Katsina contingent at African Drum Festival 2018

This is a little bit of the performance of the Katsina State contingent at this year's African Drum Festival (ADF), three days ago in Abeokuta, Ogun State. The clip was recorded by me, using a phone camera. Enjoy!

DAILY TRUST: My omitted story

By Ibrahim Sheme
Published in the Daily Trust On Sunday (today's edition)

Recently, the leading newspaper company in northern Nigeria, the Media Trust Limited, celebrated the 20th year of its establishment. At the well-attended event in Abuja, speeches were delivered, the glasses were clicked, awards were given to deserving contributors to the growth of Media Trust Limited, the mother company, and scintillating stories were told. It was a joyous occasion, one deserving a milestone which not every business venture in this country, not least the running of a newspaper, has attained.

It was the stories I was interested in rather than the awards and the clicking of glasses. Many of them had been told and retold before, both in the newspaper itself and at different forums. A significant forum where the story of Media Trust is documented is the book, “Journalism and Business: My Newspaper Odyssey”, authored by Alhaji Isiaq Ajibola, the founding managing director and a board member of the company, published in 2016. I read that book with interest and was astonished at its obvious effort to skip or gloss over the stories of some of the watershed events that turned the company into a successful venture. I have met people who, after reading the book, expressed a similar observation.

Such effort was replicated during at least two events the company organised to celebrate its unique success. One was the Daily Trust’s 10th anniversary special pull-out edited by Zainab Suleiman Okino 10 years ago and the other was the 20th anniversary event held on March 22, 2018. If the effort to suppress or ignore some stories did not affect me, I would have thought that the “wailers” were only being self-serving. But my own Daily Trust story is one which persuades me to believe that there are quite a number of important, albeit small, stories about the newspaper’s history out there which need to be brought back into reckoning. During those storytelling events I saw big stories made small, and vice-versa.

My Daily Trust story began from a certain day early in 1998 in the board room of the New Nigerian in Kaduna. I was the secretary of the Editorial Board which met in that room on a weekly basis to discuss current affairs, come up with ideas for the daily editorial comment and assign the chosen topics to the writers, who were the board members. My duties, apart from my regular tasks as a senior editorial staffer, involved taking minutes of the meeting, keeping tab on what each writer would write, editing the comment and producing it on the editorial page for the title editor’s approval. Of course, I also took my own topics and wrote the comments assigned to me.

As everyone in the newspaper business knows, Editorial Board members consist of staffers and non-staffers, the outsiders the paper brings in because of their special expertise. At the New Nigerian, one of such “outsiders” was Malam Kabiru A. Yusuf, erstwhile the head of southern Nigerian operation of the Kaduna-based Citizen newsmagazine. As some of the publicised Daily Trust stories say, the collapse of Citizen had rendered many of its staffers jobless and everyone was looking for a way to earn a living. Media Trust was created, as both Alhaji Ajibola and Malam Kabiru repeatedly said, as a source of livelihood for some of those affected by the fall of Citizen.

I was not part of the story of the founding of Media Trust the firm, but I was in the neglected or suppressed story of the establishment of its flagship newspaper, the Weekly Trust, which gave birth to the Daily Trust. As I said, the story started in the board room of the NNN.

One day after the weekly Editorial Board meeting, as members were shuffling out of the room, Malam Kabiru signaled to me to wait. “I want to talk to you,” he said. So I waited.

After everyone else had gone out of the room and we were the only two remaining, Malam Kabiru came over to where I sat and took a seat. In his calm, gentle manner he said, “Malam Ibrahim, the reason why I asked you to stay behind is because I wanted to tell you something. A couple of friends and I are thinking of setting up a small newspaper…,” he paused.

Instinctively, I thought he wanted to offer me a job, and I braced my mind to resist it. In those days the New Nigerian was the place to be if you were practising print journalism in the north, and I had all it took to rise to the top of the editorial section. I was growing fast as I fulfilled my ambition of working in the most important print media organisation in the region. I was loving it, and so I was not keen on quitting just yet.

Malam Kabiru took a deep breath and, as if reading my mind, continued, “I know you would not want to leave the New Nigerian now, but we could do with your advice. We are going to hold our first meeting on the establishment of the newspaper in a couple of days’ time and I would like you to attend.”

Relieved, I replied immediately, “No problem sir. I am willing to attend. When and where is the meeting going to hold?”

