By; BAYO AKAMO, Ibadan
The Association of Poultry farmers on Tuesday alerted that its members on Monday lost day old chicks worth about N50 million to enforcement of interstate lockdown orders by security agents in Oyo State.
Managing Director of the Best Line Hatcher, Reverend Tunde Owolabi raised the alarm while speaking on behalf of the Poultry farmers at a press conference held at the company’s premises in Ibadan.
According to Reverend Owolabi, the death of the about N50million worth of day old chicks was as a result of the actions of some police officers at Podo area of Ibadan in Oluyole local government area of Oyo state that on Monday evening allegedly forcefully turned back 20 buses conveying the day old chicks to other parts of the country from Ibadan.
Reverend Owolabi stressed that the policemen were claiming to be acting on “a new directive from the federal government.” while turning back the about 20 buses convening the day old chicks to their various destinations.
“We have about 20 buses that are affected today and in each of these we have about 8,000 to 10,000 birds.The monetary value is huge. We are talking about over N50million worth of birds.It is rather unfortunate that these our birds were returned last night”, he said.
Reverend Owolabi stressed, “birds that are meant to travel at the cool hours of the day and that is the reason you see us travel in the night. Our drivers have the passes. As you can see with me here, we have all the documents from Poultry Association of Nigeria and from Ministry of Agriculture.Each of the drivers carry the papers.”
The Poultry farmers spokesperson however urged the Federal and state governments across the country to ensure free passage for vehicles convening livestock products especially the day old chicks , saying, “we are appealing to the Federal Government, we are appealing to the state government to continuously give us free passage for all our drivers. We trust God that with all effort that is on ground, COVID-19 should be a thing of the past very soon.”
“But by the time this problem is over, there is a looming danger of scarcity of goods.Hunger problem is far far greater in dimension compared to the danger COVID-19 poses. The number of birds that is involved today is alarming. We have about 20 buses that are affected and in each of these, we have about 8,000 to 10,000 birds.The monetary value is huge. We are talking about over N50million worth of birds,” saying it was unfortunate that Federal Government allegedly ordered policemen not to allow movement of agriculture produce to other parts of the country as essential products”.
Chairman, Day old Chicks Merchant Association of Nigeria, Alhaji Asimiyu Oyetunde while speaking said it was unfortunate that policemen could turn back the buses not minding that all the drivers moving the day old chicks from Ibadan to other states have several documents backing the movement of agricultural produce.
He stressed that as a result of this, a larger portion of the day old chicks died as a result of the hindrance, with the loss runing to over N50million, saying, “all our effort to make sure they move yesterday proved abortive because none of them even answered us. They said that was the new order which we are not informed.”
“We have many papers from the federal ministry of Agriculture, Governor’s Forum, Oyo State Government and the Inspector General of Police to prove that agricultural produce have free passage in any part of the country,” he said.
The Oyo state Chairman of Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN), Mr Gbemisoye Agboola in his comment attributed the huge loss by members of the association to the actions of the security personnel that reportedly acted contrary to the directives.
