Tomato Crates Dealers Association of Nigeria and Amalgamated Union of Food Stuff and Cattle Dealers of Nigeria have threatened to cut tomato supply to Lagos State over destruction of their commodities.
The National Chairman, Tomato Crates Dealers Association, Alhaji Ahmed Alaramma, made the threat at a press briefing in Zaria, Kaduna State.
He said the incident that occurred at Oke-Odo market in Lagos, led to the destruction of over 60,000 empty tomato crates.
Alaramma, who is also the National Secretary of Amalgamated Union of Food Stuff and Cattle Dealers of Nigeria, explained that raffia basket was initially used for conveying tomatoes to the South, however, raffia basket caused more damages.
He added that the plastic crates were introduced to mitigate the damage and wastage while conveying fresh tomatoes from the North to Southern parts of Nigeria.
According to him, each empty crate costs N6,000; therefore members lost over N360 million investment.
Alhaji Ahmed Alaramma further appealed to the Federal Government, Lagos State government and other relevant stakeholders to look into this and compensate the association to cushion the effect of the damage.
He said the association was already in touch with its legal team over available legal remedies in the event of unfavourable response from the government. “If nothing is done, we will have no option than to cut supply of tomatoes to Lagos over this incident,” Alaramma said.
Recall that there was a clash in the IleEpo, Abule-Egba area of Lagos State, where hoodlums clashed in the market on Wednesday night and continued till Thursday morning, last week.