With their startling entry into the donkey business, just for the skin of the beast of burden, the Chinese have remained in control of the dynamics of the business in West Africa.
The demand-and-supply trend has decimated the donkey population, and Nigeria’s donkey dealers are feeling the heat.
Maigatari in Jigawa State is famous for its Thursday livestock market where camels, horses, cattle, goats, sheep, and donkeys are traded in their large numbers.
The market is less than two minutes’ drive from the border that separates Jigawa from Niger Republic.
The hustle begins late in the morning. Families bring the old donkey in a bus and drag it down into the market. Haymakers distribute feed to donkeys, tethered in pairs and packed in groups. Water sellers upturn gallons of water into drinking pails.
The lorries line up. The sellers assemble their animals. The buyers inspect the animals. They will later sell live animals for slaughter or slaughter donkeys for their skin to be shipped to processing facilities.
On a typical Thursday four years ago, more than 3,000 donkeys go through Maigatari. That was when Chinese money flowed into the business. At the centre of the business was Chinese demand for donkey skin.
It was instrumental in ‘ejiao’, donkey hide gelatin. It was a delicacy once available to the rich and fit for royalty. Regal affectation priced it out of the reach of the common man. But China’s burgeoning middle class and a corresponding rise in disposable sparked interest in ejiao once more.
It was nothing but a dietary supplement, believed to be beneficial on myriad counts. Women wanted it for beautiful skin; men wanted it for sexual prowess.
And some donkeys going through Maigatari died for their skin. These days, an average of 600 pass through, down from a weekly 3,000, after Chinese buyers pulled out. The heat is on traders.
“The donkey trade has witnessed a drastic fall from about three years (when the Chinese began to withdraw) to this day,” a donkey merchant at Maigatari, Abdulmumini Idris, complained. He
makes a living transporting donkeys bought and sold. “The donkey that used to sell for about N30,000 now sells for just about N15,000.”
Four years ago, at least 15 lorries packed with donkeys left Maigatari every Thursday, headed for markets in the south of Nigeria. They provided meat in the South East, South West and South
South. They also provided donkey hide. On this Thursday, in the first six hours of trade of the day, only one truck packed with donkeys drove out of the market. The haggling over prices continued.
Demand and borders
At the height of the demand, animal conservationists turned attention to the depleting donkey population across Africa. Groups like the Donkey Sanctuary worried that Nigeria’s donkey population could be wiped out in a few years. Nations, including Nigeria, put up laws banning export of the animal. Even then the animals still came into Maigatari through the borders. Then suddenly donkeys were contraband. Among the hundreds of donkeys pooled at Maigatari, few get sold, others will wait till another Thursday. Those sold are not eaten in the North; they are transported out.
“The challenge we face on the Nigerian side is corruption by officials the transporter encounters on the way down South,” said Idris.
“You hire the truck at about N300,000 to transport 140 beasts, but also spend N100,000 to bribe officials on the way who believe you are transporting contraband to the southern markets.”
Niger also has a ban. So previous exporters have turned smugglers. “They also encounter the challenge of bribing officials on patrol along the border who accost merchants taking bush paths with the beasts into Nigeria,” Idris also said. “This situation has thrown most of the you cannot invest so much to buy the donkeys and bring to the market where you find no buyer.”
When the Chinese frittered away dollars to get donkey hide, Saminu Haladu recalled charging up to N45,000 for an animal. These days, his headache is to pay up to N350,000 to hire a truck to transport 130 donkeys to southern markets. That’s not all: he has to figure an extra N100,000 in bribes to officials. “Because of such challenges, only about 10 percent of the Igbo merchants now come to the northern markets to buy the beasts,” he observed.
“Four years ago, we usually transported the beasts to the southern markets, meeting merchants there waiting eagerly for the supplies we were delivering. They buy, process and sell the skin to the Chinese; not so is the case now.” Clement Ude stands out in the market. He is a regular here. A bag hangs from one shoulder, packed with hard cash.
No electronic transactions work here. He moves from one herd to another, looking over the animals, gauging their health and fitness. His father traded in donkeys for 40 years before him. He has been doing the same thing for 15 years, supplying live donkeys to dealers in Agbor, Onitsha, Ebonyi. The meat is cut up and dried, and ends up in dinner plates from Lagos to Ibadan. But recent upheavals in the market have made him wary. Last year, authorities raided a processing plant in Lagos where meat was being dried. Ude’s stock was among meat seized. He lost N1.6 million in one raid, he said.
