The sale and transport of livestock out of Adamawa State to Lagos and other parts of the country will be blocked by the state government.
According to Adamawa state government, the reason for the blockage is targeted at hindering revenue leakages, because the state loses an estimated N8.4 billion to cattle sales.
It said the move would assist the state to get all revenues accruable to the livestock value chain.
Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Bashir Ahmad, on Thursday said Lagos and other states along the transport route collect about N35,000 as revenue per head of cattle, while Adamawa only gets a paltry N300.
According to him, Lagos State Government makes N10,000 on each slaughtered cow, besides other revenues made through the cattle value chain.
An estimated 8,000 cattle are consumed in Lagos state alone daily, according to Aliyu Abdulhammed, Managing Director of Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System (NIRSAL).
On the national scale, Nigerians consume over 90,000 cows daily, according to a survey conducted by former Agriculture Minister, Audu Ogbe. Out of the number, Adamawa State accounts for about 10,000 cows consumed daily in the country.
This informs why Adamawa Government, in a strategic revenue drive, according to the SSG, decided to stop selling and transporting livestock out of the state, especially cattle.
Bashir further disclosed that instead of taking livestock out of the state, Adamawa would now process and deliver beef to Lagos and other markets across the country.
He said, “What we collect as revenue per head of cattle is far lower than what’s being collected along the road to the point of sale.
“People take cattle from Mubi market here, move it to Lagos, along the road they pay nothing less than N5000 per head in like, five revenue collection points.
“By the time they get to Lagos and sell it, another N10,000 per head is paid just for the cow to be slaughtered; while in Adamawa where the cow originated, we’re left with about N300 to N500 revenue per head.
“So, we resolved that if this thing originates from us then we should be able to generate substantial revenue just as others are doing.
“As we’ve seen how much revenue is generated outside the state from our cattle, we decided to harness it to improve our economy.
“To achieve that from now, we’ll improve the value-chain of the cattle by moving it from the market to an abattoir within the state, slaughter it, process it by separating the hides, the bones, the horns and we’ll package the beef for shipment to markets in Lagos and other states.
“By the time we do this, the N25,000 collected along the road and the N10,000 collected in Lagos for slaughter will remain here in the state,” he said.