The federal government says it is proposing legislation to ban the consumption of animal skin, locally known as ponmo, in the country to revive tanneries.

Muhammad Yakubu, director-general, Nigerian Institute of Leather and Science Technology (NILEST), Zaria, said this in Abuja on Sunday. He said the litigation was necessary to revive the comatose leather industry in the country.

He said the habit of eating animal skin, which has no nutritional value, should be stopped to save the industry and boost the nation’s economy. The director-general added that the institute, in collaboration with stakeholders in the industry, would approach the national assembly and state governments to bring out legislation banning “ponmo” consumption.

“To the best of my knowledge, Nigerians are the only people in the world that overvalue skin as food, after all, Ponmo has no nutritional value. At one point, there was a motion before the two chambers of the national assembly, it was debated but I don’t know how the matter was thrown away,” he said.

According to him, the consumption of animal skin is partly responsible for the present comatose state of tanneries in Nigeria.He also said the current National Leather Policy had addressed some fundamental problems of the sector.
“If we get our tanneries, our footwear and leather production working well in Nigeria, people will hardly get pomo to buy and eat. When implemented fully, it would turn around most of the comatose tanneries and ginger greater output in production.”

Yakubu appealed to stakeholders to support the legislation and the national leather policy to revive the sector.

Instablog

Lalasticlala

Seun

Mynd44

I wonder how would our yoruba brothers feel.
Kpomo is a part of their diet, culture, their being.
Infact, till today I haven't seen a properly cooked yoruba food without kpomo.
This is an insult to not only the yoruba nation but also Nigeria at large.

Just like how somebody months ago was saying they should ban amala

What will now happen to those that rely on ponmo for survival;the local ponmo sellers

What will now happen to those that rely on ponmo for survival;the local ponmo sellers
Even this so called Yakubu and other politicians won't buy any of the industry products oooooooooooooooooooooo

HarlequinLekex:
What will now happen to those that rely on ponmo for survival;the local ponmo sellers

Nigeria will happen to them

idomalord:
I wonder how would our yoruba brothers feel.
Kpomo is a part of their diet, culture, their being.
Infact, till today I haven't seen a properly cooked yoruba food without kpomo.
This is an insult to not only the yoruba nation but also Nigeria at large.

Just like how somebody months ago was saying they should ban amala

I don't believe this

Nonsense talk as usual. Leather is more expensive than ponmo. So cow dealers and butchers prefer to sell their cowskin to leather processors than ponmo processors.

But they're selling to ponmo processors because the leather industry isn't up to standard and can't buy most of the cowskin.

So a reasonable government would improve the leather processing industry and bring it up to standard so they can buy and process more cowskin and not ban ponmo.

Ponmo on its own, would get expensive if it competes with leather and buyers would just buy something else instead without a ban in place.

He must be very stupid. What does Kpomo have to do with the economy?

See the picture they even used. As tempting as that well peppered and garnished Pomo looks, we won't leave it.