‘Transporting processed meat to south is healthier, cheaper’

Sir, most of the cows we consume in Nigeria are brought from other countries. What effort is your association making to ensure that diseases among these cows are not spread? There is a law in Nigeria, known as the animals’ disease control acts of 1998, introduced to ensure that any animal moving around in Nigeria […]

Sir, most of the cows we consume in Nigeria are brought from other countries. What effort is your association making to ensure that diseases among these cows are not spread?
There is a law in Nigeria, known as the animals’ disease control acts of 1998, introduced to ensure that any animal moving around in Nigeria is healthy. We are also working to be sure that no other diseases are transported from other countries into Nigeria. That is the reason why I talked about animal transmitted diseases and also talked about the diseases of public significance like rabies, tuberculosis etc.
What are the impacts of animal diseases to production?
Let me take you back to 1960s when CBUP was experienced in this country. Some of the veterinarians who prevented themselves from sleeping by moving from herd to herd brought down that disease under control. Also in 1980 to1985, rinderpest came into Nigeria through Cameroon, Chad and Niger. I am proud today to tell you that rinderpest is completely out of Nigeria. Not only in Nigeria, our efforts in countries like Niger, Benin Republic, Cameroon and Chad also paid off. We prevented the animals from there from coming into Nigeria. They had to cooperate and eradicate the diseases in their country, too, because their people earn money from selling animals in Nigeria.
Would you say the society appreciates the veterinary profession?
I think so, the common man appreciates us. I am telling you today that the Fulani man’s best friend is a veterinarian. Also the elite farmers, people who keep beef and dairy cattle in their farms know they can’t do without the veterinarians. But veterinarians don’t just stop there. We are also out to produce feeds. We are out to make sure that there is quality in feeds because when the feeds are not of good quality there can be metabolic and external diseases. It is only the veterinarian that knows that. Other persons do not know metabolic and external diseases and so we are ready not only to control them but to also prevent external diseases by making formulation of efficient feeds and making sure the farmers buy the right sort of feeds.
Inadequate veterinary service is affecting livestock productivity and profitability. How do you think the service can be improved?
Three things came out this year clearly. Government is not giving the livestock sector the importance it deserves. In some countries like Kenya and Botswana, they have ministries of animal and forest resources because they know the potentials of livestock. I am happy in Nigeria some states like Gombe, Yobe, Borno and Zamfara have established ministries of animal and fisheries or forest resources and they are seeing the results. Go to Gombe, every local government area has a veterinary clinic because they know the potentials of livestock. That is the bases of their economy and it can give a source of livelihood, employment, food security in terms of animal protein and so on. I am telling you with livestock, somebody can earn millions in a year. For example, we are taking animals to Lagos and other distant places every day but nobody sat down to imagine how we can improve on that by preparing and moving meat, instead of live animals. The meat would have more quality. There will be fewer accidents involving human beings and animals. Every person should be able to have small source of meat in his house and this is where the veterinarian can be of help. Nobody can produce poultry without some effective disease control programmes. I can tell you that in goat and sheep production, with a very good animal rearing programme, you can produce a lot. Go to every village and urban location, their main source of animal protein is meat from sheep and goat. But government should empower our youth. Give them small number of goats and sheep and training to raise them. If you encourage these youths to take up sheep and goat rearing at their backyards, there will be more meat in the country and employment will be generated. Let me tell you, I have been to Europe, the feathers from poultry are used to produce blanket. Let me take you to abattoir management system. Our abattoirs are very dirty. The blood from the abattoir can be put into productive use. I was in government before, there was a company that was ready to export such blood to Asia, it is a lot of money and now Nigeria is losing that. There are countries that are ready to transport this blood to other countries. All these things will be tapped but because government is not appreciating the role of animal and livestock, we are losing them. In Kenya and Botswana they export meat to Europe. How big is Botswana compared to Nigeria? Even Gambia is exporting fish, I saw it. In Nigeria we have so much oil that is why we are not bothered and now the oil price is going down.