A Poultry farmer, Mr. Joel Oduware, on Tuesday called for strict enforcement of the ongoing closure of Nigeria’s land borders to check the influx of poultry into the country.
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Oduware made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.
According to him, there is a glut in the sales of locally-processed poultry, due to the smuggling of such products into the country.
“We are currently experiencing a processed chicken glut in the poultry industry.
“Following the border closure since last year, we have noticed that there has been an increase in the smuggling of poultry into the country.
“The smuggled frozen chickens are now everywhere in the market, even with the border closure.
“This has created stiff competition for locally-processed chickens, as the former is lesser in price than the latter,” he said.
Oduware noted that most people now patronized the smuggled chickens, at the expense of the locally-processed type, because of the cheaper prices.
According to him, the different cold rooms in Nigeria at the moment are filled with the smuggled frozen chickens, thus causing a glut for locally-processed ones.
“There is low purchasing power in the local poultry business currently and also low disposable income.
“Nigerians also patronize smuggled poultry because of their dietary preference. They want the hard nature of smuggled poultry than their locally-processed counterpart.
“I believe the government should take drastic measures to enforce the closure of our land borders if we indeed want it closed.
“The government should set up a border closure enforcement team to find out how and why we still find smuggled frozen poultry within our borders,’’ he said.
According to him, the border closure policy should be reviewed, to put an end to the smuggling of imported poultry.
“The authorities should look at this critically and examine the porosity of our borders. We must ensure this policy works,” Oduware said.
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