“Before, I used to load one full truck. These days, I load half. I pair up with another dealer and share the cost of the truck,” he said. Transporting donkeys is like transporting exhibits, he said. Aminu Maigatari witnessed the crash in numbers, after the initial boost by Chinese demand. He is secretary of Maigatari Donkey Merchants Association.
“With the entry of the Chinese, the animal that used to sell for just about N15,000 now sold for as much as N50,000 to N60,000, because the skin alone sold at about N40,000; they only needed the skin,” says Maigatari. “In those days, a Chinese merchant could give a local agent as much as N50 million to buy the animals, requiring the agent to supply him only the skin worth that amount.”
“These Chinese have stopped coming, and this has caused drastic drop in the trade; this is apart from the fact that the Donkeys’ hide stacked in the salting room at Ezzamgbo Salted donkeys’ hide dry in the sun at Ezzamgbo Niger Republic government, we heard, has also banned the exportation of donkeys from the country. That has scared many merchants of the beast in that country from bringing the animals into Nigeria.
“We, officials of the association, often have to plead with the Niger Republic border officials to let the merchants cross the border with the donkeys,” he complained.
The borders remain closed, but dealers on both sides still hope for a reprieve.
Ibrahim Jafaru is a merchant from Dingas, in Niger Republic’s region of Damagaran.
“We have enough donkeys to supply Nigeria from Niger. Our problem is the border officials who seize our beasts and demand for bribe before they let us cross the border with them; this why the animals are no longer sufficient at the Nigerian markets.”
From Maigatari to Mai’Adua
Outcry to conserve donkey population and ban to prevent export have forced the Chinese demand to shift from Nigeria, their hitherto major supplier of hide skinned off donkeys.
And many of the donkeys skinned would have come through Mai’Adua in Katsina.
Its major market dealing in livestock is only minutes from the border with Niger Republic.
The market holds on Sundays only. By morning, trucks and buses are pulling in, haymakers scamper with feed for livestock for sale; water sellers trundle with jerricans of water. In hours, goats are assembled and herded toward waiting lorries. But the donkeys are still trickling in.
“About four years ago you would find over 2000 donkeys here every market day,” Abdu Abdu, a donkey merchant recalled.
“That was when the Chinese were in the business; now they seem to have pulled out; that is why many Niger Republic merchants have stopped bringing the beasts to Nigeria.
“With the Chinese out of the donkey skin business in Nigeria, many local merchants and investors have also pulled out; the Chinese used to carry out the bulk of their donkey business in Nigeria, although they also used to buy donkeys from Cameroon, Chad and Mali.
“In the past, tens of fully-loaded trucks of the animals leave Mai’Adua every Sunday for the southern markets; now we barely transport two or three trucks,” he said.
“Many of us are now broke and thrown out of business,” Ibra Bala, a donkey merchant from Matamaye, Niger Republic, lamented. “Our donkeys are often seized by our border patrol officials, demanding bribe.
“In the past, my business partners used to bring between 500 and 1000 animals to this market every Sunday; now we bring a paltry 30.”
Adamu Bukar, a former member of the Katsina State House of Assembly, is a leading donkey merchant at Mai’Adua.
“Now we are witnessing a drastic fall in the business,” he said. “The price of the beast is high from the sources, making it unaffordable to many merchants; and Niger Republic has banned the sale of donkeys.
“About four years ago, we would go to Niger, buy the beasts, get them weighed and taxed by their officials there; then we would load them on trucks and cross the border, all without any problem.
“About three years ago, the weighing and taxing stopped, which meant the donkey had become a non-export commodity, implying that its trans-border trade had been banned.
“This has rendered most donkey merchants broke and out of business today.
“The entry of the Chinese into the donkey business about four years ago brought about high price and high demand for the beasts.
“The number of merchants fast multiplied then because the Chinese empowered a large number of people with capital for the business; then a Chinese buyer would pay for the skin higher than the whole beast could cost.
“Later, we heard the Niger Republic government was signing an agreement with the Chinese for them to be buying the beasts directly from the country.
“I cannot confidently say if agreement was finally signed, but the donkey business trend now tends to suggest that,” Adamu Bukar concludes.
Skin, meat and slaughter houses
“The Chinese have agents who supply them with the skins, I am one of them,” declared Hilary Onyeka. He is vice chairman of Obinwanne Horse Dealers and Slaughterers in Obollo Afor, Enugu State.
“I buy the skin, process and sell to them; they have depots in Enugu and Lagos.”
He could never get enough skin to meet the demand at the height of the boom. Many donkeys were killed for their skin, even when their meat wasn’t needed on the table.
