A cow trudges on with difficulty as it is being pulled by two impatient men into the slaughter facility at Shinge, Nasarawa State. The animal, so lean that its ribs were visible, slumped, compelling the angry men to get a wheelbarrow to complete the animal’s journey to slaughter.
At the state Ministry of Agriculture on Jos Road, the storewhichhouses chemicals including vaccines and other veterinary drugs have gathered dust and cobwebs. The last time they were stocked with chemicals was in the early days of the eight-year administration of Abdullahi Adamu who governed between 1999 and 2007. For close to 10 years now, the stores have played host to dust and the craft of spiders.
Meanwhile, the number of cows owned by nomads has seen a steady increase since then, with the nomads relying only on Kanwa (Hausa for potash), which the state government provides occasionally. Nomads spoken to say their cattle have not had vaccination all the while, inspite of their repeated appeals to the state government.
“There is no vaccine, no general treatment for close to 10 years now. We have complained in writing, reaching all levels of government. But our cries have not attracted any concern from relevant authorities,” a nomad said.
Adamu Yusufu, a herder in Wamba, north of the state told Weekly Trust that nomads in the area have had to put up with sundry cow diseases, much of which are contagious and easily transmitted to humans.
“We can’t count diseases which have infected our cows. Some of them are killer diseases which are also infecting us,” Yusufu, who said he has lost not less than 20 cows to sundry diseases, said. He said he lost a relative recently too, to an ailment he suspected to have been transmitted from cattle.
The national leadership of the Miyetti-Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) disclosed recently that there is an outbreak of a new, communicable animal disease which could be transferred to human beings, and called for urgent government intervention. The group said in a communiqué issued at the end of a meeting of its National Executive Council and chairmen of state chapters that the disease has already affected many people, especially in Nasarawa State.
“We seek urgent assistance from the Federal Ministry of Agriculture on cases of animal communicable diseases affecting human beings reported in Nasarawa State. We request for intervention from government for the provision of animal feeds across the country,” the group said in the communiqué signed by its National Secretary, Alhaji Baba Usman Ngelzarma.
State Secretary of Miyetti Allah, Mohammed Hussain, who spoke with Weekly Trust on the discovery of the outbreak of the disease named about 10 of them, which he said have reached epidemic stage.
He listed Anthrax, Bovine Tuberculosis Brucellosis and Leptospirosis. These are bacterial diseases with mode of transmission to humans as direct contact and ingestion. There are also Rabies and Hepatitis E, two viral diseases which transmission to humans can be through direct contact and ingestion as well.
There is also Trypanosomiasis, a disease caused by Tse-Tse fly bites, and Black Leg, as well as Matitis, an inflammatory disease that affects the udder. All of these the nomads have been compelled to endure all through the years of complete absence of chemicals in the drug stores of the Livestock and Veterinary Services of the ministry on Jos Road.
“This is the situation we have lived with for about 10 years now in Nasarawa. We lose cattle to curable diseases. We lose human lives too to the diseases passed unto humans, from the cattle,” Hussain, who is also an animal scientist, said.
He said nomads come in direct contact with their animals, just as their wives, daily milk them, and consume the milk too, risking infection because they are ignorant of the dangers of doing so. He said records gathered through reports by nomads to Miyetti Allah shows that no fewer than 3,000 cows have been infected by the deadly, but curable diseases between 2013 and this year alone. He said records available to Miyetti Allah shows that not less than 70 persons have had the diseases transmitted unto them within the same period, with some of them already dead.
He named Angwan Abakpa in Wamba, Tataran Mada and Garaku in Kokona Local Government Area, Shabu in Lafia, and much of the nomad settlements in Awe area of the state, are some of the worst hit by the diseases which have reached epidemic proportion. He said some of the visible symptoms include watery and irregular cow dung, bleeding noses, and emaciation, as well as weakness.
Mohammed, who took this reporter through the Alhamis Cattle Market, near the Shinge slaughter slab, pointed at a herd of cattle at one of the sections of the market and said: “you can see for yourself; all of these cows are sick. They can’t move; they can’t even feed.” He turned to another section, gesturing to all cows around there with the same comment. The market on that day had close to a thousand cows tied to stakes, much of which looked sick.