He mentioned a date some three days ahead and the venue. We shook hands and left the room.

Three days later I was at Maradi House, a small bungalow located on Alkali Road which served as the offices of Media Trust, an upstart public relations consultancy firm trying to find its feet in business. When I entered, I met only one person cleaning the table in a small office - Aisha Umar Yusuf, the wife of Malam Kabiru. After we exchanged pleasantries, she told me the others were yet to arrive. She took me to another room where a table and a couple of chairs had been set for the meeting.

Up till that time I did not know who the “others” were, and I didn’t ask. Soon enough, however, I found out. Apart from Malam Kabiru, the others were Isiaq Ajibola and the late Duro Irojah, a former managing director of Today, the defunt Kaduna-based weekly newspaper where Malam Kabiru had worked as editor. I cannot recall if, apart from the four of us, there was any other person. Hajiya Aisha, who was not part of the meeting, stayed in her office.

After the introductions, Malam Kabiru went ahead and laid out the plan for the establishment of the yet-to-be named newspaper. We discussed policy, content, pagination, staffing, etc. I noticed that as he spoke, Malam Kabiru kept saying, “If Allah helps us… If Allah helps us.” He justified that repeated prayer with the explanation that the newspaper was going to start on a shoestring budget.

Finally, the issue of the name to be given to the newspaper cropped up. Apparently, we were not ready for that and the meeting had stretched long. Mr Irojah advised that the issue of the name should be deferred to the next meeting so that each one of us could sleep over it and bring suggestions. So the meeting ended on that note and a date was fixed for the next one.

Days later when we resumed, three of us (Kabiru, Irojah and I) brought various names. Ajibola had apparently discussed and agreed with Malam Kabiru prior to the meeting, hence his silence on the matter.

It was Malam Kabiru’s idea that the newspaper should be christened Trust. “I think The Trust, or Nigerian Trust, or whatever Trust, is okay. The word ‘Trust’ ought to be there so that it rhymes with the name of the company,” he said enthusiastically.

I kicked against the name, arguing that it was the name of the Indian government news agency. But Malam Kabiru insisted on that name. As Alhaji Ajibola had maintained a studied silence, Mr Irojah and I gave up.

“So be it,” we agreed.

The word ‘Weekly’ was also agreed upon because the newspaper was conceived as a periodical. No one seemed to entertain the optimism of considering that the “small newspaper”, as Malam Kabiru kept calling it, would ever transform into a daily affair. I think, in retrospect, Malam Kabiru and Alhaji Ajibola themselves were simply reckoning that they wanted to float something that would hold them in the interim, before getting “something better” to do. They weren’t trying to launch a behemoth or ever thought it would become one.

And so the Weekly Trust was born in that room.

In the coming days and weeks I had more opportunities to discuss the project with Malam Kabiru. We drove together in his small red car (the one Ajibola took over later when the company started becoming buoyant after the newspaper had gone on stream), distributing letters of invitation to selected investors in Kaduna. I still have a copy of that letter. He also had a plan for me.

Once when we went to see the Rector of Kaduna Polytechnic, Dr Nuru Yakubu, a client of Media Trust’s PR business, Malam Kabiru finally asked me to join the company both as an investor and a staff. Since coming back from Cardiff after bagging a Master’s in Journalism Studies I had set up a book publishing firm, which I had told Malam Kabiru about. He suggested that I could hand over the assets of that enterprise as a form of investment and then join as a staff. I told him I needed to think about it.

To make up my mind, I consulted an elder of mine, who was in the newspaper business, for advice. He it was who persuaded me to remain at the New Nigerian where, according to him, I had better prospects. I took that advice and later told Malam Kabiru I would do whatever I could to help except to invest in Media Trust or join it as a staff.

Eventually, the Weekly Trust was launched at Arewa House in Kaduna. It was a beautiful intellectual exercise rather than the usual money-grabbing launches Nigerians were known for. The chief launcher was Malam Abubakar Gimba, the president of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), for which I was, in turn, national publicity secretary at the time.

I contributed content to the Weekly Trust for years, from inception, in the form of a two-page literary column called Bookshelf. At first, I started incognito because of my affiliation to the New Nigerian, where I had been made deputy editor. But later I was identified, with my byline and photograph, as the literary editor of the Weekly Trust after I left the former. Of course, I was not a staff of Media Trust and was not being paid.

