How cow milk sellers struggle to survive in Maiduguri

Wives of Fulani herders in Maiduguri, whose husbands lost their cows to the ongoing insurgency in the North-East region said they have resorted to buying cow milk also known as nono in faraway Plateau and Taraba states and re-selling them in Maiduguri. They said their action followed an encouragement they got from the Borno State […]

Wives of Fulani herders in Maiduguri, whose husbands lost their cows to the ongoing insurgency in the North-East region said they have resorted to buying cow milk also known as nono in faraway Plateau and Taraba states and re-selling them in Maiduguri.
They said their action followed an encouragement they got from the Borno State government.
An elderly Fulani woman selling nono at a modern cow milk selling stalls built by the Borno State government along the airport road in Maiduguri, Inna Hadiza, said the insurgency has led to the rustling of their cows and rendering them jobless.
“The cows were our only source of getting milk. The cows have been stolen by the insurgents. Most of the herders have been killed in the process. We were relying on the very few that succeeded in escaping to Maiduguri with their cow to get milk and remain in business.
“Sometimes last year before the election, Governor Kashim Shetima came to this place and saw how we were selling nono in a very dirty environment. Then, the whole of this place smelled with dirty water all over the place. We gave him nono he drink and left with a promise to do something.
“Few weeks later, he built these open stalls, put inter-locking tiles all over the place and also built two mosques for us here. Seeing the good structures put in place, some of us decided we shall remain in business to maintain the structure. Since there are no cows here to supply us milk, we have some young men that go up to Jos in Plateau State, Taraba and other states to buy fresh cow milk for us,” she said.
Salihu Shehu is one of the young men that travel to various states to buy the fresh milk and bring to Maiduguri to sell. He told Daily Trust that they go up to Sabon Gari and Biu in the state and Jos and some parts of Taraba State to buy and bring milk to the state and sell.
“Our milk doesn’t get sour because we wait there with a vehicle to milk the cows then we start coming immediately. Usually, when a cow is milked, the fresh milk is kept overnight before it is sold to the public. That first night that one would have kept the milk before selling, is the period we use in transporting the milk. We sell pure natural cow milk here without any mixture.
“As you can see, there are people from different tribes in this business not just the Fulani. The modern stalls accommodating the nono market is what attracted us. When the environment was dirty, you only find the Fulanis in the business. Now, those of us that are not Fulani have even outnumbered the Fulanis in the nono business,” he said.
In the nono value chain, there are young girls mostly of Hausa and Kanuri extraction that supply fura and dambu used in mixing with the nono as supplement to a meal.
Hauwa and Fatime said at different interviews that they make sales of N2,800 to N3,400 daily from the fura and dambu they sell depending on the availability of nono in the market.