Kwankwaso’s policy on movies

When I met Governor Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso for the first time last month, I was eager to ask him a question on the policy of his government on movie production. During the final three years of the regime preceding his, there had been a cat-and-mouse contest between stakeholders in the Hausa movie industry and the Kano state government. Many actors, producers, musicians, marketers, etc., were arrested, heavily fined, jailed and or had their offices locked up and their property confiscated through dubious legal processes. Many were forced into exile in neighbouring states. One Abubakar Rabo, notorious for his near-crazy loathing for the movie trade, was heading the state Censorship Board in a Gestapo manner. He committed himself to the emasculation of the industry, using false propaganda and coercive instruments of the state. Consequently, Kano’s huge army of unemployed swelled. (The industry had employed thousands of school leavers and other layabouts for whom government could not provide jobs).

The reason adduced for this reign of terror by Governor Ibrahim Shekarau was that Hausa movies were corrupting morals and that movie industry stakeholders were not practising what they preached. He also claimed, during the last presidential debate, that he was responding to the demand of members of the society for the industry to be chained. Truly, there is a fringe view in Hausa land which holds that movies are sinful and should be banned – the kind of view imposed against women education in Afghanistan under the Taliban.

One of the comical regulations imposed by Rabo was that movies should not be shot at night so that men and women would not use the opportunity to commit fornication – as if those who engage in illicit sex (including top government officials) do so only at night!

The government’s stance wasn’t tenable because it was hypocritical. Many of its top guns were known to be living double lives, morally speaking. Nollywood flicks, which are more explicit, and even smuggled x-rated movies, were on sale in many parts of Kano. Moreover, during the run-up to the 2007 general election, Shekarau himself had exploited the film stars’ popularity to canvass votes. He held a lavish movie awards ceremony in government house where he extolled the virtues of film-making and distributed gifts. In the following months, he courted the industry through all manner of tricks, including donating a new bus to the film-makers’ association and, later, receiving an industry award at Arewa House, Kaduna. But when the Hiyana sex scandal broke out in 2007 and the anti-movie lobby found a louder voice, Shekarau launched his crackdown on the stars. After all, he had won his re-election and reckoned that he did not really need them. The latter view proved suicidal because the industry played a key role in defeating his party in the April 2011 polls when its crowd-pulling members like Sani Danja and Ibro joined the campaign train of his arch-rival, Kwankwaso.

Today, there is a sea change. Dr Kwankwaso is building a bridge of understanding between government and the industry. In response to my question during our interview with him, published in Blueprint on September 26, he said: “The film industry in Kano is very important for obvious reasons. For one, it is capital-intensive and has the capacity to boost the state’s economy. Secondly, and this is very crucial, it has the potential to create mass employment opportunity to the youths - both male and female - and this is one of our objectives: to provide job opportunity to as many people as possible. So, I have made it clear that our administration would give all the needed support to make sure the film industry thrives like any other industry in the real sector.”

In spite of his positive outlook, however, the governor is not blind to the need for the regulation of the business. He explained, “But be that as it may, we also have our religious and cultural values to protect against adulteration in any way by the filmmakers or any group of people.” He is setting up a Kano Film Institute in Tiga “so that the industry will be sanitised.” This is clearly a purposive and focused leadership. There are no frenzied, false claims or pretences. There is simply a clear urge to reduce unemployment while firmly minding cultural preservation.

The movie practitioners should repay this gesture by producing qualitative movies that are also sensitive to culture and religion. They should do away with their Indian copycat impulses and be professional. Hausa movies should be made to appeal to a universal audience through originality even if they have to be modern in outlook. It doesn’t have to take a Malam Rabo to remind the practitioners about this.

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Published in BLUEPRINT yesterday

Censorship: Kano's smouldering cauldron (2)

The abject failure of the censorship regime in Kano State under Governor Ibrahim Shekarau was due to the lack of sincerity that dogged the whole project, as well as a deliberate policy of subjugation which aimed at throwing away the baby with the bathwater. The notion that the people appointed to administer the Kano State Censorship Board were on a pedestal where they could not be faulted was erroneous; just because the they were brandishing religious cards did not mean that they were unassailable. They were promoted as saints because doing so fitted snugly with the simple mentality of the common man, who is thought to be manipulatable by the false prophets in that government.

Had the censorship board wanted to promote Hausa film-making and make it amenable to the cultural and religious heritage of the people of northern Nigeria, it could have done any of the few of ways to go about it. It board would have formed a partnership with the right stakeholders in the industry in order to, first, put a stop to all the “undesirable elements” of movie content and, second, replace them with more wholesome productions. Instead, the chief censor, Rabo, adopted divide and rule tactics, selecting only yes-men though they could not help spearhead genuine changes. At the same time, he waged a brutal campaign against those he regarded as rebels, arresting and jailing them at will, as well as tarnishing the image of the industry in general. What followed was counter-attacks between him and his opponents; the war of attrition led to nowhere but the eventual failure of the board to sanitise the industry. At the end, Rabo himself was demystified, his holier-than-thou mien discredited.

Now, a new era appears to be on the horizon. Engineer Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso was the one who created the censorship board in 2001, during his first tenure as governor. Under him, the board was said to be lax, thus giving way to all sorts of misdemeanours which critics linked to the deterioration of both the quality of Hausa movies and the moral rectitude of movie practitoners. Shekarau tolerated much of the lapses, probably because he needed a re-election in 2007. It took the Hiyana sex scandal of 2007 to startle him into action, with the view to pleasing the mullahs.

Now that Kwankwaso is back, expectations in the industry are high. Stakeholders see him as their won. Some of them want him to appoint one of them as DG of the censorship board. They are almost doubly sure he will not “betray” them. But will he? Or won’t he?

However, it would be foolhardy of anyone in the industry to suppose that the carefree days of the past will return in this dispensation. The films will be censored because they are a veritable weapon of commiunicating ideas that impact on the society, with overarching consequences. Kwankwaso is expected should a technocrat who knows the movie business and the relevant matters of censorship. It should be somebody who can midwife the industry towards a level of professionalism not usually seen in these parts. It should be someone who will make our films competitive not only on the national scene but also continentally, from where they will be uniquely attractive universally.

This task should have no name-calling, campaign of calumny and policies that could weaken the business. Remember that one of the serious challenges facing the new government in Kano, and by extension all governments in the North, is reducing the huge army of unemployed youths roaming the streets. Kano has the largest population of unemployed youth, many of whom are not indigenes of the state – or even Nigerians. The movie-making industry has sucked in thousands of such men and women, thus contributing to the economy of the state and to its wellbeing. Governor Kwankwaso should create ways of encouraging this entrepreneurship while ensuring that it conforms to the norms of the society. There are many competent hands in Kano who can do it. Any attempt to kill the film-making business would be counterproductive and futile, just as we saw during the last censorship regime in the state.

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Published in my column in the current issue of BLUEPRINT, the weekly newspaper

Kannywood: A Luta Continua!

Why is Kannywood - the Hausa film industry - both more backward and more despised than Nollywood, and its promoters poorer in terms of material comfort? Why did Nollywood, the English language movie industry based in Lagos and Onitsha, grow so exponentially within a few years than Kannywood to become, according to UNESCO, the second largest film industry in the world in terms of the number of annual film productions, placing it ahead of Hollywood and behind Bollywood? Some reports say that Nollywood is estimated to rake in between US$200 million and US$250 million per year, churning out some 200 videos for the market every month.

Some would think it is foolish to make this kind of contradistinction because the two industries appear to be operating on different turfs. On a closer look, however, it is possible to glean the factors that make the two similar and why the fortune of one should ricochet on the other. The greatest point of divergence is language, which may appear to present certain restrictions on the Hausa industry that could militate against its growth. But if you look closer, you will wonder why Bollywood movies were able to penetrate societies globally even though they came loaded with Indian cultural motifs. If Hindi melodramas could have a universal appeal, why should the Hausa ones be restricted to particular audiences? The answer to these questions will tell us why our movies remain in chains twenty years after they began while those of Nollywood wax stronger. First, let’s take a look back at the origin of the problem. The Hausa movie industry is going to celebrate its 20th year anniversary next week, but of course not many outside its circle know this. And this is very instructive. This momentous milestone is generally lost on most people, including those who should know better, because this is an industry that has always suffered the fate of being misunderstood, misreported and even cast in the wrong league of Nigerian entertainment history.

Official history says the “Nigerian home video industry” had origins in the release of the movie ‘Living in Bondage’ in 1992. This drama thriller, written by Kenneth Nnebue and Okechukwu Ogunjiofor and directed by Chris Obi Rapu, is believed to have been responsible for the beginning of the shot straight-to-video ventures that came to define what is generally known as Nollywood today. This wrong historicisation of the art form does not take cognisance of the “other” movie industry known as Kannywood, which is so named because of its main base in Kano. It is a home video industry that is as big as Nollywood in terms of number of productions per month and the sheer population of stakeholders - stars, directors, producers, crew and marketers. Its viewership transcends northern Nigeria because its flicks are watched all over West Africa and the Hausa Diaspora.

The truth also is that Kannywood predates Nollywood. As Prof. Abdalla Uba Adamu, unarguably the leading scholar on Kannywood alive, told an audience in Kano on November 25, 2010 at an event to mark 20 years of the industry, Kannywood began in March 1990 with the release of the home video ‘Turmin Danya’. Written by the late Aminu Hassan Yakasai, it was produced by the pioneer drama group in Kano, Tumbin Giwa, and directed by Salisu Galadanci. The relative success of ‘Turmin Danya’ caused an upsurge in Hausa filmmaking as more and more production outfits, called companies even if they were not formally registered with the authorities, emerged, mostly as breakaways from older groups. Kano, with the biggest army of unemployed youth in the north, got an industry that was self-created, independent of government intervention.

According to Adamu, “Another landmark in the history of video films in Africa was recorded in August 1999 edition of Tauraruwa magazine - the first magazine in Africa devoted to indigenous African video films - edited by Sunusi Shehu ... that Sunusi created the term ‘Kannywood’ to refer to the Kano-based Hausa video film industry. It is significant that the term ‘Nollywood’ to refer to the Nigerian English language video film industry was created by Norimitsu Onishi, in an article titled ‘Step Aside L.A. and Bombay, for Nollywood’ published in The New York Times on September 16, 2002. This was three years AFTER Sunusi Shehu created ‘Kannywood’.

“Of further significance was the fact that ‘Turmin Danya’ was released in 1990, two years BEFORE ‘Living in Bondage’ - the video film generally acknowledged as the first in English language Nollywood film industry. So either way, the Hausa video film industry - both in terms of an industry as well as a label - is the first full-fledged video film industry, not only in Nigeria, but also in Africa.”

So, why should an industry that made this milestone be licking its wounds today instead of licking the juice of its labour? The answer is that Hausa movies veered off culturally by their adoption of alien cultural mores - Indian, Western and even southern Nigerian. They lost their uniqueness. The early movies were responsible for the monumental growth and popularity of the new art form. But when some producers in the heat of deadly competition injected the ‘Indian-type’ movies - the singing and dancing aspect, forms of dress, storylines, and even posters, etc - the audience began to shrink. I watched with keen interest, as a reporter deeply embedded within the industry, as the market went into a spin, crashing a lot of hitherto legendary production outfits and names.

