WHO Let the Dogs Out? is a song written and originally recorded by Anslem Douglas (titled Doggie) for the Trinidad and Tobago Carnival season of 1998. Watching the slaughtering of two dead cows sent a wrong signal concerning the state of health of the cows killed daily at the Oko-Oba Abattoir, Agege. Perhaps, it is best to ask, who let these cows out?

The compound called the Oko-Oba abattoir, Agege, is big and compartmentalised. The slaughter slab is a raised concrete floor, located on the North West of the abattoir. The slaughter slab is one of the raised floors. It is where the slaughtering and slicing into major parts are done. As they are killed, their blood, most times, flows to the floor, though about 40 per cent go into the drainage, which flows out through the interconnected channels within the abattoir to the canal close by. Also, faeces from the cows, about 30 per cent or more end up in the drainage, which is washed into the canal at the end of the day’s work.

The slaughtering of cows does not take any organised format, as the whole place is usually rowdy with everybody doing his things carelessly, not bothering about the next person. The butcher who cuts the meat into parts does the breaking down in a hurry in order to move to the next available one. The man who lifts it into a tri-cycle carries it with cellophane wrapped around his body, though wearing a cloth underneath that has tasted different kinds of cow blood over the years, and the cloth, probably not washed for days.

Everybody is allowed to walk on the raised concrete floor, putting on all kinds of shoes, rain boots and slippers. With many of these people having walked through the roads, from the gate or the village to the slaughter slab, filled with decomposed cow faeces and other dirts, which litter the whole compound.

It was also observed that there is little attention paid to cleanliness and so there are sections with stagnant murky dirty water and marshy ground. The dung from the cows is taken away and dumped some 50 metres from the slaughter slab, which is now a big heap of stinking refuse.  The blood that is packed is usually taken out to dry within the vicinity of the abattoir or by the border of the abattoir.

THE washing of the slaughter slab is done in the afternoon. Two people do it. One of them sprays water on the floor to soften the blood, which is already getting hard and the other person, uses a brush to scrub the floor.

The water used ends up locked in the crack sections of the floor, which retains the water till the next day. Also, after the washing, once the floor is dried, the slab becomes a football pitch.

Some residents living around Oko-Oba protested recently over the filthy condition of the abattoir. Speaking on why they protested, Mr. James Idowu, who resides on Agric Road, said that the stinking odour oozing out of the abattoir is felt more at night and it is usually suffocating.

A resident of the Millennium Estate, which borders the abattoir, Mr. Yusuf Muhammed, said living there is a two-fold punishment. He said that in the afternoon, when the slaughter slab is washed, the water that is a mixture of blood and dung flows through the drainage in from of the estate to the canal.

This water, according to him, stinks and emits foul odour. He revealed that at night, when the carcass of the cow is being burnt, the smoke flows into the rooms of the about 138 flats in the estate, choking occupants.

Muhammed also revealed that the dung from the cow, which has become a heap of refuse oozes out foul smells at night compounding the problems of the resident as breathing in fresh air becomes more difficult.

For Mrs. Deborah Oladele, though she is not happy about the unkempt state of the abattoir she had continued to patronise the abattoir because the location is close to her house and there is no viable option.

She felt that government is not performing its supervisory role, which is why the occupants and workers had thrown caution to the wind. She complained about the waste management of the place noting that the smell that comes out of the place is too bad and when driving through the place especially at the canal point anytime of the day, the foul odour is nothing to write home off. Oladele stated that the unperturbed attitude of the government makes the citizens feel helpless about the situation.

Mr. Adedayo Ogundare owns a shop opposite the abattoir. He also complained about the disgusting odour coming out from the abattoir disclosing that when he goes to supply gas to his customers at the estate by the abattoir, the stench and the weed he often perceives are often terrifying and wonders how residents cope.

Attempts to speak to the Lagos State Butchers’ Association, Abattoir Branch were not successful. The Guardian was asked to check back on the first visit because the chairman of the association was not on sit.

On the second visit, the Vice-Chairman of the association claimed that he wanted to pray and would be back in 10 or 20 minutes, he did not return almost an hour when the reporter left. Also, the managers of the abattoir, Harmony Services Limited, were not willing to comment when The Guardian sought to speak with them. 

A pointer to the economic activity and the high transaction going on within the abattoir is the presence of four commercial and two microfinance banks. The Guardian also noticed a good number of refrigerated Eko Meat Vans either getting loaded with butchered meats or waiting to be loaded, usually in the morning.

THE settlement behind the abattoir where majority of the workers stay is a shanty with cubicle makeshift rooms in a very disorganised manner. Although there are two rolls of housing blocks, the facility became over stretched probably when government failed to provide additional rooms. Noting government inaction to their plight in expanding the accommodation facilities, the people decided to provide more rooms for themselves, but in a crude form.

