By Ebere Orakpo
Cattle business, no doubt, is a big business employing a large number of people across the nation, especially in the Sudan and Sahel Savannah areas of the north where it is common to see entire families or communities earning their livelihood from cattle rearing.

cattle

When you talk about cattle business in Nigeria, which is mostly nomadic, you think of the nomadic Fulani who traverse the entire length and breadth of the nation with their cattle in search of favourable climatic conditions for the cattle to prevent running the business at a loss.

In a chat with Vanguard in Amansea, Anambra State recently, Alhaji Bello Maigari who plies his trade in Amansea Cattle Market said although cattle rearing is not an easy business, it is lucrative all the same. Excerpts.

Alhaji Bello Maigari, a native of Adamawa State, North-East Nigeria, is the Secretary of the Amansea Cattle Market. He said he got into the cattle business through his grandfather who was then living in Amansea doing the cattle business.

“I started this business as a secretary to my grandfather in 1986 after my secondary school education. When I came down here, I met him and was helping him to write receipts for purchases made. As time went by, I stopped the business in order to go back to school,” he stated.
According to Maigari, “I had my tertiary education in Ogun State. After obtaining a diploma in Management Science, I came back to my grandfather. When I returned, I took charge of the business and my grandfather went back to Adamawa State. And since then, I have been in charge till date. Actually, I see this as a lucrative business where I earn my daily living and also it enables me take care of my siblings.

From this business also, I pay their school fees and do all other things a man should do.”   Speaking on the structure of the union, Alhaji Maigari who was elected the secretary of the Amansea Cattle Market about four years ago, noted: “I am in charge. We have our chairman, treasurer, public relations officer, in fact, the entire executive is intact, each person playing his role.”

On the problems they encounter in the business, Maigari said the major problem is the issue of rent which is on the high side. Said he: “The only thing is that we are operating under the Amansea community land.

This place was not given to us by government. We are paying the community which of course, is a very disturbing issue. There is increment in rent here almost every month. Even now, there is a letter written by the community’s lawyer. We were paying N10,000 per month before but now, they say we will be paying N100,000 every month, which is way too high,” he said while appealing to the Anambra State Government to intervene.

“We are appealing to the government to step into this matter because while we are made to pay this huge amount, we will add it to the price of the cattle because no businessman would want to run at a loss. This will definitely increase the prices of cows which would become so high that a lot of customers would run away from us. So to avoid such a situation, we are appealing to the government to come to our rescue. They should give us land where we can do our business in peace without disturbance from any quarter,” he said.

Speaking further on the problems faced by the herdsmen, Maigari sai: “ The rent is the major problem we are facing here. We don’t have any problem with the community apart from this rent issue. The second problem we are having is with the task force.

They collect exorbitant amounts from us. When we are coming to Anambra State, at the border, you will see some groups of people who will say they are collecting money for one sticker or the other.

They will ask our people to pay N20,000 or N30,000. So all these are disturbing us. We went on strike at one point. Thank God, in a place like Lagos, the Lagos State Government has taken the task force people off the road.

They have taken care of the problems. You go to Lagos now, once you enter the state, you are not going to pay anything; you just go and offload your cattle and as a result, meat is relatively cheap there now according to what people are saying. I want to appeal to the government to look into this issue too.”

Maigari who noted that he has seven full-time employees, said “the price of a cow depends on its size. We have medium size which goes for between N90,000 and N100,000; and we have the bigger ones that sell for between N150,000 and N200,000.”

On feeding, he said every herdsman is happy during the rainy season because “in the rainy season like this, we don’t have much problem on their feeding because they feed on fresh grass but in the dry season, we buy feed for them. Depending on the size, a bag goes for between N2,500 and N4,000.

For instance, if you have five cows, you will need about 10 big bags of feed per week to feed them but in rainy season, you don’t spend much in feeding them.”

Alhaji Maigari said he cannot put a figure to his yearly turnover as it varies because it depends on sales. “Yearly turnover depends on how many cows one is able to sell in a year. For instance, if you bring five cows, in that five cows, in a year you can make up to about N700,000 to N800,000.  And in a month, you can get about N50,000 – N60,000 after all the expenses. So you can see that at the end of the month, you can settle your workers and whatever remains is yours.”