The Learner

By Muhsin Ibrahim Decades after gaining independence in 1960, Nigeria remains a complex country in every sense. It is a nation of abundance and poverty, exceptional brilliance and widespread illiteracy, and much more. With a population of over 220 million people of diverse characteristics and backgrounds, Nigerians are found across the globe. Nigeria has the good, the bad and the ugly. Wole Soyinka, the first African Nobel laureate, recently celebrated his 90th birthday. Aliko Dangote, also from Nigeria, has been the wealthiest black man for over a decade. However, Nigeria is also known for having some of the most wanted fraudsters on the FBI list. The country also overtook India as the so-called capital poverty of the world, with 71 million people living in extreme poverty today. Like many countries with petrodollar economies, Nigeria has had to contend with a plethora of socio-political crises occasioned by long years of corruption, social neglect, prebendal politics, political exclu...

  An Arewa24 TV talk show presenter suggested that if a man’s wife doesn’t greet him as per tradition, he should greet her. That provoked many men on Northern Nigerian social media. It’s yet another round of endless debate on marriage. Thus, I posted this article as my contribution to the discussion. Enjoy. The marriage question will continue to dominate our public discourse for a considerable time. In contrast to the Western world and other regions, Hausa/Fulani religious and social traditions prohibit sex outside of marriage. However, as humans have an inherent desire for sexual activity, marriage remains the only legitimate way to satisfy that craving. Conflicts will occur as long as men and women live together, desire to raise a family and do much more. We are not meant to agree on everything. Some disputes are solvable, others intractable. While divorce is halal, it's significantly discouraged by both Islam and our culture. So, what do we do? Many couples, especially ...

Too many people desperately seek cheap popularity on social media (SM). They include socialites, self-identified religious scholars, and ordinary people. The first category, such as Murja Ibrahim, doesn't surprise me; their followers astonish me. But the second and third categories astound me. The "religious scholars" mindlessly chase fame (and fortune) on SM today. It's common to see a benighted person countering an established scholar over what he barely understands. I came across one a while ago, trying to debunk a theological discourse using baseless claims. He struggled to recite the Qur'an before him. The third category hides behind "catching cruise," whatever that means. Yesterday, someone shared that viral tweet by parody accounts of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. People called his attention to the fact that they were parody accounts. He admitted knowing that but added that he was only "catching cruise." What is that, for God's sake...

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...

By MA Iliasu The dilemma with Kano has always been about standards. So, naturally, Kano's advantages and disadvantages in socioeconomic assets have outgrown everyone's. The history of Hausa land and much of the Sahel will confirm that assertion. Kano's population was approximated in 2022 as the second largest in Nigeria after Lagos and sixth in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), ranking behind Lagos, Rivers, Delta, Oyo, and Imo. Kano is blessed with more than ten major markets across its rural and urban settlements, with Kantin Kwari and Dawanau serving as the largest textiles and food markets in West Africa, respectively. The state is enriched with the twentieth highest landmass in Nigeria, the biggest part of which is a prosperous arable land, with a favourable temperament that enables consistent rainfall and harmattan during rainy and harmattan seasons, on top of the twenty dams distributed across the rural economies of the state. Kano is one of the largest industrial...

  Will Nigeria break up? By Muhsin Ibrahim Yes, Nigeria will someday break up. It may not be in our lifetime, but that is very likely to happen. It's a matter of time before the bomb explodes. Our disunity is more deeply entrenched than many people imagine. No country can progress while its people harbour hatred of this magnitude towards one another. The only way to avoid the above is to launch a massive yet well-crafted societal reorientation programme nationwide. Nigerians of all walks of life need reeducation on patriotism. We need to place our Nigerian identity above and beyond any other ethnic profile. We need to see and regard our neighbours as humans as we are. As things stand, our future is doomed. Call me a pessimist, alarmist or anything you want. Unfortunately, it's our sad reality. Look around you. Every accident and incident is viewed via an ethno-religious and regional prism. It's also treated as such. Why, for God's sake? Many of our so-called leaders and...

By  Muhsin Ibrahim muhsin2008@gmail.com Nigeria’s diversity cuts across many things, chiefly cultures, ethnicities, religions and regions. Although several commentators consider the northern part more Islamic and the southern one more Christian, Muslims and Christians, followers of traditional belief systems and non-religious folks may be seen everywhere. Due to these complexities, the country is home to two significant film industries – Kannywood and Nollywood – with many smaller ones operating under these brands. Kannywood , the name given to the “local” Hausa film industry with Kano State as its epicentre, is a distinct and autonomous film industry in northern Nigeria.   Nollywood   has its root s  in the South, has mainly Christianity and Western-influenced motifs as themes and produces films primarily in English or other southern Nigerian languages. For Kannywood, however, Islam is arguably the trademark, and the East remains their vital source of influence ...

