The Learner

  Top 7 Kannywood Series of 2024   By Habibu Maaruf Abdu For the Kannywood film industry, 2024 has been a remarkable year filled with unprecedented achievements and historic milestones. These include Ali Nuhu’s appointment as the Managing Director of the Nigerian Film Corporation and Rahama Sadau becoming part of the federal government’s Investment in Digital and Creative Enterprise Program (iDICE). However, while the year was marred by the losses of veteran actress Saratu Gidado (Daso) and singer El-Muaz Birniwa, it also witnessed the emergence of fresh talent and a notable improvement in film quality. Big-budget productions like  Nanjala  and  Mai Martaba  achieved significant feats;  Nanjala  debuted in Turkey and the United States, and  Mai Martaba was selected as Nigeria’s official entry for the 97th Academy Awards. Moreover, Sadau’s film  Mamah  was screened at the prestigious Red Sea Film Festival in Saudi Arabia. Interesting...

  By Muhsin Ibrahim   Language  is   one  of the most amazing things in the world. We often overlook  its  influence  in our lives  because  it is  mundane . W e all use a language ,  verbally   or non-verbally ,  daily. We acquire language , i.e.,  we   grow up speaki ng  effortlessly. Thus, we don't care much about its profound  impact and influence   on how we interact with others, think about and view the world .   We had international conferences on Africa in  Cologne, Germany and San Francisco, United States.  This short piece is about something other than  the many academic papers  presented; it is about  how hearing someone speaking our language  or a local language   we are familiar with  in a foreign country attracts our attention.   In both Cologne and San Francisco, I observed a pattern. People speaking the same language form a circ...

I initially posted this on Facebook. I believe it should be here for other people outside Facebook. Enjoy! We must address this weak argument that no country develops using a foreign language. Frankly, it is doing more harm than good to us. So many people bring it up as their reason to not learn English or respect this essential language entirely. Eventually, many people miss several opportunities within and, especially, outside Nigeria due to their lack of English language skills. Nigeria was colonised. Like many other former colonies, Nigeria is a multilingual country. However, unlike Europe (Germans speak German; French people speak French; Italians have Italian, etc.), most former colonies comprise speakers of several languages, making it challenging to elevate one above others without others crying for discrimination, marginalisation, etc. I know that Tanzania, among a few others, succeeds with Swahili. :)   The last time I checked, India had more English speakers than the Uni...

I knew nobody in Cologne, Germany, when I came in late August 2017. Although that was the second time I travelled to a foreign country, the first time was completely different. I was with my wife and a friend, while other friends in Punjab, our destination, were waiting to receive us. Thus, there was no confusion whatsoever. However, at the Cologne airport, I felt adrift. I spoke with a kind friend living in another city, not far from Cologne. He tried his best to guide me on what to do, but I felt more tangled. Finally, unsure where to go, I dragged my bags to the exit. A frail-looking elderly man approached me, raising an A4-size paper with “Barka da zuwa, Malam Ibrahim” written on it. I didn’t know about his coming, and I wasn’t used to being addressed as “Ibrahim,” my surname. His smile and his “hi” halted my bewilderment. He spoke to me in faltering Hausa, adding to my surprise, and asked to hold one of the bags. I respect old age, so I declined. As he insisted, I let him.   ...

The following is my interview with the Blueprint newspaper (Nigeria) on writing, reading and related issues. You may see it on their website or the print edition of 30.01.2021, page 25. Thank you. How did your amity with writing start? What triggered it? Writing is, often, a result of reading. I started reading novels by, usually, Nigerian authors in 1999. However, I wondered why couldn’t I find books by northern Nigerian writers? There were only a very few of them such as Zaynab Alkali ( The Stillborn , The Virtuous Woman , etc.), Muhammad Sule ( The Undesirable Element ) and Auwal Yusuf Hamza ( Love Path ) in the market or the one I went to. I vowed to become a writer to tell our stories.   How was it honed? You hone your writing skills by reading and practising writing. I think there is no other better way. I read a lot, mostly when I was younger; when I had less engagement and responsibilities. I didn’t have any specific favourite genre. I read almost whatever came my...

