Two men identified as Tolu Makanju, a 1998 Mechanical
Engineering graduate of the University of Lagos, UNILAG, and Jonathan Ogbeide,
have been arrested for allegedly being in possession of 85 dead chickens they
were processing as frozen food for sale for public consumption.
The dead chickens
after being processed, were usually neatly
packed and sold to eateries as frozen foods and also supplied to caterers who
cook for big events such as weddings.
The suspects were
arrested at 3/5, Olusegun Babatunde Street, Igando, by officials of the
Environmental Health Unit of Igando-Ikotun Local Council Development Area,
Lagos, southwest Nigeria.
They were
subsequently handed over to the police at Igando police station for
prosecution.
A police source at
the station who does not want his name mentioned, told our correspondent that
they would be charged to court after a thorough investigation into the matter.
They were accused of
insanitary processing of dead fowls in an unhygienic premises for sale to the
public, failure to produce medical certificate for their workers and failure to
produce license for operation by the LCDA’s Environmental Health Unit headed by
Mrs. Omowunmi Onibudo.
According to the
council’s Chief Environmental Health Officer, “some of the women working for
them became jittery when we caught them unawares and started confessing to the
crime we held them for before their master came to obstruct our vehicle.
“One of our officers,
while on routine inspection, saw the workers processing dead chickens meant for
sale to the public on a soak away. They were actually pulling their feathers
when they were caught red handed. Their master claimed they slaughtered them
but the amount of blood in the premises does not measure up to the amount of
chicken found with them.
“The officer accosted
them and called the office for reinforcement because she could not handle the
situation alone. As the exhibits were about being transferred to the council’s
bus, the owner blocked our vehicle from going out of the compound, saying we
were not going to move an inch away from the compound.
“We had to call for
policemen from Igando police station to assist us in getting them arrested. He
still put up some resistance until the policemen made him realise they were not
there for child’s play. They were arrested and made to write statements. We confiscated
the dead chickens and buried them the following day.
“There are further
actions to be taken against them. The Customary Court under our jurisdiction,
sit on Tuesday and Wednesdays and hopefully we are going to charge them to
court on Tuesday to serve as deterrent to others who equally engage in such
illicit acts,” she said.
According to Makanju,
“I’m a law abiding citizen of this country. We have been in this business for
close to three years now and I would not because of money endanger the life of
others. Those chickens were bought alive. We were the ones that slaughtered
them.
“We have our
customers whom we supply them to every weekend. My partner had a poultry farm
before it was pulled down by his elder brothers in that same compound. Since
the poultry farm was pulled down, we take the chickens to a farm at Akowonjo
except on rare occasions when we have less quantity.
“We didn’t know it is
not right to be doing this kind of thing in a residential building until now. I
make bold to say again that those chickens were bought alive before we brought
them there. We can take you to where we bought them for confirmation.”
According to his
partner, Jonathan, “we have where we normally process these chickens at
Akowonjo whenever we have them in large quantity but these ones were not much
and that was why we gave them to those people to do it for us because they were
complaining that school has resumed and that they wanted to pay their
children’s school fees; if not we would not have brought them home.
“We are only trying
to assist them but now it has put us in trouble. I make bold to say that we
bought those chickens alive. They were not dead, we slaughtered them
ourselves.”
Credit: PMNews
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