Then in 2007 came the infamous Hiyana affair. An A-class actress and her non-industry lover had foolishly made a video clip of themselves having sex in a hotel room, using a cell-phone camera, apparently for the fun of it. Even though it was a non-industry event, the inadvertent release of the clip into the society created a consternation and opprobrium against an industry that had for some time been struggling to remain popular and tolerated. The scandal forced the Kano State governor, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau, who feared a backlash from Islamic clerics at a time he was instituting a Sharia law regime, into a clean-up exercise in the industry. He appointed a new boss for the state censorship board known for his heavy-handedness while working for the state Sharia police. The man, Abubakar Rabo, took it as part of his duties to emasculate the industry in any way he could. Acting on his weird understanding of the functions of a public officer and a pitiable misreading of the public mood, he battled the industry for three years, using the instrument of government power, ensuring that many actors, producers, directors, etc., were jailed or fined heavily on false charges. Many stakeholders migrated to other states. It took the sudden occurrence of his own sex scandal to check his acts of injustice and persecution and make him mellow down and seek rapprochement with his opponents.

At 20, Kannywood needs to take a pensive look at the progress it should have made but hasn't. The stakeholders, most of whom are young, need to train for roles in moviemaking, especially the technical aspect. Skill acquisition is low. The marketing system is rudimentary and pedestrian. Piracy, a big spectre, is gobbling up potential profits and keeping producers on the verge of bankruptcy. Movie stories are shallow and thematically restricted, lacking in unique cultural motifs that can create a universal loyal audience. Unity of purpose is almost absent, leading to an individualism that is injurious to the common interest of stakeholders; this makes it impossible for outfits to collaborate on productions and sometimes lead to court cases such as the current one between a leading director and a famous actor/producer. Overall, government empowerment is necessary in growing the industry as a private sector capable of sucking in thousands of school leavers and dropouts, as well as gearing the movies towards the common good.

Kannywood, as its struggles continue, can learn a lot from Nollywood, where collaborations and norms and conventions have created a cohesiveness that promotes the common good. There should be rules and regulations that everybody should be subjected to. The Motion Pictures Practitioners Association of Nigeria (MOPPAN), Hausa movie industry's main trade association, has a role to play in this. Education is of paramount significance; an under-educated class cannot even write grammatically correct subtitles, talk less of producing captivating box office hits. A cursory viewing of Kannywood flicks on Africa Magic’s Hausa channel today shows just how backward Hausa movies are in this regard. If Kannywood refuses to start cleansing itself of its present imperfections, it cannot hope to make any headway in its next twenty years.

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Published in LEADERSHIP WEEKEND, last Saturday

Ace Hausa Actress, Amina Garba, Dies At 52

BY ABDULAZIZ ABDULAZIZ, KANO

The Hausa film industry was thrown into mourning yesterday with the death of one of the leading actresses, Hajiya Amina Garba (a.k.a. Mama Dumba), who died in Kano.
Mama Dumba, popular with her role as an elderly, responsible mother or wife of a rich man in the movies, died at the age of 52 three weeks after she had remarried.
Her husband of three weeks, Alhaji Abdulkareem Shehu Bauchi, told LEADERSHIP that she succumbed to a long battle with high blood pressure, diabetes and ulcer.

On Saturday, Mama Dumba had been taken to the Gwagwarwa Clinic in Kano metropolis, where she worked as a nurse till her death. She was treated and asked to go home. She was, however, returned to the hospital yesterday when her condition deteriorated and died at about 2:30 p.m.

Her remains were conveyed by her family members to her house at Kofar Kabuga area of the city, where parts of the funeral rites were observed.

She is survived by her husband and five children (two of whom are female).

Shell-shocked colleagues of the late actress showered encomiums on her as she was interred at the Kofar Mazugal cemetery in Kano City.

Administrative secretary of the Motion Picture Practitioners Association of Nigeria, Malam Ahmad Salihu Alkanawy, described the deceased as a true mother whose death has created a huge vacuum in the movie industry. “She has indeed left a large vacuum. She was a real mother who was responsible. We pray Allah in His infinite mercy to forgive her shortcomings,” he said.



On his part, famous actor, Alhaji Ibrahim Maishunku, said Hajiya Amina Garba “was indeed kind; a nice woman whose good manners can be attested to by viewers and those of us who work with her in the industry.”

According to him, the death of Dumba was symbolic, considering the fact that she recently got married despite other people’s opinion about her being too elderly for a fresh marriage union.

He said: “Some people thought she was too old for marriage but Allah has destined that she would die as a complete human being, a responsible married woman.”

Another actor, Malam Jibril S. Fagge, recalled the qualities of the deceased, saying, “Hajiya was a good mother, especially for those of us who knew her and came from the same place as her. I knew her as she knew my parents; she was a kind woman.

“Today is exactly three weeks that she got married, as if she had a premonition that she was going to die. But we believe this was the doing of Allah and we hope Allah will cover her with His infinite mercy.”


Published in LEADERSHIP today.

Fim, October 2010 cover

Rabo: Pursuing The Pursuer

LEADERSHIP
Wednesday, 01 September 2010



In this piece, ABDULAZIZ ABDULAZIZ writes on the recent case of an alleged illicit sex affair between the director general of Kano State Censorship Board, Malam Abubakar Rabo Abdulkareem, and a minor. He raises questions from both ends of the story.

Efforts were allegedly made to 'kill' the story but it stubbornly fizzled out and when it did, it sparked a shocker to many, though some said there was nothing odd about it. However, the proponents of the oddity of the story may have the upper hand, in terms of reasons to cite: the man is exceptionally pious; that is if it can be deduced from facial expression. He was once the next in command at the state’s Sharia implementation agency, Hisbah, derogatorily tagged 'Sharia police'. He pursued filmmakers and other artists in the state as if they are the most devilish of devils. He has disowned them with unprintable words. Therefore, it should naturally be a story when a person with such a profile of Malam Abubakar Rabo Abdulkareem is found wanting.

The Story

The story of the scandal, as narrated to LEADERSHIP Interval, goes thus: A patrolling police vehicle was moving along Maiduguri Road on Sunday, August 22, 2010, around 10pm when they sighted a Peugeot car parked in a bushy area by the road's shoulder near Rukayyat House. They beamed a light and the man sped off to escape. The police also accelerated to catch up with him. The police used their vehicle's siren to alert the man to stop but he refused and instead engaged them in car race.

He raced frantically following the eastern by-pass road and through Unguwa Uku quarters with the police trailing him. This made the man with the car to knock down a motorcyclist around Unguwa Uku Shago Tara. He however forged ahead, accelerating the vehicle. The latter incident, which led to inflicting injury on the motorcyclist prompted some commercial motorcyclists, to help the police in trailing the fleeing driver. He was subsequently caught up with.

The angry mob of motorcyclists began to beat up the driver as some aimed at the car, incurring serious damage on the car, before the arrival of the police who dispersed the people and arrested the driver. On reaching the police station at Hotoro Division, the runaway driver identified himself as Abubakar Rabo Abdulkareem, the director general of the state’s censorship board.

On searching the car, according to a LEADERSHIP source, a young girl was found. Abdulkareem claimed that the girl was his niece and he was coming from his family house when he was trailed. The police at the station demanded that the DG tendered a written statement to that effect. He was released afterwards.

Abdulkareem, LEADERSHIP learnt on good authority, departed for Saudi Arabia a day after the incident. When our correspondent called him last Thursday, on introducing the reason for the call, the chief censor replied; "By Allah, I don't know about it."

However, Abdulkareem had confirmed the story to other journalists with the alteration that the girl was his niece, whom he was conveying from his parents house to his own house. He however appealed to the journalists to let the matter die as exposing it amounts to ridiculing Islam.

His argument, according to a clip of an interview with him obtained by LEADERSHIP, was that the whole drama was a set up to blackmail him by PDP stalwarts in the state who have been looking for a way to eliminate him. He said those people had been meeting for about three weeks, at Shagari quarters, on how to nail him.

According to him, seeing a full beam from an approaching car on that fateful day, he became scared due to the incessant threats he had been getting, he therefore accelerated unconsciously in order to save his life. He denied that it was police that trailed him, saying the police only showed up later.

Rabo admitted that he was booed as a thief to get him to stop, but he continued speeding to get to where he can be saved. He said when the police realized that the girl found with him was his daughter, they released him. The DG lamented that some people were out to cash in on the incident to damage his reputation.

When LEADERSHIP visited Wase Hospital, where Abdulmudallib Jibrin, the injured motorcyclist, was hospitalized, entry access was denied him as he sustained serious injuries on his arm and head. The victim, who is a staff of the state History and Culture Bureau said he could not recall what happened as he was taken to hospital unconsciously.

Contradiction

Contacted for an official position about the saga, Kano State Commissioner of Information, Barrister Haruna Isa Dederi, said the incident was cooked up by Abdulkareem's enemies in the film industry. He said for a long time a group of filmmakers have been fighting the DG to the point of issuing death threats.

However, contrary to LEADERSHIP's findings and Abdulkareem's claim that the young girl with him in the car was his nieces, Dederi said the DG was with his wife and his daughter at the time of the incident. According to him, Abdulkareem had a running stomach and therefore stopped to ease himself in the nearby bush when the police vehicle approached him in full force. Reminded that the DG was pursued by the police with a siren vehicle, the information commissioner said it was not true and that the police was in a private vehicle, not an official one.

Police Investigating

However, the Kano State deputy commissioner of police, Mr Lawan Tanko, confirmed the arrest of the DG. He said the police are investigating the issue to find out why Abdulkareem ran away when pursued by the police. "We want to know what the running was about" DCP Tanko said.

The police top man said the command would unravel the case even as he described it as nothing serious. DCP Tanko also confirmed that the DG has knocked down a motorcyclist while escaping from the trailing policemen.

The ‘Niece’

However, a neighbour of Abdulkareem at his Tarauni residence, who do not want her name in print said the girl is indeed from Abdulkareem's household. She however wondered what the two were doing in a car at such an odd hour in a less populated place, "that is if what I heard was true" she said. The little girl was identified as Fati.

As the story made waves in Kano, many people are still dumbfounded that Malam Rabo could be involved in such a mess. His sympathisers dismissed the story as unfounded but those who have a hatchet to bury with him said the man has never been the saint he claims to be.

Police, in their usual promise, said they are not leaving any stone unturned to unravel the true picture of the incident. Many people see the incident as a turning point not only in Abdulkareem's career, but in that of many of those of his ilk.

Kano Chief Censor In Alleged Child Abuse Scandal

LEADERSHIP, Monday, 30 August 2010

By Abdulaziz Abdulaziz, KANO


The Director-General of Kano State Censors Board, Malam Abubakar Rabo Abdulkareem, is enmeshed in a case of an alleged illicit sexual affair involving a minor whom he allegedly abused.

Though it is unclear whether the chief censor had actually penetrated the girl or not, investigations by LEADERSHIP revealed that he was trailed penultimate Sunday in Kano by patrolling policemen who saw a car parked around a bushy area along Maiduguri road by Rukayya House, in Kano around 10 p.m.

The police on patrol beamed their vehicle's light on the parked car and the DG, who was in the car, started the car and zoomed off to escape the approaching vehicle. LEADERSHIP learnt that the police used the siren of their vehicle to alert the DG that they were trailing him but he refused to stop, engaging the police in a car race.

