What a funny Country!
This your analogy of government involvement in cattle business is quite interesting, but I find it insulting and offensive to sensitivity of farmers across this country and my intelligence as a Nigerian.
First and foremost no matter what business you do, the Government will always make money from you either in the area of approvals and or taxes.
It’s obvious that everything Government have invested in so far in Nigeria have been mismanaged and also the cost is always unreasonable and I do not want to start listing them. So you advising that government should invest in anything business or revenue generating is trying to take us backwards or you are thinking we are stupid.
The issue of cattle cannot be an issue of the country, and people doing the business of cattle should modernize like all other businesses in the country, and our country cannot be held to ransom because of the people doing cattle business.
Nigerians can decide we no longer want to consume cattle beef nothing will happen and heaven will not fall in Nigeria.
To be honest what exactly is the contribution and percentage of cattle beef protein consumption and in Nigeria that this issue has cost so much lives and destructions?
This are the facts for your consumption;
1. Fish. 34.88%
2. Cattle beef. 31.35%
3. Egg and chicken 16 %
4. Pork 4.6%
5. Goat Meat. 4.3%
6. Turkey 4.13%
7. Bushmeat 3.4%
8. Mutton 1.05%
The other forms of protein put together is over 63% and there are no clashes no issues with its production and government is not making any concessions for them, neither are they clashing with farmers and it’s not been used as a political narratives.
If the people doing business of cattle are no longer interested in this business they should find other business as from my last research in the consumption of cattle beef in Lagos I got the following data, an average of between 7000 – 10,000 Cattles are slaughtered and consumed in Lagos alone on daily basis.
let’s do the maths and some estimates to explain why this issue is very disrespectful to our common thinking in Nigeria it’s more or less an insult to say the least.
So for this purpose it implies that 7000 cows daily at an average of N100,000 per cattle comes to N700,000,000.00 daily for thirty days it’s over N21 billion Naira.
If we estimate Lagos consumption is 40% of the whole country it is appropriate to put the total sales of cattle beef at over N50 billion Naira monthly across the country and over N600 Billion yearly.
How many states in Nigeria get this kind of allocation to say the least, and to say it’s cattle beef only contributes 31.35% of the total consumption.
So please if they are no longer interested in doing the business of N600 Billion yearly they should stop and we can ramp up other areas to meet the short fall or they comply with the modern systems of Animal husbandry and leave politics out of it.
Let them realize that if other areas of protein production decide they also want Government to give them special concessions including free allocation of land for there production there will be no land for any other thing.
The government should let business be done by private organization and provide enabling environment for businesses to thrive this kind of things are better done by private and government can make their money from taxes and don’t unnecessarily heat up the country polity over issue that are not important.
E- Signed
Engr Abayomi Odunowo.
