“A Soldier’s Shocking Bush Experience: The day I discovered what I really ate in Kumshe”
I left Gwoza for Kumshe, when I arrived, the air felt different—thick, tense, and unpredictable. Attacks came without warning. Twice, we were hit twice in one night. We fought until the assaults stopped, and even when the enemy didn’t come, we went out looking for them.
Compared to Gwoza, Kumshe was almost peaceful. In fact, I got so bored that I joined a four-man team of hunters. We set traps for small animals—rabbits, grass cutters, anything that moved. But once the rains came, the bush flooded, the animals vanished like debtors, and our traps remained empty for weeks.
One afternoon, after returning from a contact patrol—so hungry I could’ve chewed my rifle if it had pepper—I noticed Jasper, Ismail, Ibrahim, and Charles crouched around a small fire like four witches plotting someone’s destiny. Something on the fire sizzled loudly, proudly, and its aroma was enough to make a fasting man reconsider his religion.
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As I walked closer, the sight nearly made me speak in tongues. In that moment, I finally understood Esau’s decision. The meat looked like venison, and it smelled heavenly.
We gathered around the fire while Ismail flipped the meat with the confidence of a Michelin-star chef. The peppered flesh hissed and splattered, fighting the flames. When it was done, he sliced it into small pieces. No conversation. No smiles. With our rifles by our sides, we ate like men who knew tomorrow wasn’t promised. The only sound was the synchronized chewing of five desperate soldiers.
The next morning, I asked Ibrahim, “What meat did we eat yesterday?”
He grinned—one of those smiles designed to destroy destinies.
“Mussah,” he said.
The name rang a distant bell, but the meaning refused to load in my head.
“Mussah? What’s Mussah?”
He shrugged. “Muskule.”
My soul exited my body, went to Kaduna, returned, packed its bags, and left again.
I had eaten a cat. A house cat.
For weeks, I avoided them. If I saw the four of them seated together, I crossed the road like they were armed with machetes.
Then one day, I found them roasting something again.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Biri!” they announced proudly.
I leaned in.
What I saw looked like a small baby dripping oil into the fire. Right there, I stepped back and began calculating my life expectancy around these men. If I stayed long enough, they might add me to the menu.
When lunch was served, the four of them had massive chunks of meat on their plates. I looked at Ismail—the same man who once claimed monkey meat was forbidden where he came from.
By the time I finally left Kumshe, it felt like deliverance. Not just from the bush, but from the terrifyingly thin line between hunger and morality
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