is still minimal, which means that in the end the public cannot enjoy the results of the policies that have been made by the central and regional governments.

With most of the countries this is a big problem. Particularly with African countries the governments were the reason behind the destruction of the economy. Everywhere corruption and it ruins the life of the common man. There need to be transparency in governance. Even in some part of the country traditional methods of tax collections were there. These things will surely lead to ease of corruption. Another thing is the western influence over the countries, different corporate firms make deals with the government and take the natural wealth. What will be left behind? Will the people be fairly treated, No!! If the government is proper in its position automatically things will turn better with time.

If such people have reach to the policy makers, then it is the responsibility of the people to stand up against the corrupt elements sitting in the government houses,because the corrupt people sitting in the government houses are able to reach there only by the power of the people's vote.

Just like in our country, the monopolists who have control over the market often increase the price of any food items by 2x to 3x times at once, due to which the low income people are affected a lot,but it is surprising that no action is taken against them, but after a few days of noise, the matter is suppressed because the corrupt elements sitting in the government houses are in partnership with them.Therefore, in my opinion, it is the responsibility of the people not to help such corrupt elements to reach the government houses, but to show strong resistance against them.Surely this will be an effective measure to end the monopoly of few people.

Unfortunately, it isn't possible to control prices in monopoly markets due to the lack of any competition. Unfortunately, the lack of competition and a monopolistic system especially in the food industry doesn't help reduce food costs in any way. If the government allows a company to become a monopolist in such a special market, the only institution that should be questioned at this point will be the government. Especially when we consider the African continent, we can see that there is already a serious food shortage. In such a situation, unfortunately, it isn't very ethical for the government to allow monopolistic management of food and the food industry.

In summary, the fact that the food industry is controlled by a single company or business and the state doesn't intervene or regulate it will unfortunately not help reduce high costs. Moreover, if the situation continues like this unfortunately it will not be possible to find alternative or more affordable options for food prices. In these conditions, there will be access to food and groceries at more affordable prices at least with certain price restrictions and regulations but only if the government provides control.

Production of goods is really a huge problem if there's a presence of conflict between countries, how much more if the government has no control over it. More particular with the wars between countries and different issues that affects the worldwide market. Reduction of price of goods couldn't be made into easier strategy, but we need support from the people within the government connections that will consolidate all requirements needed to be addressed to help underlying concerns be escalated in proper ways.

Well I think this isn't entirely true... in Nigeria most of our foods are locally produced and even the ones that are imported can be grown here in Nigeria. Now there are other basic factors that affects the cost of food in Nigeria. We have the issue of transportation,  this issue is solely affected by our bad roads and hike in fuel price. Secondly the issue of storage, this issue is generally for home grown organic foods that are transported from one region of the country to another. Thirdly the issue of power supply (electricity) perishable food suffer greatly with the lack of electricity to preserve these goods. Vendors of such goods go the extra mile to preserve their goods. With all of these issues that vendors face though sad but they have to make a living. Here's a solution, you can own a home garden where you can plant some necessary foods and it's not expensive and doesn't consume so much space too.

That's actually a good point and I totally agree with that. Foods or items that are imported from other countries are generally more expensive compared to foods and items that are produced within the country because there isn't a lot of cost in logistics when the product is being produced within the country, it's just that the item is shipped from one city to another and that doesn't really make the price go up as much as it makes it if the item is coming from another country.

So, governments can actually reduce the price of foods and items if they try and produce the same items that they import within their own country. They might not be able to do that will everything but they can at least do it with items that are possible for them to grow produce or create to reduce the costs and prices.

you cannot reduce food prices but you can try to not spend money on unwanted luxurious things, save money and wait for the situation to get back normal.
nigeria needs to find a good balance between making stuff and using stuff because right now, there are more people using things than making them. It's also really important for Nigeria to keep its food safe and secure. to do that, Nigeria should make plans like storing extra food in special places to make sure there's always enough to eat.

That right and It's sad that this status was declared in the midst of soaring prices and hunger. I think the weakening of the currency has contributed to putting pressure on the cost of living in Nigeria. So, independent participation is also needed from the community and the government must also continue to work and think about this quickly.

Of course, they know how to reduce the prices, but the major thing which is stopping them from doing so is corruption and their kickbacks. In third-world countries, politicians partner with mafias to earn more money and transfer it to their foreign bank accounts. Everyone in the government is involved in these practices, whether in the government or the opposition. These countries should try to elect leaders who will help the country progress in the long run. 

I am sure that such schemes work even in situations where is no mafia, or where crime is not so developed. Kickback schemes can be implemented at any level, from government organizations to the smallest commercial areas. Together with high inflation, this creates conditions under which prices can only rise, and if not for human greed, and the constant desire to get more, everything could have been different.

I had no idea that the food industry in Nigeria was government controlled and a monopoly. That is a terrible situation if you ask me. First of all, the government shouldn't be business owners, this might work to a certain extend in communist countries, but long term this is not going to lead to competitive and profitable business. One might argue that the food industry is essential and therefore the government should control it, however the government could still control it through regulations and laws and not direct ownership. Private companies operate for a profit and are looking for ways to make their business more profitable, whereas the government employees have no motivation to run a company so efficient. And then there is the whole point of having a monopoly which is really bad, without direct competition they government can charge whatever price they like and are not forced to offer the lowest price possible for the consumers. There is a reason why in most countries’ monopolies are not allowed and companies would be split up if there is a violation of the law. Hopefully Nigeria can raise awareness to that issue and push for a political solution.

It seems it lies down to the human nature. The corrupts remain corrupts unless the righteous member of the society stand for their rights and demand to change. It happened before in my country long ago and it's in the history, The People Power. I wonder if it will happen again. Until what degree do people will tolerate the wrongdoing for the leaders they voted for the first place. Philippines is such a great country. Abundant of nature, resources yet poor leaders.

This problem is worldwide.  Almost everyone suffers from this problem.  Since the time of the corona pandemic, the economy has collapsed all over the world.  It is really sad. Especially it affects the most developing countries.  The increase in the price of goods, the deterioration of the value of money, all these things have upset the human life.  Although the price of everything has increased, but the salary has not increased. Because of this, people are not able to adapt to the current situation.

