In book review: the secret can now be told

Tragic stories naturally end up being very interesting. The story of Maimunatu Dadasare Abdullahi aka Mama, It Can Now Be Told, is an addition to this. A very sad story indeed! When the blub describes the text as tragic, I couldn’t make the connection until at the end of the book.

First dai Dadasare is what you can describe as an accomplished woman. She has had many firsts under her belt: first woman educator in northern Nigeria, first female nurse, first female journalist and columnist, first female writer, first woman to receive the national honour (MON).

So, what is so sad about her life? What is so interesting in her autobiography that moved me to write a review at the moment I finished the book?

Secrete, intimate personal secret.

I am always fascinated by the ethereal, nay tragic, power of secrets. Dadasare has had some of them in her life that she couldn’t die with them untold. She revealed them, but when she did so the woman who took hold of them died before revealing them to anybody.

As a young girl, Dadasare was kidnapped by some locals under the instruction of a British colonial officer and kept her as a sex slave in his house. She tried to run away but was captured and returned to him. She became pregnant and gave birth to a baby boy who had died of malaria on the way to her hometown after the colonial officer took leave to England.

On his return the officer was transferred to Zaria. News reached her that her husband was back to Zaria. Being cut off from her kinsfolk and her fond, rural surrounding, her life fell into limbo. She couldn’t start afresh. She went against her family wishes and reunited with her man. They lived together as a husband and wife, pretending to be married meanwhile everyone was aware they were not. It was impossible then under British Common Law for a legal marriage to exist between them as it’s the same in Islam for a Muslim woman to marry a non-Muslim man. The colonial administrators and the Emirs unlooked this affair and Dadasare continued to live with Jaumusare, Dr Rupert Moultrie East.

Dadasare became Lady East, mingling with Europeans and adopting the Western culture: entertaining evening guests, going out on weekends and climbing Kufena hills, drinking tea and baking cakes, knitting sweaters and reading Jane Austen in her free time. Soon, opportunities came her way, going to England for a course and taking up job in the colonial administration and commanding respect in her community. (Mama was markedly absent in Abubakar Imam’s Memoirs, where she should have at least merited a mention in consideration of her connection with the Dr East the Editor-in-Chief of Gaskiya Ta Fi Kwabo, and her contribution to the paper. This tells a volume of how the society saw her. So, I think all the nice regards she received publicly was replaced with a dark view privately).

In the book, there are hilarious passages and the tales of things that are unthinkable for our age, especially on basic hygiene. You will wonder how the simple work Mama and her team did was taken by the UN to other developing nations in the Americas with similar conditions, like the posters we see in the hospitals and health centers with basic hygiene illustrations, like the invention of pot, the baby latrine that we call po.

On women education, one hilarious passage goes like this: One day, a husband who was negotiating taking a second wife wrote a letter pertaining to the matter and left it on his table. His wife was one of the Mama’s literacy students. Anxious to practice her new skills, she picked the letter and read. The house was rocky for a while. One man argued against the education of women. “Educate women,” he said, “what man would be idiot enough to sharpen the knife that would cut his throat.” I laughed really hard, neither in support or against his view. Fencism.

Reading books on colonial northern Nigeria gives a great insights of the region and the country at large that you think you have understood, especially the dichotomy between the north and south. Reading some of these books now makes me at peace with some things and offers me a window into their origin and working mind. You will no longer need to engage in pointless argument because, the way you speak and talk, exposes your ignorance and shallow thinking. The status of Hausa language, for instance, and the Islamic values in the northern region. I don’t know of the other regions, but in the Northern Protectorate colonial officers had to pass exams equivalent of IELTS in Hausa language before they could be posted here. Official duties are conducted in Hausa or Fulfulde depending on the province. What kept Dadasare to East was, in addition to Hausa, he could speak Fulfulde language.

The Europeans are greatly respectful of the Islamic values and the culture of the northern people. They avoided anything that had the potential of causing unrest, including, possibly, the delay of Nigeria’s independence till the north was ready. For instance, when Dadasare intended to convert to Christianity Dr Rupert East discouraged her. Likewise, when the Emir of Gwandu in Sokoto Province wanted to open girl’s education centre that required southern women educators in the area the colonial education superintendent vetoed against the move in order not to cause public disfavor.

Mama retired from service and went back to her small town of Gombi in Adamawa. One day, she called her adopted daughter in Daura Aishatu Dikko to come over the next day, telling her if she came and did not find her alive she should check under her pillow for a message. That night, Mama jumped into the well but was rescued and taken to the hospital. She died three days later.

Aishatu Dikko checked beneath the pillow and found two letters, one on how Mama’s wealth would be shared. When she was asked about the content of the second letter by Dr Aliyah Ahmad, she started crying. Dr Aliyah skipped the matter until their next meeting. But Dikko herself died before the next meeting and all of us, like Dr Aliyah, are still thinking what was the content of the second letter…

Theories of her, the colors of her: a review of Mariya Sidi’s Theories of Me

A unique dilemma arises while reading a book of poems. Is poetry a work of fiction?  Should it receive the same handling and treatment as prose and drama? This dilemma hits me when I looked at the blurb of Mariya Sidi’s Theories of Me after finishing the book.  The dilemma, though, mine not as critical, is compounded by the fact that poetry is seen more as a recollection of personal experiences than as fictional creation. Why people like to look at it this way is a question that you, the reader, have to answer. 