Many of the houses are built with either roofing sheets or planks. There are different public bathrooms and toilets, detached from each houses, but takes a fee for usage.

Many of the bathrooms and toilets are 10-room facility, some built with aluminum roofing sheets. The whole place is also unkempt. Probably, it was planned to be the offloading bay, though it is still being used for that purpose but it now also serves residential purposes. To take a walk around the place this rainy season, one needs a rain boot in order to prevent getting stained by the irritating, smelling, murky, marshy water.

The residents are, however, used to this, apart from some of them putting on one form of rain boots as they move around, they often feel unperturbed by the unpleasant smell oozing out from their environment. They carry on with their activities as if nothing irritating is around including those selling food, who prepares it within the place and those patronizing them.

Miscreants were also seen loitering and smoking Indian hemp. A testimony to the quantum of Indian hemp being smoked there was when The Guardian ran into a team of Policemen who came to arrest an Indian hemp dealer. Arrested with the man, were 11 bags of Indian hemp.

Our Slaughter House, Our Meat, Our Environment

By Fabian Odum

Years back and even until recently, beef and some other meat carcasses eaten by our diplomatic community had to be imported from their home countries; some still may be doing that.

Incidentally, the upper class of our own Nigerian people living in the highbrow areas of Nigeria’s first rate cities like Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt patronise specialised meat shops for fear of what may happen to their health in the event of buying from the common open markets that dot the cities and towns.

The apprehension is justified given the unhygienic state of our abattoirs and slaughter slabs where entrails (inner organs of the animal’s abdominal cavity) especially the guts are not carefully separated from the muscles. This, microbiologist say, have extremely high bacterial load of pathogenic microorganisms that is detrimental to health.

Aside, the filthiness of the environment of our abattoirs, including Lagos, where the government is showing and should act fast, flies as vectors of diseases are not lacking in their presence. Faecal matter on slabs, floor and open drains has become sources of picking up pathogens by these flies that do not spare the raw meat on display in the stalls.

Meat slaughter technicians and veterinary experts agree that the normal practice, which is lacking in the abattoir, is that during dressing, the gut of cattle (and sheep’s, etc) should be sealed to prevent leakage of animal content.

Three academics, A. Adesemoye, B. O. Opere and S. C. Makinde, microbiologists, are concerned environmentalists and researchers from Adekunle Ajasin University, Lagos State University and its Centre for Environment and Science Education respectively. Working in concert on the microbiology of abattoir wastewater and contaminated soil in Lagos, they found that not only humans are at risk but the environment and biodiversity.

At the Oko-Oba Agege abattoir, the locally popular ponmo (hides and skin), hooves and parts of the carcass are unwitting receptacles for the content of the alimentary tract dislodged during the disemboweling of the animal.

Unintentional as that may appear and largely due to the ignorance and unacceptable practice but the vets should take responsibility, too.

These factors play no small role in being agents of disease either latently or expressly.

Beyond the negative impact on public health, these researchers raise the point that consequences of man-made pollution as seen even in the discharge of untreated effluents from the slaughter house are far-reaching.

They list ‘transmission of disease by water borne pathogens, entrophication (excessive discharge of nutriuent rich in materials that support dense plant growth resulting in heavy oxygen usage to the dealth of animal life) of natural water bodies, accumulation of toxic chemicals in the soil and destabilization of ecological balance.’

By international standard and best practice, effluent like this need not be discharged directly to the environment.

Clearly the state’s environment protection agency, LASEPA should ensure that effluent is properly handled. Unfortunately, it is more on paper than in the field.

Life At The Abattoir Community

By Chijioke Iremeka

The lairage is the enclosure housing cattle and other hoofed ruminants. But sharing the same environment with these grass-chewing legal inhabitants is a fast-growing dwelling place with people from different parts of the country. Another slum is breathing with life.

The situation at the abattoir community is nothing different from what obtains at the abattoir itself. Selling of meat and rearing of cattle and other domestic animals, are still part of economic mainstay of the community.

The Guardian’s visit to the Oko-Oba abattoir slum shows a flurry of sundry activities, which ranges from animal husbandry, due to the need to get more animal for commercial purposes to cobbling and hair dressing. Some have specialised in making livestock feed.

They produce ice block for chilling of unsold meat and for vending of soft drinks within the community. Firewood stocking and selling; food vending, tailoring, local stove making, axe and knife filing and selling are other activities that characterise the business style of the dwellers.