Everyone wants their country to be led by a good person who has foresight and cares about the country. But how do we know who will be a good leader and what will definitely not be like the old leaders? When they have not yet become leaders, they can be good people to gain recognition and support. But when they become leaders, what guarantees that they will not reveal their true nature or will not change when they hold power and wealth?

Even in developed countries, corruption still exists, and it is certainly worse in third world countries. Corruption comes from human greed and greed is an inseparable part of anyone.

Corruption exists almost in every country but it is surely most prevalent in developing countries (which I suggest we all start using this term because third-world country is a politically incorrect term, it is outdated and considered offensive)  however that doesn't mean we can't do anything regarding ensuring that we are electing those who have good intentions for the betterment of the government and the motherland. Although you have a point that we cannot be 100% sure that the politicians that we are electing will never be corrupt and only have selfish intension once they get their desired position there are certain things we can do to at least have a bit of confidence that the people who choose to lead us are capable of their tasks and responsibilities as leaders, an example is researching their backgrounds and knowing what have they already accomplished as public servants and political leaders; knowing their political platforms are also a plus.

That's right, moreover we have to know the track record of the candidate we are going to vote for, such as the track record in the organizations we follow, both official institutions and socio-political institutions. Has the candidate ever committed deviations that harmed many people or carried out activities that enriched himself or people in his environment to the detriment of other people or many people?
because of a good track record, it is likely that the prospective leader will be a good leader and understand what society wants or needs. And it is also important to know the personal attitudes and behavior that are visible in the candidate's daily life. It is not easy to do this research because winning will be determined by many people who may not only have one choice and there will also be games for those who don't care and will choose because of money, and this is a commonplace thing that will continue to exist.

Well, the country has a very unstable economy right now with the value of its currency reducing day after day, true. Anyways, this may be some of the causes and ways to reduce the prices of goods in Nigeria ;

Well, you must first understand that the prices of goods and services are influenced by the movements of demand and supply in the country, and anything that affects these two affects the prices.

Firstly, the monetary policy in the country is terrible and isn't updated. There's an increase in the supply of money that a lot of people are unwilling to save and they spend every day, leading to more reduction in its value. Another thing that leads to this would be the increase in burrowing rates, increase in wages, profits, and many others. You see it's like a cycle that goes on and on.

Secondly, the insecurities. The Ukraine-Russia war affected the prices of goods, oil, etc. Even in Nigeria itself, there is no security, and people can't produce in such an environment. 

Thirdly, production is low. People tend to import more, and since the cost of importing is high due to the reduction of the value of the currency, they would increase the prices of goods brought down to the consumers.

Now to reduce the prices of goods, the government and most importantly the people would have to
Save and invest, implement and follow monetary and fiscal policies that are effective, resolve insecurity problems... Solving the subsidy issue would be extremely helpful, provide good infrastructures for manufacturers, and reduce the cost of production, which would help increase the quantity and quality of domestic goods instead of depending on imported goods

Law of supply and demand is the first thing that would come to mind when talking about the price of stuff. If you want to cheapen things out, especially commodities like food items and perishables, you gotta make them or produce them more than what you would normally. This would create a surplus supply, and in order to make sure it sells out you'd drop the price of the goods which will be great for the people. Another would be the price of oil. Should we find a way to effectively rollback the price of oil and fuel, logistics wouldn't be so expensive anymore which is also one of the primary factors why produce is so expensive, with a cheaper transportation fee, vendors can sell these goods at a cheaper rate.

Unfortunatelly when the good in question is food, it's hard to apply law of supply and demand rationally. Everyone needs food to survive in a matter of every few hours, at least. Therefore, there is a constant unstoppable demand for it. Moreover, it's not that simple to produce your own food if you don't have the necessary tools and enough space, besides having a central authority controlling the flux of food coming in and out, so the supply is really limited. This is the recipe for disaster, and unless citizens find a creative way to bypass the government's overcontrol, there is nothing to do besides paying a high price to survive or starving till death.

All the politicians who have led us and are still leading us, were chosen that way, no one can be stupid enough to vote for a leader we hate or think is harmful to the country. And governments have changed through many presidents, but until now, what people have always said about the government is that it is corrupt, selfish and does not bring any benefit to the people. I have not seen anyone spreading good things about the government and thanking their government. I believe those are the same leaders we elected. I believe you have voted many times for politicians you trust, but are you satisfied with your vote?

There are many corrupt leaders in the world that are exploiting the natural resources of their country.
It's just sad that because of them, instead of having a great progress to make their countries being a developing country going to being a first world.
There's a delay why it happens, reducing the price of goods is like a dream come true that's not going to happen with these type of leaders.

However, government should support farmers with the necessary and basic equipment, the government have a big role to play.
Organizing entrepreneurship programms, teaching people on how to start little business, organizing serminer programs for farmers on how to take care of their crops such as plantain farm, yam farming and how to rear chickens, fish, because I believe agricultural can play a viltal role in stopping inflation

Politicians always come to power by popular vote, but this is not the case in all countries. In a country where the law and justice system is strong, people's opinions and votes are valued, but where there is no such thing as justice and law, politicians come to power on the basis of power and wealth instead of votes. In some countries, politicians are elected through various rigging methods. In such a case you will see many infamous politicians who are hated by the people, but are in power, because they are more powerful than the law.

How can the people find an honest politician in a country where the purpose of politics is to do corruption and the purpose of politics is to steal people's money. When the whole system is corrupt then who will you vote for, of course you have to vote for one of these corrupt politicians, because these corrupt people never allow honest people to come to power.

I think what you said above is also true, where farmers or those who work in other sectors also really hope for an active role from the government in providing financial support in the form of subsidies and equipment assistance to encourage their businesses and efforts so that they do not decline. works in place and is sustainable in the long term.

Monopoly activities are indeed illegal and unhealthy, but there are also negative impacts that are also felt indirectly, namely the potential loss of jobs in the process, which is exactly the same as what @Text means if I look at it from that point of view.

