Chicken, turkey scarcity hits Nigeria market

A week after the Nigeria Customs Service launched the ‘Operation Hawk Descend’, a special operation against the smuggling of frozen poultry into the country, the prices of foreign poultry have risen by 28.5 per cent, while those of locally reared birds have increased by about 25 per cent.

The implementation of the ban on imported poultry has led to the scarcity of frozen chicken and turkey in the market.

The Operation Hawk Descend is expected to be conducted in Nigeria border with neighbouring countries, especially in Lagos, Ogun and Oyo states, and last for an initial period of three months, ending in September.

  A frozen food seller in my Area stated that the scarcity of poultry feeds had forced the price of a kilogramme of frozen turkey to rise to N1000 from N800 previously, which is a 28.5 per cent rise.

Although the Director-General of the Poultry Association of Nigeria, Mr. Onallo Akpan lamented on the destruction of the local poultry industry by the continued patronage of imported products.

He had described the local poultry industry as one of the critical drivers of the Nigerian economy and pleaded for public cooperation with the Consumers Protection Council and others stakeholders to rid Nigerian markets of imported poultry.

“If this trend is not checked and brought under control, the huge investment in the poultry industry may be rendered unproductive and the economy brought into a total collapse.