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...

Director :          Abubakar S. Shehu Producer :        Auwalu Sani Story:                Yakubu M. Kumo Language :       Hausa Year :                2018 Company :       3SP International Limited Cast:                Sadiq S. Sadiq, Al-Amin Buhari, Abubakar S. Shehu, Hafsat Idris, etc. Once again, a major Kannywood production attempts to avoid the clichés of forced marriage, a love triangle, intrusive music and dance routine, etc. in its storytelling. It, equally, tries to go back to the root to, of course, glorify the “good old days”. Above all, it proselytises Islam. Would the critics and the nativists alike ask for more? Titled Risala , an Arabic word meaning “message”, the Abubakar S. Shehu’s film is completel...

Muhsin Ibrahim muhsin200@gmail.com Kannywood film industry faces an existential threat from many fronts. A leading Hausa film scholar, Prof. Abdullah Uba Adamu declared last year that “ by 2016, the Hausa film industry had literally crashed ” and, therefore, major actors in the production, marketing and distributing its films had pulled out and ventured into other more propitious businesses. His declaration was true. We are already in the middle of the year 2018. As an independent, casual promoter and reviewer of their films, however, I have yet to watch any serious movie  worth reviewing. Most of the few, released films so far are poor in many respects, while the good ones are still held for fear of the market. I don’t blame them for this. Love or hate them, the resilience of Kannywood filmmakers is what makes them survive this far, though, as mentioned above, many have already capitulated and closed shop. The reasons for this turn of the event are somewhat apparent. T...

Muhsin Ibrahim muhsin2008@gmail.com The North is stasis largely because of our doing. We are too disorganised, unorganised, divided, and disenchanted with one another. Almost everything is either sectionalised (remember the Northeast Development Commission saga?) or interpreted based on one's sectarian or political affiliation . Year in, year out, we debate on Maulud . In recent months, we argued over Sheikh Usman Bn Fodio, the dresses of Malam Kabiru Gombe and Bala Lau in Europe, the place of Stephen Hawking in the hereafter, and today on the-yet-to-be-interred, late Sheikh Isyaka Rabiu. How sad and unfortunate! Known to many, migration of discussion fora from physical to virtual space began in the mid to the end of the penultimate decade - 1995 to 1999. Haus a people of Nigeria are some of the first to utilise th e new platform in Africa with the creation of Ka no O nline , Dantata Online, Gamji, etc. websites. The South followed up a little later, I think, with si...

By Muhsin Ibrahim   muhsin2008@gmail.com The abducted Dapchi schoolgirls were released and brought back to the beleaguered village of Yobe state, Nigeria in the early hours of Wednesday, 21 st March 2018. As reports indicate, the Nigeria Army paused operation in and around the village to allow a peaceful passage for Boko Haram fighters in charge of returning the girls. They came, preached for about 20 minutes to the would-be freed girls, embarked their trucks and left. The village soon erupted in celebration with women ululating, men smiling, girls dancing, youth shouting and so on. It’s Eid. In the midst of all this, however, an unsettling picture and later a video clip emerged wherein some townspeople hailed the militants as they departed. It is not all hanky-dowry after all. Five of the girls died. They gave up the ghost, according to one of the freed girls, as a result of a stampede when they were whisked away by their abductors in overcrowded trucks. The girl ...

Dapchi Schoolgirls’ Abduction: The Big Picture by Muhsin Ibrahim muhsin2008@gmail.com As it is with anything and everything in Nigeria, the Dapchi schoolgirls’ abduction has been politicised. Only a few people now care to, honestly, empathise and sympathise with the victims’ family. The governments of Yobe, the state where the school is, and of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the security operatives care more to give alternative narratives surrounding the case and deflect blame than pragmatic efforts to rescue the poor, innocent girls. The girls’ whereabouts and fate are yet unknown and unpredictable. The previous government of Goodluck Jonathan denied the abduction of Chibok girls in 2014 the same way the current one firstly reacted to the Dapchi's. One wonders how possible this is. This is a manifestation that Nigeria’s problem goes beyond leadership. I no longer quickly accuse our leaders of our plights than I do ourselves. It’s first and foremost the system ...