Why would anyone expect politicians to be any different in a world where money and power are in charge? Votes may count in nations with robust legal systems, for sure. But let's face it, in many situations, it comes down to who has bigger resources and a stronger hand

What if all politicians are dishonest and only differ in acting ability? Perhaps the people we believe to be sincere are simply better at acting sincere. Who do you choose when the entire system is completely corrupt? one of two options is better? Or do you simply throw in the towel and concede that politics is nothing more than a game in which the house always prevails?

That shows signs of a greedy and corrupt government. You don't just take something that has to do with a whole nation and give it all to one person to control, it's very bad. They are just filling their pockets and making things hard for the poor masses.

I think this is something that is done by the governments of each country, including in my country too. However, recipients of subsidies and assistance from the government must also use the assistance where they need it, lest they use it for other things or sell it for money. Because the intention of the government to help them as poor people is to run their business smoothly so that they can continue to produce harvests from their own agriculture so they also have to look after it well for their own lives.

Bad activities should actually be eliminated if the government still really cares about the welfare of its people. Because the government, apart from having to be able to create good potential for its people, must also be able to maintain every activity that is good for its people and continue to follow up on activities that are not good for agriculture and its people.

In the country I live in, corruption has been a constant thing to deal with. During elections, people will often side with political candidates who promise a good government with no stain of corruption and it will seem as if the people will believe that they are the ones who often win and get the position. However, we all know that that's not how it usually goes, deep down all of us have a silent understanding that no matter who wins there will still be corruption present. Hence, the only thing we can do is to vote for the one who is more likely to at least still do their job right and have at least an ounce of care for the country and its people.

Essentially, if you have no choice but to choose between two corrupt candidates, choose the one who at least knows what their responsibility is and is doing their job rather than the one who only gets the money and have no care of their responsibilities.

You have a point there, mate. As long as money and power rule the world, greed and corruption will always exist in every person and every government. What you said reminds me of presidential elections in the United States, where politicians also raise money for their presidential campaigns and the person who receives the most donations has a chance to win higher. Money is something that is ingrained in our blood, so it will be difficult to find people who do not put money first and think of the interests of everyone. We can do nothing but accept and adapt.

There would always be Monopoly and there is nothing that anyone can do about it. Monopoly in itself is not bad as it helps to balance out all the aspects of the economy. Other parts of the economy should develop as fast as Monopoly can it will give it. For a particular product that has been monopolized there's always a better option out there or a better way to bring down that one. Monopoly would help it competitors to be able to think outside the box and use innovative strategies to win the market favourite

It depends mate, if it's the same in Nigeria then it is not good. The monopolies can set the price, they make life difficult for the consumers. The government should make a move and not let it have a single distributor to avoid the current market situation in Nigeria. This becomes the main reason why they set the price as they want as they are the only ones who can give supply to the mass.

If the government establishes multiple sellers and does not let a single one set the price and keeps on raising the price, then that will start a competition, there will be different pricing and marketing efforts, and competing at the lowest price in the market will start.

Hard to combat this activities done by certain corporation especially if they have connections from those corrupt politicians since we cannot really see this solve since everything will be manipulated in favor on their side. Maybe the only thing we can do for us not to get affected for the price rise of certain goods is to find another source that can generate us an income. Other option which need proper cooperation by citizens is to select those good leaders that cannot be easily manipulated by oligarch since maybe they can do a counter actions towards the economic abuse made by those greedy businessman.

We know that this is a problem on almost all of countries so we need good leaders here to step up, if we always put those people who's not fit in the position then I guess this current cycle will remain the same and we can't see any good changes on our economy, also low income earners will get badly hit for those unwanted actions that they possibly planning to do.

On business side we can see big companies buying successful businesses of their competitors and they do that just to eliminate these people and make their business alive. This actions should be forbidden by the law since this is how monopoly of goods and services starts.

The price of food rises due to some factors which also include the fuel factor. So, the government doesn't want food subsidies and removes them. In this way, the price of food increases in a country. Also, the wars between different countries affect it, and as we have seen in the Russia and Ukraine wars, we can say this would be also a factor affecting the food prices.

Another thing is the interior system of a country and the political issues in the country. So, the political crises between politicians also affect the interior prices in a country, whether that is food prices or that is other different things prices in a country. As the competition is going more and more day by day, it would be difficult to maintain all these situations.

The government can take action against distributors who manipulate food prices, the government even has to subsidize food prices for the poor, if the government is pro-people it will try to eradicate distributors who are protected by corrupt officials. However, Nigeria is not the only country experiencing this problem, many other countries are extorting people, they are raising fuel prices and food prices. Many high-ranking officials own companies, they will set up companies for sole production and make it difficult to grant permits to other companies to eliminate market competitors.

The main key to overcoming the problems above lies in the leaders, so that every election we must be careful in selecting leaders to carry out the mandate to lead the next 5 years, with the hope that there will be pro-people leaders throughout the world and people's lives will be prosperous.

I agree with your statement. The market doesn't seem centralized. Although I'm not in the agricultural sector, but from my observations, money can set up a very large farm able to supply huge amount of food to the society. They're still cheap foods. Increase in demand increase in price. Decrease in demand decrease in price. Decrease in price increase in demand. The market is controlled by the buyers and sellers using price as a tool. The expensive foods, are most served food in the country. Almost every household or restaurant must serve or eat such food. Rice is common in Africa and the price keeps increasing. Foods like cocoyam is not quite common and not served in most households. That makes it cheaper than rice. The money used in purchasing a bag of rice can purchase a whole lot of cocoyam. I'd say that the perishable foods are cheaper than non perishable foods. Due to the low supply of electricity in some parts of Africa. They cannot preserve perishable goods that's why they go for non perishable goods like rice. Thereby increasing the price of such foods; rice, beans, garri etc. Since, these foods are going back to a diminishing return, due to much farmers and consumers focusing mainly on such food. Its production gets difficult, and Africans hardly get a diminishing return on a utility. They'll never get tired of eating rice. Hence, if they'll want to reduce the price of a commodity like rice. A good number of the citizens should stop eating rice. The price is controlled by the seller and the buyer. Not just the seller. The buyer can decide to give the utility a break. Such can't be found, in some food. If people get encouraged to eat some extincted foods, they'll still get them cheaper. Perishable foods like Potatoes sell for a very cheap amount because the production is higher than the demand. The problem with the people is that they've given all authority to the government, that they forget to figure out their roles in changing the society.

