Consumption Of Ponmo By Nigerians, Reason For Poor Leather Industry – FG Says, To Ban It

The Director-General of Federal Government Parastatal, Nigerian Institute of Leather and Science Technology, Muhammad Yakubu, has blamed the consumption of animal skin, ponmo, for the poor state of the leather industry in the country.

As a result, the Federal Government is proposing legislation to ban the consumption of ponmo, a report by The Cable disclosed on Monday. Yakubu said in a bid to save the nation’s economy, ponmo consumption should be stopped.

He said it also doesn’t have nutritional value, so the Nigerian Institute of Leather and Science Technology will demand for the ban of ponmo through legislation and support of the National Adsembly and State Governments.

Yakubu said the Institute will collaborate with stakeholders to draft the legislation, “To the best of my knowledge, Nigerians are the only people in the world that overvalue skin as food, after all, Ponmo has no nutritional value.” He said.

The DG added that, “At one point, there was a motion before the two chambers of the national assembly, it was debated but I don’t know how the matter was thrown away.”

He explained that ponmo will no longer be available if the leather industry becomes active, “If we get our tanneries, our footwear and leather production working well in Nigeria, people will hardly get pomo to buy and eat.” Yakuba stated.

According to him, when implemented fully, it would turn around most of the comatose tanneries and ginger greater output in production.