…We’re making effort to restart forgotten modern Abattoir-Commissioner

By Musa Ubandawaki Sokoto

The situation at the Sokoto State Abattoir is alarming. Its filthy nature is shocking while the nuisance it breeds is unbecoming and offensive. Meat buyers and consumers are sick of the squalid state of the slaughterhouse.

The unhygienic nature of the slaughterhouse did not come by happenstance. It was already known that the place could degenerate to that sordid state. Indeed there was an agitation that something should be  done to prevent the descent of the place into a slum that it has become in recent years to the chagrin of many of its patrons.

Action to address the squalor associated with the place was taken by the state government under the leadership of Aliyu Maratakarda as far back as 2017.

The government built a brand new slaughterhouse with modern facilities to aid the processing and preservation of meat for human consumption.

Indeed, when the facilities were commissioned, many leaped for joy over the neatness and the new equipment that had been procured and installed there. But for reasons not yet made known, butchers and other artisans who were supposed to operate the facilities, largely shunned the place and preferred to do their business in the dilapidated old slaughterhouse, which makes use of manual effort as opposed to the automated equipment and machinery at the new slaughterhouse.

In place of the new abattoir where many animals can be slaughtered and processed automatically within minutes, butchers prefer to belabour themselves by conducting all the processes using their hands and long knives. Rather than use modern processing methods provided for in the new abattoir, the butchers continue to struggle with their hands to kill and shear the animals using old tyres which unusually sends billows of dark putrid smoke into the environment, endangering the health of the people around the slaughterhouse.

Additionally, after the animals have been slaughtered and manually processed, the butchers use wheel barrows and open trucks to transport the meat to the market for sales. This method exposes the meat to contamination and other abuses which are injurious to consumers’ health. But the butchers do not care about whatever happens due to the crude methods employed by them to process the meat for consumers as long as there is money to be made.

While this manual method of processing meat at the dilapidated slaughterhouse continues, the ultra-modern slaughterhouse constructed by the Aliyu Maratakarda administration, remains abandoned and forgotten, begging for patrons and users. It has never been put to use after it was officially test-run and abandoned once that governor left office. It has remained in that state  since 2017 and nobody ever wants to go near it despite the nuisance that the Sokoto Abattoir continues to evoke.

The only thing that gives a little hope and assurance that something might happen someday in the new slaughterhouse is that once in a while butchers in Sokoto Kara Market raise concerns over the neglect of the multi-million-Naira modern abattoir.

 Majority of those interviewed by AV expressed sadness over the neglect of the facility despite the fact that it was initiated to improve the health of the people and also boost the economy of the state and its people.

Malam Sani Achida, 70, who said he had spent all his life in the business of buying and selling meat at the Sokoto Central Market, appealed to the State Governor, Dr. Ahmed Aliyu, to rescue the abattoir from total collapse and put it into use for economic development of the state.

Achida regretted that the Sokoto modern abattoir was rotting away due to years of neglect by butchers and that it was necessary to salvage it and use it to restore sanity in the business of meat processing and sales to members of the public.

An investigation conducted by Arewa Voice shows that butchers abandoned the modern edifice and relocated to the traditional structures which, according to the chairman of the local butchers’ association, Malam Abdullai Mijinyawa, is more convenient to them 

The Chairman of the Abattoir, Alhaji Abdullahi Mijin Yawa urged the state government to commence total repairs of the complex or engage in partnership with other investors to enhance the packaging and exportation of meat, hide and skin.

Alhaji Mijin Yawa noted that lack of training to handle the new modern abattoir is among the factors responsible for the continued neglect of facilities. 

He suggested that government should either lease the complex to the association of butchers to manage after rehabilitating the complex or put it to direct use rather than allow it to rot away.

However, the Sokoto Commissioner for Animal health, Aliyu Mohammed Tureta, told Arewa Voice that the state government is making effort to put the modern abattoir to immediate use to guaranty the health and safety of meat consumers.

 He announced that given the importance of the facility, the ministry had since detailed an auditor to the slaughterhouse to take stock of what is required for the place to start functioning without further delay.

“I am optimistic that when the slaughterhouse is brought back to life, it will enhance the revenue base of the state and generate more employment for the teeming butchers in the state,” the commissioner said.