HOW involved are you in the Central Ibadan Abattoir project and the vision behind it?
Let me start by saying that as a group (Ahmak Group) we have always had initiatives all over the country. In the case of the Ibadan abattoir, our sister group worked on it and we completed it seven years ago. We are not just starting in Oyo State. Under the government of Lam Adesina, we had an initiative for Alayande College of Education to develop their new site. As of that time, it was a novel project. We were to develop about 11 buildings in six months and to be paid over 24 months and we delivered. They could not complete our payment and it spilled over to the government of Senator Rashidi Ladoja’s and when he came he read meaning into the project. So he constituted a committee to investigate that initiative and it was led by the then deputy governor, Adebayo Alao-Akala. The SSG then was Sharafadeen Alli.
ALSO READ: Saraki persevered through court processes – Buhari
That was the first time I met Alao-Akala. They were more than impressed. The committee recommended that our money should be paid. That was how we came to know each other and we became good friends and I am saying this to let people know that we are not just modern day friends. He was so impressed and he encouraged us. Along the line, I discovered that he was a man with a good heart. We have always had initiatives across the states and with the federal government.
Now the vision is this: modern day trend is to have a central abattoir for a big city like Ibadan. Take Lagos, for instance, for the past 30 years, Lagos has maintained that central abattoir at Oko-Oba and there are advantages to it. For example, government is able to capture its revenue and leakages would be minimised to the barest. The control is also total. You are going to be killing wholesome meat. In terms of the volume of the waste it can be taken care of. You can’t make effective use of solid and liquid waste, skin, bones, blood and offal, if it is scattered all over several abattoirs. We saw all these and we made a proposal and defended it and government was like ‘waoh.’ At that time, we did an estimate of N2.4 billion and they said they did not have the money. They said ‘can you develop it yourself’ and we said why not.
The location is far outside the main city. Did you take into consideration the logistics of moving meat from that location to other parts of the city?
Yes the development of the central abattoir is phase one of the vision. The phase two is to have 60 units of meat depots in all 11 local governments whereby when you evacuate from the central depot, you go to these outlets. That was designed to be second phase so that we leave the traditional way of selling meat at every corner. To answer your question, meat vans would be provided. By 6 a.m. they would start killing the cows and by 10 a.m., 1100 a.m. they would have distributed meat to all the local governments.
Did the Bodija butchers need to move from there for the central abattoir to take off?
See, that place cost money… The only way we could recoup our investment is through volume. The state government provided land; the local government provided the market. When we started, we did not reckon with the local government and that’s why it took a while before the project took off, but Governor [Abiola] Ajimobi recognised that. He saw that gap and that is why I give kudos to him, because he did a yeoman’s job. Like every change, the butchers were reluctant; so they needed a lot of persuation. The governor interacted with them personally for hours, listening to them, educating them. At the end of the day, they agreed to move.
What was the arrangement with the local governments and other stakeholders?
Okay, this government now changed the model. The original model was for the state to collect 30 per cent and we have the rest and we are to do that for 30 years. But this government said no, that won’t fly. So the final model adopted is, the stakeholders now are state government, the 11 local governments, the butchers and we the investors. The equity distribution is we would have 50 per cent, local governments of Ibadanland have 36 percent and the butchers have 4 per cent as gratis. Mark you, it is Build, Operate and Transfer. We will transfer back to the local governments after the tenor. As we speak, it belongs to the local government. It is an investment of about N4 billion.
The local governments should be happy. In the next two, three years, revenue would be in hundreds of millions of naira per year. There will also be capital appreciation over their investment. At N5,000 per head of cattle, it will take us 100 years to recoup our investment. To all intents and purposes we are running at a loss. So we had to cut our losses and move on.
So, after the whole thing, we negotiated for 35 years on that equity basis and we form a company to reflect the new arrangement.
What do you say about the rumour that you are fronting for Alao-Akala and Ajimobi and that you have been pressurising him (Ajimobi) because his tenure is ending next year?
For me I see it as beer parlour talk. On my honour, Ajimobi has never approached us. One day he even jocularly said ‘even if you give me money, I won’t take it.’ When the model was ready, he said ‘look I have been fair to everybody. I am now ready to take the bull by the horns,’ hence the movement. To effect the movement, there was a notice. There was one abattoir in the whole of Ibadan owned by government, others are slaughter slabs. Ab Initio, they were illegal. Government wrote letters through the local governments and revoked all the operating slaughter slabs. But some of them who were ripping the state off, tried to frustrate that effort. So government set up a task force involving the security agencies. The government even got a court order sealing off the Bodija abattoir. I don’t know the details of what happened later; we are just investors. Suffice to say that I feel saddened, life is sacred. I use this medium to send my condolences and pray that such would never happen again.
Is there any future plan to construct housing estate at the site and expand the facilities there?
Yes there is going to be a spin off. Already the cost of land there has gone up. Operations have started already. The butchers there are happy. Yesterday (Tuesday) they killed over three hundred cows, so the figure can only keep rising. As I said, as investors, our own is to make their operations seamless.
and then