Rabo raced frantically through the Eastern by-pass road and through Unguwa Uku quarters with the police trailing him. This led him to ram into a motorcyclist around Unguwa Uku Shago Tara. He, however, forged ahead accelerating the vehicle.

It was learnt that the motorcyclist he ran into was wounded, as a result of which some other commercial motorcyclists joined the police in trailing the director general. They subsequently caught up with him around Filin Kashu area of Unguwa Uku.

The angry mob of motorcyclists began to beat the DG, while some aimed at the car, causing serious damages to it, before the arrival of the police who dispersed the people and arrested the driver, who turned out to be Rabo.

The director general was then taken to the Hotoro Police Station where he identified himself. On searching the car, according to a LEADERSHIP source, a young girl was found in the car, and a pant, suspected to be the girl's. Rabo claimed that the girl was his cousin and he was coming from his family house. He was released at the time.

Rabo, LEADERSHIP learnt on good authority, departed for Saudi Arabia a day after the incident. When our correspondent called him last Thursday, as soon as he mentioned the reason for the call, the Chief Censor replied; "By Allah I don't know about it."

However, Rabo had confirmed the story to other journalists, saying that the girl was his cousin whom he was conveying from his parent’s house to his own house.

He also appealed to the journalists to let the matter die as exposing it amounts to ridiculing Islam.

Rabo's argument, according to a clip of an interview with him obtained by LEADERSHIP, was that the whole drama was a set up to blackmail him by PDP stalwarts in the state who had been looking for a way to eliminate him. He said those people had been meeting for about three weeks at Shagari quarters, on how to nail him.

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This is another story on the Rabo sex scandal story. It gives additional detail. I heard that the Hausa movie industry's main union, MOPPAN, is going to hold a press conference on the matter today.

Rabo arrested for alleged sex related offence

Sunday Trust magazine - The Arts
Written by Ruqayyah Yusuf Aliyu, Kano
Sunday, 29 August 2010 00:09

The Director General, Kano State Censorship Board, Malam Abubakar Rabo Abdulkarim has been allegedly caught in a sex scandal involving a minor, following an alleged incident along Maiduguri Road in Kano metropolis last Sunday, August 22.

Reports indicate that Rabo was allegedly with the girl in his car late in the night when a police patrol approached. He panicked and fled on high speed, eventually knocking down a motorcyclist around the Na’ibawa area. He was allegedly apprehended by a mob that vandalized his car before the police intervened.

The police took him to Hotoro Division where it was discovered he was a top government official. He was then released on bail.

A police source informed Sunday Trust that some incriminating evidence pointing at a possible sexual relationship between Rabo and the girl was found in his car. “When the car was searched, the police found the girl’s pant but you know, when such issues involve big people in town, it dies a natural death but he was actually arrested for alleged sex relationship with the girl as well as for hitting a moving bike,” the source said.

Rabo, during interrogation, allegedly told the police that the girl was his niece and he had fled the scene when the police approached because he suspected they might have been thugs sent after him by actors in Kano.

Rabo has led a crack down on the Hausa film industry following a leaked explicit video featuring a Kannywood star. He has since jailed several film makers in the state and his name has been synonymous with the puritan attempts to sanitize the film industry from indecency.

This has set him on a war path with filmmaker in the state and elsewhere, who have on several occasions dragged him to court, the latest coming barely a couple of weeks ago.

When Sunday Trust contacted Rabo, who is presently away in Saudi Arabia to perform the lower hajj on telephone, he said it was a mere plan to tarnish his image by people at odds with his progress in sanitizing the industry.

“What happened was that I invited friends and relatives on that fateful day for a feast during iftar at my house, he explained, “and because the work was much, I invited some of my in-laws to come help us prepare the dishes and therefore had to drop them at the family house after everything and it was on my way back that I noticed a vehicle approaching me. Knowing the kind of threat and information on attempts to harm me, I sped for my dear life. I drove blindly, not knowing what I was really doing owing to the pressure of the moment when I hit a man on a bike and suddenly, a mob gathered and vandalized my car, thinking I stole the car. It was then the police arrived and rescued [me]. They eventually released me on realizing that the girl I was with was my niece,” he said.

On if he could give details about the girl for further clarification, he said he wouldn’t want to say much on his family members to the public but maintained that the said niece has been under his care since her father, his elder brother, died.

The Deputy Police Commissioner, Kano State Police Command, Tanko Lawan when contacted on the issue confirmed that there was an accident involving Rabo and a bike man. He said Rabo was sighted in suspicious circumstances and when the police attempted to inquire, he sped off causing the accident as the police gave chase. Lawan further said investigation into the matter has since commenced.


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This story is making waves in the Hausa movie industry right now.
Above picture, taken by Carmen McCain, shows Rabo making a presentation in Niamey, Niger Republic, during a meeting of writers there between 8n - 10 December, 2009.

Court Orders Arrest Of Kano Chief Censor

Written by By Abdulrahman Tonga
LEADERSHIP
Thursday, 10 June 2010

The Kaduna State police command has been ordered by a judge to arrest the Director-General of the Kano State Censorship Board, Malam Abubakar Rabo Abdulkarim, for his failure to appear before it on two occasions.

The judge, Alhaji Nasiru Idris Lere of Magistrate Court 1 in Kaduna, gave the order for Rabo’s immediate arrest by the police.

Rabo was billed to appear in person in the court after five members of the Kaduna State Filmmakers Association sued him for criminal defamation.

He was reported to have claimed in a live television interview in Kaduna that Hausa moviemakers were now engaged in the production of pornographic films and that the people of Kaduna State should rise against them.

He reportedly claimed to have bought a copy of such pornographic movies in the Unguwar Sarki area of Kaduna metropolis.

When the case opened in court last week, the Kano chief censor failed to appear, citing ill-health. His counsel sought a postponement, a plea to which the filmmakers' counsel, A.S. Suleiman, did not object.

During yesterday’s hearing, counsel to Rabo, Mr. Gabriel Didam, told the court that his client could not appear in court in person as a result of insecurity in the state, adding that his client was also sick. He, however, apologized to the court on behalf of his client.

Counsel to the plaintiffs, Malam Sadau Garba, appealed to the court to issue a bench warrant against Rabo, pointing out that this was the second sitting in which he was not in the court. According to the lawyer, information reaching him was that the accused was determined never to come to the court.

“Justice has to be done,” he said. “The accused person had complained that he was sick, but no written document had been produced. And information reaching us is that the accused is bragging that he will never be present throughout the case and that nothing will happen. We therefore apply that this honorable court issue a arrest warrant to make him appear and take any alternative measures to bring him to the court”.

When ruling on the request, the judge said, “The accused person did not follow the proper way to channel his complaint to the court, a behaviour which may leave the other party to feel they are not treated equally.

“I will not believe him that there is insecurity in Kaduna. It’s an excuse by the accused person. And he has to tell us the names of those that thinks are after him so that court will stop them from coming to its premises.

“Since the inception of the case he has been complaining frequently, but the accused never did in the formal way. Under the section 153 of the CPC, the accused has to be in court. I am left with no option than to order his arrest under section 70 / 1A / B by the Commissioner of Police, Kaduna State.”

Hearing in the suit was adjourned till June 16, 2010.

-----

This is sequel to the story published on June 2

Defamation: Hausa Filmmakers Sue Kano Censors Board Chief

Written by Abdulrahman Tonga, Kaduna
LEADERSHIP
Tuesday, 01 June 2010 19:14

Members of the Kaduna State Filmmakers Association yesterday dragged the Director-General of Kano State Censorship Board, Malam Abubakar Rabo Abdulkareem, to a magistrate court in Kaduna over alleged criminal defamation of character and inciting the public to violence.

In a complaint charge filed before Chief Magistrate Nasiru Idris Lere of Magistrate Court 1, Ibrahim Taiwo Road, Kaduna, six filmmakers argued that a television interview granted by Rabo to the DITV station in Kaduna a fortnight ago had ridiculed their image and lowered their reputation in the eyes of the public.

Rabo was quoted to have told the TV station in a live broadcast that Hausa moviemakers were now engaged in the production of pornographic films and that the people of Kaduna State should rise against them.

He reportedly claimed to have bought a copy of such pornographic movies in Unguwar Sarki area of Kaduna metropolis.

Describing the censorship board chief's assertion as false, the plaintiffs said such statement was capable of inciting violence in the state.

“His statement that people should rise against us has made our members to live in constant apprehension for fear of being attacked by the public,” they said.

Rabo’s allegation was contrary to sections 392 and 114 of the penal code, they added.

The complainants consist of executive committee members of the Kaduna filmmakers association. They are: Ashiru Sani Bazanga, Rabi’u Mohammed Rikadawa, Aliyu Abdullahi Gora II, Sulaiman Sha’ani, Aminu Musa Carlos, and Jamilu Adamu.

LEADERSHIP learnt that the court summons, which was endorsed by a magistrate in Kaduna, was received by Rabo yesterday in his office situated within the Kano State-owned City Television in Hotoro, Kano.

The hearing comes up tomorrow in Kaduna.

Relations between the Kano State Censorship Board and Hausa filmmakers has been frosty since Rabo’s appointment by Governor Ibrahim Shekarau in 2007 following the Hiyana scandal.

Many artistes and producers were either jailed or heavily fined for one offence or the other by the censors board’s mobile court in Kano.

Rabo was sued by the Kano State Filmmakers Association last year over comments he made against them in a radio interview, but the case did not go far, with the filmmakers alleging that it was frustrated in the courts by the state government.

Hauwa Ali Dodo, Zulkiflu Muhammad, Safiya Ahmed

Oh, God! A lot of things have happened since my last posting in this blog. A lot on the political and cultural scenes, including the deaths of my actor friends Hauwa Ali Dodo, Zulkiflu Muhammad and Safiya Ahmed. Safiya (pictured 3rd here) was actually the star of my own movie 'Fargaba' (Fear), which I funded in 2008. Her illness and subsequent death were devastating to me personally. Hauwa and Zulkiflu (Zik) I had not seen for some years, but their deaths were nonetheless shocking. Hauwa was the biggest Hausa actress.



May their souls rest in peace, amen.

I hope to say more on them (and other issues that passed without my commentaries) very soon. Meanwhile, I am not happy with myself for keeping quiet all this while, to the dangerous extent of nearly forgetting my passwords to the blog! Well, I have reprimanded myself and hope to be back blogging one of these days.

AN KULLE BASHIR DANDAGO A JARUN

Shugaban Hukumar Hukunta 'Yan Fim ta Jihar Kano, Malam Abubakar Rabo, ya cika alkawarin sa na cewa sai ya d'aure daya daga cikin fitattun mawakan Kano, wato Malam Bashir Dandago. Domin kuwa a yau dai jami'an hukumar sun kama shi, sun gurfanar da shi a gaban kotun hukunta 'yan fim.

Haka kuma an kama wani matashi mai suna Kabir Maulana.

Laifin da ake tuhumar su da shi, shi ne: wai sun saki faifan wakar 'Tsangayar Kura' (mai dauke da wakar nan ta "Hasbunallahu" ) bayan hukuma ta hana sakin faifan a Kano.

A kotu, su Dandago sun ce, "Not guilty." To amma Alkali Mukhtar Ahmed, kamar yadda ya saba yi, ya hana belin su, ya tura su gidan yari. Ya ce a dawo ran Litinin a ci gaba da magana. Manufa ita ce, su ma dai sun yi zaman jarun.

