The Abia State government has denied hatching any plan to evict butchers from the Ubakala abattoir, insisting that it only plans to develop the facility and improve its sanitary condition.
The Chief Security Officer to the governor of Abia State, retired Navy Commander MacDonald Uba, made this clarification in Umuahia few hours after a peaceful protest by the butchers, stating, “While driving the policies of the government, those affected will complain.”
The Umuahia Butchers Association had accused the incumbent CSO of allegedly planning to evict them from the abattoir.
The president of the association, Ngozi Williams, insisted that the butchers’ slaughter “has been in Umuahia North Local Government Area for long a time before it was relocated to Mgbarakuma/Amuzu land in Ubakala, Umuahia South Local Government Area, by the then military administration of Col. Ike Nwosu and the then Minister of Agriculture, Adamu Ciroma, in 1994.
“We have been working in alliance with the Federal, state and local governments for a very long time. We, the Butchers Association in Umuahia North and Umuahia South are pleading with the government to intervene in the matter and save us. We are law abiding citizens of Abia State and we are fully and totally in support of the administration of the present governor of Abia State, His Excellency, Dr. Alex Otti. We are law-abiding citizens; we are not trouble makers.”
The Vice President of the butchers association, Noah Uwalaka, and a former chairman of the association, informed that the butchers pay the sum of N500 on every cow slaughtered at the abattori to the state and the local government authorities.
However, Uba said the sanitary condition of the abattoir is unwholwsome, even as the state government had just last week taken Bulgarian investors to the abattoir to see how to develop the place and make it clean.
He insisted that neither he nor the state government wants to evict the butchers or take over the place, but that the state government wants to fence the area like it is doing at Lokpanta Cattle Market, Umuchieze, to improve on the sanitary condition of the abattoir and make it hygienically safe.
He told South-East PUNCH, “We will do what the government said we should do. The abattoir administration is under the local government, but the state government owns the land.
“They have been in breach of the sanitary condition of that place and government cannot sit down and watch. The Bulgarians were not happy with the sanitary condition of that place. The hygienic condition of that place is zero.”
He described their allegation as “spurious,” stating that “the issue was that we brought investors to come and see how to deepen the state revenue base by improving the hygienic condition of that place.”
He challenged them to show proof of who they pay the revenue to when the state governor had stopped that, even as the Mayor of Umuahia South has also denied receiving any revenue from the butchers.
He added, “If they are paying revenue, it is to themselves. What negative impact will developing the place have on them? If fenced, they will be doing their business in a cleaner and safer environment. We are not evicting them. Where do we evict them to?”