Alhaji Isa Tafida Mafindi, Yeriman Muri is a businessman, politician and a member of the National Executive council of the PDP since its inception. With years of experience especially in animal husbandry and agriculture, he has established several businesses, the latest being a state of the art abattoir in Abuja, to bring meat up to international standard in Abuja and its environs. In this interview with AMINA ALHASSAN AHMAN, AL-AMIN CIROMA and MAIRO MUHAMMAD MUDI, he explains why he decided to take on this huge venture and also advised northern Nigerians to task themselves and invest more in agriculture as a way of ending poverty and insecurity in the north. Excerpts:

Tell us how and why you ventured into the abattoir business?
Over several years I have gathered a high level of experience in animal husbandry and establishments set up in Scotland and Egypt. I decided to replicate the same here in Abuja to take care of lack of quality meat. We have many cows from different cattle farms; we have been fattening them and getting them graded for international cattle markets. We are now working hard to set up this abattoir to give people quality beef.

Explain the difference between the modern abattoir and what we already have at the local abattoir.
There are vast differences, the only thing they have in common is that, both places slaughter the halal way. Besides that the way we handle meat here is completely different. Ours is handled under the most hygienic conditions.

Because from the point where cows are taken in for slaughtering, till the time they are sectioned and sorted, there is no exposure to germs either from being tossed about on the floor, processing with bad water, carrying into wheel barrows, depositing in fly-infested areas, which is what obtains now in our local abattoirs.

In our system we have a way of selecting the meat, whereas in the local place they sell everything that comes out of the slaughter area because they are not concerned with how healthy a cow is or whether its meat is safe for consumption; what matters most to them is the money they put in and how they will recover it. In ours we have different grading systems to determine which is best for human consumption.

How do you intend on enlightening Muslim customers who believe that this modern trend of meat processing is not slaughtered according to Islamic rites?
If you have been privileged to go to Mina in Saudi Arabia, they have this kind of establishment for those who come to slaughter for the hadayya or ‘illaiya’ as we call it here, during the Hajj period. It’s the same process we use here; slitting the throat, letting the blood flow and that is the beginning and end of halal slaughtering. We do the most professional and hygienic type of killing here.

It is this modern trend that is going on all over the world today. If you go to the UK or USA, you can find these types of halal slaughter houses along with other types of slaughter houses; you will not find the local type because the Animal rights protection and Health inspectors won’t even allow it.

About how many cows are slaughtered per day and will it cater for consumers in the FCT as well as other Northern states?
What we are trying to do is act as a catalyst so that, if we start, others will also want to do the right thing. Before this, there were the Bauchi and Kano meat factories. However all these could not continue because there were some externalities involved, worse of all was that it was started by government . This is the first abattoir started by an entrepreneur being run as a business. Quality meat is very important to restaurants because quality matters a lot.

What is the cost effect on the consumer compared to what they would get from the local abattoir?
In terms of costs, we are more efficient and we will be getting value for money. Because under local slaughter, if you put a cow up for kill you get about seven or more people taking portions from it as their share.

But under our system, 100percent of the slaughtered cow is ours. Furthermore, the blood and waste are processed under our system, with the waste being processed to make fuel, compost fertilizer, etc while everything is discarded in the local system.

Do you provide all the cows that are slaughtered from your farm or can individuals also bring in their cows?
Definitely, individuals may bring in their own cows. Our target is for people who want their meat handled in the most hygienic way. From our statistics, 80-90 per cent of cattle that will be brought here will come from interest groups such as hotels, restaurants and other service providers of food. They may have them fattened and brought here to have them slaughtered according to international standards.

Are we to understand that the aim is for people to eventually stop patronising local slaughter houses?
What you call a local slaughter house had a beginning and definitely the end is almost near, because if you give somebody the choice of having good quality meat and meat produced by local slaughter house, they would definitely go for quality. More people are becoming aware of what they eat.

And also under the new vision of Nigeria, agriculture is no longer a ‘food only’ procedure. It also involves business. When agric is business, you cannot stop at rice, it has to be accompanied by other things such as oil, meat, etc. We are taking only a portion out of this enabling environment. We cannot continue watching foreign channels waking us up from our slumber about the poor manner of meat handling in Nigeria.

I’m sure Nigerians would be interested to know how this venture would take care of unemployment.
With this set up, we should be able to provide jobs for about 5,000 people, because from the actual slaughtering of the cow to the mai suya and the person who prepares kilishi, everybody has something to do.

How do you intend to survive the erratic power supply, seeing that electricity supply is non-friendly to factories and industries?
I have confidence that if NEPA continues going the way it is, no industry will have to close down due to poor power supply. What we need is constant power in the daytime and that’s the time most people are at work or school and won’t use much electricity.

In the evenings we will run our generators to keep our cold room running.
Here we have the provision of using animal dung to producers up to 200kva of power.

What advice will you offer wealthy Northern when it comes to agriculture, because it is believed that agriculture is the solution to the problems facing the North?
My advice is that they should not bother taking their money to Switzerland, France, England etc. They should invest in processing units since the FG is creating an enabling environment. This will solve the problem of unemployment, insecurity will be reduced.

We have to get our people to change their psyche and put their resources into production. I would like Northerners to take an interest in such investments



Source - http://www.leadership.ng/nga/articles/31650/2012/08/04/invest_more_home_not_abroad_tafida_mafindi.html

What do you guys think? Unless I am doing something wrong but I can't even count how many times I have sent cell phones, laptops, clothes to naija and at the end, I always come out at a loss. It is all one story after the other barely making 50% on the total capital.