Other activities include, commercial motorcycle (okada) repair and battery charging among others are what the community is known for. Apart from few areas within the abattoir community, such as Sina Ogunbambo Street, where neat bungalows were sighted, other aspects of the community is in serious environmental dislocation. The environment is in a deplorable condition, squalid. There is absence of infrastructural development of any kind. The roads are not tarred. People live in huts and all kinds of awkward contraptions especially those of cattle rearing nomads mostly from the northern part of the country.

Most of huts are made in form of a big sitting room, where a number of them converge and sleep after the day’s work. Swarms of houseflies are seen everywhere within and without the living areas. The dwellers depend largely on Suya and meat selling, while their wives undertake food vending for a living. They make special Hausa cakes for their husbands and children.

In the community, cattle are seen as co-residents as they are so friendly with the people, both the strangers and non-strangers, unlike those coming from the wild of some sort. Those selling animal feed are there, too, with most of their plank-made houses covered with black nylon bags to prevent rainwater from destroying their belongings. In its entirety, the region has a serious environmental challenge; and because there is heavy truck movement, in and out of the community, to offload cattle from north and Niger Republic, the roads are badly affected. However, due to the fact that the residents of the community are low-income earners, the area seem not to have attracted any form of development except few streets that have security here and there.

The community also plays host to many young people and some elderly ones. According to one of the residents, Rasheed Lawal, who hails from Ondo State, he enjoys the place, amidst absence of infrastructure. “At least, I live in this community of my people. We do not have problems here. If the government decides to take us away, let them povide us another place that we can settle and adapt easily.” He noted that he has been living in Oko-Oba with his family for the past 10 years, saying that by right, he is supposed to have become a citizen of Lagos State.

“I have my five children, born in this community. What the government is doing is good but let them provide us with an alternative community, so that we will not be like others displaced people like Maroko.”

For Mr. Johnson Adeola, government should provide the dwellers with some good sense of infrastructure and ensure sanity in the community, including the abattoir itself.

“The community might not be at its best but we like it and believe that the government will make it a better place to be. I’m happy, living here.”

Meanwhile, there were quite a number of camels at the scene, during the visit to this festering sore of a slum. It was gathered that camels are killed and sold for meat, while live ones are sold to people who want them for transportation of their goods.

Apart from selling camels for transportation, a number of transporters are located there for movement of goods and services as well as domestic animals from the northern part of the country.

Transport companies like, Kebbi State Transport Ltd, those from Sokoto and others have good presence here.

According Jubril Garba, a cattle feed seller, “We slaughter at least, 20 camels a day and over 500 cattle. As early as 5am, we start our job. Then, there are meat vans provided by the state government, which take the meat to Badagry and other parts of the state, where they are sold.” He noted that some vehicles are dedicated to conveying of camel meat, which is called Thilib geyl in Saudi Arabia, while more vans are dedicated to carrying of cow meat (beef)

“Not everybody likes eating camel so, they have to be separated from normal beef. Some people place orders for meat from camel and others go for beef.”

Abattoir Complex: Open Sore Of A State

By Paul Adunwoke

CLEANLINESS, they say, is next to godliness. For the meat sellers at Lagos State Abattoir Complex, Oko-oba, Agege, maybe this saying will have to be rung like bells for these people, who seemed to have turned the market to their garbage ground. Cleanliness is not next to godliness, but deathliness.

A customer in the market, Mr. Jide Omoniyi, however, said the dirty environment is as a result of rainfall. “During dry season, the market used to be very clean. Dirt affects the business because no body wants to be in a dirty place.  The traders have to do something because as more rains come, the more it would get worse and it is not good for our health. Any thing that is for public needs to be handled with care.”

Apart from the people who skin meat and turn them to pomo, the activities that go on in the market would make a visitor wonder whether the movement of meat from the slab to the trucks, tricycles and carts are really healthy for consumption.

On a recent visit, The Guardian discovered the ‘unhealthy’ process, as some men carried the slaughtered meat on their heads without putting them inside basin or bag.

Oko-Oba Abattoir : To Undergo Immediate Reforms, More Slaughter Houses Underway

Following the torrent of public comments on the poor and unhygienic state of the state-owned but privately managed abattoir at Oko Oba, Agege, Lagos, Prince Gbolahan Lawal, Commissioner of Agriculture and Cooperatives spoke to GBENGA AKINFENWA on the positive reforms that will visit the slaughter complex before the end of this year. Excerpts.

What has your ministry done since the stench report emanated?

So far the ministry has commenced the stakeholders meeting with all the major stakeholders at the abattoir, the butchers association, the animal market merchants and the management of the abattoir. The ministry is also working in collaboration with Ministry of Environment and two other agencies of the Environment ministry such as Lagos State Waste Management Authority (LAWMA).

