From: Femi Oyelola, Kaduna
Oodua Youth Parliament, a CSO, has lamented, alleged poor management of the Nigerian Institute of Leather and Science Technology (NILEST), while calling on President Muhammadu Buhari to replace its leadership in order to address the nation’s dependence on foreign leather products and create jobs for Nigerians.
Hon. Abdulmajeed Oyeniye, Speaker of the Oodua Youth Parliament, made the call in a statement issued to journalists in Kaduna yesterday.
He said research institutes everywhere around the world are supposed to be centres of excellence and innovations.
“They are supposed to be specialised centres pioneering advanced innovative research projects and churning out products that are useful for both individual consumption and industrial use.
Oyeniye, however lamented that, sadly, the Nigerian situation and more specifically, the situation in NILEST is appalling and deplorable.
He explained that NILEST was conceived with the aim of harnessing the vast potentials in the flourishing livestock industry in country especially in Northern Nigeria.
He noted that Northerner parts of the country has over 100 million of cows, goats and ships with thousand slaughters daily, where the country was projected to be a net exporter of hides and industrial hub in the leather and skin industrial sector.
“More than 20 years down the line, nothing has changed and it got worse under the present administration of Professor Mohammed Kabir Yakubu,” he lamented.
Oyeniye further explained that the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations had shown that Nigeria exports less than 100 tons of hides and skin, which he said it was questionable if the quantity was exported to neighbouring African countries and whether it is just a raw skin or actually hides.
“There has not been any visible footprint of NILEST anywhere in Nigeria even though there are abattoirs spread across the country from Maiduguri to Lagos and Port Harcourt. All attempts made at skinning and preservation are done at the individual level with no input from a supposedly professional body.
“The crude practices and techniques still in existence, is making it impossible for the country to produce leather fit for domestic consumption talk more of exportation,” he said.
Oyeniye further alleged that Prof. Yakubu had done nothing to justify the huge taxpayers’ money invested in NILEST which he headed for years.
“Nigerian animal skin, especially cow skins are only useful for local consumption as ‘ponmo’. There is no industry in Nigeria that processes animal skin, not even the laboratory in NILEST.
“While the machines and manpower is on standby, there is no management direction and input from anywhere, thereby making government investments a total waste,”he alleged.
He suggested that If NILEST is incapable of pioneering research in skin and hides preservation, they should have partnered the local tanners in Katisna, Zaria, Kano, Borno and elsewhere.
“This is totally unacceptable and must be stopped,”he said.