It's sad that politicians will campaign and promise heaven on earth, they will get people's heart and support, later win the election, they will swear to fulfill promises and promise to do their work with dignity, faith, spirit and mind only to come and be playing mind games with the people, they will go there and loot tax that are intended for the public purpose.

Bad leaders are not only a catastrophe to the economy, they completely destroyed the economy and when the next person get there, it becomes a dead tree that will be hard to bring back to life. If he try and the cabals don't agree with him, they become weaker and loot more from the national reserve. God have mercy on politicians. 

The number of producers are limited and the demand is high and the supply is limited and that is why it is expensive because one part of the market is suffering, if there is a balance between demand and supply then the price will be moderate and much more affordable for people. If anything should affect the price of fuel then every other thing will be affected because of transportation and fuel price is even increasing everywhere so there is still a problem that needs attention. If not attended to then we are not ready to address this issue.

It always falls down about that basic or common law of supply and demand on which if the demand is high but the supply is less then expect that good would really be that expensive but if the demand is low but the supply is high then expect that it would be cheap but we know that there are instances or scenarios on which prices are really that high even the supply is just right just because there are those brokers or distributors or simply with those businessman who do really tend to choke up the supply just to make it look that there's a lack of supply on which they are hoarding it off and on the time that the price is increasing then
this is the time  that they would be unloading those things and making that huge profit out of those method. This is why we do have government sectors on which it would really be that monitoring market
price because of these possible kind of doing or activity which it would really be making things even more worst and they are really just that minding with their own benefit instead on trying out to help the economy.

You as an individual pondering this question have zero impact on the massive supply chains that exist to move products around the world, you are at the mercy of the trade winds which are set by far more powerful people. There are too many factors to contemplate and the interactions between all the different commodities is almost unfathomable to grasp. You just have to look out for ways that you as an individual can make best use of the resources you have to make the situation better for you. Unless you're a high level politician in your country, and even if you are, you're unlikely to make the slightest dent on the prices of goods around you. Simply adapt to the current situation as best you can.

The problem of increasing transportation costs is very often the cause and this is very clearly influenced by the increase in fuel prices so that it also has an impact on increasing prices for all other goods that are often consumed by all people. This really needs to be given better attention by the government because I am sure that not all people are ready to face this unbalanced economic situation in the long term. Moreover, the core of the problem has also been well detected, namely the increase in fuel prices in each country.

government actually already knows this, this is why many government around the world always subsidizes the use of diesel fuel because most of transportation that these goods uses are using diesel engine, but sometime it still increase in term of price because you know there might be some special cases like when the corona virus spreads, despite the fact that the oil price isn't increasing, many people are hoarding foods, in which in turn increase the price quite high, but funnily enough once there are no hoarder, the price isn't decreasing, thats just taking advantage of the situation.
honestly such thing needs government intervention to not making the price of food and goods increase.

 Actually, you made a point, but if you view the situation in Niger now, you will see that even in the northern part of Nigeria, some people are still complaining of hunger, which is a result of the cost of consumable food because most farmers leave in rural areas, so the transportation from their various farms to the city makes the food more expensive due to the amount of fuel.And I can testify that food products are usually transported to the eastern part of Nigeria because I have a friend who engaged in the business, but when this high cost of fuel started, he stopped because he was complaining bitterly that he was just losing and not gaining anything. What I can say is that let's put more effort into producing farm produce and other consumable products to eradicate hunger in Nigeria.

Even though this topic is not on the Naija local board, we should try to understand the problems of our country and find solutions to them.

As corruption continues, expect that everything in the market are expensive. This is not just happening to your country OP but the rest of the countries are experiencing the same scenario. While we are struggling with our finances just to get everything our basic needs, those corrupt leaders are enjoying their profits, one reason why the country no matter how the citizens do their responsibilities, still the country is not in progress because every anomaly starts within the government itself.

I think the prices of goods and commodities, even food items being influenced by the forces of demand and supply is rational. If a demand for a product is constantly increasing over time and the supply not being able to match it, there would be an increase in price. It’s only logical.
You also actually don’t need a space the size of two football fields nor the latest farming equipment to plant foods for personal consumption.

This doesn’t diminish the importance of food but It may surprise you that a well hydrated human body can survive for about two to three weeks without having anything to eat.

The current situation of high price of food is not cause by only one factors, and I think this situation keeps getting worse,  the only thing people needs to do is to cut of their standard of living to meet up this hard time we are facing right now, and if their is a way where some crops can be planted around out houses it will also help to reduce the money been spent on food. The way the price of food is going their is nothing common citizens can really do to reduce the price, people just need to think about the best way they can manage their money to survive to afford the high price of food in the market in this tough economy.

It would be good if the government takes steps to distribute food. If the government pays well to the farmers in the agriculture sector, then surely the food producers will be able to produce food. Moreover, if the government supports them financially, there will be improvement in agriculture and food shortage will be eliminated. Moreover, the government should take more steps to provide farmers with seeds, fertilizers, and irrigation to grow crops, only then it is possible to eliminate food shortage. If a government takes all these steps for its country in the field of agriculture, then surely the country will not lack food and can prosper.

You are right, the Nigerian government are the major problem of the country. They are encouraging the monopoly because they are major share holders in those companies. The public funds they are looting are being invested there, so giving others license will spoil their show for them. 

It's not about the difficulty of food production; it's a matter of market monopoly. Increasing production won't address the pricing issue because the core problem lies in a market controlled by a single entity. What usually occurs are threats and strong trade politics when a monopoly is in play. Anyone attempting to challenge this monopoly's existence will be swiftly dealt with by the market dominator, by any means necessary.

The government should intervene in the market by providing subsidized food to prevent market abuse. They can also become the primary supplier of food to the public at fair prices. When trade competition thrives, a nation's economy flourishes. Thus, to confront a monopoly, the essential step is to nurture new competitors, starting with strong legal backing from the government.