“About four years ago, the business was booming and lucrative, until heavy taxes began to be imposed on the export of the skin, which necessitated the Chinese to start searching for alternative sources of the skin,” he recalled.
“Presently, they (the Chinese) are going to other countries for the skin; this is why it is not in high demand now in Nigeria.”
Turnover of animals slaughtered at the famous abattoir has dropped from 100 to 50 on the average, after heavy taxes forced many dealers out.
The animals are still in demand, but border closure and heavy transport expenses have tamped down supply.
“I used to go to as far as Mali to buy the beasts, but officials would accost you at the border, telling you that Nigerian government has banned the importation of donkeys,” says Onyeka.
“You, therefore, had to find a way of smuggling them in or risk leaving them there; this is how a lot of merchants lost their investments.
The market known for donkey
Nkwor Jakki in Ezzamgbo is literally “donkey market”. That is what it is popular for – purchase, sale, and slaughter, skin, meat, bones.
Here donkey dealers from Maigatari and those from the South mingle for business. The market is small, but it is a big part of Ezzamgbo’s economy -and has been since 1997 when it was established formally.
“There is job for every hand on the donkey value chain – provide water, feed, care, transport”, said Abdullahi Yinusa, head of the Hausa community in Ezzamgbo and a major dealer in donkeys. “Except for those who want to stay idle,” he adds.
“When Nkor Jakki was established, it was receiving between seven and nine trucks of 80 to 140 beasts daily, which meant over 1000, the bulk coming from outside Nigeria,” said Yinusa.
“With the entry of the Chinese, who are interested in only the skin of the beast, the price of donkey began to rise; and as the price rose, more investors forayed into the business, leading to more supplies and, therefore, more demand.
“The Chinese most times bought the skin at a price that equalled the price of a whole beast because at that time a skin sold for as much as N60,000, which was even more than the price of a whole beast,” he recalled.
Donkeys became a money spinner. “People who were not professional donkey merchants flooded the business, committing huge capital in it. When it crashed, many such investors lost their money, because when the Chinese left the skin began to sell for as low as N8000. You can imagine a skin that used to be sold at N60,000 now selling at just N7000 or N8000, and its quality and weight even has to satisfy the requirement of the agent, otherwise he won’t buy.
“When the Chinese were fully in the business they would give money to the merchants to buy the beasts, requiring the merchants to supply them just the skin. That was when they were in need of so high a quantity of the skin that they even had to be going to the interior north to boost supply of the beasts.
“The new impact: the local agents now have a field day, having no one to compete with them and can, therefore crash the price to their fancy; so the beast that used to sell at N60,000 now sells at between N20,000 and N25,000.
“Only the professional donkey dealers are now left in the business, because the investors that flooded the market with the Chinese have crashed out with the withdrawal of the Chinese.”
Few metres from where the donkeys graze on hay and lap at water is where it happens. Donkeys already put down are butchered on tables. Skinned donkey heads, are displayed on tables to be sold. Butchered parts are handled and priced. A young man at one table cleaves into bones, and adds the waste to a growing pile of bones. Children strip flesh off bones and make a pile of bits that will do for families unable to afford kilos of donkey meat.
In a walled stall to one side, head-to-tail donkey hide is stacked in two sets from the floor reaching knee length. It is the “salting” room, and salt is essential to the processing of donkey hide.
At least 10 hides already gone through salting are laid out on the ground outside, drying in the sun.
Joseph Onyemaechi is chairman of Ezza General Butchers Association. He manages the slaughterhouse and has never supplied skin. But he has watched the decline push the dynamics of trade from demand to supply.
“Four years ago, the skin sold for between N50,000 and N55,000; now it sells at just N12,000 to N13,000,” says Onyemaechi.
“The Chinese are to blame for the fall in the price. Not many of them buy it now; may be they stopped buying because they have bought enough. So anybody coming to buy now determines the price. It is now the buyer’s choice, no more the seller’s choice.”
Back in Maigatari, Idris and other workers have been paid for their work. One by one, around 30 donkeys are dragged, beaten, hoisted and forcibly pushed into the back of a lorry. They are stood alternately, one separated from the other by a hedge of wood. They will stand that way for the entire journey from Maigatari to Ezzamgbo.
It’s been a good sale, but it is the first lorry to drive off in six hours from the market. Many more donkeys will have to wait for another Thursday.
Location reporting: Habeeb Aminu, Katsina; Tony Adibbe, Enugu; Nabob Ogbonna, Abakaliki
