APON 2021 Review

2021 has been very eventful for Animal protection organization of Nigeria. Characterized by global victories and various breathtaking campaigns. It was breathtaking, considering the fact that, the campaign actions target businesses which finds is difficult to make a U-turn from its points of direction.

For us at APON, we are more like the army who act on mandate and would resist and repel all forms of attack to claim victories. We are poised at ensuring that, we stick to our mandate of fighting for animals’ liberation, a clean climate and environment, and of course safe and healthier food. But then, in all we do, we always ensure that we carry out our work and campaigns objectively.

This year, Animal Protection Organization of Nigeria, with her mother organization, Open Wing Alliance, won a global victory which will see millions of hens out of cages, globally. It was a major win for Open Wing Alliance as the target (Yum Brands!) has proven to be OWA’s most difficult target.

Similarly, another victory was won through joint efforts by OWA organizations in a fierce online campaign against two major international brands, Focus Brands and Groupe Le Douf, who are major buyers of eggs. Our group secured a cage-free policy from both companies within weeks of online campaign. This victory will affect millions of laying hens, globally.

Back home in Nigeria, APON launched a cage-free campaign in the month of August. Most part of the campaign focused on corporate and institutional campaign. The cage-free campaign by APON, is monumental in the sense that, it was the very first cage-free campaign any animal welfare group in Nigeria ever campaign for. APON made history with the Yum! Brands campaign propagated by Open Wing Alliance and made extraordinary effort during the in-person campaign which happened in the wake of the ‘End Sars’ protest. With this, APON has improved its manpower and volunteer base to ensure more win, locally. Although, this win would not come so easy, owing to the history of the Nigerian people and politics involved in the egg business, nevertheless, we have identified the grey areas and we believe with our partnership and coalition with other groups, we will make a head way.

The Cage-free campaign which kicked off with a press call and was reported in 2 Nigerian newspapers (Tribune and The Nation Newspapers) and several other online publications is now the talk of the town in 2 major cities in South Western Nigeria, Lagos and Ibadan.

With effect immediately after the press release, APON deployed its first public campaign in the city of Ibadan and Lagos. With well over 50 volunteers, placards were displayed, handbills were shared and the campaign reached a sizeable number of residents of the states within weeks of deploying the campaign.

What also followed the road campaign is our Radio cage-free campaign to booster our reach. We understand that, there are different audience the cage-free campaign targets. For this reason, we are using holistic approach to reach every one via radio, newspapers, online, public places, house to house and schools.

At the moment, we have had several radio programs were addressing the pains of battery cages was imminent. It is a radio campaign where listeners are informed about the cruelty laying hens suffer in battery cages and how this affect human food safety owing to E. coli and Salmonella contamination.

To make Nigerians understand what we are craving for, we have structured the radio campaign in a way that messages would be better understood. We invite expert in the Veterinary Medicine and animal welfare space to educate the public better about the effect of keeping hens in cages. So far, we have had on the programs a senior lecturer from The University of Ibadan, Nigeria (Dr. Olusoji Abiola) and Dr. Kiki Oluwarore from the One Health Development initiative to enlighten the public on the call-in program which is schedule monthly and will run for a period of 12 months, respectively or simultaneously.

As our name implies, animal protection, we have derived strategies to deploy animal and climate save projects while promoting animal welfare. The cage-free campaign has different oppressional phases. In between cage-free campaign, we organize plant-based campaign to expand the vegan community and to accomplish UN sustainable development goals which is goal number 14{Life on the Land) and 16 (Climate Action).

Talking about sustainable development goals, APON prides itself in ensuring we work within the framework of the SDG’s. In October 4, 2021, we joined the world to celebrate the world Animal Day, tying the theme of the celebration around goal 13 and 14 of the sustainable development goals, which are life underwater and life on the land. On that faithful day, APON ran 2 programs in two different states, simultaneously. The 2 programs are our ongoing cage-free campaign which was held in the ancient city of Ibadan where handbills were distributed and placards were displayed in public places. The other was a beach clean-up exercise in Lagos coastlines to promote enrichment of marine life.

This is a summary of how far we went in 2021. In the coming year, APON cage-free and plant-based campaign work will escalate to other regions of the country as we also plan to launch our carbon capture project and other animal welfare and protection projects.

In conclusion, we want to express our gratitude to our coalition group, funders and partners for this achievement. We did not make it far alone. Your numerous supports have been very instrumental to our success. Especially our grantor, Centre for Effective Altruism. The EA Animal Welfare Fund by CEA, helped APON in carrying out all the campaigns. We can not thank CEA enough. We would not have reached this point if not for the financial support.

We also want to thank Open Wing Alliance for its unflinching support in form of resources, ideas and information sharing.