The Lagos State government, on Sunday, insisted that the Oko-Oba abattoir in Agege area would remain closed until the operators were ready to sit down with the government, abide by the environmental rules and regulations of the state.
Speaking while featuring on a popular live television programme, the Commissioner for the Environment and Water Resources, Mr. Tokunbo Wahab, said the abattoir would only be open when the operators were willing to comply with the minimum standards of operating a decent abattoir in the state.
He recalled that that the state government, last Thursday shut down the Oko Oba abbatoir over unsanitary activities, waste mismanagement and unhygienic handling of animal products.
He said there were people who had assets outside the abattoir and the unsanitary activities and waste mismanagement practised by the operators had destroyed their, stressing that that had been the complaints of residents for some time now.
According to him, “we had to make very tough, decisive decisions. And before then, we had conversation with the operators to shape up. This idea of blackmailing the government on the ground of religion is not sustainable. This practice of slaughtering of cows in the old way and channelling the waste into the public infrastructure is not acceptable and when the operators persisted, we had to shut the place down.”
He said the Oko Oba operators were difficult to deal with recalling that the government took them outside the country some years back to see how animals are slaughtered in a mechanized way.
He said the closure was precipitated by the Commissioner for Agriculture who sent a petition to his ministry to intervene as regards the deteriorating environmental degradation.
He said when environment officials got to the place on Thursday, what was witnessed was heart-wrenching, and as such the government took a decisive decision of shut down the place.
According to him, at the abattoir, “people pushed the animals out of the pen and they sleep there. They just put those animals outside the pen. The pens were created for the animals. Now, they have chosen to push those animals out of the pen in a slaughterhouse while they live their normal lives there.”
“You can still put your animals in the pen whilst somebody else will watch over them for you. You can have a decent place to lay your heads. You cannot push the animals out. You cannot kill and then you allow the blood, the waste from the animals to be channelled into the system and destroy people’s houses in that neighbourhood. You can go and find out. Most of them have vacated their houses and sleep at the abattoir. The stench from there is unbearable,” he said.
“The state has been carrying out this awareness over time. It was because of their recalcitrant nature. Some of them, with due respect, it’s part of their culture that they have to sleep with their animals in the same space. But once they are migrating with their herds, you see them closely guarding them. But this is a safe state. There is no place for that,” he added.
He said some of the abattoir operators were incorrigible because the next day the government got informed that they had moved some animals to a nearby abandoned gas station to slaughter while some slaughtered animals by the road.
The commissioner said some enforcement team members had been stationed there now to prevent that.
“The government shut the abattoir because of the public over riding interest. People have thrown up questions to say, but the cost of meat and beef will go up. And I ask them, which comes first, the chicken or the egg? This is for public safety here. What we saw on ground, we had no choice. And because they have chosen to defy the law.”
He said Lagos is not an Hobbesian state, where Life becomes nasty, brutish, and as such once there is a law, once there are regulations, the least the people can do is to abide by them for their own over riding interest.
He explained that the Ministry of Agriculture, oversees the activities of the abattoir, with LASEPA and LAWMA officials on ground as well as LASWAMO officials in order to ensure things are properly done in the abattoir.
He said the government had met with the concessionaire (Harmony) and the leader of the abattoir operators (Galadima) and insisted they could not continue to discharge animal wastes into the public drain that was built with tax payers money, but they should ensure animal wastes were properly treated through the effluent plant.
“What they are doing there has to stop. There must be a change of culture and attitude. Those blood, those waste destroy even the public infrastructure. I’m not even talking about the health. In the Themes Agenda, you have health and environment. If you manage the environment well, you don’t spend so much on health. It’s cause and effect.”
He said the mechanized infrastructure were in place at the Abattoir with just 10% usage rate and semi – mechanized with 10% usage as well.
He said the operators, however, chose to go with what was convenient for them – the old habits.
He stressed that there were guidelines in abattoirs operations in the state which must be followed.
He said failure to do so, “Oko-Oba abattoir will remain closed.”