The Weekly Trust was an instant success because it struck a chord with northerners tired of the grandmotherly disposition of the government-owned New Nigerian. Malam Kabiru and Alhaji Ajibola, adjudged to be the best newspaper company managers this side of the Equator, decided to plunge into another risk by going daily. It was a risk worth taking. The military were leaving the political scene, and there was no daily newspaper located in Abuja.

When that decision was made, Malam Kabiru asked me to take up appointment as the editor of the daily. The request came through Dr Abubakar A. Rasheed of Bayero University, Kano, under whom I had worked at the NNN when he was the managing director there. I was then living partly in Kano “on my own,” i.e. working for no one but myself. Even though I expressed reservation, Dr Rasheed persuaded me to meet with Malam Kabiru.

So I drove to Kaduna on an appointed date in November 2000 and met with Malam Kabiru in his office. He explained the reason for starting a daily publication and why he wanted me to become its first editor. He mentioned the pay and some of the perquisites, as well as the period around which the paper would take off in Abuja. We agreed on the day that I would return to receive my appointment letter.

On the appointed date when I went to the office, however, I was told that Malam Kabiru was in Europe attending a conference of the International Press Institute (IPI). During the visit, I confided in the then editor of the Weekly Trust, Malam Isyaku Dikko,  why I was actually there, to which he expressed surprise. He said, “But another person has been appointed as the editor of the daily. His name is Jibril Daudu.”

It was my turn to be surprised. I simply shrugged and said, “Well, if that is so, then it is one of those things. I did not invite myself to serve as editor. I had my reservations. Anyway, just tell Malam Kabiru I came even though I have dropped a note with his secretary.”

Malam Kabiru never got back to me on the issue of my appointment. I was still producing the popular literary pages for the Weekly Trust. Like its elder sister, the Daily Trust was well-received when it started and continued to grow from strength to strength. Without a serious competitor, the New Nigerian having deteriorated and sinking fast, the coast was clear. It simply ate up the New Nigerian’s market share as “the” northern newspaper.

It was not until 2004 that the Trust got any serious challenge in its market share. That was when Leadership was started as another privately-owned northern newspaper. Trust had been regarded as fearless in telling truth to power like the New Nigerian of old, but Leadership upped the ante in the real meaning of fearlessness. The publisher, Mr. Sam Nda-Isaiah, a former Daily Trust columnist, should have had ‘Fearless’ as his middle name. No, the word should be ‘Reckless’. And, if I must add, he appointed as his editor another person who could take a little share of that middle name, and that was me. Where Trust feared to tread we would jump in, sirens blaring.

Now, because it was impossible for me to continue serving as the literary editor of the Trust and at the same time as the title editor of Leadership, I gave some weeks’ notice to Malam Kabiru and the then editor of the Weekly Trust, Malam Garba Deen Muhammad, to appoint another person to handle Bookshelf. On that day Malam Kabiru instructed that I be paid some money as a token of appreciation for my contribution to the company, for which I was grateful. Odoh Diego Okenyodo took over as the editor of Bookshelf.

Now, this boring story is the one that has not been acknowledged anywhere in the big story of the Media Trust’s success. It is virtually the story of an old tyre that helped the vehicle in its uphill drive but, on the days similar old tyres were celebrated, no one remembered this one. Yes, it is the personal story of a single individual, egoistic even, but it needed to be documented even for the sake of putting a forgotten jigsaw in the big puzzle. Thank you for reading.

Ibrahim Sheme is the director of media and publicity at the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN)

African Drum Festival 2018



Tonight I attended the successful opening ceremony of the third edition of the annual African Drum Festival (ADF), currently going on in Abeokuta, the capital of Ogun State. I had travelled this afternoon from Lagos, where I stayed for three days for official duties.

In fact, I had no intention of coming to Abeokuta even though I knew about the preparations to host the festival. Some weeks back I was contacted by Malam Salihu Bappa, a senior lecturer at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, who is an old acquitance of mine. He wanted me to get a way to contact the lead drummer for the late Alhaji Mamman Shata. The task was right down my alley, having been associated with anything Shata for at least two decades. One of the organisers of the ADF, Mr. Jahman Anikulapo, was the one who had tasked Bappa with finding the drummer. Malam Bappa himself has been associated with the culture circuit for as long as I knew him. And Jahman is a well known "culture connossieur", having served as the Arts and Media Editor of The Guardian and, later, the Editor of The Guardian On Sunday. We knew each other long ago, myself having been in the culture loop for many years as a journalist.

