The Lagos state Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu and Minister of Works and Housing Babatunde Fashola commissioned a semi-mechanized abattoir in Bariga to check the unhygienic and illegal butchering of meat.
The semi-mechanized abattoir will assist in enforcing the amendment in the state’s red meat sector by providing the platform for animals to be slaughtered, processed in hygienic conditions, transported, and marketed appropriately.
The state Governor explained that the new platform is a means for other businesses to learn from specifically as stated under the state government’s ATM reform agenda in the red meat sector, as A represents Abattoir, T for Transportation, and M for Marketing.
Governor Sanwo Olu stated that Lagos livestock consumption is more than 50% of total production in Nigeria, therefore, the need to ensure a quality and safe value chain.
He further stated that the state own 11 of the 16 abattoirs in the state, therefore, it is important to have more private sector partnership in the value chain to gear the agricultural road map of the state.
The state Governor explains that the new semi-mechanized abattoir shows that the meat industry is now being transformed from its peasant state to an advanced one which depicts the plans the government wants for the state.
The Governor said, “If we’re consuming over 1.8 million cattle and about 1.6 million sheep and goats, it means that we can indeed create a big ecosystem; a big controlled, managed, a clean industry in our red meat value chain,”.
Sanwo-Olu noted, “We’re not just stopping at that, we’re ensuring that all of the plans that we have are been rolled out by the Ministry of Agriculture using a big one at Oko-Oba as a model, that we will continue to remain a place where all of us can be truly proud of,”.
Earlier, Babatunde Fashola stated that the new platform would provide about 800 direct and indirect employment in the community. Cleaners, veterinary doctors, and butchers among others will be employed.
He revealed that the semi-mechanized abattoir is of international standard and was facilitated by a concessionaire, Lion UNISCO who will further assist the State Government in amending the red meat value chain. He revealed that the semi-mechanized abattoir was facilitated by a concessionaire, Lion UNISCO is of a high standard and would further assist the State Government in amending the red meat value chain.
According to Babatunde Fashola, the Ilaje, Bariga facilities among others will drive business into the community, improve the living standard of the residents and contribute more infrastructural development to the community.
The Commissioner for Agriculture, Abisola Olusanya, also explains that the facility can slaughter 100-150 cattle herds a day and around 80-120 goats and sheep a day.
The commissioner further stated that the continuous increase in population drives the need to establish more abattoirs to the existing and largest one at Oko-Oba to cater to the needs of the Lagos populace.
Finally, Olusanya said, “We need private sector investment in the red meat value chain of the state to be able to cater to the needs of the people and preventing what has happened with the COVID- 19 pandemic and all of these steerings from a meat market in China only show why we need to have hygienic meat that is processed under hygienic conditions,”.
