The lingering industrial action by Nigerian public universities lecturers (ASUU)  has had ripple effects on escalating food prices and collapse of small businesses.

This was the submission of Job Nmadu, a professor of Econometrics at the Federal University of Technology, Minna.

“One factor contributing to increased prices of food items in Nigeria today is the ASUU strike,” Mr Nmadu asserted on Thursday in an interview.

“People might think it is just students and lecturers that are suffering but it is affecting everyone, particularly communities around our schools that make a living from them.”

The don also blamed the strike for the collapse of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) operating around campuses.

“These businesses have shut down for the past six months that ASUU embarked on strike and it is not funny at all.

“Unfortunately, some of these businesses might never pick up again, contributing to more collapse of SMEs, which is not good for national development,” he said.

He called for an amicable resolution of the impasse between the federal government and ASUU to enable students and lecturers to go back to school.

Mr Nmadu said high cost of production and forces of demand and supply also contributed to the rising cost of food items and business collapse.

“A lot of small scale businesses have closed down because of the high cost of production. About a month ago, we were told that over 40 bakeries closed down in the FCT because of rising costs.

“That means that if we are looking at the supply of bread alone, there has been a reduction in supply and prices will go up because people will scramble for the few supplies,” he said.

(NAN)