  Nollywood Movie Review: VOICELESS   Director: Robert O. Peters Producer: Rogers Ofime Company: Native Media Writer: Jennifer Agunloye Year: November 18, 2020 Cast: Asabe Madaki, Yakubu Muhammad, Sani Muazu, Uzee Usman, Abba Zaki, Rakiya Atta, introducing Adam Garba, others.    Indisputable, only a few Kannywood productions attract the attention of the audience these days. Although the dialogue track and the actors in Voiceless are Hausa, the film does not belong to Kannywood. The movie, on the one hand, mounts a frigging assault, on the other hand, a serious challenge, to Kannywood. Though it’s unfair to match the glory of Nollywood and that of Kannywood, I can feel it in my bones that they must envy Nollywood for punching them and knocking their teeth out by producing the first wholly Hausa film that is now sold to Netflix. Here’s my review of the film.   Voiceless is an insurgency-inspired romantic-thriller motivated by the infamous ...

By Abubakar Isah Baba The article  named above was written by Muhsin Ibrahim, and published in the 2019/2020 edition of KAKAKI: Journal of English and Literary Studies ; (11) 81 - 98.   The first time I watched the drama Dadin Kowa I felt at ease, for it is highly natural, exciting and yet unusual. The soap opera displays the quintessence of Hausa cultural mores; the fictional town of Dadin Kowa reveales the typical, densely populated urban area, mainly crowded with dirty, run-down housing, poverty and social disarray of the Hausa people. There you watch actors as if in reality, mingle with the stray of goats, sheep and chickens. All these are what make the soap opera attractive for it brings the truth before our eyes. Dadin Kowa is enriched with compelling and relevant topics that are within the present condition of its setting, such as insurgency, drug abuse, domestic violence, Almajirci , girl-child education, to name but a few. This is, perhaps, w...

For about three decades, cinemagoers, especially in the northern parts of Nigeria, are familiar with Hausa Film Industry popularly known as Kannywood. Though there has been debate on a different genre of movies by section of producers and directors that say 70% of Kannywood filmmakers go for romantic melodrama and musical extravaganza while the rest of the percentage has comedy, action and epic storyline. Be it as it may, the giant industry lacks fantasy movies in its library. Falalu A Dorayi, undoubtedly one of the few directors who believe in game-changing and twisting story background to please his followers and fans, who established himself as a successful filmmaker in the history of Kannywood has finally come with a sensational fantasy flick entitled Karamin Sani . Karamin Sani , an upcoming movie set to hit screens on Friday, 17 January 2020, in Filmhouse Cinema Kano and KFA Cinemas Kaduna simultaneously, was produced by S & B Production and directed by the versa...

Director :      Falalu A. Dorayi Producer :     Tijjani Asase Language :    Hausa Year :            2019 Company :    Dorayi Film & Distributions Nig. Ltd. Cast:            Halima Atete, Adam A. Zango, Umar Malumfashi, Hadiza Muhammad, etc. The widely advertised film, Wata Malama is finally out, more than a couple of years since the release of its trailer. It was earlier rumoured that the film was banned by the Kano State Censorship Board allegedly due to its explicit content. However, the film director, Falalu A. Dorayi debunked it and told me that it was only undergoing careful postproduction work. Although he didn’t say further, I think it’s for the same reason: the content. All that is over now. The film opens with tensed sequences of a hot-tempered police officer (Tijjani Asase) whose wife, a nu...

By Muhsin Ibrahim University of Cologne   muhsin2008@gmail.com As I wrote elsewhere, the relationship between cinema and the orthodox religious institutions is often marked by uneasiness if not outright hostility. From its very beginning, the Puritans see the raison d’être of visual art as only to entertain, which means to distract people from their duty to God and ethical undertakings. Until today, the accusation is all the more raging. How filmmakers handle the questions of morality, culture and spirituality is under censorship. Kannywood, the Kano-based, up-and-coming motion picture industry of and by the predominantly Muslim Hausa speaking people in northern Nigeria, is not an exception. It is not news that Kannywood struggles with the culture-war message of several critics who see everything with them as corruption or dilution of the “prestigious” Hausa culture. However, with the ever-expanding rise (encroachment?) of globalisation, I think this feeling is, a...

By Muhsin Ibrahim University of Cologne muhsin2008@gmail.com     Once again, Kannywood is being dragged into the limelight for the same reason: moral issues. The story of the murder of husband, Bilyaminu Bello, by his wife, Maryam Sanda, has been trending in the news since it happened on 18 th November 2017. Domestic violence, which, if not tackled, leads to mariticide, is as old as marriage itself. Therefore, using a picture of an actress, Aina’u Ade, wielding a knife against an actor, Ali Nuhu, from a scene of a Kannywood film to show how Maryam got influenced is, at best, wrong and, at worst, absurd. Do we care to look at the context and the consequence of that act in the film? Let me digress a little. I had no intention to write this article for several reasons. However, some friends and acquaintances kept asking me to intervene. Let me clarify to them that being Kannywood an area of my study does not make me their mouthpiece, nor does it make it my respon...

