Shettima imposes civil-military management in cattle markets

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BOKO Haram insurgents have devised new means of using “unscrupulous middlemen” to sell stolen cattle at the Gamboru cattle market in Maiduguri with the proceeds used to fund terror activities, Borno Governor, Kashim Shettima announced on Friday.
He spoke while inaugurating a new management made up of representatives of the military, police, the Department of State Services, civilian JTF and governent officials, who have been assigned to take full charge of the market and henceforth scrutinize sources of all cattle, delay slaughter of certified cattle for claims, while the government placed a ban on imports of cattle through various routes as well as sales of dry meat across the state.
Shettima, in the address read on his behalf by the Secretary to the State Government, Usman Jidda Shuwa, at the inauguration of the committee, said the insurgents resorted to the new order because they now lack capacity to attack and loot banks, towns and other traditional methods of sourcing funds for the murderous activities.
His words: “Our security agencies have reasonably established that most of the cattle being traded at the markets were the direct proceeds of cattle rustling perpetrated by Boko Haram insurgents, which were sold at prohibitive costs to unsuspecting customers through some unscrupulous middlemen, who use underhand ploy to deliberately disguise the transactions as legitimate.
The money realised from such transaction would then be channeled to fund the deadly activities of the insurgents.
Consequently, the insurgents, through these nefarious transactions, felt they had discovered new sources of resuscitating their already battered and degraded infrastructure, with a view to recommencing their atrocities irredeemably halted by the Military.
“We are indeed very grateful to the gallant and professional resourcefulness of our security agencies who, through their relentless pursuit of the insurgents and incredible intelligence gathering techniques, have identified the nature and type of serious security threats posed by the trading activities at these cattle markets and appreciably staved off such threats by foreclosing all commercial transactions at these places,” the governor said, explaining that the discovery led to the temporary closure of the market by security agencies in the state.
As a result of the situation, Shettima said he decided to set up the committee to takeover the markets so that activities in the market would resume due to public demands for meat but under a sanitized system.
“In addition to the overall management of the cattle markets, the committee is to device strategies to ascertain the source of all cattle being traded and slaughtered at the cattle markets;; ensure that a mandatory period of three to four days is observed on all cattle sold before they are sent to the slaughter house in order to enable interested parties to inspect them. This is to avail the opportunity of those whose cattle have been rustled to make claims and counter claims, certify all cattle traded at the markets to ensure that all preset conditions have been met before they are slaughtered,” the governor said.
The governor also announced temporary ban on importation of cattle into the state, to allow the committee achieve the desired outcome.