By Gabriel Olawale

Members of the Poultry Association of Nigeria, PAN, has called on the Federal government to stem the tide of smuggled poultry products into the country as over 1.2 million metric tons of poultry product estimated at about 2.75 billion dollars get into the country illegally annually. Speaking at the 3rd edition of the Nigeria Poultry Summit, President of the association, Dr. Ayoola Oduntan disclosed that the continued smuggling of poultry products is depriving the country foreign exchange and job opportunities for Nigerians.

From left: Representative of Comptroller-General, Nigeria Customs Service, Assistant Comptroller Binga Panunga; Treasurer, Poultry Association of Nigeria, PAN Imo State branch, Mrs Ijeoma Nwachuckwu; Chairman of the occasion, Alhaji Muhammad Adam and President of PAN, Dr. Ayoola Oduntan at the 2015 PAN National Summit, in Lagos.

“The biggest part of poultry industry is broiler businesses and in this country we produce about 300,000 metric tons of chicken annually in which we are consuming about 2 million tons of maize. This aspect alone has enabled us to engage over 500,000 maize farmers without putting into consideration other people that will be taken part before it reaches the end user.

“Let’s now imagine the number of jobs that would have been created in poultry industry alone if we can put a stop to about 1.2 million metric tons of chicken smuggled into the country on yearly basis. We estimated about 2.75 billion dollar that is living this country so that this smuggle chicken can come in.”

“Nigerians need to realise that this smuggled chicken is responsible for several health issues we are having in this country, due to the presence of high level of bacteria in the chicken coupled with high toxic chemical that are used to preserve it just to ensure it gets to our market at cheaper rate.”

Commending the efforts of National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, Federal Ministry of Agriculture, FMARD and Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC and other stakeholders for their supports in restructuring the agriculture sector in the country, Oduntan noted that the challenge experience this year by the industry is severe.

“2014 and 1st quarter of 2015 was very tough for poultry industry in Nigeria, we are attacked by various challenges ranging from Avian Influenza, the outbreak of Avian Influenza in the poultry sub sector in January this year is more endemic than the 2006/2009 outbreak, when we had a total of 25 states affected with population of about 1.2 million birds, but in 2015, it affected 18 states with over 1.4 million birds just in five months.”

Oduntan explained that through the constructive engagement of the government by the association, all hands were on deck to ensure the disease never spread beyond 18 states out of 36 states of the federation. “The association, in collaboration with departments of veterinary, animal production and husbandry and health services have been able to build the farmers capacity through various forms of training at all levels.”