A Nigerian trade in insects that bite

middle-aged man in a grey robe ruffled by the breeze, one hand raised in greeting, you would never guess what is in the old black shopping bag dangling from his other hand. Ambling across the courtyard of the grandest mosque in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, he stops to greet a group of men who are sitting on benches under a tree. Their response is familiar and warm. He reaches into his bag, brings out a small box and coaxes a black scorpion into the daylight, perching it on his hand. The men are fearful and fascinated, but keep their distance. They know the bagman as Usman Maikunama, the self-proclaimed Scorpion King of Gwoza, a town in the far north-east of Nigeria, where the murderous jihadists of once held sway. His surname means scorpion-owner in Hausa, the main language of the Muslim north. “That’s what everyone calls me,” he says. “That black one has enough poison to kill a man,” he declares, putting a scorpion back in its bag, where it nestles with a host of others.