Muhsin Ibrahim muhsin2008@gmail.com The word “culture” defies any simple definition, though attempts to do that have been made and continue to be. In response to a post I made on Facebook the other day, a friend commented that “ Hausa culture has nearly eroded to extinction ”, for, according to him, when one asks many young Hausa (men and women) about their culture, they will tell you, “Islam is my culture”.  Weak, if not erroneous, as I believe this view is, it makes me happy for several reasons. Culture, religion and, to an extent, language are carriers of a lot of value. The most valuable of them all is, to me, religion. Therefore, I would prefer a Hausa girl or boy to identify herself/himself first with Islam than with the culture as the culture is not as perfect as the religion is. However, neither the culture nor the religion means anything significant to countless Muslim girls and boys in this 21 st century. This is one of the reasons why I find his argum...

Muhsin Ibrahim @muhsin234 Starting with an apology to the 19th-century great novelist, Charles Dickens, as the title of this piece was inspired by the title of his 1859’s historical novel; the contexts of the two texts cannot, however, be related. The article chronicles my short stays at Mumbai, India, and Lagos in Nigeria, while making a kind of comparison between the two, and then with my birthplace, Kano. This was motivated by the striking parallels I have discovered between the two cities. For instance, both are the commercial capitals of their country; both neighboured seas; both are like convergent points of different ethnic groups; both headquartered one of the world’s leading film industries; both are lands of opportunities; both are populated by the posh and the poor people; etc. This is a continuation of my Facebook status update while still in Lagos a couple of days ago. In reaction to the said status update, some people said that I have not seen anything yet in...

Muhsin Ibrahim muhsin2008@gmail.com Facebook, or any other social media, is no longer what it used to be: a mere, innocuous social networking site for friending, chatting, sharing pictures and the like. It is, today, a life shaping platform. This and a whole host of other reasons, therefore, call for parents, guardians and all to be (more) wary of how, and of course who, his/her children, wards, younger siblings, etc interact with. I will give three (3) examples. First , the Intern et, in general, is a harbour for amassed pornographic contents. Recently, the Indian government banned viewing of porn contents in their country. But due to pressure and protests, they had to lift the ban. These days, there are many pages for that on Facebook, chat groups on WhatsApp, etc. The kids can be smart but not really smarter. Devise your ways to curtail this via best possible means. While the first danger could easily be detected, the second one is eerily, barely detectable. This is...

Muhsin Ibrahim @muhsin234 I was at the prominent Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, for a 7-day internship on the Radio and TV Production Process from 25th September to 1st October 2016. As a budding writer, critic, and public commentator, I have seen and observed many things sufficient to write a book on. I have already chronicled some of these on my Facebook page. This article consists of at least two such status updates. Here you go. On Self-Reliance There is a centre under the Department of Theatre and Performing Arts of the University called the Centre of Excellence. A lady sells snacks, soda and other fast foodstuffs at its entrance. She dresses well, smiles at her customers and other passers-by who care to say hi. I often did that, and she friendlily responded. However, I doubt if anyone among us, both the staff and the students, had ever bought anything from her, and that was where most of the internship lectures were conducted as it houses the non-broadcast...

Muhammad Muhsin Ibrahim @muhsin234 Wait, the pidgin I know? That’s for the uneducated folks only. Did you just say that? Then you are wrong. The importance of this debased language is far beyond what you think. This is not a new discovery. It’s a fact. That’s why many people campaigned for the pidgin (or, better, the c reole ) spoken in their countries to be formalised, standardised and even officialised. But that was  barely   achieved in a few nations like Papua New Guinea , the Philippines and Sierra Leon . Although India is far more diverse than Nigeria, many Indians are often amazed that we speak English among ourselves, and not ‘Nigerian’. They think there is a popular language used in the country by that name the same way Hindi is in India. We only have Nigerian Pidgin English (NPE) spoken by a healthy minority, I would say, and scores of other languages. A detour: India’s other names are Hindustan (the root word of Hindi, a popular language, and Hinduism,...