In addition to this, Inflation makes it worsen since fiat value decreasing overtime due to it’s unlimited supply so the increase on the goods price double or more in addition to the scarcity due to the law of supply and demand.

this is why even there’s a balance supply and demand in the market, The price keep increasing every year due to this fiat shit that cause inflation to everything since we are exchanging all our goods to a piece of paper that doesn’t have real value backing it but only trust.

Since the demands for goods is high,the price of that goods tends to increase vigorously  and this happens when inflation occurs.
There can be a Competitive markets as well probably if the government play a vital role in the market sector rather than leaving it for  a sole distributor.
And I'm sure there's a way to reduce  this price,cause one's a particular goods is being increased the tendency of taking it back to the normal price is a hard job and I believe the market is experiencing a competitive aspect  but one thing that has handed it down is the existence of inflation which we ought to know how to tackle before that.

As per your statement, they can easily manage to manipulate the number of foods they can hoard as much as they want, we know how does the government have power for the economy reason why some of community or even country fails to manage properly and the people will suffer with this greediness. You cannot reduce this if the government doesn't take any action else you will do something like make your own plantation of the resources you need its more cheaper than buying those into malls and market.

Inflation is the biggest factor influencing price increases, and as we know the government always has difficulty avoiding inflation, and the direct impact on society is a decrease in purchasing power which of course will have an impact on many things, such as the production process piling up and not being sold. And I think the best thing to do is increase income.

Often we get to see a viral video in which a farmer and a corporate sits next to each other and sell vegetables. The corporate quotes a higher price whereas the farmer sells at a lower price. At some point the corporate guy buys everything from the farmer at the quoted price and he further double the price and sell the vegetables. This is what happening in reality, the producer doesn't get anything, the profit is eaten by the corporate. We need to be self reliant to cultivate what is necessary, only then it is possible to fulfill our food needs in the future. Because, the involvement of corporate into food industry isn't big, soon this will go high and everyone needs to be under their control.

To me I think that a government that is really working and have the feeling of citizens in the heart will try the possible best to do something about reduction of price in the market.  When prices of things keeps going up it shows how incompetent the government is , for every inflation the government is to be blame expecially when their is nothing that can be done about  it.

In this case the only thing people needs to do is to double their income to be able to afford the high cost of things in the market or to go into agriculture products which will help in providing some good products.

Your taking about distribution and producing as a whole but these are 2 distinct channels that exists within a system.

Looking at the channel of distinction, you get to look at first the Producer(s) > Distributor(s) > Retailer(s) and > Consumers. These channels exists within the phases of production until the goods gets to its targeted customer or consumer.
These doesn’t erase the fact that, there could be monopoly within the system but, I don’t know of any law in Nigeria that hinders any business entity, capable of production from producing.
In fact, the opposite is observed as government try to put facilities in place to encourage business entities and individuals, capable of any form of production that would enrich the goods/services within the nation and in turn, help boost the depleting economy of Nigeria.

Every government has its own rules and regulations, in some countries, there will be no ban on these businessmen while in some countries they have some policies due to that they don't want to make happen in their country. Another one is inflation, I have seen some countries where their inflation rate is too high nowadays and they are taking loans from other countries but in the past, they had loans from other countries. It also affects the country badly and its economics as well. Every Government should be aware of their people. Closing eyes will never make countries able to achieve big things.

Monopoly has more negative sides than positive ones, however, it also has positive ones. Let's start with the first ones. Monopoly means that the manufacturer or management has no competition, it means that the quality of services or products will probably not develop, because no one will be able to overtake you by providing a better service. The positive side is that if the monopoly is reasonable, then it allows you to create an order and a quality bar, but this is a rare phenomenon.

A concerned government will do everything they can to reduce the price of goods. They've got good economic experts that they'll task to do what's right.
And it's a domino effect that wherein an exact sector of the economy should be adhere to solve this problem of increase price of goods.

While that's true, it's also due to the global rising of goods and that's also causing the most of the countries higher inflation rate.

An increase in energy prices which would in turn, affect the transportation of goods and raw materials could very well have a hand in the rise in the prices of goods. But I doubt it’s often the cause of rise in prices. Not trying to downplay the fact that cost of transportation could also affects prices but money spent in the purchase of raw materials as well as the actual production costs are more likely to affect the prices of goods.



Monopoly in the market has just one advantage to the consumer that I can think of. Stable prices of goods. Without a healthy competition, there wouldn’t be much use to be innovative. Companies wouldn’t have much interest in increasing the standard and quality of goods produced and would be more focused on increasing the quantity, hence the stable prices.
Monopoly in the market is not good as the sole organization that enjoys monopoly would be raking in profits at the expense of the consumer.

I believe that increase in energy prices affect so many sector that it sometime affects the price of goods much more than anticipated, there are many cases where quite literally a small amount of increase could affect the overall price of goods tremendously but when the price of energy is decreasing the price of these goods aren't reducing instead they just stay.
thats the silly thing with current pricing of many goods, even more so with basic needs.
there is reason why many country always on the lookout of the price of the fuel, to prevent much more inflation from seeping into their economy.

You're on to something enormous, truly enormous. Energy prices are the economic system's pulse. When they rise, it causes actual shockwaves to ripple through every industry. and products? Oh, don't even start with the stuff. A minor increase in energy causes the price of things to suddenly and dramatically rise. But do the prices of these things also decrease when energy prices fall? They don't, though. They simply sit there, taking advantage of the elevated position

Businesses strive to make the most money possible in this crazy environment. And I do understand. But it's the common man who feels the pinch. Countries are wise; they constantly monitor fuel prices. They know the domino effect it can have. Inflation is like a shadow that is constantly on the prowl. We must constantly be alert, ready, and organized. We must make sure that everyone benefits from the economy, not just the major players. Let's control those costs so that everyone has a better future

Food prices are very high in my country, I think it is mainly due to the high cost of various transports and the rise in oil prices which is causing the food prices to rise. Moreover, due to higher consumption of petrol or electricity in various factories and various machines for food preparation, everything increases in price. So the charges of all the products reach a high level as it takes expensive cost to manufacture them. But if the government takes good steps in agriculture, then the price of food items can come down, but the government is unable to take such steps. For which food prices are constantly increasing, and charges are being increased with all kinds of products. And in order to bring the food prices under control, the crops must be grown in the land first and the farmers have to take good steps only then it is possible to bring the high food prices under control.

