The Nigeria Agricultural Quarantine Service (NAQS) on Monday incinerated and disposed a cache of illegally processed export-bound donkey skin worth N42 million in Abuja.
NAQS seized the donkey skin during a string of precision raids on underground donkey skin warehouses and slaughter camps across the country. “The raids, which were carried out with a detachment of men of the Nigerian Police from the Force Animal Branch (FAB), followed several unheeded warnings to the operators to shut down those warehouses and stop the decimation of Nigerian donkeys”.
Sunday Audu, Coordinator of Operations and Deputy Comptroller-General of Quarantine, in a statement signed by Gozie Nwodo, Head of Media, Communications and Strategies, noted that donkeys were an endangered species all over the world adding that Nigeria is bound by commitment to protect endangered species as a signatory to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
”The volume of donkey skin we are destroying today bears witness to the fact that there is an insidious scorched earth war on Nigerian donkeys. This public destruction of the illegally processed export-bound donkey skin is meant to send a clear signal to all and sundry that the government will not countenance the overexploitation of Nigerian donkeys.”
“One of the few standing bastions of donkeys on the planet. As such, the onus is on the country to ensure that its local donkey breeds don’t disappear from the face of the earth.”
Audu speaking further said that there has been an escalating threat of overexploitation of donkeys across the country which may lead to extinction.
“Donkeys have a unique place in the human story and their existence ought to enjoy continuity in civilization. So we cannot be indifferent to the escalating threat of overexploitation of donkeys across the country .
“Over exploitation will drive them to the brink of extinction. And we don’t want Nigerian donkeys to fade into oblivion like dinosaurs.”
Audu admonished stakeholders in the donkey value chain to do the business the right way and abide by NAQS regulations on the standard of acceptable conduct for actors in donkey-related businesses.
“The Nigeria Agricultural Quarantine Service recently unveiled the principles of a blueprint to structure the donkey value chain. The blueprint lays out a model of donkey exploitation that is interwoven with the irreducible minimum of proportional restocking”.
“The aim of the blueprint is to create a win-win climate of virtuous cycle of growth in which the donkeys live and thrive and serve as a dependable base for the sustainable prosperity of donkey businesses”.
NAQS has affirmed on many platforms that the exploitation of the Nigerian donkeys has to be congruent with and subservient to the paramount imperative of restocking the national herd population. It also cautions that wherever NAQS catches a whiff of rogue tactics, its officers will be deployed to disrupt the activity and confiscate the products.
