Nigerian Bird Flu - Smugglers Did It?

Nigerian This Day Newspaper reported yesterday some words from the President of the National Poultry Association of Nigeria. His opinion is that the current Bird flu outbreak in Northern Nigeria is the work of saboteurs whose motive is to open up imports of agricultural products into Nigeria which have been banned.

While accusing the smugglers of being behind the development saying that,"the smugglers wanted to use it to call on the fedderal goverment to lift ban on the importation of chickens in the country so that it will afford them the chance of bringing frozen chickens from neigbouring countries like Cotonou, Togo, among others into the country".
Badmus stated that, " I want to tell you that, it is economic sabotage on the part of the enemy of the nation but at thh end of the day it will fails".[sic]

This is, unfortunately, entirely plausible and seems to me to be a dreadfully common thing in Nigeria. Take the fact that Nigeria is having tremendous problems refining it's own oil and there are HUGE profits to be made by fuel marketers importing refined fuel to Nigeria.

Since Bird Flu has yet to be identified in any neighbouring coutries, or in fact anywhere else in West Africa, this seems to be the most obvious cause.


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