The issues we have there has to do with sanitation, public health is also involved because of the hygiene situation of the abattoir and as a ministry, we have commenced a lot of workshops for our veterinary doctors and superintendent veterinary officers to enlighten them on what they should watch out for and how they can continue to regulate and even enforce the rules and regulations that we put in place there.

In the 2013 budget, we already have provision for government intervention at the Oko-Oba Abattoir. I would not want to be specific but there is going to be a facelift on the infrastructure, even the way and manner animal is being slaughtered, and the transportation issue.

What is government’s next plan in the operations of the slaughterhouse and how soon?

Be assured that before the end of this fiscal year 2013, we are going to fence the abattoir to address security issues; we would reform the slaughter slab. Because of the water problem there, the Water Corporation is moving in and we are in serious dialogue with the other stakeholders, which I would not want to let out because I believe in action. By the time you see the reforms going on there, you would have another story to tell Lagosians.

Looking at the population of Lagos, is one Abattoir enough for the state?

It is not as if we have one abattoir, we have one main abattoir. We want to also reconstruct four, starting with two in this budget year but it is going to be on a Public-Private Partnership like build, operate and transfer. It will be advertised in the papers in the next couple of days, for Itire and Matori Abattoirs.

We already have the semi-mechanised abattoir at Asako in Ajeromi/Ifelodun Local Government. We have illegal slaughter slabs, and let me use this opportunity to inform the general public that they should desist from going to patronise them. There are no veterinary officers at these abattoirs and we don’t know the health status of the animals that are being slaughtered there; also the hygiene level of the carcass and beef coming out of there, there is no disease control in those illegal slaughter slabs.

There are some animals that have diseases, for example tuberculosis. We don’t want people to risk their lives because as government, we need to ensure protection of lives and property and as the ministry; we are to ensure the food security agenda of the state. And those operators should know that their time is up, we are coming.

Operators claim that they incur losses when vets at the abattoir do not pass their animals. Don’t you think this is the cause of the illegal slaughter slabs that endanger pubic health?

The more reason why I told you that if you patronise the illegal abattoir and no veterinary doctor to check the health of the animal, you wont be able to ascertain the diseases that can be transferred from animal to man. If you have a market that people don’t patronise, definitely it would close down. So, it’s left for Lagosians to not patronise them.

We have an abattoir that is government regulated and approved, why do you want to patronise illegal slaughter slabs? Any animal that is found not to be worthy of consumption would be condemned. We now have to talk about the compensation, that is what the butchers association and the abattoir management would have to work out and if there is any need for the government to intervene to provide incentives for them, we are ready.

We have already began the stakeholders meeting and in no time, you are going to see the change for the better because we strive to make Lagosians can get better beef or carcass. It is unacceptable for people to be importing beef from some other countries. You don’t know the health regime of such countries and that is part of the reform. Where is the animal coming from? All the animal merchants would have to go through screening. If an animal is pregnant then it is not fit for consumption and through scanning, it will always be detected. We are going to do it.

Transport vans operating at the abattoir appears insufficient. What are you doing about this to check moving meat with Keke, taxi or other unauthorised means?

Did I hear you say insufficient vehicles? We have sufficient vehicles. The use of unauthorised way of moving meats are gone, you can’t see them on our major roads. They only use tricycle within the abattoir, and its not for animals.

Why isn’t all the processes of animal slaughter mechanised and supervised by Harmony Abattoir Management?

Well, we have a mechanised section that can process 2000 animals in a day, but because of culture and this part of the engagement that we have commenced, we want to migrate. We know where we started from; we started from using shoulder to carry carcass, from human shoulders to carts, from carts to taxi before we got to the air-cooled and from the air-cooled system, we graduated to the refrigerated Eko Meat Van regime.

We are going to improve on the infrastructure there; the complaints from the neighbouring estate are being attended to. It is an inter-ministerial approach - Lagos State Waste Water is looking at that, LASEPA is also working, it’s not only Agric ministry. Before the end of this budget year, you are going to see improvement.

The 2000 animal slaughter capacity, is the abattoir not handling too much?

There are two machines and each can do 1000. If the two were put into optimal use, then it would be 2000. What we presently slaughter on the slab now is 1000, mostly on weekends. Our people are always in a rush to go to the market and once we are more efficient, we would do more.

Operators claim that the charge on each cow slaughtered is higher than outside, what is your position on this?

What do you mean by outside? It is illegal and when you go to an illegal or black market, you are going to get what is operational in the open market. It will be cheaper because they cut corners. Are you going to patronise those people that don’t have vet doctors to check the state of health of animals. I advise people not to patronise them.