Ga wadanda su ka saurari wakar "Hasbunallahu, " za su tuna da cewa akwai muryar Malam Bashir Dandago a ciki. To, da ma kaska ta na da haushin kifi.

Shi dai Dandago, ya yi fice ne a fagen wakokin yabon Manzon Allah (SAW), wato wakokin bege. A cikin 2009 ne aka ji muryar sa a wakar "Hasbunallahu, " wanda hakan ya kara wa wakar karfi da karsashi. A wata hira da ya yi da 'yan jarida kwanan baya, Dandago ya ce ya yi wakar ne domin ya taimaka wajen murkushe zaluncin da ake yi a Kano.

Kwanan nan kotun ta su "Asabe Murtala" ta daure jagaban wakar "Hasbunallahu, " wato Malam Aminuddeen Ladan Abubakar (ALA), a gidan yari. Za a ci gaba da shari'ar sa a makon gobe.

Majiya ta ce gurfanar da Rabo da 'yan fim su ka yi a ofishin 'yan sanda na Metro kwanan nan ya k'ara hayaka malamin, har ya sha alwashin yin ramuwa.

Majiyar ta ce don haka dai kwanan nan hukumar za ta kama wasu mata daga cikin 'yan fim, musamman mawakan da ke cikin su. Sannan majiyar ta ce ana nan ana hak'on wani dan fim, tare da shan alwashin cewa a gidan yari zai yi azumin Ramadan.

"Zalunci ba zai dore ba" - Maryam A. Baba, a wakar "Rabo, Rabo"

Police Arrest Kano Censors Board DG

By Nasir Gwangwazo, Kano

Director-General of the Kano State Censorship Board, Malam Abubakar Rabo Abdulkareem, was yesterday arrested by the police over a complaint filed against him by the Kano State Filmmakers Association.

A reliable source told LEADERSHIP last night that Rabo had been dragged to a Sharia Court in Sabon Gari, Kano, by members of the association over an allegation credited to him, in which he was said to have described movie makers as a bunch of homosexuals and lesbians during an interview he granted Radio Kano recently.

In the interview, a copy of which was made available to LEADERSHIP, Rabo stated that he had proof that many of the filmmakers were gay, saying his intervention in the industry had helped sanitise the situation.

The statement incensed the filmmakers, and they wrote him a letter demanding a retraction and an apology within 48 hours.

But at a follow-up press conference recently in Kano, the director-general repeated his claim, warning that he would publish more damning reports about the alleged immorality in the industry if pressed further.

The association went ahead with its threat, suing him before the Sharia court, which was said to have advised the association to report the matter to the police first.
According to a member of the association and the immediate former chairman of the state chapter of Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), Malam Ado Ahmad Gidan Dabino, Rabo was picked up yesterday by two plain-clothes policemen at about 4pm and taken to the Metro police station located on Bank Road in the city, following a complaint by the filmmakers.

At the police station, three leaders of the moviemaking association - Nura Hussain, Ahmad Alkanawy and Isma’ila Afakalla - endorsed the association's formal complaint, which Rabo reportedly denied.

According to Gidan Dabino, the case is due for hearing at the Sharia Court, Fagge, today.

When our correspondent contacted Rabo on phone last night, however, he denied knowledge of the issue, saying he was in a meeting and promptly switched off.

Published in LEADERSHIP today

Nollywood Sans Kannywood

I think when the world (or even Nigerian federal officials) talk about Nollywood, they are not thinking about the Hausa film industry, a.k.a. Kannywood. Nollywood is simply the Nigerian movie industry WITHOUT its Hausa component. Surprisingly, Nollywood includes the Igbo and Yoruba productions. The question is: why are Hausa movies not included? In my view, it has to do with the fact that federal officials working in the culture sector - Ministry of Information and its parastatals such as the National Film and Videos Censors Board and the Nigerian Film Corporation - hardly remember Kannywood when they are designing policies. Until in recent years, they scarcely included Kannywood stakeholders in their programmes.

Of course, things have been changing in recent years. Kannywood stakeholders have been making an in-road into the federal culture sector - participating in film festivals, awards and meetings. Nevertheless, there is still a long way to go before we get THERE, largely due to the dominance of non-Northerners in the sector and in the mainstream mass media. If you take a look at the entertainment pages of Nigerian newspapers where news and gossip about the Nigerian movie world are told, you will hardly see anything being said about Kannywood. That is, with the exception of northern papers like Leadership, Trust, New Nigerian and Triumph.

The senseless attacks on Kannywood operators by officials of the Kano State Censorship Board in the bogus name of sanitising the industry appears to have taken Kannywood back in reckoning. That's the actual target of the censors. But theirs is a futile exercise because only a dimwit will presuppose that a censorship regime can destroy the progress of the new information technologies, of which movies are a significant part.

This is more so in a democracy, which has a preset tenure. As the Hausa say, "Zalunci ba ya karewa!"

Aminu Ala released, but...

Hausa singer and novelist Aminuddeen Ladan Abubakar (ALA) was released on bail by the "mobile" court in Kano today. I told you about him yesterday.

The case was adjourned to July 20.

But there's a caveat. Ala was barred from granting interviews to local and international media - clearly a desperate attempt to muzzle his freedom of expression and the freedom of the press on the issue. The court ruled that his bail would be thwarted if he does so.

This case has generated a lot of heat in Nigeria. The Association of Nigerian Authors has condemned it, so also a wide spectrum of analysts who see the issue as an injustice against a man of letters who has contributed positively to Hausa culture.

I feel that Ala will not be silenced by the Kano State Censorship Board through the use of its draconian court instrument. More songs are expected to come from his pen.

Kano Censorship: Aminu Ala Arrested, Jailed

It has been two days now since a popular Hausa novelist and singer, Aminuddeen Ladan Abubakar (ALA), was sent to prison by a mobile court which works for the Kano State Censorship Board, in Kano. The writer/singer best known simply as Ala (after his initials) was arrested by the police on Saturday night in Kano after he had closed from work at Hikima Multimedia. He was, however, released on bail at the police station, on the pldege that he would attend court on Monday. He was not told what his offence was, but not everybody was left guessing.

Ala had composed a song, "Hasbunallah," with four other singers, in which they lampoon the regime of censorship in Kano. Moviemakers, singers and writers must submit their works to the censorship board for vetting. Though Ala had not released the "offensive" song, it had found its way into people's GSM handsets and computers, from where it was replicated into other forms of media.

Recently, the police and opratives of the censors board had swooped on Hikima Multimedia, looking for evidence that would link Ala to the release of the song. Consequently, Ala went into hiding; he was said to have gone to the neighbouring states. Two weeks ago, he returned home. And the censors attacked.

During the sitting in court, Ala pleaded not guilty. He was promptly sent to jail by a magistrate, Mukhtar Ahmed, notorious for jailing and or fining anyone that was brought before him under any kind of charge.

Writers and moviemakers, as well as millions of their admirers are livid with rage. Many view the arrest and detention of Ala as an attack against freedom of expression as guaranteed by the Nigerian constitution. It is felt by a wide spectrum of the populace that Ala is innocent. Like Hamisu Iyan-Tama, an actor/producer jailed for months by the same court, he did not release the song. Even if he did, it does not contain anything negative as to warrant an arrest. The case is gaining a lot of attention in the media, in internet chatgroups, and other fora.

Ala is due to be returned to court today to hear his application for bail. But I was told by a close associate of his that the prison authorities in Kano have revealed that a separate order from the court had said that the accused would be held till Tuesday next week. That would be against the pronouncement of the judge in the open court on Tuesday.

Yesterday, the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), Kano State branch, issued a statement on the matter. It goes like this:


Press Release

At an emergency meeting held at the Bayero University Kano, today, July 8, 2009, the Association of Nigerian Authors Kano State Branch frowns at the arrest of one of its members Alhaji Aminuddeen Ladan Abubakar (ALA) over the alleged release of a song that has not been censored by the Kano State Censorship Board.

The Association is seriously looking at the implication of the arrest which is seen as an attack on liberty and freedom of expression. The Association has observed that the authorities in Kano are hostile to art and literature. This action and other past actions of the authorities are seriously undermining the position of Kano State as the leading centre of learning, art and literature.

The Association wishes to advise the authority to be cautious on the way it handles the matters of authors and other producers of art. Art and literature are part and parcel of every society and no society can do without it.

Yours faithfully,

Dr. Yusuf M Adamu
Branch Chairman

Alh. Balarabe Sango II
Public Relations Officer

July 8, 2009

Interview: Rabo, Hausa Movie Chief Censor

The following interesting write-up/interview was posted by Salisu Ahmed Koki on the listserves "writersforumkano@yahoogroups.com" and "nurul-islam@yahoogroups.com" today.

Much can be gleaned from the interview about the director-general of the Kano State Censorship Board, Malam Abubakar Rabo Abdulkarim. The title given to the piece by Koki is "Hausa Home Video Industry AND the Rabo Abdulkareem Phenomenon (The Exclusive Interview with Rabo Abdulkareem)". The piece contains some grammatical and typographical errors, which I have not corrected. Enjoy



Hausa Home Video Industry AND the Rabo Abdulkareem Phenomenon (The Exclusive Interview with Rabo Abdulkareem)

By Salisu Ahmed Koki, Kano
sakoki@gmail. com


It is an industry that churns out roughly over 2000 sellable movies to the world annually; employing over 20, 000 hitherto unemployed youths and sometimes exports to the world the once ruined face of Nigeria. But turn the clock back to the years between 1975 and 1995 and the picture would have been different, very different, for that was the long, trying period when Hausa movie industry was struggling to establish itself as a viable showbiz hub equal in prestige and whim only to Bollywood that overshadowed the northern axis, then.

And just like the tiny and equally soullessly-wrapped up pupae growing into a beautifully designed and flip-flying butterfly that can fly to various destinations at will, the Hausa popular drama has transmogrified into Home Videos that evenly instigates cultural fusion and diffusion whose implications and impact on the Hausa culture critics posits is an area yet to be fully appreciated by researchers.

Indeed, the Hausa Home Video industry is now an unstoppable phenomenon that serves as a medium exploited by NGOs and various governments to relay informatic messages to children and adults. To say the least about the interest shown by most NGOs and even Diplomatic missions within and around Nigeria on Hausa Movies, it pays to say here and now that it was alleged that the arrest and detention of one of the popular Hausa movie Producer going by the name Hamisu Lamido Iyantama couldn't be unconnected to his allegedly unauthorized release of a NGO-sponsored Hausa film.

The fact that almost 40 million people around the world use the Hausa language medium to communicate and transact gave these movie makers an unprecedented opportunity to reach out to the world.

But of recent there has been a widespread complains about the modus operandi of the Hausa Movie makers most of which are accused of indulging in entertaining misplaced priorities, movie-making wise. They are said to be employing unorthodox, unprofessional and fluke-characterized techniques and methodologies in writing, acting and shooting their now widely condemned movies. The pomp and pageantry of films produced in the Lagos axis are more pronounced on Pay TV Channels like Africa Magic than that of their counterparts in northern Nigeria obviously because of the absence of quality and catchy storylines in them, although some of the Hausa movies are beginning to find their ways into the sister Magic Channel, the Africa Magic Plus.

