National President of Donkey Dealers Association of Nigeria, Mr Dike Ifeanyi in this interview with COLLINS NNABUIFE speaks on the recent ban on the consumption and exportation of donkey products by the Federal Government. He also highlights some of the benefits of breeding donkeys for trade.
Recently, your association called for the government to relax the ban on eating and exportation of donkey hides, can you throw more light on that?
There are a lot of reasons, number one, we have to go into the economic implications of this blanket ban. We have more than 50,000 people that are directly involved and earning their livelihood from this and most of these people, they use knives to handle this donkey either to kill it or to slaughter it
And they are the teeming youth. And at the moment their source of income has collapsed, definitely they must survive and it will be another phase of banditry and most of these camps where they are slaughtered are in the remote area they are in the bush. So that is one, security implication
Two, the people that are directly involved as their source of livelihood from this particular industry that can serve as a diversification, because we are talking about diversification of the economy, the oil has collapsed, other countries are looking for other sources of revenue.
Donkey is a domestic animal, and these people are feeding their family, paying your house, taking the obligations from this business, when it is banned, we are creating more poverty. Let us copy from countries who have a very progressive and proactive way like Pakistan, even Kenya here did it. They tried to ban it and they found out that it was going to be counter-productive, they relaxed it and regulated it, we are talking about breeding.
One of our members who the former Minister visited his factory located in Ufuma, he saw the massive work that was done there, it was a standard abattoir, the Minister was marvelled, he said we can encourage you people because he has provided about 500 direct jobs, and this man has lost over N1 billion as a result of the activities of the Chinese,
The problem we have is the Chinese, before the Chinese came, people have been eating donkeys, before the discovery that donkeys contain gelatine, people have been eating donkeys.
I don’t know the kind of law that is going to impoverish the people and has no meaning. If donkeys are not harvested, don’t you think it is going to turn out to be crop farmers? Because they will be multiplying without harvesting, nobody is eating it.
So, we need to encourage breeding, the National Animal Production Research Institute (NAPRI), Zaria has a very wonderful program, the Nigerian Agricultural Quarantine Service (NAQS) has a very wonderful regulatory policy but I don’t know how we understand it, or whether it have another undertone.
We are calling on the federal government to take a second look at this particular ban, it is going to be counter-productive and we the members are not in support it, we are in support of regulation which the NAQS have spelt out, if you want to engage in this business, start the rearing of the donkey so that you can sustain it.
Most of these donkeys slaughtered in Nigeria are imported from Niger, instead of banning the eating and export, why don’t the federal government give us donkey loan for us to develop donkey and tell them that donkey can challenge cow in the international market
We are not compelling the government, but we are appealing to them to have a second look and relax this ban, it looks funny that I ate donkey meat and I will be arrested and jailed for 10 years.
So, in this particular time, we are talking about the economic value of donkey from the point of purchase, the people that will herd it, the people that will load it in the truck, the people that will offload it, the people that will give mark, the people that will slaughter, the people that will remove the skin, the people that will divide the carcass, and others, all these people are in the economic value chain, so, once you break it, definitely it is going to be counter-productive.
We saw the federal government during the unveiling of the rice pyramid, why don’t we do the donkey pyramid, didn’t the government encourage the rice farmers, is it not agriculture, didn’t they encourage other farmers, why must it be a donkey?
Government is concerned about the extinction of the donkey because it is used for farming in the rural areas, are you not concerned about that?
That is why I told you that the NAQS regulation on breeding and ranching is a solution.
How many local governments in Nigeria can you tell me that there are no bicycle, vehicles? Donkeys were used in those days, but scientific and technological development have removed donkeys from doing those things, we have ploughs, we Have machines, why don’t we talk about getting machines for these farmers.
How many bags of rice do you think a donkey will carry in a day for a distance of 5km, who will herd the donkey? All these things have been taken away as a result of scientific development and technological advancement. Even those farmers who are using it for their farms don’t even breed the donkey, so if the donkey is banned, will the farmers be using it?
What is the economic importance of this donkey?
Gelatine is a component that is contained in the skin of a donkey, and it is being used to produce some traditional Chinese medicine which has an anti-aging element, so as a result of high demand in the international market resulted in the invasion of Chinese in Africa to clampdown on donkeys.
These people are in constant need of it, and if you stop what a consumer needs and those things are available, you will create room for smuggling and by doing so, you are sabotaging the economy, why don’t you regulate so that the government will also be earning and jobs will be created.
On the other side, we the association is trying to make Nigeria a donkey hub, we can attract companies that use donkey products as raw materials, sign a contract with them, begin to export the derivatives and begin to earn, by custom duty, certification by NAQS and jobs will be created, but at the moment when this law is put in place kit will be counter-productive.
At your association, what is the level of sensitisation on ranching?
We as association, we have had series of meeting, we have sensitised our people, there is what is called the local breeders, we made it ourselves, we look at areas where donkeys can survive, we distribute the animal to them and allow them to rear them, so those people will herd it, when the donkey deliver, you will harvest with a percentage that you discussed with the person. The same way herdsmen herd cows is the same way we want to herd donkeys, but nobody is interested in seeing a way to provide an enabling environment for donkey farmers. If cow has not gone into extinction, why are we saying that donkey will go into extinction, we are consuming more than 50,000 cows per day, and the gestation period of a cow and that of a donkey is the same and cow has not gone into extinction no matter how we massacre it, but the quantity of donkey that is being slaughtered can be counted.
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