I was able to reach out to Shata's chief drummer through Malam Mustapha Shata. The drummer is of course Malam Magaji Mahuta, an octogenarian who is in retirement in his village near Funtua, Shata's base. The ADF organisers wanted him to attend the three-day event in Abeokuta, and he did. He arrived Lagos last night, together with an escort, Muntari Shata, the music legend's second to the last child. I should mention that they came together on the same Kaduna-Lagos flight with Malam Salisu Mashi, a famed drummer based in Katsina. Mashi, who had worked with the Centre for Nigerian Cultural Studies, ABU, Zaria, in the 1970s and 1980s, had attained prowess for his incredible capacity to play several Hausa musical instruments all at once and at the same time.

The ADF began in 2016 as a local event but it has become an international one with participants attending from several African countries. At the opening ceremony tonight, which took place at the June 12 Cultural Centre, Ibara, I saw contingents from Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire, Senegal, South Africa, etc., as well as from many states of Nigeria. I learned that this year's edition, though the third, is actually the second international one.

The opening ceremony was a huge carnival, with so many contingents operating various forms of drums and delivering razzmatazz. There was a cacophony of music as the musicians played at the same time. A snake charmer was seen plying his trade with a huge python.

The event was graced by the state governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, his government officials, many traditional rulers, federal government officials, scholars, towns people, journalists, etc. The federal government was represented by the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed.

Many speeches were delivered, all stressing the importance of culture to the human society. Governor Amusun pledged his government's continued support for the ADF.

The traditional rulers who spoke included the Ooni of Ife, the Alaafin of Oyo; Alake of Egbaland, and the Obong of Calabar.

Nobel laureate Professor Wole Soyinka was the cynosure of all eyes as he pulled his famous grey crown through the crowd to deliver his speech. He is the chief consultant for the event.

The turnout was impressive. It reflects the hard work the organisers put in publicising the event, which is evident in the banners that dotted the cityscape right from inside Lagos.

I and the rest of the audience were mesmerised by the whole spectacle. There was a captivating musical performance by the Ogun State Cultural Troupe to kickstart the show. Amosun declared the festival open with the beating of drums by himself and the cry, "Let the Festival begin!" Shortly after, there was a scintillating display of fireworks which further excited the audience.

The taste of the pudding is in the eating, they say. The foretaste is what will follow in the next two days of the festival has been served. The festival has begun. Tomorrow the drums will surely roll some more.

Juyin zamani: Tsakanin gaɗa, Asauwara, Mamman Shata da 'yan fiyano

Daga Ibrahim Sheme

Waƙoƙin gaɗa su ne a wani zamani a ƙasar Katsina da wasu yankunan Kano irin su Bichi, Tofa da Gwarzo ake kira "Asauwara". Da farko ana kiran su "Takojilo" ne, amma daga baya sai aka "sauwara" su, wato aka juya su ta yadda samari ma za su iya shiga a yi da su maimakon 'yan mata kaɗai.

A daidai lokacin yarintar Mamman Shata, wato a wajajen farko zuwa tsakiyar shekarun 1930s, waƙoƙin Asauwara ake yi, inda mace za ta shiga fage a gaban mai ganga ta yi waƙa a amsa, sannan namiji ma ya shiga ya rera a amsa. Wani lokaci kuma namiji da mace za su iya shiga tare su rera, sauran samari da 'yanmata na amsawa. Mawaƙan ne ke ƙirƙirar waƙa, ko kuma su ɗauko daga waƙoƙin gaɗa da aka gada kunne-ya-girmi-kaka.

Asauwara gasa ce, domin so ake a ga wanda ya fi iya waƙa. Saboda yadda ake gasar, akan kuma kira ta da "wasan sauri", don haka ba za ka shiga fage ka je ka na wata in'ina ba; yanzu alƙalan gasar sa fitar da kai!

An fi yin gasar Asauwara da kaka, lokacin ba a zuwa aiki gona.

Duk wanda ya yi zarra a gari ko ƙauye, to ana ba shi muƙamin Joji. To kuma sai a haɗa gasa tsakanin Jojin wannan gari da na wancan gari, a ga wanda zai yi zarra, kamar yadda ake haɗa wasan ƙwallo tsakanin garuruwa a yanzu. An sha samun joji mace ko namiji a gari kaza.

