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Scores of bush meat sellers in Oyo State, South-West Nigeria, have cried out over the heavy toll the recent outbreak of Ebola disease in the country is taking on their source of livelihood. They lamented their woes at the State Secretariat in Ibadan during a fruitless trip to see Governor Abiola Ajimobi.

Speaking with newsmen, Alhaja Risikat Odeyemi, the Iyalode, Bushmeat Sellers Association (BSA), Oyo, said they had come to appeal to Governor Ajimobi to help them dispel the rumour that bush meat causes Ebola.

News Express reports that the traders, however, left the governor’s office disappointed as he neither came out to attend to them nor sent anyone to address them on his behalf. The bush meat sellers had to sit clumsily at the entrance of the gate as the security men did not allow them to move closer to the governor’s office that Monday afternoon, August 18.

Lamenting their woes, Alhaja Odeyemi, said: “Our meats do not have any Ebola virus. We don’t know why people should just be peddling rumour that would be injurious to other people. This is not good at all. They have really spoilt our business without any good reason. What we heard was that the disease was contracted through the river. Why should they be so unfair?”

The Iyalode revealed that before the Ebola outbreak late last month, a grass cutter was being sold for N2,000 to N4,000 “but now, there are no sales again. We normally stand by the roadside to invite prospective buyers. But, now when we call them to buy bush meats they always reply us saying, ‘Ebola’.”

Dismissing the link between bush meat and Ebola, another bush meat seller said: “It is the same meat we have been eating and nothing has happened to us.”

•Photo shows a bush meat seller.

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