Three Million Nigerians will Lose Jobs if Senate Bans Donkey Slaughtering, Says Dealers

Sunday Aborisade

The Donkey Dealers Association yesterday said the proposed Senate bill seeking to ban donkey slaughtering in Nigeria would result in loss of businesses and investments for three million Nigerians.

The National Chairman of the association, Mr. Ifeanyi Dike said this at a one-day public hearing on eight bills being proposed for the agriculture sector.

The public hearing was organised by the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development chaired by Senator Bima Enagi.

The bill titled, “Donkey Slaughter Regulation and Export Certification Bill, 2020,” was sponsored by Sen. Yahaya  Abdullahi.

The proposed legislation passed second reading on July 6, 2022.

It aimed at mitigating the extinction of donkeys given their aesthetic, ecological, educational, historical, recreational and scientific value to the Nigerian nation.

It also sought to declare donkeys as endangered species which as a result of indiscriminate slaughtering for the purpose of harvesting its skin, had greatly depleted the national herd of the animal.

Dike maintained that outright ban on slaughtering of donkey was not a solution to the envisaged extinction of donkeys in Nigeria.

He said, “We should know that outright blanket ban as proposed by this bill will create some powerful smuggling syndicates who are bent in getting the donkey derivatives for export to China thereby sabotaging the economy.

“The blanket ban on donkey killing and export of its derivatives as a result of morbid fear of its extinction has failed to realise that regulation, ranching and breeding is the solution.

“Cows which we slaughter more than 50,000 on daily basis as meat has not gone into extinction, so how can a donkey with the same gestation period as cow go into extinction. We should encourage breeding and ranching,” he said.

Dike further said dealers had invested heavily over the  years and have also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with National Animal Production Research Institute (NAPRI) for the breeding and production of five million donkeys within a space of 10 years.

“We took this action to increase the local population of donkeys in Nigeria to avoid its extinction, ” he added.

He said donkey regulation, breeding and ranching policy would create millions of job opportunities, starting from donkey farmers, traders, slaughter house, logistics and export.

“Each of these segments is very important in revenue generation into our economy by way of taxation and levy collections right from the Local Governments to the states and to the federal government,” he added.

“It is projected that donkey businesses if properly regulated, is capable of injecting N10 billion annually to our economy,” he said.

A legal practitioner and a human rights activist, Mr Maxwell Okpara, alleged that the bill was a calculated attempt to put some Nigerians out of business as well as from earning a living, adding that the business of donkey slaughtering had been in existence for 70 years.

He argued that the dealers were more worried about the extinction of donkey, hence had resorted to breeding more donkeys through establishment of ranching systems  to keep them in  business.

Okpara said he was not against having a legal framework to regulate the business of donkey, but advised that the proposed legislation should be framed to protect Nigerians in the business of donkey value chain.

A member of the House of Representatives, Muhammad Datti, said the bill sought to prohibit entirely, the killing and export of donkeys to China. According to him, China uses the donkey skin for their traditional medicine.

Datti said, “This animal is facing extinction and it’s an animal you cannot breed in large number because of the very low rate of fertility.

“The major beneficiary in this trade is the donkey breeding merchants in China with a profit of 293 million dollars in 2016 to the detriment of the rural people of Africa and Caribbean.”

The Chairman of the Committee, Enagi said the public hearing was designed to receive inputs from stakeholders and the general public with a bid to come up with relevant legislations that would promote agriculture in Nigeria.

Other bills considered at the public hearing included Nigerian Research Institute of Fisheries and Aquaculture Bakassi (Establishment) Bill, 2022.

“National Food Safety and Quality Bill, 2020 and National Verterianry Research Institute, Gombe (Establishment) Bill, 2021”