The planned beef boycott by some prominent Yoruba groups is generating mixed reactions in the southwest even as some stakeholders in the zone are against the plan.
Our correspondent reports that a one-day symbolic beef boycott tagged, “Anything but Cow Day” with the theme, “Towards Terminating the Cow Pandemic,” is being pushed by the pan-Yoruba sociocultural group, Afenifere, Aare Onakankanfo, Iba Gani Adams, Yoruba Summit Group and Sunday Igboho, according to an advertorial published on the plan.
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Bustle, hustle inside the famous Wukari Yam Market
The boycott, starting from 12:01am on March 5 to midnight, is coming a day after the Amalgamated Union of Food and Cattle Dealers of Nigeria called off its strike which lasted six days resorting in the scarcity of beef and other food stuffs in the southern markets.
Confirming the boycott yesterday in a chat with Daily Trust, Afenifere spokesman, Yinka Odumakin, said the Yoruba leaders would not continue to look aside while their people were being killed and maimed in the name of cattle rearing.
“We’ve to make our message clear that you cannot continue to put us under untoward happenings because you are selling cows to us,” he said.
Odumakin said many people in Yorubaland were not happy with the massive destruction caused to the farmlands in the name of cattle rearing, adding that they would respond positively by the boycott.
According to him, cows are not the only source of protein available to the people. Besides, he stressed that the Yoruba people would work towards ensuring food security in the region.
“So we’re not depending on their cows.
That’s why they’ve called off their strike, we’re not begging them,” he added.
When contacted, a spokesperson with the Aare Onakankanfo, Kehinde Akinremi, however, said his boss was not involved in the planned boycott.
But the Yoruba Welfare Group disagreed with Afenifere, urging it and those it called “their political collaborators” to stop fueling crisis in the southwest.
Its president, Abdulhakeem Adegoke-Alawuje, in a chat with Daily Trust ,such a decision was not in the interest of the Yorubaland, many of whom he noted were also in the cattle business.
He said: “Many Yoruba have cattle. A friend of mine, a veterinary doctor breeds and rears cattle which he slaughters and sells. Should I boycott beef because of Fulani? Myself and thousands of other Yorubas are in the business.”
He accused Afenifere of trying to set the North and the South against each other, saying the group would not accept it.
A source in the Fulani community in Lagos said the Fulanis were not aware of the planned boycott.