Most of the Hausa film makers are accused of distorting the closely guarded Hausa culture which by all indications served as the sole excuse ceased by the present administration in Kano State to take stringent majors in curbing the excesses of this so-called rogue Hausa film makers. There has been an almost general consensus that Hausa movies shot some 20 years ago and far aback are far better in substance and content than the present day Hausa movies which explain why many are of the opinion that there has to be some check and balances as far as Hausa movie making is concerned.

In ripping apart the genesis of the Hausa Home Video Industry popularly tagged ‘Kanywood’ one can hardly do away with two factors; one is the Colonial Film Unit factor that gave birth to some of the first produced feature films on celluloid made in Hausa and the other factor been that of the Hausa society which is theatre personified like any other society. As put forward by Haruna Aminu of the Institute of Education, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, the Hausa society is so theatre personified so much that “in every aspect of the Hausa living tradition, one finds various manifestation of the dramatic indices, and this come in different forms due to the nature of the occasion that produces it. When one takes into consideration the idea of celebrating birth and death one can appreciate the impact of entertainment and imitation of life”.

Through the introduction of cinema or ‘Majigi’ as it is called in Hausa into the north via the Colonial Film Unit, the Nigerian colonial masters were given a sure medium for using the concept of ‘Massive Media Campaign’ to further their varying propaganda interests. Though a downside in some respect, it served as an upside for the Hausa movie industry as it served as a transiting medium from where traditional Hausa drama or ‘Wasan Kwaikwayo’ (‘wasa’ for ‘play’ and ‘kwaikwayo’ for ‘imitation’) have developed today into a full blown Hausa Movies/Films.

The first indigenous play ‘Wasan Marafa’ (the Marafa’s Play) by A.T Marafa made its appearance in 1949. Soon others followed, with the likes of ‘Malam Inkuntum’ (1954) and ‘Bora da Mowa’ (1972) as been the first to be staged before been reduced into writing. The first commercially successful Hausa movie was ‘Turmin Danya’ produced in 1990 in Kano selling about 100, 000 copies then and it was not until between 1997 and 2003 only that there was a massive surge in the production of these home videos. According to Professor Abdalla Uba Adamu, a very popular and widely respected Change Analysts, so far about 800 Hausa Language Video- about 80% produced in Kano have been registered with the National Film and Video Censors Board in 2003 only. “Such high volume in a relatively short period of time indicates an underlying cultural change and transformation that requires a systematized study” Professor Abdalla hypothesized.

Interestingly enough for the reader to know is the fact that Sir. Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, the slayed pioneer Prime Minister of Nigeria was among the opportune-few to first wrote a book in 1933 which was later translated into film. Again, one of Nigeria’s most renowned sociologist and the person adjudged by many to be Africa’s best in that field, Dr. Ibrahim Tahir (Talban Bauchi) of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria was the principal character in one of the pioneer Hausa films ‘Dan Arewa a London’ which if translated into English means ‘A Northerner in London’, a film that propagated the use of agriculture to propel growth. And with Adamu Halilu at the helm of affairs at the Colonial Film Unit in the early years of Nigeria’s life, some more Hausa feature films were produced among which are Baban Larai (1968), Shehu Umar (1976), and Kanta of Kebbi (1978) to mention but a few.

With most of the nations’ film regulatory agencies and some of the best public-owned film training institutions concentrated in the north, Hausa films and their makers were presented with a golden opportunity to propel themselves and attain success. Imagine, the National Film Corporation (NFC), National Film Institute (NFI), National Video Archives, National Film and Videos Censors Board (NFVCB), NTA TV College amongst others all are situated in and around Jos, the Plateau State capital. Also, with about 40 million Hausa speaking audiences spread across the entire African continent and beyond, filmmakers in the north have a great market potential; little wonder the rise among the Hausa filmmaking folks of some of Nigeria’s best in showbiz, the likes of Sadik Tafawa Balewa who Directed the winning feature ‘Kasar Mu Ce’, Sani Mu’azu who feature in many award winning films and TV series including Mr. Johnson (that featured the popular Hollywood actor, Pierce Brosnan) and NASCO-sponsored Riddles and Hope, Malam Abdulkareem Mohammed who Directed the film ‘Dan Adam Butulu I’, Dr. Sule Umar who directed the duos of ‘Maitatsine’ and yet-to-be released ‘General Murtala’, Ibrahim Buba who is the CEO of Newage Networks Kaduna and film stars Ali Nuhu the principal character in Amstel’s revered ‘Sitanda’ who won the coveted ‘Best Up Coming Actor Award’ at the AMAA Awards 2007, Sani Musa Danja, Ruqayya Dawayya, Safiya Musa, Ummi Zizi to mention but a few.

Considering the rising popularity and growth of Hausa films and its industry despite its prevailing complexities, controversies and allegedly unprofessional conjunction, a team of concerned practitioners and renowned academicians got together in the month of August 2003 to discuss the state of research on Hausa popular culture and media technologies, with particular reference to the Hausa home videos. It was an event chaired by the renowned Change Analyst, Professor Abdalla Uba Adamu of Bayero University Kano and was tagged ‘International Conference on Hausa Films’. The event was meant to be a brainstorming session with various inputs from members overshadowed then by the then current crisis in the non-marketability, and non-exportability of Hausa Home Videos beyond Hausa communities either in Nigeria or abroad. The event attracted scholars from close and afar including the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Germany whom many considered an indication of the success recorded by the event.

Not long ago after sponsoring the International Conference cited earlier, the British Council Nigeria through its ‘Connecting Futures’ project gave 5 budding filmmakers first class training in filmmaking for two years, which culminated in the youth producing five winning short films. Also, the French Embassy in Nigeria in collaboration with Motion Pictures Practitioners Association of Nigeria (MOPPAN) it is that wholly sponsored a 4 day workshop on filmmaking in 2005, adding to the support the industry is now gaining from the international community.

The recent crackdown of filmmakers in the north particularly in Kano State by the authorities signaled a very interesting epoch in the history and relevance of this important industry in the north, and by extension in Nigeria.

Part of the symptoms of the alleged excesses of the present crop of Hausa filmmakers is said to be the almost uncontrollable pollution of the closely guarded and respected Hausa culture that leads to some female admirers of Hausa Filmmakers to publicly showcase their sexual orientation, meaning that some women did publicly declare that they are going to emulate Californians by getting married to each other publicly and fearlessly, an action viewed by many as a taboo. It is a story of awe and confusion and it is what can rightly be described as the most demeaning abuse of fame ever to bear its ugly head out of the now allegedly promiscuous Hausa film industry; a rare show of feminine crudity and a terrifying tale of rumpus manifestation of prevalent lesbianism that is eating deep into the fabrics of Kanywood. On 22nd April 2007 the most talk about religiously- tense Kano state witnessed yet another attempt by some group of people at tying the hands of people of the same sex into the bonds of marriage, only that in this case it wasn’t masculine gays but a fair-looking and pleasurably hot lady going by the name ‘Aunty Maiduguri’ getting married to four sanguine girls- a sure feminine polygamy you can call it!

The contentious act swiftly invited the wrath of Kano state government whom since expressed bitterly its skepticism over the activities of those operating in the film industry. For a start, the venue slated to host the four modish brides alongside their groom for a party which also happened to be an open theatre where plays were staged was demolished beyond recognition alongside two adjacent theatres on the instructions of the state governor Malam Ibrahim Shekarau with their Certificate of Occupancies and Operating Licenses all revoked. Soon followed an announcement that the government has sternly banned all forms of Gala and stage plays to be performed by men and women of the Hausa film industry, indefinitely! Then came the last, but expected one- order from the state government to the security agencies in the state to fish out and arrest ‘Aunty Maiduguri’ and her accomplices whom are already on the run.

Also, not long after the infamous Aunti Maiduguri Affair a video sex scandal involving one of the most popular Hausa actresses compelled the authorities to have a second thought on Hausa filmmaking and Hausa filmmakers not to mention a promiscuous music video released by one Adam Zango a background singer which leads to his detention for a prescribed period of time. What follows was a complete shutdown of filmmaking activities in Kano State for about a year now and the detention of the Hamisu Lamido Iyantama (a producer), Adam Zango (background singer), Rabilu Musa IBRO (a popular comedian) among others by Kano State Films and Videos Censors Board.

The leak of a sex video involving popular celebrities may prove a good omen to celebrities in the Western world, but from the harsh treatment received by the leak of the Hausa celebrity's sex video; it is obvious that the reverse is very true for celebrities in northern Nigeria.

Most of the stakeholders, especially the filmmakers, actors and actresses condemned the actions of the Kano State government alleging that it was the wrong decision for the government to take considering that most of the people, young and old that are having a means of livelihood via Hausa filmmaking process are rendered jobless and penniless by the government's action, worst they claimed, the government has failed to provide jobs for these people and has shown little interest in the Hausa filmmaking business which leads to its lackluster attitude towards Hausa filmmaking and Hausa Filmmakers.

In the midst of all these controversies this writer deemed it fit to get to the source of the matter and to achieve that he went all the way to interview the Director General of the Kano State Films and Videos Censors Board. The following is the outcome of our interview with Malam Rabo Abdulkareem which was initially meant for a national daily that requested for it but after reviewing the content and weighting the importance of the information embedded in it, I deemed it wise to distribute it via a medium that can allow for wider readership which is why the online platform is chosen.

A Brief on the Director General, Kano State Film and Video Censors Board.

Rabo Abdulkareem: Abubakar Rabo Abdulkareem are my names, I am the Director General Kano State Censorship Board, I am 35 years old and hail from Chiromawa of Garun Malam Local Government of Kano State. Earlier before my appointment here, I was the Deputy Commander of the Kano State Hisbah Board, much earlier I was a school teacher but of course I have my first and second degree in humanities.

What Specialization or area of study to be a little specific?

R. A: My first degree has been in Mass Communications- Special Honors (Broadcast) and my second degree is in Developmental Studies all from Bayero University, here in Kano.

What little can you say authoritatively about the history of and rationale behind the setting up of Kano State Censorship Board?

R. A: Historically and globally censorship is not a new thing, and of course it is because of the need in every responsible society or community to have moral values been upheld and things done the right way to the taste of the uniqueness of the individual community or society that censorship is accorded a unique priority in the history of mankind, this is why you see Censorship Board in the history of the Greeks, you see it in the history of the Persian Empire, in that of Europe, and in that of the United States America in particular which emanates from the need to build a 'hays code'. Coming back to Africa, I believe as Africans revered as the custodians of some of the worlds' most treasured and respected cultures we cannot be an exception, most particularly in Nigeria going by our populous nature and standing in the world. Here in Kano, particularly in the year 2001, there was this law established by the State Assembly and accented to and endorsed by the then executive arm of the government of Kano State and of course what informed the decision of the then government to come up with the law was a confusion, or rather mix-up of cultural values which was largely attributed to foreign influence and the weird culture of blind copy-cating of foreign cultures by most of the Hausa filmmakers which results to public outcry in the 1999-2000 of then Kano, and of course that was how the then administration sanctioned activities of filmmakers in the state. In fact, most of the filmmakers were suspended and entire cinematographic activities were suspended, of course after that very suspension there was the idea of coming up with a regulatory body and that was how the Kano State government then came up with the present Kano State Censorship Board Law 2001. And the interesting thing was the power giving to the state governments in the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria whereby state governments are regarded or rather are given the leverage to go ahead and establish their respective state Censorship Bodies on film making and other thearitical activities and section 16 of the 1999 constitution of the concurrent legislative list is the main bedrock which result to this very kind of state Censorship Board Law, meaning that what we are doing is in consonant with the constitution of the federal republic and of course in it we can see some virtues, we can also see some positive results out of what we have so far established, because at least, the social responsibility expected of a government in ensuring and above all the outcome and output of the film project is becoming this time around very professional in nature, ethical and of course there is quality, quality in the content and quality in the critique of what is churn out for the viewership of the general public. Being a federating unit here, we are empowered and we have every right to have a very unique mechanism of governance, to have our uniqueness and peculiarity very well accommodated and reflected in the way we do our things in the state. We are trying to conform with the arrangement of the federation, been a federating unit, we want to have our own unique good governance, our unique security and of course, not undermining the constitution, not undermining national interest, but above all, we want to contribute to the growth of our GDP, this time around economically to tally with the vision 2020 of the present administration.

