This topic is one that should be perceived as a way of educating people to do the right thing other than a debate. I am pretty sure more than half the viewers reading this post would have had an experience or encounter with a vendor that has tried inflating the price of goods, especially ones like fuel, gas, and food, which are often in high demand and the people cannot do without them.
Let me give you all a brief history ⌛:
In the time of the Roman Empire when wars were prevalent and chaos was always in the land, and soldiers were often deployed to fight these wars. Merchants tend to seize this opportunity to raise the prices of goods. As a solution, the Emperor took a drastic step: he issued an Edict on Maximum Prices, one that fixed the highest price anyone could charge for over a thousand goods and services.
And if anyone disobeyed this, he was at risk of death. This was his way of restoring order and curbing people's greed but yet the market crashed, and traders hid their goods instead.
Fast forward to this new age, modern societies still debate on whether prices should be left to the traders to decide or tightly regulated by the authority.
I haven't been to countries outside Africa, but I can speak on what's currently happening in my ecosystem, Nigeria, and how it diminishes the nation and also brings struggles to the citizens. There have been several cases of inflation in the country on so many products, but I'll speak on the recent and most annoying one, the gas hike.
The business mogul Dangote is a supplier of gas, and he already subsidized it to the wholesalers, but the people's greed wouldn't let it be implemented successfully. If regulations were in place and were thoroughly monitored, wholesalers and retailers wouldn't get away with these crimes.
Yes. It definitely is. Businesses seek autonomy, but let's be honest, human beings are greedy. It takes a great level of selflessness to decide not to steal or make money off people or the nation's plight.
This prompt made me research and actually find out that there are regulatory bodies like the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), which was established to prevent anti-competitive practices like price-fixing and market abuse; the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA); and the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), which is meant to control fuel and gas prices, but it's a pity they're not functioning well because if they were, citizens wouldn't have to complain all the time about gas and fuel prices skyrocketing.
I believe a price cap is a very good idea. It should be properly regulated and must be set at a price that doesn't put the traders at a loss but also doesn't cause struggle for the consumers. Balance is needed for the market and people to do well.
Thank You for Reading
ALL IMAGES WAS GENERATED USING:
https://aistudio.google.com/prompts/new_chat?model=gemini-2.5-flash-image
