NIGERIA'S RACE TO SAVE THE GUARDIANS OF THE FOREST

Mark Ofua vividly remembers the moment he met Ireti. It was in a crowded bushmeat market in Epe, on the outskirts of Nigeria's commercial capital, Lagos, six years ago.

- OLUWATOMISIN AMOKEOJA

The air was thick with the scent of smoked game and the murmurs of people haggling, their voices drowning out every other sound.

As a veterinarian and conservationist, he had spent years wandering through these markets, rescuing injured animals from a trade that showed little concern for wildlife. He had seen all kinds of creatures-monkeys, civets, even endangered tortoises-openly displayed and on sale. But on that day, he encountered an animal he had never seen before.

Lying on a rickety wooden table was a frail, almost lifeless creature, curled into itself; its body covered in hard, overlapping scales. It looked like a rodent encased in armor. The vendor dismissed it as just another item on the menu, but, still, it caught Ofua's attention.

"What was more amazing was the fact that we had them here in Nigeria and I hadn't the faintest inkling!" Ofua, Wild Africa's West Africa spokesperson, recalls to FORBES AFRICA.

As he reached out to rescue it, negotiating with the vendor for the creature's freedom, the pangolin-which it was later identified as-took its final breath. With one last heave, the animal pushed out a tiny, squirming pangopup, still covered in birth tissue. The mother was gone, but her newborn was very much alive.

The vendor had no use for a baby pangolin. It was too young to be eaten and too weak to be sold. And so, with little interest, he handed the pangopup over to Ofua.

That was the moment Ireti was born.

The Plight Of The Pangolin

Across Nigeria-a country rich in biodiversity-pangolins have been illegally caught, traded, and shipped off in alarming numbers.

According to the Wildlife Justice Commission (WJC), between 2016 and 2019, an estimated 206.4 tons of pangolin scales were confiscated from 52 seizures.