Idan za a yi gasar, su matasan da aka zo garin su su ne za su ba baƙi abinci da wurin kwana.

Shata na daga cikin matasan da ke shiga gasar Asauwara. Kuma ba da jimawa ba ya yi zarra, aka naɗa shi Joji na Musawa. Kuma an tabbatar da cewa babu wani joji da ya taɓa buge shi tun daga lokacin da ya hau muƙamin.

Wasan gaɗa na Asauwara ba sana'a ba ce. Wargi ne kurum na yara. Don haka iyaye ba su damu ba, tunda sun san cewa da yaro ya girma ya zama mutum, misali a ce ya yi aure, to tilas ya daina domin ga surukai ya yi a gari, kuma ƙannen sa sun data. Idan mace ce ma, ta tafi gidan miji.

A wancan lokacin, akwai makaɗa na daban, 'ya'yan gado, masu kiɗa don a ba su kuɗi. Waɗannan su ne masu sana'ar roƙo. Su kan yi a gidan mutum idan ya na da wani sha'ani, misali suna ko aure ko naɗin sarauta, ko su yi a dandali a taru a kalla. Duk yaron da ya ce zai zama mawaƙin da za a ba wata kyauta, in dai ba gado ya yi ba, to iyayen sa ba za su amince ba. Wasu iyayen ma, musamman Fulani, su na kallon kiɗan roƙo a ƙasƙance.

Hakan ce ta sa lokacin da Jojin Musawa, wato Shata, ya fara karɓar kyauta sai ran mahaifin shi ya ɓaci. Ya za a ce ɗan cikin sa, Bafillace, ya zama maroƙi? Abin kamar saɓo! Akwai ma lokacin da ya je ƙofar gidan Malam Inde (Magajin Gari) da ya ji ga Shata can ya na waƙa, ya lafta masa duka da igiyar ɗaure awaki da ya riƙo, ya kore shi. Ya zuwa lokacin, har Shata ya fara fita zuwa wasu garuruwa don yin waƙa. Bakin alƙalami ya riga ya bushe!

Daga baya dai, waƙa ta zame wa Shata babbar sana'a. Har sai da ya bar garin su kwata-kwata, ya kutsa duniya a matsayin maroƙi, har ta kai babu kamar shi a ƙasar Hausa duka.

Da yawa daga cikin waƙoƙin Shata da mu ke ji a yau (ko wasu kalmomin su ko amshin su) daga Asauwara su ka fito. Misali, waƙar Ayuba Mainama, waƙar Inyonyore, waƙar Gulbin Karaɗuwa, waƙar "Ayyaraye Duniya Labari", waƙar "Ahayye Alewa!" waƙar "Ke Bushiya!" da sauran su.

To amma akwai lokacin da yayin Asauwara ya wuce, aka ci gaba da wasannin gaɗa na 'yanmata, wato samari su ka janye. Idan ka ga namiji na waƙa, to ko dai gado ya yi ko kuma "haye" ya yi saboda wani dalili.

A lurar da na yi, su ma wasannin gaɗar sun ja baya yanzu. Ko a karkara ba a kowane ƙauye ne 'yanmata ke zuwa dandali su yi rawa da waƙa ba.

Waƙoƙin gargajiya baki ɗaya ma sun ja baya sosai. Ga shi dai akwai ɗaiɗaikun mawaƙan gargajiyan, irin su Surajo Mai Asharalle, Shehu Ajilo Ɗanguziri, Musa Ɗanbade, Aminu Shatan Zazzau, iyalan Ɗanƙwairo, Nasiru Garba Supa, Babangida Kakadawa, Sanusi Shata, da sauran su, to amma ba a cika neman su ba. Ko biki ya tashi sai ka ga an gayyato mawaƙan fiyano irin su Fati Nijar, Maryam Fantimoti, Adam A. Zango, Ali Jita ko Ado Gwanja su ci bikin. Wasu ma 'yan Kudu irin su Korede Bello ko D'Banj za ka ga sun kira. Idan ba a iya ɗauko irin su, sai a saka faifan su na sidi ko dibidi, kiɗan na fita daga lasifika. Da haka mata za su tiƙi rawa, su gwangwaje abin su.