Quite a lot depends on the executive power in the country. If the country's economy has signs of capitalism, in which private producers of the food industry have benefits and there is no strict supervision over them, then control over the situation is needed. Private traders love to inflate the prices of their products and they don't care about ordinary people. At the same time, the only ones who can prevent them are the regulatory authorities on the part of the state. And it is important that such private owners do not have a monopoly, because with a monopoly there is no competition and no price ceiling. Such a manufacturer can inflate prices as much as necessary.

The cost and price of things are determined by the rule of supply and demand. Due to a small number of sellers or producers, commodities are more expensive where there is little competition. However, when there are plentiful supply, the market becomes unrestricted and prices drop. Less supply being maintained due to hoarding can affect the availability of commodities. The government should keep an eye on this matter, but if hoarders continue to operate secretly, the situation will worsen, harming both customers and government workers.

The price of goods has massively inflated because of the mismanagement of economies by our governments. COVID was disastrous for the world economy & they tackled it by mindless money printing which caused a ripple effect of unprecedented inflation. We are on the verge of a 2008 style financial apocalypse. Something will break soon & only then will prices go down.

I really hate monopoly in business, I really condemn it, in my country there are several individuals who can sell fertilizer and they manipulate fertilizer prices at will so that the prices of basic necessities such as rice, onions, vegetables and sugar continue to increase in price because prices fertilizer continues to increase even though fertilizer is produced smoothly and easily by them. the government must go directly to the field to control prices, I really praise the government for supporting the small businesses of its citizens, it is rare to find officials who care about the fate of their citizens.

Monopoly has a great effect on price of commodity. In a monopoly system, price of a product can be raised anyhow without worrying about the actions of competitors. A perfect competitive market can help to reduce the effect of monopolist on price of goods and services.

Seeing your topic, I thought you want to share some tips on how to reduce the price of goods but felt disappointed after reading the post but it doesn't matter but your post is incomplete without you mentioning the specific areas where one person is sole distributor. Undoubtedly, price of goods have significantly increased but it's due to some factors and not the reason you gave above. In fact, I don't think there's any sector in Nigeria where one person is the sole distributor. Business is open to everyone and you can carryout your business as long as you have the means.

Going back to main discussion, the cost of food in Nigeria is attributed to over reliance on importation for staple crops like rice and wheat. Although, Nigeria has been working to increase domestic production of these crops, but it still relies heavily on imports despite the heavy and huge amount they're spending on agriculture. This reliance on imports can be affected by global economic conditions like changes in the exchange rate of the Nigerian naira as well as global supply chain disruptions.

To reduce this cost, government should invest in domestic production and work on the infrastructural development like roads for easier transportation of farm produce. This practice will definitely help to check on the price of foods and other commodities.

To reduce the price of foods, we should reduce also the corrupt politicians that enables monopoly in the economy.

We cannot simply reduce the price of goods if we lack in power, voice, and action. Let's admit the fact that the government we have don't care about it's country and citizens as long as they are getting what they want, money, of course. They want the power to control the society, to steal money from their people's taxes. I must say that this world we live in is hopeless, we only want power, money, and more money.

May God save us all.

I agree with you, those who cause the price of goods to increase are those who monopolize the market for the benefit of a group of people and this is done by those who have power, they are very greedy and never think about the community at large, they only care about themselves. There needs to be an improvement in the government system to be able to think about the fate of the people because they can get salaries from the taxes that have been imposed on the community. It would be better if they used their policies which have benefits for the community, not only prioritize a group of people who hold power.

Monopoly is something that often happens in the market and for that reason the prices of goods continue to rise uncontrollably. Distributors always try to control the market and they try to store products and sell them when goods become scarce, so that in the end prices increase and are out of control. Sometimes they play leverage to try to take advantage of opportunities because when they are successful in entering the market and setting prices then it becomes easier for them. What's strange is that they actually got this influence after making deposits to certain parties and still they escaped the monitoring of the relevant parties.

In my country fertilizer is always monopolized by distributors and this fertilizer is a necessity for farmers to support the agricultural sector. When the fertilizer becomes increasingly scarce on the market because it has been sold out, they will try to release the fertilizer to the market and sell it at uncontrolled prices. Our government always tries to provide solutions, but the monopoly mafia still continues to do that and quite difficult to eradicate.

In my opinion, such rulers are associated with a nation whose people become insensitive and prefer personal interest over collective interest. Where cruelty and injustice are common, and instead of uniting against cruelty and injustice, people start supporting the oppressors, there such thieves and cruel rulers rule. However, we should never despair, the people are also the source of real power. I think one of the main reasons for this is that people don't realize their power.

If the people whom we bring to power do not care about the people, then the biggest responsibility rests on the people to hold such people accountable. If the people are united, these corrupt politicians can never come to power, but it is a pity that these corrupt politicians divide our people. Using the same divide and rule formula, they impose their arbitrary decisions on us.

Food prices are high not only in Nigeria but there are many countries in the world where food prices have doubled. And even here in the country where I live the prices of food items and various commodities have been rising and relatively doubling and more. As the people of the country are currently facing this problem, they are not able to buy food properly and are suffering from food problems and are suffering from various diseases. If they have to eliminate such problems, then the government must take steps so that the people of the country do not suffer from food shortages and diseases. When a person falls ill due to lack of food and dies as a result, it is the government of a country that is responsible. Where the government does not know how to take proper care of the people of the country, then the government should contribute the most because the country does not need that government.  And we know a country basically the government can change a lot if they help the farmers a little bit, they will produce food in the land and can eliminate food shortage a lot. But here the farmers must pay the government so that they can produce good crops and eliminate food shortages only then a country will not have food shortages.

