Not yet Uhuru for donkeys

The regular seizure of donkey parts by the authorities is a clear indication that efforts to save the donkeys in Nigeria from extinction have yet to bear fruit. At least three instances from the recent past would bear witness.

On Boxing Day last month, it was reported that a consignment of 718 pieces of donkey skin was seized in Mubi, Adamawa State, by Zone D of the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS). Earlier in June, the NCS reported intercepting a 40-foot container loaded with donkey skins, which were found to be billed for illegal export. The container was said to contain a total of 3,022 pieces of donkey skins.

In the same month, the NCS caught another 40-foot container on the Abuja-Kaduna Expressway filled with donkey genitals, billed for illegal export. The donkey genitals numbering 10,603 were packed in bags and secured in freezing temperatures. By Jove! So many donkey parts and all seized within only six months! That’s quite a number, considering the depleted number of donkeys we have in The country now.

We have watched with deep consternation as the donkey population has depleted over the last 50 or so years. I recall raising the alarm three times on this page in articles titled: Donkeys and Nigerian Unity on 6/6/2017, and two follow-ups: Donkeys are Winning on 26/11/2019, and Regulating the Donkey Trade on 12/7/2021. Those of us born in the 1950s in the towns and villages of the far north would recall the familiar presence of donkeys as beasts of burden. They were the vehicles of the time.

In Maiduguri, my homeplace, donkeys were everywhere. In the 1960s, in Maiduguri, you would commonly see stumps in front of residences where the family donkey or horse, for the well-to-do, is tied. On Mondays, the donkey population in Maiduguri multiplied as people from surrounding settlements came to trade at the Monday Market. I grew up in Fezzan ward, the heart of Maiduguri, and every Monday morning you would see tens of hundreds of loaded donkeys being led by their owners towards the market.

That was then. Later in the 1970s, with the advent of a stream of motor vehicles and motorcycles, as the country suddenly became prosperous due to our newfound oil wealth, donkeys became increasingly redundant, particularly in urban areas. At the same time, unfortunately, a market for donkeys sprang up in other parts of the country, where their meat was highly valued as a culinary delicacy. The trade in donkeys became lucrative, widespread and pernicious to their continued existence. In the late 1980s, in Borno State, which had the largest donkey population in the country, their disappearance became particularly noticeable.

The Borno State Government was so concerned about the fast-disappearing donkeys that it took a memo to the 12 Northern governors meeting in 1990, requesting collective action to save them. What has now transpired is that whatever actions the northern governors took at the time did not go far enough, as the fate of donkeys remains dire. But the worst was to come for donkeys. In the 1990s, they suddenly became export material to China. Donkey skin became highly sought after as an ingredient in the preparation of ejiao, an herbal concoction taken for skin health and reproductive prowess.

This Chinese medicine was once reserved only for the rich and influential members of society. Still, over the last 30 years, a sharp increase in disposable income in China has boosted demand for ejiao. The increased demand that could not be met locally in China meant they had to reach out to source donkeys from herds in other parts of the world. The statistics are glaring and grim enough. China had 11 million donkeys in the 1990s, which, due to a sharp rise in demand for ejiao, had tumbled to about two million now.

This meant that in the last many years, the Chinese ejiao industry had to seek donkey skins from wherever at whatever price to feed the insatiable appetite of its burgeoning middle class. Though one could hardly lay hands on any statistics on donkeys in Nigeria, one could observe a strong correlation between the high demand for donkey skins in China, the curious one-way trade to that country, and the rapid depletion of the donkey herd in this country. The worrying part of the donkey skin trade is that there has been no concerted and coordinated effort to replenish the donkey herd in Nigeria. In any case, replenishing the donkey herd is a tough case as donkeys are notoriously slow breeders.

However, some efforts were made to regulate the donkey trade and criminalise the illegal export of its parts through legislative instruments in the 9th Assembly. Though the bills sponsored by Garba Datti Muhammad in the House of Representatives and by Yahaya Abdullahi in the Senate passed, I wonder whether they were ever enacted into law.

It is still not yet Uhuru for our beleaguered donkeys. They are still rampantly slaughtered for their parts. We need to do more than seizures. The perpetrators of this evil trade must be seen in court, getting their just deserts as a deterrent to others.

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