Can you please shed more light on your board's modus operandi?

R. A: The modus operandi or rather the goal is to ensure that things are done the right way. Considering film making as a profession just like journalism and accountancy, we don’t want to believe that illiteracy can bring the needed security into the filmmaking fold, rather the skill, and the knowledge. We are emphasizing on skill acquisition, this is our primary responsibility, and this is why all professional crew are mandated to have the basic training, to have the basic knowledge of filmmaking before they are certified to either direct, to produce, or act a professional role in a film. Of course there are artists that have abundant talent, and some can be special artistes, but notwithstanding how talented somebody is or gifted by the Almighty if he is taken to a film school where he will be groomed, if he is well shaped by the professionales that knows the film business bette, he will fare better in the film making business compared to when he or she is on her own. Be it may, what we are now saying is professionalism is emphasized in our modus operandi. The context, essence and the fundamental aspects of censorship, are to ensure that the younger ones, the future generation are not misguided or rather are not feed-up with destructive items (values).

What can you say about the success your board recorded so far?

R. A: What we’ve achieved by our own majors so far is a very good way forward because we are now censoring films and we are now correcting things not ours. Notwithstanding, other cultures must be seen in own films, because we are not living in isolation, but they are to be portrayed the way they are, we wouldn’t allow other cultures to be belittled in any way in the process of censoring, we also wouldn’t allow other ethnics or religions to be belittled because it is duty bound on government, especially the Nigerian government which has a multi-religious and multi-ethnic society to rationally and wisely manage. This is why I say by God’s grace, sooner or later, we would have what is called maximum output.

The recent visit of the duos of the Managing Director, Nigeria Film Corporations Jos and the Director General National Film and Videos Censors Board marked the beginning of the spread of the prevailing rumor that your board is gradually attracting national attention. What can you say about these visits?

R. A: Much earlier before the visit of the DG NFVCB, there was that of the MD Nigeria Film Corporation, Mr. Afolabi Adesanya. When he was here, he pleaded with the board on a lot of things, and of course, out of our stakeholders meetings, we resolved to went back and start censoring films, while been very considerate of our contemporary regulations and guidance or rather guidelines, because we will not undermine what we believe is the best solution to that public outcry that I stated to you earlier. When the DG NFVCB was here, we came up with a very good and formidable position; in fact, he is a very good representation of the nation because he was emphasizing on locality and the positive side of local content generation and integration while also insisting on originality in film projects. Above all, he was saying that every public servant must be like what we are in the state, acting as a guardian, or rather custodians of national legislations and state legislations. So, he was trying to make a point to the filmmakers, that if they find ease in belittling the law, if they see no harm in belittling the state legislations, that means they are not helping matters, above all, they will continue to be at logger leads with authorities and of course by so doing, they are but becoming deviant elements of the Nigerian society. So, I respected his submission or rather proposition, not withstanding his appeal that we should be very considerate of the baby industry, a.k.a Kanywood in trying to relax some measures that might be employed in the next ten years not now, for instance, on the issue of digitization, he is not saying we should relax our stance on digitization, but that we should try to revisit our measures so that we will not make filmmakers close shops needlessly and prematurely. We are emphasizing on erecting and maintenance of excellent and equally professional facilities; what we are saying now is that all production companies must be registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission like any other business entity or rather body, but to ask them to do this, they say is a stringent measure. But the reality is, you ought to be registered, because you are in a business, and film making is an investment with its attendant risks and prospects. Also, the issue of a production firm to have the basic office accommodation where at least a computer system is there with a Secretary ought to be considered and checkmated. Most of the companies before we are here are nominal, nominal in the sense that they are nowhere to be found. Most of the so-called production companies believe you me, are mobile and they are not there. Believe you me, we would by God’s grace try to standardize things, and we can only do that with the cooperation and understanding of the stakeholders, that we are out for their betterment, and if they cannot appreciate that, then that’s their problem. Most of them exist without the knowledge of their local authorities; their respective local government authorities don’t even know them, because they don’t have office accommodation. What we are now insisting on is that, you must go back to the local government where you are located, be registered, and be introduced to us by your local government authority before we register you, that’s the best way for us to help the government fetch the required tax from the companies and that’s why we are saying that a tax clearance certificate must accompany your application, and the most astonishing thing to us is that all these to them are stringents, they consider every measure to sanitize and breed order to the system, a stringent measure. That’s why they complain and I don’t think we will compromise on this.

Is it true that your board is given the opportunity to censor films that are not made in Kano?

R. A: You see, we have a very good point here and I want them to stick to their promise. I told you much earlier that in Nigeria we are a federating unit; there are customary laws in the west and in the south; there is the Shari’a penal code in the north and above all there is the constitution. The issue is this, if national agencies or organizations will accord recognition, respect and certain privileges to specific agencies like ours on the area that we are more primaric, then this we can say is a very positive development. Let's assume, in the NFVCB's Preview/Screening Committee there is no, single typical Hausa-Fulani there representing the people? But if we do it here, I mean if we censor Hausa films here, and at the end our certificates are presented to NFVCB during a submission of a Hausa films projects for their own preview, it will be easy for them to censor and nationalize the film project.

What can you say about the controversies surrounding the recent court cases between your board and the film makers in Kano?

R. A: I hope our stakeholders are not mistaking by seeing the KFCB as a home of punitive measures, as if we are the only one. Punitive measures taken by a censorship board globally is the tradition, even NFCVB use to take defaulters before a court of law, High Court of justice for that matter; our is ordinary Magistrate Courts where the provision of the law is very light and mild. Now what I will like people to appreciate our own measures as excellent nd is better than that which is obtainable in the US for instance; the logic is this, employment preventive measures is far better than curative, because it is our tradition, it's our religion to guide stakeholders, preventing him/her from defaulting or erring. Now, what we are doing is before you are allowed to go ahead and kick start the shooting you are required to first of all submit to consultants the proposed script for the film for their vetting, so after been vetted by the consultant, tell me who will complain on it on merit? Unlike allowing somebody accomplished the project, and allowing him to release it into the market and then when some foul are found in it, you then effect an arrest or ban order, is this wise? And believe me that’s what is obtainable in the US, that’s their version of censoring. Our preventive measures can be regarded as Shari’ah and also the tradition of the Hausa Fulani. In our tradition, you don’t allow somebody to breach a law, rather guide him, educate him and saying this thing you are trying to do is consequential, illegally, anti-religious, economically and culturally implicative. By so doing, you are making it less damaging; you are making it less difficult for someone. If you are told on how 3-5 minutes clips are made in a film, you won't be happy asking someone to remove it after he or she is done with the project and we don’t want our stakeholders to be in this big loss, that’s why we are preaching the preventive approach to censorship. What I am now saying in that, these known of controversies has maliciously emanated from people that feel they are above the law, and we believe that nobody is above the law (a principle of democracy 'rule of law'). So our so-called punitive measures, is meant for NFVCB. So what we are saying in essence here is that we will make sure that anybody who feel like he or she is arrogant, or he or she is above the law, face the wrath of the law.

Irrespective of your caliber and status in Kanywood, I am sorry for you, if you breach the law. As per as my own style leadership is concerned, I believe nobody is above the law and above all the most respected element among the stakeholders in our eyes is he who obey the law religiously; somebody who will respect the law however minimal, however insignificant, and however basic he is in the industry, believe you me he is a very big person, but he who sees little harm in breaching the law, however well placed, however influential he is, be he a marketer, be he or she a producer, I am sorry for that person, because, he will find us very uncompromising.

We are on a professional and legal mission, not on political or related issues; I can assure you here and now that there is no any sentiment attached to our activities.

What can you say about support or otherwise that your board is receiving from international bodies?

R. A: Immaterially, we do have support from NGOs and foreign bodies because we use to have intellectual fora, sometimes organized here locally and sometimes we are invited outside the country and sometimes we invite resources persons who are not Nigerians to give transfer skills and modern discoveries to production, just like what happened in the SHOOT 2008 (Jos), which we are there in numbers that not a single state of the federation can match. What I am trying to say is this, as par basic working tools, we are very grateful to this administration of Malam Ibrahim Shekarau. We also have a very good pledge, in fact we make the government to believe that it is high time for the government to invest money in filmmaking and to impact knowledge through seminars, workshops, training, and to sponsor various stakeholders to courses in Nigeria and abroad; all this things we are doing is to complement government accomplish its social responsibilities to the industry.

What about problems?

We don’t have any believe you me. I am not saying we don’t have any in the context that really there are not problems but what I am saying in essence is that the problems we are facing are tolerable. The problem of non-confidence by the general public in the products churned out by our crops of filmmakers is a central problem, and if confidence is lost, everything is lost, and that confidence is what we are assiduously working towards restoring. The crux of the matter is and will be the pursuit of excellence and professionalism in film making and that’s why we are all out to see to it that we will not leave stakeholders that are fond of dishing out all rubbish for the viewership of the teeming public unturned or alone, we will touch you, the way you molest the law; we will deal with you, the way you negatively dealt with the law; in a nutshell this is my prayer, this is my call and in as much you will do it, the way we are urging you to do it, you will have our support.

Indeed, Hausa Movie Industry has its own teething problems- but as Professor Abdalla put it; “that is natural, because it is (still) in its infancy. However, it has the potential of a giant buried in a tiny acorn.”

Iyan-Tama: Matters Arising

Hamisu Lamido Iyan-Tama, the famous Hausa actor and producer jailed for three months by a magistrate court in Kano, was released from prison on Monday. He had been jailed for allegedly releasing a feature film without government approval and running a filmmaking company without registration. In an open letter to the Governor of Kano State, published in this column two days after Iyan-Tama was sent to prison, I pointed out that the two charges were false and a concoction of the Kano State Censorship Board which has been waging a war of attrition against Hausa filmmakers and authors, based on a dubious claim of cleansing them of all immoralities. In that piece, I called on His Excellency, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau, to, as a matter of utmost urgency, investigate that act of gargantuan injustice and enter a no-case submission in the appeal Iyan-Tama filed at a Kano High Court, paving the way to the freeing of the actor.