Prices of goods can't be low without lowing the corruption.Here are many leader which disappear  money from public money. Politics is major reason of  inflation.When one leader  give comfort the  public , opponents can't bear this ,then they stand hurdles against it and they think that if he give relief to the public ,then all public will be with him.As a result, inflation increases every 
year.Inflation also depends on landlords ,when they hide goods from  public ,then prices of things increases and then things are imported from other country . Imported items are taxed things and foreign country get benefit from this and it sell things to any country .The country whose economy is strong,the reason is only more exporting.The country whose economy is weak because of more importing.

In many countries of the world, the price of food products has increased at a great rate.  Due to which it has become very difficult for middle class and low income people to run a family. I think the most beneficial way to bring down the price of goods is to tighten the law system in the country. Because of the weakness of the law various types of unfair activities take place in the country and businessmen are able to syndicate. And by stocking the product, the price of the product is increased rapidly, only if they are stopped, the price of the product will decrease

Every country has set up a strict legal system to prevent hoarding of goods, exports and other legal regulations, efforts to determine laws to provide justice to society and prevent the impact of high inflation. However, the country's legal system is not implemented properly, the government and businessmen can ignore the law to profit from the impact of inflation, they don't care about the economic conditions of the people and their role seems to be on the side of the people, but they open up space for exports without prioritizing the needs of local communities to reduce inflation . The government and businessmen are the main subjects that must be reviewed if your country has failed to improve the people's economy.

Even if there is a legal system, it is meaningless if it is not implemented. To ensure applicability, the control mechanism must work. The biggest problem is lack of control. When an inspection is carried out, necessary work is carried out and penalties are imposed on those who increase the prices of goods more than normal.

Another issue is that penalties are not deterrent enough. A company that makes a lot of profit because it increases prices continues to do its job to the detriment of society when it is inspected and fined by the state. Because the amount of penalties is not large enough to be a deterrent.

More perfect market competition can also be created by the government with the help of traders who do not like the monopoly system itself. Because when a system generally only benefits one party or certain parties, it is appropriate for the local government to eradicate it in order to create more normal and perfect market competition. Because a small part of society's difficulties arise from unreasonable or abnormal increases in the prices of goods and services over an uncertain period of time.

One of the major problems of Nigeria is corruption and if that do not stop, things might get worse with time. The government had no plan to help her citizens and that have brought a great delema to the price of food and other products. The Nigerian currency is falling almost everyday to dollar and this is making the price of goods to become expensive making the locals and employees that are not earning enough to suffer. There are problems that needed to be resolved by the government herself especially corruption to live easy for people.

It is imperative for the government to take action to eliminate the prevailing market monopoly. This would undoubtedly alleviate the suffering of the populace, as the pricing dynamics become less competitive. Monopoly not only drives prices higher than they should be but also compromises the quality of products, resulting in goods circulating in the market that appear overpriced yet lack in quality.

If the government fails to safeguard emerging competitors, the monopolizing entities will persist in their attacks against new entrants. This, unequivocally, disrupts the market equilibrium and ultimately harms the well-being of the community.

The government bears a significant responsibility for market monopolies. Every citizen has the right to offer their products, fostering healthy competition among goods and services. This not only fuels economic growth but also enhances the welfare of the people, as trade competition yields the best products at more reasonable prices.

I am not very informed on how things work in Nigeria or other countries of Africa, though if anything you are implying is factual, then I would not be surprised if there is an increase in the price of food in your country.
In my personal point of view, the best way to decrease the price of food and other vital goods is to boost the production of those goods through the invitation of several companies or industries to produce within the country.
There will be people who is not in the favor of the private sector having the power of such important industry like the food industry is. That was the case in my country, the government tried to have the monopoly of the food production but in the end did not tried to eliminate the private sector completely.

Either you are in for private sector or for a strong government, the key word is production and efficiency.

And i could say that this is some sort of problem that cant really be that easily be resolved due to several factors on which we know that it would really be just that depending on the government and on how its been handled but there are really situations or stuffs that government couldnt really be able to make such act or involvement considering that not all good prices would really be just basing on being monopolized
which we know that there are really goods which are really that being imported due to lack of supply. Tending to create such industry on increasing the supply? Yes its possible its not something that
would really be that cheap and does really need up that budget and it would really be totally be depending on what are the actions would really be taken by the government in correlation to this.

The government must be responsible for this, they must issue policies to be able to control the price of goods to remain stable so that people do not have difficulty in getting their needs, if the government cannot control this, they have truly committed a crime against their people because they do not care about their people who are in trouble. In meeting the needs of the community, they have to work hard to get their needs, while the government only thinks about itself and its family.

Yes, actually there is no other way to reduce the price of the goods if there are only a few goods providers, therefore business competition is also one way for prices to be able to compete so that consumers buy.
Yes bringing in private private companies is also one of the good actions to increase the production of goods, so that the supply of goods will be able to reduce market prices, but it will be difficult if the government makes it difficult for foreign entrepreneurs in doing business in the country, and I think because local companies already have Affiliates with the local government, so that the local company conducts monopoly is also not concerned about the government, so it will be very cruel that the local entrepreneurs to pressure the government to complicate foreign entrepreneurs who want to compete with them.

We can reduce the price of particular goods by allowing and motivating different production companies to produce those goods in large quantities, there should be a price regulatory agency, their function should be felt, and their duty should be effective, a country like Nigeria doesn't is affected today by the high price of good goods because if lack of production and high cost of production and logistics, the food industry is not adequately handled, we keep on hearing we are going to do this or that all are in vain, in our locality people are ready to contribute their quota but the discouragement from the Government and private sector has made it almost impossible to achieve this mile stone. 

The price regulatory agency in Nigeria is not functional.  Yea, I am not ignorant of the fact that the cost of getting raw materials for production are high, coupled with other factors that might give rise to increase in prices of goods and services but I have seen cases where traders deliberately hoard their goods and cause artificial scarcity. With this, they are sure of increasing the prices of their products because they know people will buy at all costs because they don't have other options.

The festive period is near. Just as it has always been every year, the prices of clothings and foodstuffs will skyrocket for no reason and the regulatory agencies are quite about it. If these agency was actually functional,  illegal hoarding and artificial scarcity will stop. The prices will be stable to some extent.

