Donkey meat sellers call out NCS for destroying products worth N42m

The Donkey meat sellers on Thursday called out the Nigeria Customs Service over the seizure and destruction of their product worth N42m

The Kebbi Area Command of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), had on March 9, 2022, intercepted about 1,390 sacks of donkey meat put at the cost of N42 million in Yauri Junction of the state.

The Controller of the Area Command, Comptroller Joseph Attah, told journalists that the donkey meat was seized because donkeys were part of the endangered species that were prohibited from being killed.

Following this development, the National President of the Donkey Meat Association, Mr Dike Ifeanyi in a statement on Thursday, frowned over the activities of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) towards its members and their businesses.

He said the donkey meat business thrives in Nigeria to the extent that it employed more than twenty-five thousand people and about one hundred and eighty thousand jobs, created indirectly.

While describing the alleged harassment by the NCS as painful and counterproductive, Ifeanyi said it’ was really sad to see an industry with such economic prospects dying silently.

He said instead of encouraging the development of ranches and supporting the breeding of donkeys which the Nigerian Agricultural Quarantine Services (NAQS) have mapped out, as the solution to the depleting population of Donkeys in Nigeria, the NCS was bent on harassing and exploiting its members

It said the efforts of NAQS is beginning to yield results in areas of ranching and breeding for which its members have commenced the setting up of ranches in various parts of the country.

The association said it is sad and worrisome over the activities of the Nigerian Customs Service which incessantly impound goods belonging to members.

He insisted that only the Quarantine Service ( NAQS) is legally empowered for certification of all Agricultural products.