Meet Abuja’s ‘python-killer’ hunter
Jankilga said he has been a hunter for about 22 years, since he took an interest in the profession. “I didn’t inherit the trade as is sometimes the case,” he said, adding that it evolved into a full-time endeavour. A young Jankilga would join older hunters to the bush to watch and learn. “I started […]
Jankilga said he has been a hunter for about 22 years, since he took an interest in the profession. “I didn’t inherit the trade as is sometimes the case,” he said, adding that it evolved into a full-time endeavour. A young Jankilga would join older hunters to the bush to watch and learn. “I started with small animals and gradually worked my skills up to big catches.”
Interestingly, the hunting grounds frequented by Jankilga are in Abuja, like the bushes and forests around Usuma Dam, Bwari, Dutsen Alhaji and Mpape. He says there is an abundance of game there. “I have killed, ensnared or caught antelopes, wild boar, foxes, rabbits, grass-cutters and even a gorilla once,” he said. “But you could say I’m a python specialist as I’ve caught or killed several of them.”
On the python that lay dead and folded nearby, Jankilga said it was the hardest he had ever caught. He shot it at about 4:00pm one evening but it writhed violently till the next morning while the hunter waited patiently. “After a long, hard battle, it finally gave up and I hacked its head off with my cutlass. It took the serpent a whole day to die, even after the head and tail were cut-off. It struggled with me the whole while, from the bush, till I got home.”
Jankilga also told Weekly Trust about a time he encountered an adult gorilla deep in the bush: “It was serious drama, because when I shot it, it pounced on me. It was huge, and very, very angry. Luckily, I had company and my colleague helped me and we eventually overpowered it, killing it with additional shots.” He also said he has encountered a few gorillas mainly at the Usuma Dam area.
Wild animals are not the only ones that attack Jankilga and his colleagues. “My hunting dogs often bite me, too.” He explained that sometimes villagers set traps in the bush and hunting dogs get ensnared. “In the process to set them free, the pain they feel makes them bite us,” he said. “However, the dogs are our partners in progress, as they often catch small animals like rabbits, grass cutters, wild birds and the like,” Jankilga said, noting that sometimes the dogs bark in excitement, alerting other animals and causing them to speed off.
Jankilga has six children and they are beginning to pick an interest in hunting. “They fashion little clubs and sticks, copying what I do,” he said, even if he would rather see them going to school. “But I don’t have the resources to enrol them at the moment,” he said, sadly. As a trade, hunting helps to diversify his source of income, as he has a regular day job as a residential security guard. “Whenever I go out hunting, I earn at least N2,000 depending on luck and the market price.” And sometimes the family soup pot is graced by delicious meat from his hunting bag.
As evening sets in, Jankilga finally closes the sale of the long python, for N7, 000. The buyer said he wants it for the skin, so the hunter extracts the fat off the animal, which he told Weekly Trust, is excellent as a balm to aid healing bones or damaged skin. “It even helps relieve rheumatism,” he smiled.