Panic: Kano Lion Flees From Zoo, City Where A Million Homeless Children Sleep On The Streets
The Oasis Reporters
October 21, 2019
Trepidation rents the air.
Since Saturday night, palpable tension has filled the air in northern Nigeria’s most populous city, Kano, where a lion is footloose after breaking free from the Kano zoological garden at the densely populated Zoo road where street children sleep in the open.
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the incident happened around 9 p.m. when the rangers were trying to put it back to its cage after they returned it from the national agricultural show which took place in Nasarawa state.
Nasarawa State is next door neighbor to Plateau State, where they could have gone to rent a lion for their show.
But a similar incident happened in their Zoo. It’s only lion also escaped from its cage but was later found and shot dead a few years ago, necessitating a request to far away Kano.
A source at the zoological garden told NAN that effort was being made to capture the animal which was still within the zoo premises.
Malam Rabiu Lawal, a resident of Zoo Road, told NAN that he has locked up his house until announcement is made of the capture of the lion.
”My entire family members will be indoors even if it will take one month to recover the lion. I have not experienced this kind of fear since I packed into this area more than 15 years,” he said.
NAN reports that residents of the area went indoors earlier than usual to avoid the consequences of an encounter with a loose lion.
Most wild animals in northern Nigerian zoos look skinny. Maintenance is a major issue in most things Nigerian. With children sleeping in parks, uncompleted buildings, open spaces etc and their uncaring parents moving on with their lives, a live lion prowling about can be the signature tune of a disaster waiting to happen.
Income from the Zoological garden is expected to be small. If a zoo does not harbor exotic animals that are well fed and well taken care of, tourists would avoid it, and income generated would be paltry. Unless subventions are, adequate, would a city that cannot feed its own children buy food for wild animals in it’s zoo ?