A government functionary told me a day later that Malam (as the governor is widely known) had read my letter. But Iyan-Tama was left to languish in prison for almost three months until Wednesday last week when the government did exactly what I and many other folk beseeched it to do: file a no-case submission. Obviously, the governor has shown a soft heart here, but the wheel of justice in Kano, as it is everywhere else in Nigeria, is very slow. And that’s sad, considering what the actor suffered during this period. For during his incarceration, Iyan-Tama was made to suffer a lot of indignity, including a psychological warfare waged against him by the Kano State Censorship Board headed by Malam Abubakar Rabo Abdulkarim. The Director-General of the board, Rabo, whose stock in trade is a blitzkrieg of propaganda against movie practitioners, embarked on media interviews in which he justified what he clearly knew to be a travesty of justice against Iyan-Tama; he knew quite well that the plot to deal with Iyan-Tama was conceived, hatched and executed by him and a few of his cohorts, and his wish was granted by the magistrate who had proved in more ways than one that he was a willing tool to be used against anyone connected to the movie industry.

Iyan-Tama’s family was attacked at midnight by a colony of thugs, who held his wife and children hostage, threatening to kill them. The family had to flee the house in the morning. About a month later, another house connected to Iyan-Tama’s family was attacked by a group of thugs (widely thought to be the same as the first group). During this attack, the thugs even raped a female house-help, thinking she was a member of the actor’s immediate family.

Be that as it may, Iyan-Tama is now half-free. He was let out of prison this week, following a prayer to the High Court by the Kano State Attorney-General and Commissioner of Justice that the court should grant him bail and order for a retrial of the case. According to the Attorney-General, Barrister Aliyu Umar, the first trial was besmirched by irregularities. Due process was not followed in the trial that led to the conviction, he said. He used very uncomplimentary terms to describe the trial conducted by a senior magistrate, Alhaji Mukhtari Ahmed, such as “improper,” “incomplete,” “a mistake,” summing up by insisting that a “more competent magistrate” should be given the case to try again. Umar told the court presided over by Justice Tani Umar: “I am not in support of the conviction in this trial. It is obvious that the trial was not completed before judgement was delivered but there and then the presiding magistrate went ahead and delivered a judgement.”

Now, these words are proof that my argument that Iyan-Tama was punished by some conspirators because of his political views (he contested the state gubernatorial seat for the 2007 election), not because he had broken any law, have been vindicated. The learned commissioner would not have made this submission flippantly, without carefully examining the facts of the case that played itself out in the magistrate court. And as a government official charged with superintending the legal field in Kano State, he must have endeavoured to discharge his duties with utmost responsibility.

Governor Shekarau deserves commendation for the confession by his government that Iyan-Tama was unjustly imprisoned. But then, there are questions that the day’s hearing brought up. One, was Barrister Umar’s submission not a clear indictment of the magistrate who jailed Iyan-Tama? By questioning the competence of Ahmed, going to the extent of asking the high court to reassign the case to another magistrate, he has clearly shown that the judge was not qualified to sit over all such cases. In this situation, does Ahmed merit serving as a judge in the service of the Kano State Government, having committed an injustice that can be successfully argued even by a baby lawyer to be a travesty of justice? Is it not more honourable to the magistrate to resign immediately or be sacked by the government? And how many more such magistrates are working in the Kano State courtrooms, handing down selfish judgements?

And what of Rabo’s war? Is it justified anymore? Is it truly meant to sanitise the filmmaking business or kill it, using weapons of emasculation at the disposal of a punitive, merciless government agency? For me, Rabo has been discredited as much as Ahmed was, and should, therefore, embrace the same fate: resign or be sacked. In more civilised climes, Rabo and Ahmed would have simply thrown in the towel, having been proved to be fraudulent.

What of the proposed retrial? Is it normal to try an accused person twice for the same charge? I am not learned, therefore, I will not question her lordship’s discretion in this. But suppose after going through the whole hog of a retrial in another court, Iyan-Tama is adjudged guilty again, would he be sentenced again (maybe for ten years!) in prison? Would that be justice?

Will Iyan-Tama be compensated for his recent illegal imprisonment? Or did he suffer for nothing? Iyan-Tama’s lawyer, Suleiman Abdulkadir, SAN, had stated that if at all a retrial was to be ordered, the government should pay N100 million as compensation to his client. I hear that the Shekarau government had feared that Iyan-Tama would demand a compensation for his unjust arraignment, hence the decision to jail him. Now the word going round is that they have dangled the sword of Damocles of the retrial option over his neck for the same purpose. If these claims are true, I doubt if that’s the best way to institute Shari’ah law in our society.

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Published in LEADERSHIP today

Tsare Iyan-Tama: Sabon Zubin Zalunci

BUD'AD'D'IYAR WASIK'A ZUWA GA MALAM IBRAHIM SHEKARAU

Daga IBRAHIM SHEME


Mai Girma Gwamna,
NA rubuto maka wannan bud'ad'd'iyar wasik'a ne saboda na yi amanna da cewa za ta fi saurin isa gare ka maimakon in bi hanyar da ku ka tsara, saboda ina da magana mai buk'atar sauri. Idan na mik'a wasik'ar a ofishin ka, za ta iya d'aukar kwanaki da yawa ko ma watanni kafin ta isa gare ka, kuma kafin lokacin ba za ka iya samun bayani na hak'ik'a ta kafa mai zaman kan ta ba kan tantagaryar zaluncin da wasu jami’an ka su ke aikatawa da sunan ka. Na biyu, tun tuni ma ake ta zancen a majalisun hira a tsawon watanni da su ka gabata. Yanzu akwai alamun an jingine maganar ta hanyar wata shari’a wadda ko kad'an ba ta da kan-gado, inda wasu masu fushi da fushin wani su ka yi amfani da ak'idar ka ta aiki bisa doka da oda, da tausayin talakawa, da rashin yaudara da kuma tanadodin Musulunci. Bugu da k'ari, buga wannan wasik'ar a bainar jama’a zai ba wa duk wani mai sha’awar sanin abin da ake ciki damar samun k'arin haske kan d'aya daga cikin muhimman al’amuran da ke gudana a gwamnatin ka.

Ran ka ya dad'e, ina da cikakkar masaniya kan wannan lamari, ba kawai don ina biye da maganar a kotun majistare ta Kano inda aka kai ta ba, a’a har ma saboda ni d'an cikin gida ne a al’amuran sana’ar finafinan Hausa. Ba sai na nanata maka ba cewa Kano ce cibiyar finafinan Hausa a sama da shekara goma da aka yi ana yin sana’ar.

Na tabbatar da cewa ba za ka rasa masaniya ba kan shari’ar da ake tafkawa tsakanin Hukumar Tace Finafinai ta Jihar Kano (KSCB) da wani furodusan fim ba mai suna Alhaji Hamisu Lamid'o Iyan-Tama. Ran ka ya dad'e, Iyan-Tama d'an asalin Kano ne wanda ya taka muhimmiyar rawa wajen ciyar da harkar finafinan Hausa gaba, sannan kuma d'an wasa ne d'an sahun gaba. Hasali ma dai shi ne shugaban farko da aka zab'a na K'ungiyar Masu Shirya Finafinai ta Arewa (AFPAN). Kowa ya san cewa bai tab'a shirya fim ko kuma ya fito a fim d'in da za a yi Allah-wadai da shi ba, wato wanda ya sab'a wa kyawawan al’adun jama’ar Kano ko addinin Musulunci. Duk rol d'in da zai yi a fim, za ka taras na manyantaka ne; ya kan nace kan lallai a yi fim da ya dace da al’adun mu, sannan shi mutum ne mai bin doka. Finafinan sa sun ci manyan kyaututtukan girmamawa.

Ran ka ya dad'e, idan har ka samu damar karanta wannan wasik'ar a yau, to Iyan-Tama ya kwana biyu a gidan yarin Kano, domin a ran Talata wata kotun majistare ta yanke masa hukunci kan abin da ta kira laifuffuka guda biyu, bayan an shafe watanni ana yawo da hankali a kes d'in. A hukuncin da kotun ta zartas, Iyan-Tama zai shafe wata uku a tsare ba tare da zab'in biyan tara ba. Haka kuma zai biya mak'udan kud'i na tara ko kuma ya yi zaman kaso na tsawon shekara d'aya.

Yawancin mu da ke sa ido kan lamarin ba za mu damu ba ko kad'an da hukuncin in da a ce da gaske Hamisu ya aikata laifuffukan. Ni d'in nan na yarda da bin doka da oda, domin hakan shi ne ginshik'in d'orewar mulkin dimokirad'iyya. Ba wanda ya fi k'arfin doka. In an yi amfani da wannan tsarin ne dimokirad'iyya za ta iya d'orewa kuma k'asa za ta samu zaman lafiya. To amma gaskiyar magana ita ce, Hukumar Tace Finafinai ce ta k'irk'iri laifukan da aka ce Iyan-Tama ya aikata, sannan wani alk'ali mai goyon bayan hukumar, wanda kuma ya yi k'aurin suna wajen d'aure duk wani wanda aka gurfanar a gaban sa, ko da bai da laifi, shi ne ya yanke masa wannan d'anyen hukuncin. Wani abin ban-damuwa shi ne ana tafka wannan aika-aikar ne da sunan tanadojin nan masu tsarki na Shari’ar Musulunci. Daga fahimta ta da abubuwan da ke fitowa daga bakin ka da ganin wasu abubuwan da ka aikata, har yanzu ban amince ba da cewa kai d'in nan za ka goyi bayan zalunci ta kowace fuska ko kuma ka bar wani ya na saka siyasa cikin shari’ar Musulunci don ya ci mutuncin jama’a cikin son rai.

’Yallab'ai, bari in d'an fad'a maka abin da ya faru. Jami’an Hukumar Tace Finafinai sun kama Iyan-Tama a ofishin sa a Kano, su ka kai shi kotun tafi-da-gidan- ka wadda aka kafa don yi wa ’yan fim da marubuta shari’a (aka fad'ad'a zuwa duk wani nau’i na rubutu). Abin mamaki, babu wata kotu irin ta; babu kotun ’yan acab'a ko ta karuwai ko ta ’yan caca ko ta ’yan luwad'i, da sauran su. An tuhumi Iyan-Tama da "laifuffuka" guda biyu:

1. Sakin fim d'in sa na ‘Tsintsiya’ a Kano ba tare da Hukumar Tace Finafinai ta amince da shi ba kamar yadda doka ta tanada;

2. Gudanar da kamfanin shirya fim mai suna Iyan-Tama Multimedia, ba tare da yin rajista da gwamnati ba.

To amma duk wad'annan tuhumar, k'arya ne, kuma lauyan sa ya yi k'ok'arin nuna wa alk'ali Alhaji Mukhtar Ahmed hakan. An d'auki watanni kafin a yanke hukuncin, wanda ya yi matuk'ar girgiza yawancin mazaunan Kano da wajen ta.

Bari mu fara da tuhuma ta biyu. An yi wa kamfanin Iyan-Tama Multimedia rajista da gwamnati wato a Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), wadda ke da alhakin yi wa dukkan kamfanoni rajista a Nijeriya. Hukumar Tace Finafinai ta Kano ta ce wai Iyan-Tama bai sabunta rajistar sa ta shekara-shekara da ita ba. Wannan ma k'arya ce domin watanni kafin a kama shi, ya sayi fom d'in har an ba shi rasid'ai. To wanda ya yi wannan yunk'urin ai ya na kan hanyar yin rajistar ne kuma bai yi kama da wanda ke k'ok'arin karya dokar yin fim a Kano ba. Kuma ya na da amincewar gwamnatin tarayya.
Tuhuma ta farko ma ta fi ban-haushi. Ran ka ya dad'e, Iyan-Tama bai saki fim d'in ‘Tsintsiya’ a Kano ba. Hasali ma dai ya yi tallace-tallace da hirarraki a rediyo da jaridu kafin a k'addamar da fim d'in a Abuja, inda ya fito k'arara ya ce ba za a saki fim d'in a Jihar Kano ba.

