Gilbert Ekugbe
The Agricultural Produce Sellers Association of Nigeria (APSAN) has cried out that the mounting of illegal checkpoints to extort money from its members in the Middle Belt is one of the factors responsible for the skyrocketing price of food items.
The National President of APSAN, Mr. Aloys Akortsaha, told THISDAY in a telephone interview that for over 20 years, the incessant extortion has continued to make food prices expensive for the common man in the country.
Akortsaha said that the cost of transporting food commodities from one state to another is far more expensive than the cost of the commodities.
He said: “This is why the prices of commodities are skyrocketing in the country. For instance in Benue State where a lot of agricultural commodities such as yam, groundnut comes from, we have over 200 illegal checkpoints while the Benue State Internal Revenue Service that is saddled with the responsibility of collecting taxes has just about 15 checkpoints.
“Each local government you pass through, you will cross at least over 20 illegal checkpoints. It is a survey we have carried out and these illegal checkpoints were established by the community youths in collaboration with the traditional rulers of the respective communities.”
In his words: “These illegal checkpoints were established to extort money and they are a source of concern for farmers and food security in the country. We have been battling with this extortion for over 20 years and the government is aware of this. We have taken this fight to the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Public Complaints Commission, Inspector General of Police to cooperate with us to fight these illegal checkpoints.”
He said that the extortion from each checkpoint varies, stressing that some illegal checkpoints charged about N100,000 per vehicle
“For instance, they collect as much as N100,000 from Mercedes 911 vehicle while some collects about N50,000. The government is also losing a lot as a result of the operations of these illegal checkpoints.
“We are calling on the attention of the federal government to the operations of these illegal checkpoints. We have met with the Minister of Agriculture and we proposed a task force, which we call ‘Taskforce on Illegal Taxes of Agro Commodities’ that will be looking into this. He is yet to act on it and we want him to expedite actions on the inauguration of this taskforce to address the activities of these illegal checkpoints,” he urged.
