ECONOMICS (NUMERIC AND CHARACTERISTIC) OF RAM CONSUMPTION FOR SALLAH CELEBRATION IN ABEOKUTA

 

Barkah da Sallah to all Muslim faithful  in the world and all my friends on Facebook 

Wishing us all many more . May the joy of the celebration radiates in our life's and may the sacrifices and prayers heals of country amen. 

Every year, we celebrate this special festival with the slaughtering of rams. Ileya is usually Two months and few day after Ramadan celebration. Once we are done with Ramadan, a lot start SAVING MONEY and making efforts to be able to afford Ram for the Ileya celebration.. Characteristically , it is a show of faith, success and thankfulness to Allah.. So demand for Ram begins to rise and prices begin to soar . Going round Abeokuta these last two weeks on price census, you can hardly find a table size ram that is less than N100k, an average ram goes for N250k and some are as high as N600k here in Abeokuta. Am not talking of cow ooo, I saw a ram of N600k and it was purchased by a man . 

Taking the nos of RAMS bought and to be slaughtered in Abeoukta to be conservatively  100,000 only, less than 1% of these RAMS were reared and bred in Abeokuta. Most were brought down from the Neighbouring countries via the Northern route . People should stop believing all the Rams are from the North, they were mostly imported. Go to Olomore and find out, TOMATOES SUPPLY SINCE JUNE AT OLOMORE HAD BEEN 50% FROM CAMEROUN REPUBLIC ,20% FROM NIGER REPUBLIC AND 30% FROM NORTHERN NIGERIA.. Characteristically, South western Nigeria is the MARKET for Ram.

CONSUMPTION in Ogun state is 2nd to Lagos during Ileya. Don't go there and count how many Rams goes down on sallah at Ijebu land. 

Anyway, 100,000 Rams * N100,000 = N10 Billion ONLY. 

These money annually fly out of our economy in Abeoukta alone, not to mention Ogun state or the entire Nigeria (CAPITAL FLIGHT )

 Like we say in church, that was how it was in the begining, is now, do we allow it to be ever shall be?. Our lackadaisical  attitude and our neglect of the importance of family and the micro economics make  us losing so much to our neighbouring countries unnecessarily. WE CAN REAR THESE RAMS AND WE HAVE ALL THE GRASSES AND THE WATER TO FEED THEM . Nothing stops us from having a mutually benefiting economic relationship with the Neighbouring countries, why can't we have something they can take back in returns to hundreds of billions we expended in few days to one week on Ram?

Let not talk about cow. We have very few cows in Nigeria. The government parading 20 million cows are making wrong conclusion, those cows were daily imported by roads to the country for sales and for fresh water hence what you see at all times are COWS OF SAME OR SIMILAR AGES . Rearing cows will be of different ages when they are flocking together. Is someone getting this fact right?.

 MY CONCLUSION

 It is high time the state government starts looking at creating what I call A SEMEN BANK. Get improved semen of proven animals imported to the state and use Sheep and goats for empowerment of the FAMILY . Neglect of family in Agricultural intervention is why those government policies are failing. Enough of youths and women empowerment . Make it FAMILY EMPOWERMENT. So the family can own two to three female sheep and go to semen bank to collect semen for artificial insemination. In 5 years to come, 30% to 50% of the money we used to buy Rams can be retained in our town. Enough of capital flight , it weakens our economy. 

Once again, Barka de Sallah.. 

Ayopo Somefun

Abeokuta