A lokacin da Hukumar Tace Finafinai ta yanke shawarar "koya wa Iyan-Tama darasi," jami’an ta sun karya shagon saida finafinai na HRB da ke unguwar Tarauni a Kano, su ka samo faifan sidi na fim d'in, wanda wani d'an wasan fim ya b'oye cikin durowar teburi wanda ya ce a Kaduna ya sayo shi da nufin zai ba wa wata mai sha’awar finafinan sa. Ba wai an kasa sidi d'in don sayarwa ba. B'ullar sa a Kano bai da wata alak'a da Iyan-Tama. Idan ka karanta takardun kotu inda lauyoyi ke yi wa jami’an Hukumar Tace Finafinai su biyu tambayoyi a gaban alk'ali, za ka yarda d'ari bisa d'ari cewa ba a tabbatar da cewa Iyan-Tama ne ya kawo faifan sidi d'in wannan shagon ba.

A bayyane ya ke cewa shari’ar Iyan-Tama ramuwar gayya ce kurum. Wani b'angare ne na yunk'urin yak'i da wasu ’yan fim ko ta halin k'ak'a wanda Hukumar Tace Finafinai ta d'aura. A gajeren tunanin hukumar, ta hanyar yin haka ne za a iya share duk wani abu na sana’ar fim da harshen Hausa. Hukumar ta na amfani da bak'ar farfaganda, ta na ba da bayanan k'arya, tare da yin ragguwar fassarar Dokar Tace Finafinai ta 2001, sannan ta na amfani da sunan Musulunci ta hanyar da ba ta Musulunci ba wajen sauya alk'iblar hanyoyin nishad'i a Kano.

Mai Girma Gwamna, duk wannan ya sab'a wa furucin ka na tabbatar da adalci. Kuma hakan ya haifar da abubuwa marasa dad'i ga gwamnatin ka da kai kan ka, wad'anda zan fad'a maka su yanzu tare da duk girmamawa a gare ka.

Ya Girma Gwamna, yak'in da ake yi da sana’ar fim a Kano, ana yin sa ne da sunan Shari’ar Musulunci, to amma ko kad'an ba Musulunci ba ne. Wad'anda ke yin yak'in sun yi gangami ne su na furta kalaman Alk'ur’ani mai tsarki da Sunnar Manzo, to amma abubuwan da su ke aikatawa kai ka ce Hitla ne ya ce su aikata shi. Babu wani abu da su ka aikata kan ’yan fim da ya nuna cewa sun bi nasihohin Annabi Muhammadu (SAW). Kamar yadda na fad'a a sama, tsarin da su ke bi na halaka sana’ar fim ta na da illa matuk'a, ba wai kawai ga ’yan fim ba har ma ga gwamnatin Jihar Kano. Zan d'an bayyana wasu daga cikin illolin yanzu:

1. An jefa dubban matasa cikin rashin aikin yi bayan kuwa a da su ne su ke sama wa kan su hanyoyin abinci, wanda hakan ya shafe su tare da iyalan su. Ba a sama masu wasu hanyoyin na daban ba domin samun abinci. Mayak'an ka su kan ce, "Ina ruwan mu da su? Ai yawancin su ba ’yan Kano ba ne!" To amma hakan ya sab'a wa k'ok'arin gwamnatin ka na sama wa d'imbin matasan Kano da aikin yi.

2. Yak'in ya kawo koma-baya ga tattalin arzikin Kano wanda da ma ya na cikin garari. Da yake manyan kamfanonin Kano duk sun durk'ushe, kamata ya yi a gina harkar fim ta yadda za ta kasance mai dogaro da kan ta, kuma wadda ta dace da al’adun Kano da dokokin hukuma. Maimakon a yi hakan, sai aka koma ana kashe ta.

3. An haifar da fargaba da rashin sanin alk'iblar rayuwa a zukatan matasan, kuma da yawan su sun koma ’yan maula.

4. An haifar da k'in Shekarau a zukatan matasan. Hujja ita ce irin wak'ok'in b'atanci da ke ta bayyana daga situdiyoyin wak'ok'in finafinai a Kano, Zariya da Kaduna. Da fari, irin wad'annan wak'ok'in su na sukar Hukumar Tace Finafinai ne, to amma yanzu akalar su ta sauya har su na had'owa da gwamna da iyalin sa. Kai, wak'ar da ta fi yin fice a wannan fagen ma, an shirya ta ne a situdiyon da wani na hannun daman ka ya mallaka, to amma Hukumar Tace Finafinai ta kasa yin komai a kai saboda shi mai situdiyon ba ya tab'o a gare ta. Wannan tsanar da ake yi wa Shekarau ta na ta k'aruwa kuma za ta iya kasancewa bak'ar guguwa ga jam’iyyar ANPP a zab'en da za a yi a shekarar 2011 a Jihar Kano.

5. An fara yin shakku kan manufa da kuma alk'iblar yekuwar Shariar Musulunci, wadda miliyoyin jama’a su ka runguma. Duk shugaban da ke yin nasihar adalci da gyaran tarbiyya, bai kamata ya hana dubban matasa hanyoyin samun abincin su ba.

Ran ka ya dad'e, ina daga cikin masu goyon bayan shirin ka na gyaran zamantakewar jama’a ta yadda za su yi daidai da al’adu da tanadodin addinin da jama’ar mu ke bi. Shi ya sa na ke goyon bayan shirin gwamnatin ka na A Daidaita Sahu, wanda abokin mu Malam Bala Muhammad ke aiwatarwa cikin ban-sha’awa da kuma samun cikakkar nasara. To amma Hukumar Tace Finafinai ta na warware duk wata tufka da A Daidaita Sahu ta cimma nasarar yi. Gaba d'aya tsarin a baud'e ya ke, kuma ana aiwatar da shi a kan tafarkin mugunta da ramuwa da rashin jin k'ai. Ya kauce wa duk wani tsari na ya-kamata.

Mun yarda da cewa sana’ar finafinai ta shiga rud'u wanda ya kamata a gyara ta a cikin shekarun baya. Hakan ya k'ara bayyana ne bayan b'ullar majigin batsa na Hiyana. To amma akwai buk'atar a jawo shugabanni na sosai na industiri d'in don a samu nasara. Maimakon haka, sai Hukumar Tace Finafinai ta ture su gefe d'aya, ta jawo wasu ’yan koren ta, sannan ta na shirya tarurruka na yaudara da rainin wayo, har ma da shirya dina don magoya bayan ta su zo su ci abinci. Ba shakka, wannan tsarin na raba kan jama’a da farfaganda irin ta ’yan Nazi da hukumar ke yi ba abin da ya haifar sai bala’o’i, sannan an samu gazawa a wajen gyaran tarbiyyar industirin finafinan Hausa.

Har yanzu ana sayar da finafinai da fosta-fosta na batsa a Kano. Haka kuma, ’yan k'alilan d'in finafinan Hausa da magoya bayan Hukumar Tace Finafinan su ka shirya (tare da amincewar hukumar don a b'oye k'aryar cewa ba kashe sana’ar fim ake yi ba) ba su da wani bambanci da irin finafinan da hukumar ta ke ik'irarin cewa marasa inganci ne. Don Allah, finafinai masu inganci kuma "wad'anda sun dace da tarbiyya", guda nawa ne aka shirya a k'ark'ashin jagorancin Hukumar Tace Finafinan tun daga lokacin da majigin Hiyana ya fito?

Ran ka ya dad'e, za ka yarda da ni idan na ce maka ainihin dabarar shirin fim ba aba ce mai illa ba, don haka bai kamata a kashe ta ba. Za a iya shirya finafinai kan jigogin rayuwa iri-iri wad'anda su ka dace da al’adun mu. Kamata ya yi a yi wa ’yan fim jagora, ba wai a rik'a yi masu b'atanci ba ko kuma a yi masu korar kare daga gari.

Ran ka ya dad'e, Hamisu Iyan-Tama dai fursunan siyasa ne: ya yi adawa da kai lokacin zab'en 2007 ta hanyar fitowa takarar gwamna shi ma. Ai bai ma yi maka wata barazana ba. Kai aka k'ara zab'a. To amma saboda tsaurin idon da su ke ganin ya yi na yin takara da kai, jami’an ka su na hukunta shi. Sun ce wai shi mutum ne mai cika baki, mai surutu kuma wai ya na sukar gwamnatin ka. To mun ji, shin su d'in ba masu cika baki ba ne, su na yin abu sai ka ce sun fi kowa iko a duniya? Shin ba sa kallon duk wani wanda bai yarda da ra’ayin su ba a matsayin abokin gaba ko su kafirta shi, ko maras bin biyayya gare su, ko su ce ai ba d'an Kano ba ne ko kuma bai san ainihin abin da ake ciki ba? Shin wannan ba babbar d'agawa ba ce?

Kuma ma ko da a ce Iyan-Tama na da cika baki ko kuma abokin adawar ka ne na siyasa, shin hakan hujja ce ta hukunta shi da zaman gidan yari duk da yake bai karya doka ba? Shin ya yi maka illa a siyasance irin illar da masu surutan nan ke yi maka a gidan Rediyon Freedom? Shin a ina dimokirad'iyyar da ake ta magana ta ke? Shin ko Manzon Allah (SAW) ko wani daga cikin halifofin sa ko d'imbin tabi’an da su ka biyo bayan su za su bi irin wannan hanyar don hukunta abokin adawa?

Mai Girma Gwamna, ya kamata ka binciki wannan al’amari na Iyan-Tama, don Allah, musamman rawar da alk'alin da ya d'aure shi ya taka a shari’ar da sauran shari’un zalunci da ya yi wa masu sana’ar fim. Kuma don me za a ce kotu ta na yi wa wata hukumar gwamnati aiki? Don me alk'ali d'aya ne kad'ai zai rik'a yin duk wata shari’a da ta had'o da Hukumar Tace Finafinai bayan an ga sau da yawa ya nuna inda bakin sa ya karkata? Shin wannan mutum ne mai tsoron Allah ko kuwa d'an siyasa mai k'ullatar jama’a?

Ka yi amfani da k'arfin mulkin ka ka fitar da Iyan-Tama daga k'angin da aka saka shi a ciki ta hanyar janye k'arar da ku ke yi da shi a kotu. Na san ka na da zuciyar yin hakan domin ai ka tab'a yin irin haka a wasu al’amura da su ka had'o da kai, ciki kuwa har da wanda ya had'o da b'atancin da aka yi wa maid'akin ka. Kada ka bari wasu mutane ’yan d'oki wad'anda ka ba muk'amai su rik'a yak'ar abokan adawar ka ta hanyar zalunci domin kuwa Gobe K'iyama za ka amsa tambayoyin ka ne yayin da za su amsa nasu daban da naka.

’Yallab'ai, zan tsaya nan sai nan gaba za mu k'ara yin wannan magana da sauran maganganu a nan gaba. Ni ne mai biyayya a gare ka, kuma mai ba ka shawara tagari. Wassalam.

(Wannan fassara ce na sharhin Turanci da na yi kwanan baya. An wallafa wannan na Hausan a jaridar LEADERSHIP HAUSA ta ranar Juma'a da ta wuce)