Nigerian veterinarians and their international visitors had so much to discuss, review and ruminate over, when they met in Benin for their weeklong 57th Nigerian Veterinary Medical Association (NVMA) Annual Congress, between Monday 25th October and Friday 29th October 2021. It was the second hosting opportunity for the beautiful city in 30 years!. Critical questions on food security as it concerns the future of meat and other byproducts from livestock farming, poultry, and even in fish production came up for discussion in the face of insecurity as we have it today. Animal welfare was generally topical. The veterinary doctors indeed had to worry like the military about their theatres of operation, especially for those amongst them who work with food animals.
The health care for such species is majorly provided by ambulatory visitations to their locations in the forests, and that could be very far away from cities, as ranching is still a subject of unwarranted controversies in our land. Those who superintend the Agriculture Ministry, Departments, and Agencies that have the authorities and mandates to give the reasonable guide with respect to government policies on ranching are behaving like the proverbial ostrich that infamously buries its head in sand and assume that it was no longer visible to others because it could not see them. They waste our money shopping for models from countries that should otherwise be looking up to us for direction, and timidly avoid copying from tested and successful examples in countries whose livestock production practices and outputs meet international standards. The unexpected consequence in all of this rigmarole is that history in Nigeria seems to favour laggards.
Those who are pretenders today and pleading our non-readiness for the modern move on ranching as it is done globally would ultimately benefit more, through the back doors at the end of the day when they later agree with the best that commonsense dictates. That is the way of Nigeria, and a section of the country would have unduly gained the advantage of building their infrastructure from billions in Naira brazenly taken from our commonwealth, while the others would be left to sort themselves out anyhow they wished. The veterinarian by training and practice is ubiquitous and does not have to work with large animals before he would be so-called, a large number of practitioners deal with small and companion animals and are fully engaged and happy with it. The diversity in the veterinary profession gives the fun as practitioners could freely ply their trades in different turfs by ensuring the protection of animal health, welfare, and the relief of animal sufferings in all ramifications and also the conservation and production of animal resources, and they also promote public health by collaborating in practice with their human medics and other professionals who mind the environment that we all live in. Their objective is to achieve a One-World, One-Health synergy, that rules the medical world of today. The caging of professions into silos as it was in the past has started giving way to the new and more productive and expansive new thinking that holistically deal with global health.
An area of veterinary services for which our sub-nationals, particularly in southern Nigeria have fallen short of standards is food safety with respect to meat sold to the public. In common parlance, it is referred to as meat inspection. This is evident by the number of veterinarians that many state governments employ into their civil service, even when they know that the law permits only such official veterinarians access to abattoirs and slaughterhouses to carry out the functions of ante mortem inspection of food animals before slaughtering and post mortem inspection of their carcasses that is meat for wholesomeness. In our country, despite our huge appetite for red meat, the manpower to ensure that this job is done, and that only safe meat gets into the food chain is extremely inadequate and inexistent in some states, with only a few veterinary doctors residing and working in offices at the state capitals alone. For some, whose Civil Service Commission could believe should be grateful for the number of employment slots allocated to their veterinary departments, they barely have one veterinarian to service a local government or at times two LGAs.
This is wrong. Many states up north deserve our kudos and are not guilty of this discrepancy they consistently engage a commensurate number of veterinarians to render these sacred services year in year out, because the strength of a food safety chain is dependent on its weakest links. In sharp contrast some states down south parade just two veterinarians in their entire public service. Now, looking beyond our shores, the Covid-19 pandemic as declared since last year brought along its positives like the new virtual world that offers several jobs the option to be done from home. Although the consequence has been that many veterinarians that were engaged in the meat inspection service chain in the United Kingdom, and who could not benefit from the flexibility of working from home changed their career paths and got other jobs that would reduce their physical contacts with many persons. There was suddenly a huge gap in the veterinary workforce in UK abattoirs, and to address this shortage, special reliefs and waivers were granted by the government in order to allow for the employment of foreign veterinarians, a special lesson on “how to promote ease of doing businesses” beyond sloganeering. So many Nigerian veterinarians hitherto in private practice took advantage and a segment of those job recruiters/agents who came to Abuja in mid-August to screen and brain drain our medical consultants into Europe, also employed them. Visas were fast-tracked and free accommodation in UK provided for 6 weeks and more in some cases. The gains of UK have become our brain drain in this specialized area exclusively preserved for veterinarians and the Nigerian government as usual and its citizens who were shortchanged never even blinked. When I spoke to a few of the escapists who were my mentees, they were happy at the turns of life for them in UK and they have had to successfully relearn new ways of practicing veterinary medicine in faraway land from home.
The Naijaspirit competes admirably and excels enviously whenever it is abroad and they were very satisfied with the conditions of service. At the gathering in Benin, truths were told. The first salvo was fired from the Chairman of the occasion, the outspoken and highly respected Chief (Dr.) David Edebiri, OON, who is the Esoghan of Benin Kingdom. He blamed the society for not giving sufficient recognition to the veterinary profession in Nigeria despite their enormous contribution to public health and animal health, and by extension the nation’s economy. He opined that veterinarians needed to be louder in showcasing their relevance because no one else will readily blow for them their trumpets. The keynote speaker was a foremost researcher, Prof. Dennis Agbolanhor a former Vice-Chancellor at Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma.
He had related with Veterinarians and National Veterinary Research Institute at Vom, near Jos for more than twenty years of his working life between 1965 and 1985. Edo cultural troupe performed brilliantly to the amusement of the audience, and there were scientific sessions and poster presentations, business sessions on entrepreneurship and so many opportunities in veterinary businesses came up for discussion, New products were launched and the indoor exhibition hall was a sight to behold with so many veterinary products on display for sale. The mentoring of younger veterinarians and the female veterinarians’ forum held with exquisite panelists. Her Excellency Dr. (Mrs) Betsy Obaseki was in attendance as the special guest, along with dignitaries including the Hon. Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Development in Edo State. Although His Excellency, Mr. Godwin NogheghaseObaseki was unavoidably absent at the opening ceremony, his deputy Comrade Philips Shaibu represented him accompanied by many Commissioners, and he gave impressive updates on the developmental strides of the government in Edo State. The topnotch facilities at the Horatio Marquee modern Conference Centre was a positive image making for the state government that have promised to Make Edo Great Again (MEGA). The award of excellence given to Governor Obasekiby the NVMA Leadership during the event was indeed well deserved. He shared the podium with Chief Gabriel OsawaruIgbinedion, the Esama of Benin and patriarch of the Igbinedion family, Dr. Clement ImuetinyanAlile, a past President of NVMA who was a Commissioner for Commerce and Industry and the pioneer Secretary to Edo State Government and Head of Service. Dr. Yusuf TankoSununu a medical doctor and Chairman Health Committee, Federal House of Representatives also got an award from the association for being a strong advocate for veterinary legislation. Incidentally, two of his children are veterinarians. The Congress ended on a very positive note with a far-reaching communiqué that was circulated in the media and presented to the relevant government authorities.
The Minister of Agriculture was represented at the events, and election of new officers during the annual general meeting was part and parcel of the Congress to run the affairs of the Association for the next two years. The newly elected President is Dr. Mrs. Olutoyin Catherine Adetuberu, who is a private practicing veterinarian based in Port Harcourt.