Butchers lament dearth of cattle in Lagos

Butchers at Fagba Abattoir in Agege Local Government Area of Lagos State, have lamented the shortage of cattle in the state, attributing the development to security challenges in some northern states.In separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos, the butchers appealed to the Federal Government to urgently find a lasting solution to the security challenges.Mr Abdulrahman Babajide, one of the butchers, attributed the dearth of cows in Lagos to the spate of bombing and other crises in the northern part of the country.``There are instances when we lost our cattle to suspected bandits; we are not really making profit because of the insecurity in the north.``Because of the high cost of beef, occasioned by the dearth of cattle, many people now buy fish.``We are appealing to the Federal Government to tackle the problem so that our business can boom again,'' Abdulrahman said.Another butcher, Mr Segun Oluomo, attributed the scarcity to the fuel scarcity, which according to him, has forced the cost of transportation to go up.He said that since January, ``the business of meat selling has remained dull, due to high cost of transporting the cattle to Lagos.``Transportation cost is high because fuel costs more and this is because of the crisis between the Federal Government and oil marketers over the fuel subsidy paymen,'' Oluomo said.Meanwhile, attempts to get comments from officials of the butchers association in the market was not successful as none of them was available as at the time of filing this report.
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