One thing I know about developing countries is that it's always difficult to do business there as a start-up. With the high cost of living and high cost of production, small businesses can't survive, allowing big businesses to monopolize the market. And since they've monopolized the market, they get to sell at whatever price they want.
Even if a few businesses try to survive, they can't offer better prices because they won't be able to compete if they don't increase prices because of the high cost of production.

So what the government needs to do is support small businesses. This is a way would be like subsidizing prices because when there is competition, the price would be moderated.

Also, I just checked and Nigeria has an inflation rate of about 25%. That is a pretty high figure. So aside from the monopoly, the price of goods is going to be high in a system like that.
The currency has depreciated, so for businesses to make any money, they have to increase the prices of their commodity.

No you're wrong, there's a reason for the skyrocketing of the food and clothing during this coming months and you've said it already which is the nearing of the festive period and if you elaborated on that part, you would understand that during the festive seasons, people are buying gifts and other stuff to celebrate a lot of holidays which is going to be a lot of demands which as we all know is going to increase the price of products. One thing that I know that can reduce the price of goods is deflation which is the opposite of inflation and it's not a good sign too because that could mean there's no growth in the economy which I think is also bad for the country.

Of course there's other ways to solve this issue but it's going to be difficult because reduction in prices of basic goods or even the general stuff would mean that you're going to cut down the prices you're paying the producers which they're not going to like the idea because then they will be the one that's shouldering the brunt of expenses in production which is going to get bigger because they're getting little profit and the raw materials are not getting cheaper.

Nigerians have been grabbing with the rise in prices of essential goods and services for almost a year now. The increase in transportation costs, including fuel prices, has also had a domino effect. The Nigerian food prize is the highest in 17 years. While the global rise in food prices is attributed to COVID and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, In Nigeria, it is also due to bad roads, supply chain glitches, and flooding due to climate change. The government intervention is inadequate, and fertilizer costs are too high. This cost of food items is astronomically high and is affecting the living costs of Nigerians.

The Government to be fully involved so that any law enacted will be enforced accordingly, for the price of good to be reduced, there are so many things in which the government have to consider for this to be a success,
The government has to order banks to give loan to food production companies that are in need of it, there should be constant electricity, this will help this companies to function very well without sourcing for alternative sources of electricity which might cost them more expenses, domestic gas, pms and diesel should be available, accessible and affordable for the production firms that need any of them to function, locally raw materials that's is used by this companies should always be made available so that production will be enough to satisfy human consumption, with this step I think production will be enough and more companies will produce more, give license to many production firms to produce different and same goods in other to maintain monopolistic competition.

Amid the growing economic strain of the pandemic, the prices of daily essentials have risen and are continuing to rise in markets in low-income countries. Officially, different steps can be taken in different countries. Most of the time, US dollars are used for buying goods in the international market. Due to the increase in the value of the dollar, there is a dollar crisis in low-income countries, so the government has to take steps to reduce the price of goods. Even if the price of the product does not increase in the international market, due to the shortage of shipping containers, the importers have to pay more fares, the price of the fruit products is increasing, so necessary steps should be taken. Internal problems such as poor transport system and extortion, where the prices of domestically produced goods are rising in the market, government action should be taken. Another big problem is the syndicate. It is possible to control the increase in the price of goods through the proper supervision of the government by interfering in the artificial increase in the prices of various quarters. On the one hand, the global supply is less and on the other hand, the price of fuel increases, the government should stand by the people by subsidizing essential products. Then most of the product prices can be brought under control.

I think I only see 3 reasons why it is like that: inflation rates, hoarding of the prices of their goods there, or hyperinflation. It will really have a big impact that is not good for all the people there in the country of Nigeria.

That's why the people there really have no other choice but to find a way to survive the crisis they are currently facing. I know that the situation in Nigeria today is not easy.

  The current inflation is as a result of how the country's economy is, where just one man makes and distributes a good or a service. Now in this scenario, there's no other means to go about acquiring this good or service so the whole country has to turn to this one man. The man has every right to do whatsoever he likes with the product because he doesn't have any fear. He can increase the price or even make it unavailable to consumers. This is more like holding us to ransome.
   In situations where there are many distributors of the same product, competition will set in and everyone will make their price stable depending on the economy because at that point, no one wants to loose his or her customer. This way, the economy will grow because business is taking place daily and there'll be competition too which makes for a more appropriate price of goods and service.

If there is only 1 distributor and others are not allowed, then the only way is to do a demo of it, because there will be no competition and the owner will make whatever price he wants because there is no competition.

someone who controls everything and has no competitors will make prices unreasonable and there will be no development, because there are no competitors the products that will be made will be the same forever, you can see countries like China, USA, Korea, they always innovate because they have competitors tight.
Sometimes the enemy can become a supporter to progress to become better.

Reducing pirates of goods is a sweet dream. In our country if our goods price increase there is no chance to decrease. The government increase price of goods and there is a low supply of the item. But after getting proper supply they forget the old place of the items. There is no chance and nothing to do for reduced of goods price because everything control from government.

In Nigeria, our main problem in price fluctuations is lack of  price regulations agencies. Why will a country that is operating on socialism and capitalism and then someone who is not in his right sense jump out of his bed and then just feel to increase the price of goods and when others find out that there is increment, they jump into the trend without finding out the reason why and this why price of goods are jumping up the way they like, we need this price regulations except the government want to wake up one day and see that the Naira value will be reading hyper inflation.

I'm not sure for some other countries but in US, the expected number of inflation for the month of October was released last week and it was lower than expected and by that, price of items is going to reduce, even if its not that instantly, it will with time but there is one problem of inflation in nigeria. When the price of goods should go up, it doesn't come down again even if the government looks for a solution to protect people, they will never drop that price below, always citing that they have old stock and they will not sell at lower price. Can you imagine that audacity????

That's what oligarchy means. There is no competition, therefore that they all have the right to increase the prices of their products.
Whether they're based locally or internationally, if they want to increase the price, they're all free to do that. That's why in the markets, we all need to see competition because it helps us to have freedom to choose and that also sends down the prices.