The Lion King of Kano: How lion survived six shots of tranquilisers and returned to cage on its own

On Saturday, October 19, the unthinkable happened in Kano when a lion taken out on exhibition in another state escaped while being returned to its cage. Expectedly, panic spread. KOLA OYELERE recounted how concerted efforts prevented tragedy in the city with residents making up their own tales of the incident.

WHEN on Saturday, 19th October, 2019 news went viral that a lion had escaped from the Kano zoo, the atmosphere suddenly changed to that of apprehension as people, especially those who live near the 47-year-old zoo quickly found their way home and locked themselves in.

Even as residents communicated to their neighbours who were still outside the community about the escapee lion, news also went out about the supposed itinerary of the lion which was said to have escaped between 6:30 and 7:00 pm that day.

Soon after, different tales began to emerge. The first one claimed that a man who inadvertently ran into the lion fell down and recited some portions of the Qur’an which made the lion incapable of harming him. Another tale quickly followed. That one had it that the lion ran into a lady, pushed her aside and went its way without harming her. Other stories followed which could not be verified.

 

How it all happened

The Managing Director of the zoological garden, Alhaji Sai’du Gwadabe Gwarzo has, however, revealed to Arewa Live details of the events surrounding the whole episode. He stated that the lion and other animals were taken to Karu in Nasarawa State for an agricultural exhibition which lasted five days. After the exhibition, the Kano team returned to base at about 7 p.m that day and offloaded other animals to their respective cages, leaving the lion as the last to be taken in.

Ironically the effort to offload the lion failed and it escaped into a nearby bush within the zoo premises. Unfortunately too it was getting dark.

“As a result of that, those around began to panic since they couldn’t immediately know its exact location because the zoo was already in complete darkness,” Alhaji Gwarzo said.

At that point the only thing to do was for the zoo rangers to evacuate everyone out of the zoo premises and try to search for the animal, which they did until about 10 pm. Unable to achieve success, they gave up the search. The zoo was locked up with the belief that having done that, there was no way it could escape out of the area.

“Obviously the lion had hidden itself somewhere inside the bush on the zoo premises. When the zoo was established a large piece of land was acquired within the zoo and allowed to develop into a jungle with the belief that if an animal escaped from its cage they would naturally enter into the bush as it is their natural habitat where they would rest instead of trying to escape out of the zoo,” the zoo manager added.

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The following day, the search continued just as Alhaji Gwarzo informed the state governor, Alhaji Abdullahi Umar Ganduje of the development. Coincidentally, the governor was at that time holding an executive committee meeting where heads of security agencies were in attendance.

 

Police visit zoo

The following morning the police arrived to help the search and provide security, but what they saw confounded them. Overnight the lion had crept into the shed of goats which were often used to feed the lion. Out of 15 goats there, the lion had killed four of them , ate three and left one, with the remaining 11 goats scampering all over their shed.

After ravaging the goats’ shed, the lion also entered into the ostriches’ cage where it also killed an ostrich. The security operatives sighted it within the enclosure and quickly surrounded the cage while planning the best way to capture it without harming it.

Now within sight and being a dangerous animal it was decided that it should be tranquilised.  Three tranquiliser shots were fired at the lion but they missed their targets. The other three shots hit target but failed to tranquilise it for a considerable length of time as the lion woke up after a short while.

The next strategy was to go to Abuja to get a stronger tranquiliser. An official did and eventually returned in the evening with the tranquilisers when it had become very dark, yet the operatives were intent on getting the lion back into its cage that same day.

To complete the job, the head lamps of several vehicles were used to provide light through which the lion was once again sighted and shot at. Sensing that the effort was becoming intense, the lion became furious and ferocious and began to climb trees from where it jumped down and escaped into the bush within the zoo.

At this point every one especially unarmed personnel were asked to vacate the premises leaving only the police with a bullet proof vehicle to enter the bush and search for the animal. After searching for a long time the effort failed again as the police operatives returned to give the verdict of suspending the search till following morning.

 

Vigil and prayer

According to the zoo manager, after all efforts had failed the entire team took to prayers to solve the riddle asking God to take control. On Monday morning at about 6 am, three members of staff who normally feed the lion opened its cage, took a goat and tied it to the entrance to lure it out. Surprisingly the lion fell for the trick and entered its cage.

“It was a terrible experience because I just assume duty just three months ago; this is terrible honestly, because for a lion to escape out of his cage it could be a very dangerous situation. My fear was what if the lion attacked our staff; what would be the future of this zoo? Talk less of the lion escaping out of the zoo. As you can see the zoo is situated on about 26 acres of land, fully surrounded by residential buildings and I would not be happy if eventually the lion escaped out of the zoo,” he said.

Speaking on the report that a man who encountered the lion and recited a portion of the Quran which made the lion unable to harm him, Alhaji Gwarzo said “the very man was even here; I disagreed with him (on his assertion), because he was either looking for cheap popularity or trying to get undeserved credit from the whole issues; (he was) only trying to make himself prominent and relevant.”

 

Preventing future incident

Alhaji Gwarzo believes that though the zoo is 48 years old, and efforts had been made to fix some obsolete items but the time is ripe for a major facelift.

“As of now, most of the facilities here are obsolete and decaying and going by the number of visitors, there is need to give the zoo a modern look in accordance with what obtains elsewhere,” he said.

 

Nigerian Tribune