Zamani kenan, telan kowane lokaci mai ɗinka wa kowa riga da bante daidai da shi!

I am back to blogging!

Thank God, I am back to continue chatting and posting things on this blog - SIX whole years since my last comment posted on Monday, 13 February, 2012. I was off the radar because of a lot of reasons. But here I am, back on the beat and stronger. You will, therefore, be reading me in either of the two languages that I write, i.e. English and my native Hausa, with the first one coming up within minutes!

Need a wife? Go to Kano

If you need a divorcee as a wife, go to Kano. This huge city – the most populous in the north – has over one million divorcees today. And that is official. Last week, the state ‘religious police,’ the Hisba Board, revealed that the state government plans to marry off about 1,000 of such women very soon. The commander-general of the board, Malam Aminu Daurawa, said in a special programme on the BBC Hausa radio that even though there are no fixed statistics on the matter, his board is certain that there are no less than one million divorcees in the state and that 1,000 of them would be married off in the first phase of the programme, which will kick off soon.

That’s why I began by saying if you need one, then, go to Kano and apply. You could be one of the winners of this unique raffle draw for the 1,000 ready-for-marriage been-tos. All you need to do is fill some forms at the Hisba Board, stating the type of woman you want, as well as your own resume.
If you don’t win in the first round, you could be lucky in the next one; it seems that if each phase takes care of a thousand women, there would be at least 100 phases in the programme. There is no way you would miss out on the “over one million.” In fact, a friend I spoke to said there could be up to two million divorcees in Kano state and that if the Hisba really means business, some more millions would pour in from Bauchi, Katsina and the Sokoto axis, among others.

You may be chuckling, but this is a very serious matter. Collapse of marriages, that is. And mind you, it is not just a Kano phenomenon; it is a universal cankerworm afflicting the whole Hausa society. For decades, marriages in Hausa land have been collapsing like a pack of cards or puncturing like a blaze of balloons in a room full of nails. Some years ago, a commissioner for women affairs in Kano state remarked at a seminar that Kano had the largest army of divorcees in the whole north. One’s keen observation of the situation at the time was that the north, or the Hausa part of it, was the nation’s gold medal winner in divorce cases.

The situation has since reached a crisis point. Battalions of unmarried women are roaming the streets, and most of them are jobless. This huge ‘army’ consists of not only divorcees but also those that have not seen their first wedding. The latter class is made up of mostly women that have been educated up till the tertiary level. In fact, the latter category are in as much dire straits as the divorced ones.

There must be millions of such young women who have been staying for years – sometimes up till five years – without having a husband. They either have paid jobs in offices or are simply living on the favours of their families. Even though many sport a veneer of self-satisfaction, they invariably exist in abject situations, wondering what tomorrow will bring, hoping against hope. Some have had relationships that ended in heart breaks. If they continue to live with their parents or relations, they would begin to be regarded as having ‘overstayed’ their welcome, and the families could begin to get tired of seeing them around.

Their situation tends to confirm the belief of many observers that there is a serious shortage of eligible husbands in the region, no thanks to the ‘boko’ trend which corrodes old values such as polygamy. Meanwhile, an old adage, “Darajar mace dakin mijin ta” (i.e. A woman’s worth is in her husband’s home), drives the desire that every woman of marriageable age should get married. No excuses are condoned.

It is against this background that the programme of marrying off 1,000 divorcees is being organised. The programme is already being misconstrued by many in the Muslim north largely because it is a novel spectacle here. Some are even questioning its basis in Islam, citing various authorities or painting lurid scenarios.

But it seems the Hisba Board has done its homework very well before embarking on the grand project. In last week’s BBC programme, Malam Daurawa did address some of the questions, such as the health status of the would-be suitor and his occupation, as well as his background. He made it very clear that the programme is not about ‘donating’ brides but an event that has been well thought out and carefully planned.

An interesting aspect of the project is that the leader of a well known NGO in the city, the Voice of Widows, Divorcees and Orphans Association of Nigeria (VOWAN), an umbrella body of Kano’s army of divorcees, Hajiya Altine Abdullahi, is among the 1,000 women to be married off in the first phase. Altine has been in the forefront of a struggle on the rights of divorcees in Hausa land, specifically in Kano.