On that day, Alhaji Abdullahi Janga, a nomad from Awe was in the market with his grown up sons, to sell five cows. He pushed them around, to prove to this reporter that his cows were all weak, indicating they are ill.
“I have lost 15 cows this year alone. They keep dying from diseases. So, I have decided to sell the most affected ones,” Janga said in Hausa.
Bello Audu, another nomad who came from Obi, pointed at two cows tied to a nearby stake. “I am selling them off. I can’t treat them; they have been infected.”
Umaru Na Mata, a young nomad from Tataran Mada in Kokona was in the market that day to also sell three. He said his wares were infected with the Bovine Tuberculosis, one of the most common diseases killing cattle in the state in the past 10 years. He said two of his relatives have contacted the disease from the cows. One of them, a female he said, died recently after months of coughing.
Officials of the cattle market at Alhamis all confirmed they have been trading in sick cows, which end up on the slaughter slabs.
Nuhu Abdullahi, chairman of the Cattle Dealers Association at Alhamis market said the dealers are aware of the spread of sundry cow diseases. “Much of the cows infected by these diseases end up here in this market,” the Wakilin Shinge said. “We sell them off as they come. The cows we receive here are mostly infected.” He said the infections affect dealers as well.
While he was speaking, Weekly Trust observed a slaughtered cow being pushed in by two young men. They explained that the owner had to remove a knife and slit open the throat because the animal was too weak to make it to the market in a truck which just arrived from Azara, south of the state. “We incur loss here a lot. We have had cases where cows die in our hands soon after we buy them from the nomads,” the cattle dealers’ chairman said.
Abdullahi said several complaints have been lodged with relevant authorities over the epidemic, without a reply. Yet, he said, dealers are forced to pay huge taxes to the same government that will not listen to genuine and confirmed cases of infection.
But the head of the Ministry of Agriculture’s Department of Livestock, Mr. Titus Agi, who is stationed at the slaughter slab, said simply that what Weekly Trust observed as sick animals being dragged for slaughter, are merely weak. He said the cows trek distances from far North, down the North-Central in this period of absence of grazing areas, and get to the abattoirs weak and emaciated, much like sick animals. He declined to speak further, explaining he did not have the authority to do so.
At the Leprosy/TB Centre of the Evangelical Reforms Christian Church (ERCC) Medical Centre in Alushi, a missionary settlement in Nasarawa-Eggon, along Akwanga-Keffi Road, sat Ino Buba, an elderly Fulani woman suffering from TB. Hajiya Ino, who came from Wamba said she was admitted at the hospital after she was diagnosed with TB, although she said she had no idea how she contacted the ailment which came in her late 50s.
At the male ward, Weekly Trust spoke with Abu Abubakar and Likita Saleh, from Kyekura in Awe, and Mohammed Musafrom Kofan Gwari in Kokona. They are all suffering from TB, although they insisted they had no idea how they had the infection.
Kuza Thomas, supervisor of the facility could be seen leading some of the attendants at the health facility, to attend to the patients. A medical officer at the facility, Samuel Koko said around 30 percent of patients at the hospital - at all times - are Fulani nomads. He said the TB bacteria survives in fresh cow milk, and has the capacity to infect humans when they take it. He said Fulani nomads are likely to suffer diseases from their cows when untreated, because, daily they come in contact with the cows and their products.
The state Commissioner of Agriculture, Alhaji Danladi Madaki, confirmed that cows dragged to the slaughter slab are weak and lean, but he insisted that his close investigation showed that the animals are “not suffering from any infection.” He also admitted that the ministry has not carried out any vaccination in more than eight years, but said government has initiated many programmes which will gradually address the problems of nomads in the state. “You know, because of our proximity with River Benue, which runs beside much of Nasarawa State, we are an attraction to nomads because the area serves as natural grazing reserve for them,” Madaki said.
Some of the diseases afflicting the cows and those who come into contact with them are known, while some are described as ‘new’. Even with the cries of affected people and the numbers stacking up in hospitals, just how much time before the myriad of cattle-borne diseases take before spreading even further, remains to be seen.
Source: Daily Trust
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