The Learner

Muhammad Muhsin Ibrahim Bayero University, Kano muhsin2008@gmail.com INTRODUCTION Some might think the title suggests a banal subject, which has been at the centre of hot debates among many writers, particularly the Nigerian Chinua Achebe and the Kenyan Ngugi wa Thiong’o for many years. However, the case of India is exceptionally unique as the country is also very unique in the world. India is a place of myths and legends; a birthplace of some of the world’s leading religions and creeds; miscellaneous cultures and traditions, and other peculiarities. It is the second most populous country after China—and would, as projected, overtake China in the ranking in a few years to come—with over a billion inhabitants. The people are divided mainly along mass and massive ethnically heterogeneous societies with little or nothing in common. It was gathered in a recent report that ‘ Over 1652 languages belonging to four different language families…’ ( http://www.ciil.org ) —eightee...

Muhammad Muhsin Ibrahim Bayero University, Kano @muhsin234 INTRODUCTION The world can no longer escape being ‘exposed’ through the media—print and non-print. It is no longer what it used to be. Globalization, now at its peak, is tied with media like a computer to its screen. Hence wars are fought through the media; election campaigns conducted there; products advertised; and there is virtually no place uncovered by the media. Films, as vital machinery used by the media, are accorded with ample efficacy, for via this much propaganda—for good or bad—of the so-called world superpowers were said to have, and are still being, sold to, and devoured by, people. This is possible for, almost everybody can understand the language of film and its universal appeal; film is endowed with the communicative power that can mobilize people to frenzy or lull them with dreams and illusions. This is very evident especially in Hausa-land where both its teeming youth and elderly so much used ...

Muhammad Muhsin Ibrahim Department of English and French, Bayero University , Kano muhsin2008@gmail.com Abstract The paper seeks to answer some triggering questions on reading: why, when, what and how, through demonstrating to the students some of the many (positive) impacts of good reading culture, exploring the probable 'reasons' why students don’t, or hate to, read, and by offering ways on how to overcome such problems. In the discussion, the writer highlights on how achieving this would contribute to the development of the student’s academic pursuit, linguistic competence and performance, and life in general. In conclusion, a call is made to the “stakeholders” and the people in general to assist the students as their success means, in wider perspective, the nation’s success.   Being a Paper Presented at a Special Lecture Organized by the Department of English, Girls’ Science College, Garko, Kano; 03 rd March, 2013 INTRODUCTION The issue of ed...

Preamble The question on, if not the whole issue of, Indian Theatre, whether classical, folk, modern or whatever appendage is affixed to it raises eyebrows. Why? There was no India as known today prior to a certain and recent period of time, which is following the British colonial masters’ declaration of independence to a people who hitherto shared no language, religion, norm and culture; the group of people who were even sometimes hostile to one another. Many scholars and theatre historians and critics have intensely argued (and the argument still continuous) on the true origin, and, again, the existence of an all-encompassing concept called Indian theatre. Reasons ascribed to such contentions are many: Is this the Hindus’, or the Muslims’, the Sikhs’, the Buddhists’, or other religions’ performance that is more befitting to be tagged Indian Theatre? So also the ethnic dispensations; Hindi, Punjabi, Kannada, Bengali, etc all rightly belong to the India; or the recently emerged b...

This is a short-story culled from my novel, A Weird Hope (2012). It was, again, published in   Voices from the Savannah (2010), an anthology of the National Association of Language and Literary Studies, Bayero University , Kano Chapter, vol. 3.  It's told to a girl, Shahada by her nanny, Gwaggo. The story is about one of the latter’s peer’s eventual marital life. GWAGGO CLEARED her throat—emulating her master's (Shahada’s father) habit. “The story began when we were in our early youth, now about five decades ago. Surely I won't use her right name because she still lives; thus, let me call her Ummi, as the house-hold name in the Hausa communities, was betrothed to a young man called Audu. “Audu?” she tried to recall the exact name. “Yes Audu.” The gentleman was a common farmer like his father who was also a great scholar in our village. One day, a fortnight to their wedding, one of the eminent wealthy men living in the village heard about it through one of his ...

Dr. Salisu Shehu Department of Education Bayero University, Kano muhammadtafawabalewa@gmail.com sshehu2002@yahoo.com With all sense of modesty, I can proclaim that I belong to a generation of Muslim activists that were intellectually nurtured and brought up, and are still being influenced in a number of ways by, among other things, the brilliant weekly write-ups and commentaries of the likes of Mallam Adamu Adamu. In fact, Mallam Adamu stands out quite prominently among them. Having grown up and had my primary education in a village in the late sixties through the seventies, and even while at the teachers’ college in the early eighties I was never used to reading, not to talk of appreciating the value of newspapers. I got introduced to reading them when I set my foot in Bayero University Kano, as a student in the mid-eighties. Once initiated, I immediately got hooked up to Mallam Ibrahim Sulaiman’s Column and Mallam Adamu’s DEFINITIONS-IN-HUMOUR, both in the Sunday ...

Muhammad Muhsin Ibrahim Department of English and Literary Studies, Bayero University, Kano muhsin2008@gmail.com The Author’s Biographical Notes Born in 1946 in Erunwon village in Ogun state, Nigeria, Femi Osofisan is a prolific critic, poet, novelist, and playwright whose work mainly attacks political corruption and injustice. He was educated at the universities of Ibadan, Dakar, and Paris. A professor of Drama since 1985 at the University of Ibadan, where he has spent most of his adult career, Osofisan was General Manager and Chief Executive of the National Theatre Lagos. He has won prizes from the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) for both drama (1980) and poetry (1989), and in 2004 he was awarded the Nigerian National Order of Merit (NNOM), the highest academic prize in Nigeria. An Introduction As contained in the play’s blurb, it is an African re-reading (i.e. adapted version) of Euripides’ classic, The Trojan Women . It was first comm...