She formed the association in 2003, with an office in Tarauni quarters in the metropolis. Two years ago, she planned to hold a ‘one million divorcees march’ through Kano with the sole aim of highlighting the plight of this category of women. Even though the march was stopped by the Hisba Board at that time on fears that the event might be seized by hoodlums, it brought to the fore an issue that had been largely ignored by the powers that be.

Now, beyond the upcoming jamboree of the mass wedding, has anyone bothered to investigate the root cause of the problem, i.e. why the divorce rate has been rising? This is a question that should bother parents, the clergy and the authorities. Why does our part of the country have the worst record of divorce cases? Blames can be easily traded between the sexes, but my take is that it all has to do with the structure of family life among the Hausa people. It is not an issue that can be summarised in one sentence, but I’ll try. Hausa men ‘take wives’ the way they buy inanimate objects at the market place, without consideration for the fact that women are also humans with feelings.

This objectification of women has tended to reduce the fair sex to mere vassals that are to be used and dumped at will. Some men do not even discharge the primary responsibilities for which they consummated the marriage contract. And on the part of the women, the expectations of most about the institution of marriage is romanticised to the extent that by the time they find themselves in marital homes, their noses are high in the clouds. If you combine these with mutual disrespect, then, animosity would set in, with all the attendant infightings. And polygamy, which is widely practised, has been made into a fire on petrol because the basic rules and responsibilities for consummating it are usually trampled upon.

There are those who believe that the divorce rate in the land is a cultural problem. Hausa women, they say, are disrespectful and argumentative even though their motive has nothing to do with assertiveness on account of their marital rights. Many years ago, a friend in Kano told me that he was so fed with his marriage. “Next time I am taking a wife, I would never marry a Hausa woman,” he fumed. And that was exactly what he did. He married a young woman from Auchi, and he has been living happpily ever after.

But I have a different view about Hausa women. Our problem is that we scarcely know why we go into a marriage, as such getting out of it has become so simple that one opens the gateway by simply saying, “Je ki, na sake ki” (Go, I’ve freed you). We should find a way to make getting out of that gateway not that simple.

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Above photo sows Hajiya Altine Abdullahi in the middle

Why Al-Mustapha must not die

There was a compelling reason why the Al-Mustapha trial shocked many Nigerians for the way it ended. The reason is that after discharging and acquitting all the other accused in the trial over the attempt to assassinate The Guardian publisher, Alex Ibru (of blessed memory), and a former Delta state Director of Sports, Mr. Isaac Porbeni, as well as those implicated in the murder of Mrs Kudirat Abiola, many had reasoned that Hamza Al-Mustapha would also go home a free man. Some of those released from detention included former Chief of Army Staff, Gen. Ishaya Bamaiyi; former Lagos state Commissioner of Police, Mr. James Danbaba; former head of the Police Unit in the Presidential Villa during the Abacha regime, Chief Superintendent of Police Mohammed Rabo Lawal, and former Military Administrator of Zamfara state, Col. Jibrin Bala Yakubu. Even the man that admitted to having pulled the trigger in Kudirat’s assassination, Sgt. Barnabas Jabila (‘Sgt Rogers’), is walking free.

So, why was Al-Mustapha – and of course Lagos political jobber Lateef Shofolahan – held till the very end and given the supreme penalty? The learned judge who handed down the death penalty last week ruled that, based on the force of the prosecution’s presentation, she was persuaded that Kudirat was killed based on instructions from Al-Mustapha. Shofolahan, she said, played a part in a conspiracy by showing the deceased’s photograph to the killers – as if Kudirat was an unknown figure who had to be identified only through a picture. The judge quoted from the Bible in order to justify why the duo must die by hanging.

Even though Justice Mojisola Dada had dismissed the political undertones of the case, it is not easy not to see a clear connection between the incarceration and eventual sentencing of Al-Mustapha to the ethnic and regional politics in Nigeria. To begin with, the struggle to actualise Chief MKO Abiola’s June 12 mandate had become ethnicised by the time Kudirat was murdered. Abiola, who had won more votes than a dyed-in-the-wool indigene in Kano, got a universal mandate to rule Nigeria, but his victory was overturned by a military cabal headed by Gen. Babangida. Abacha, who sustained the denial of Abiola’s right to rule, became very hated in the South-west. NADECO, which had a large following in the North – an indication that the struggle was for democracy rather than for the right of a section of the country – was eventually seized by sectional jingoists who, apparently, decided that they wanted to go it alone in actualising the mandate. I recall how, in the wake of attacks on “Hausa-Fulani” by OPC elements, a big exodus by Northerners began.

