With a week to this year’s Eidel-Kabir celebration, Muslim faithful across Nigeria are lamenting the high cost of ram and other animals permissible for slaughtering even as traders attribute the exponential increase to the economic realities in the country.

Our source gathered that market surveys in Abuja, Lagos, Kwara, and Kano states revealed as much as a 100% increase in the cost of some of the animals, which traders have said affects the volume of trade compared to the previous years.

Muhammadu Sani, who sells rams along Mike Akhigbe Way, Jabi, Abuja, lamented that the prices had jacked up even in the rural areas in the far northern states.

“Last year, a ram selling at N200,000 in the village is now N300,000. You must also feed the ram apart from the high cost of transportation. A sack of animal feed is N8,000 even in rural areas. It was sold at half the price last year. All these costs must be factored in.

“We used to pay N6,000 to N8,000 to ferry a ram from places like Jigawa and Katsina to Abuja. Presently, each ram can cost you not less than N10,000 to be transported to Abuja,’’ he said.

According to him, the lowest price of rams range from N180,000, saying the big ones sell from N500,000 to N700,000.

At the Kubwa Abattoir, the lowest price for a medium size ram is N60, 000 while big-size ones go for as high as N320,000.

At the Abattoir market in Karu, a buyer, Alhaji Yunusa Bello, lamented that he bought a small size ram for N120, 000, saying “I just bought it because there is nothing I can do.”