Meeting Abuja’s ‘bushmeat hunters’

Behind the Administrative Staff College along Zuba Expressway, Abuja is the meeting point for hunters, bush meat traders and consumers. The hunters spend the night in the forest, hunting game. By morning, they display their catch along the highway. They also sell to customers who process game into smoked meat for sale. The easy commerce […]

Behind the Administrative Staff College along Zuba Expressway, Abuja is the meeting point for hunters, bush meat traders and consumers. The hunters spend the night in the forest, hunting game. By morning, they display their catch along the highway. They also sell to customers who process game into smoked meat for sale.
The easy commerce belies the terrifying encounters between hunters and the hunted. Abubakar Mohammed has hunted since childhood, a vocation he takes after his father. Some drastic happened five years ago: the distance between his heel and his forefoot shrunk half in size. He told Daily Trust about how he used the same foot to kill snakes regardless of their size by stomping on their tracks.
“Before now, if I see a [track] where a snake passes and I [stomp on] it with my foot, wherever the snake was, it will explode like a bomb and die instantly. But five years ago, a snake bit me on the same foot while [I was] hunting in the night. I went to many hospitals, traditional herbals medicine homes but [they couldn’t help]. You can see, it still produces pus today,” he said while showing the leg.
He also recounted the bitter encounter he had with game one night: “A small animal messed me up in the bush. I had to look for where to sleep in the bush till the next morning to find my way out of the forest.”
Despite the challenges with his leg, he still hunts. He kills antelope, grasscutters, and other smaller game, which fetch him up to N25,000 at times. “This is my means of livelihood,” he stated. “My whole family depends on it.”
But hunting by night can be extremely dangerous, Mohammed said, insisting some of the animals are not “ordinary.” According to him, one must be a “man” to be able to enter some of the forests and hunt successfully.
Jibrin Yakubu is another hunter with many years of hunting experience across Kogi, Abuja and Niger. He has killed countless game in his 20 years of hunting. But he’s careful when it comes to killing crocodiles because he believes they are capable of terrifying things by night. He had just brought a grasscutter and other birds killed to his buyers when Daily Trust caught up with him. He agreed to share one of his unforgettable and terrifying experience with a hunted bush animal.
“I was hunting one night when suddenly a huge object that apparently looks like an animal but with very bright light stood behind me. I became frightened and cold! If I run, it will run after me, but if I stop, it will disappear. If I start to move, it will reappear again. We continued like that for over one kilometer. The light was so bright that I couldn’t even detect what it was. So an idea came to me to set the dried grasses behind me ablaze. Immediately I did, I couldn’t see the creature again,” he said.
Yakubu also remembers a night he shot dead an antelope but it took him over an hour to subdue the animal with the help of charms. “After I shot it, I brought out my knife to slaughter it. Shortly afterwards, it started to breathe again. For one hour we were struggling in a run-and-stop game. I then brought out one of my charms; put a little of it in my mouth and spat on the animal. Immediately, all the hairs in the animal’s skin got up! Within seconds, it died,” he claimed.
Yakubu also opined that whatever he dreams to have killed ends up his game when he goes hunting. “If I dream that I kill an animal with a particular colour in a particular place, if I go there, that is exactly what will happen. If I dream it escapes, that is exactly what will happen.” According to him, there are lucky days where he makes up to N50,000. Some days, he gets nothing.
However, Muktari Abubakar, who has 15 years of hunting across some north-central states of Abuja, Kogi, thinks there are animals that hunters dread to shoot at because they can harm a hunter. “These sorts of animals, as soon as you see them, you ignore them because you know they could pose serious threats to you. They may even have evil spirits, so you have to ignore them. It is not whether you could kill them or not. You might kill them and that becomes a problem to you. So what do you do? You have to ignore them,” Abubakar stressed. The list includes crocodiles and anacondas.
Other game will fetch him anything between N15,000 and N20,000 depending on what he’s killed. His hunting put food on his family’s table.
Umar Aliyu doesn’t hunt, but buys and processes game into smoked meat. He also chairs the Bush Meat Sellers union in the area. “I was able to build my house and some shops back home in Kano state. So I must thank God,” the Kano-born bush meat trader told Daily Trust.
“We sell some of the smoked grasscutter from N3,000 to N7,000 depending on the size,” Aliyu reiterated. Four young men from Kano have become his hunting apprentices, and they are making a living. “It is something we must thank God for,” he said.
Yakubu also remembers a night he shot dead an antelope but it took him over an hour to subdue the animal with the help of charms. “After I shot it, I brought out my knife to slaughter it. Shortly afterwards, it started to breathe again. For one hour we were struggling in a run-and-stop game. I then brought out one of my charms; put a little of it in my mouth and spat on the animal. Immediately, all the hairs in the animal’s skin got up! Within seconds, it died,” he claimed.
Yakubu also opined that whatever he dreams to have killed ends up his game when he goes hunting. “If I dream that I kill an animal with a particular colour in a particular place, if I go there, that is exactly what will happen. If I dream it escapes, that is exactly what will happen.” According to him, there are lucky days where he makes up to N50,000. Some days, he gets nothing.
However, Muktari Abubakar, who has 15 years of hunting across some north-central states of Abuja, Kogi, thinks there are animals that hunters dread to shoot at because they can harm a hunter. “These sorts of animals, as soon as you see them, you ignore them because you know they could pose serious threats to you. They may even have evil spirits, so you have to ignore them. It is not whether you could kill them or not. You might kill them and that becomes a problem to you. So what do you do? You have to ignore them,” Abubakar stressed. The list includes crocodiles and anacondas.
Other game will fetch him anything between N15,000 and N20,000 depending on what he’s killed. His hunting put food on his family’s table.
Umar Aliyu doesn’t hunt, but buys and processes game into smoked meat. He also chairs the Bush Meat Sellers union in the area. “I was able to build my house and some shops back home in Kano state. So I must thank God,” the Kano-born bush meat trader told Daily Trust.
“We sell some of the smoked grasscutter from N3,000 to N7,000 depending on the size,” Aliyu reiterated. Four young men from Kano have become his hunting apprentices, and they are making a living. “It is something we must thank God for,” he said.