Kudirat, who spearheaded the June 12 struggle, was shot dead in the streets of Lagos by unknown gunmen during the melee of those unfortunate times. It was years later, during the short-lived regime of Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, that many former officials of the Abacha regime were arrested and charged with various offences, culminating in the assassination charge. It was easy and truly populist for any regime to do that and win support from the South-west even if Mrs Abiola had been killed by armed robbers.

We shouldn’t forget, also, that there was an attempt by the Abdulsalami regime to kowtow to all and sundry, especially the South-west, where Abiola came from and where most the nation’s influential mass media are sited. The region had been agitating for presidential power based on Abiola’s success at the polls. Its intelligentsia had been baying for blood, with many of them even threatening war and or secession. The biggest move to appease the region was, indeed, the freeing of Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo from prison and handing over the presidency to him on a platter of gold. Could the sudden arrest of Al-Mustapha and co at that material time have been part of that move?

For the 14 years that Al-Mustapha was awaiting/undergoing trial, there have been insinuations across the North that he was targeted for elimination through the judicial process (because it could not be done otherwise), and those behind the plot were prominent Northerners. Al-Mustapha himself had, on more than one occasion, blamed former Head of State, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, for his ordeal. On June 3, 2010, in an interview on the VOA Hausa service, Alhaji Mustapha Jokolo, the deposed Emir of Gwandu, accused the then National Security Adviser, Gen. Aliyu Mohammed Gusau (rtd), of being responsible for Al-Mustapha’s continued detention, alleging that he it was that advised the then President Obasanjo against releasing him, citing security concerns. It was very possible that Jokolo’s may have been a case of sour grapes following his removal as emir, but his story did, nonetheless, highlight the political dimension of the case.

As I wrote one and a half years ago, “Clearly, we cannot divorce politics from this pitiful saga. The accused persons have argued, ever since we began to get their side of the story during the Oputa panel hearings, that they were being persecuted because of their work as security men during the Abacha regime. They said certain highly connected Nigerians of, ironically, northern origin had decided to ‘teach them a lesson’ because of some misdemeanours, such as denying them easy access to the head of state or some forms of disrespect. The big men were said to have sworn to extract their pound of flesh from the security goons and were glad to have found an opportunity in the Ibru case. The detainees also argued that the lurid tales we heard from prosecution witnesses were all cooked up in order to nail them.

“Another story was that Obasanjo sat on the case because he was jailed by Abacha and that Yar’Adua was disinterested in it because of his brother Shehu’s death in prison during the Abacha era...

“The political dimension of this saga presupposes that many people, especially in the North, view the matter as one in which the region as an entity has failed. There is a widespread belief that northern laxity and hypocrisy are fertilising the issue. The North must recognise the fact that if Al-Mustapha and co were Southerners, the region’s elites would have used their political clout to ensure that their brethren were removed from the clutches of detention.

“They did it many times. Ralph Uwazuruike, leader of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), a secessionist organisation listed by the federal government as a terrorist organisation, did not recognise the Nigerian state. He fought it with arms. But he was released after a heated campaign by his Igbo and other fellow Southerners led to the quick dispensation of the case in court. Ganiyu Adams, factional leader of the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC), a militant Yoruba nationalist organisation, launched a violent campaign against ‘Hausa-Fulani’ in the South-west, leading to the massacre of scores of ‘Hausa-looking’ Northerners. But he was released from detention after his court case was exhausted. Today, he is one of the ‘respected statesmen’ of that region. So revered he is that the governor of Kano State, more of whose citizens were killed in the OPC’s bloody campaign, invited him to Kano to commission some projects.”

Many Nigerians had believed that Al-Mustapha would not get a fair trial in Justice Dada’s court, citing ethnic and regional politics. In fact, many believe that he will get a better deal in the appeal that he has filed. They wonder why Sgt Rogers, who admitted to the crime, should be left off the hook while Al-Mustapha, who has vehemently and with concrete facts denied having a hand in the deed, should be the one to suffer for it.

Politics should be taken out of the judiciary. If justice must be done on Kudirat’s assassination, and yes it must, no one should be made to die because of his background or the job he once held in government. Al-Mustapha has suffered enough. He must not be allowed to die just like that.