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Showing posts from December, 2015

(63): Kano’s Sodomy Case and its Flawed Resolution

Muhsin Ibrahim muhsin2008@gmail.com @muhsin234 Some troubled parents in Kano, a few weeks ago, complained that their sons were sexually defiled by some unknown perverts at their boarding school, the famous Hassan Ibrahim Gwarzo College, Kano. The case soon became a sensation, for, among other reasons, that was least expected from a school known for its regimentation and Islamic teaching to its separated male and female students. The state government promptly ordered the closure of the (male) section and set up a committee to look into what exactly happened. Following an unsettling delay, the report was, last week, finally released. The delay was allegedly caused by some big shots in the state who did not want it released. No doubt what happened in the College is appalling and deserves the government's drastic action to unearth and punish whosoever is found wanting and guilty. The government was generally hailed for the way and manner it handled the case, though bef

(62): Fuel Scarcity, the President’s Apology and our Allegiance

Muhsin Ibrahim @muhsin234 “Rome is not built in a day” has become the clichĂ© President Muhammadu Buhari’s (Buharists, as they are called) staunch supporters would tell you the moment you open mouth to criticise his ‘saintly’ presidency. Who said it was? With due respect, many of us, having grown up in uncritical, dogmatic societies and cultures, fail to differentiate criticism from condemnation and nitpicking. No, they are not the same. Dogmatism has place only in religion, and there too is only to an extent. Islam, for instance, cites several signs (such as the weather, topography, miracles, etc.) as proofs for its genuineness and as a revealed religion by God, among other things. That is to de-emphasise over-reliance on dogma, hearsay and fairytale-like stories embedded in many other religions. Thus, religion is spared from all sorts of criticism. For governance and politics, nothing and nobody is immune from any sort of criticism, constructive or otherwise. There are, in

(61): My Discomfort with 'Nudity' in Hausa Films

Muhsin Ibrahim muhsin2008@gmail.com @muhsin234 Introduction It’s usually in the evening when CTV or NTA, Kano would show a TV series and serials of Hadarin Qasa, Zaman Duniya , Hana Wani Hana Kai and others in the early and the middle 1990s. Watching those dramas was usually a family affair—parents, their kids and often the children from the neighbourhoods would sit together and enthusiastically watch them. No one feels embarrassed for anything that would be shown, said, symbolized or implied in those dramas. It was, literally speaking, just fine for people of all ages and all classes. But that is no longer the case. We today have dramas whose actors are often only Hausa in language but not in character and dress. They are starkly unlike what we used to see those days. This is more so in the Hausa feature films, hence the context for this article. For the dramas, not everyone has the cable satellites and dish antennas that broadcast them on channels like Arewa24, Farin Wat