Dr Mariya Sidi 

Because I know her, and I don’t want that knowledge to influence my reading in any way, I told my mind to never assume I know Mariya at all. To blur the line further, I read the book backward to defamiliarize and form a bulwark against any possible emergence of linear meaning.  But as poem after poem flew by, each one confirmed my hunches or washed away my doubts.

Theories of Me is a fiction work of non-fiction. With clarity and eloquence, the book came as clean and elegant as possible. This work is not a work inspired by studied reading of poems bearing thee and thou. It is pure outpouring of personal experiences. Halfway through I was grappling with what not to say not what to say.

Divided into four parts, the book contains different but related poems united at the level of texture, theme and mood. It is characterized in entirety by innocence, human isolation, emotional pain and nostalgia.

Sidi’s poems invite the reader into the journey of her growth, from the naïve idealist, trusting and credulous, to where she came full circle as a matured individual.

Theories of Me, published 2019

The first section of the collection named Loving contains poems that depict undying love that was never reciprocated. Throughout the book, there is a constant gap between the poet and her desire, each episode painfully fuelling her affection. You call it pain – and what is true love other than pain?

Trying to stop my heart

From straying to you

Is trying to stop my compass from pointing North

I’m damaging my batteries (p.3)

Lovesick and betrayed, she fawned and drooled for the love. But the object of her affection remains unruffled. She is the martyr of love who enters into martyrdom aware of her own choice; or let’s call it helplessness, because “If I never place my heart in your hands/I’ll never know what you’ll do with it”. What “he” will do with it is to test her or break her and he chose the latter.

In awe of her crush, she is unsure and uncertain. But what she fails to verbalize face-to-face to her lover she scribbles in verse for the world to see.

At this stage, Sidi is not only struggling with love but with the uncertainty of her craft. The early poems are sprinkled with occasional allusions to her doubts.  In the meantime the pain of the unrequited love fueled her creativity. After-all, every cloud has a silver lining.

It’s heartwarming that each section’s title sits well with the emotion of the content. The Crumbling stage is the stage that leads to her break and finally realization. She used to look away at the disappointments her lover caused but here she says it as it is:

I tried to be honest

You saw only tactics

I lowered my defenses,

You saw a wrong move

I was giving up

You smelled defeat (p.36)

She has already lost trust of the world and did a comeback, coming out wiser and stronger. Clarity is the arbiter of sophisticated mind. The clarity of her thoughts is just unbelievable.

In Rebirth, Mariya’s poems deal with self-worth and independence and lost memories. But the overriding theme permeating the book is human vulnerabilities and the duality of self. She is one person in private and another in public domain. She takes us into many private scenes that we never had known, though we are aware of their existence even within us. She takes us to the sanctorum of her bedtime loneliness where we meet a lady curling up into her own anguish.

Sidi’s book tugs at the delicate strings of the heart, gentle pain, uncomfortable pleasure. Pain that could not hurt. Pleasure that couldn’t console. As a bedtime music addict I suggest while reading the book you play Dafin So by Nura M Inuwa, Safe by Westlife, Fall into My Arms by Johan Gloss and Zurfin Ciki by Isa Ayagi.

Mariya comes across as calm and unassuming but who we meet in these pages is a woman of restless spirit, calm demeanor sitting atop raging battles.

She drifts through the walls and doors

Creaking no floors

Squeaking no doors

If she was any more quite

She would fade into silence

She was pain

She was loneliness (p.47)

Loneliness is what happens when the people around you fail to understand you. Sidi is probably one of those people who talk to themselves. She is a free spirit trapped in her own body and circumstances. To realize your own bondage and the attendant helplessness either troubles the mind or sets it free.  

Sidi takes to writing poems as an outlet to relieve her mind. But poetry only approximates her feelings. The anguish of unspoken pain can make you but a walking shadow. Speaking up has a magical healing power. So, you can imagine what would have happened if she did not write these poems.    

Loved/Whole section is the final stage of her self-discovery. After a long journey, she realized she didn’t have enough of herself for everyone. I tried as much as possible not to think of her but I couldn’t help asking “Oh dear Papa God what happens to Mariya” when I read “Self-Love”.

Enough strangers have

Found their way to me

I’m done with this love charity

I’m burning these petals…(p.74)

“Please don’t,” I was about to say this when I realized growth is the fork where you part way with trust and gullibility. Poems at this stage deal with bits and pieces that make up the human body complemented with neuroses that drive the motion.

Through the power of imagery and uncanny revelatory method, the poet shows her resilience and strength and owns up her flaws and vulnerabilities. We feel for her and relate with her experience. Pain is the tapestry of our existence.  But despite this pain there is lightness in Mariya’s work. You read the poems and feel refreshed and light. I tried to hate even one poem. It is heartwarming I failed. Not a single poem is punctuated. Which suggests unending possibilities… Mariya the medical doctor is different from Mariya the poet. I am pleasantly disappointed she did not allow the work to get choked off with medical jargons. Please greet her for me if you see her, shake her hand for me and buy her drink before we meet.

The Case for Hausa (Indigenous) Language

Fringes of the Internet Nigeria caught fire over the past weeks on the use of indigenous languages in everyday life such as normal conversation, business and the rest of the formal matters. Opinions flew back and forth for and against around the argument.

Building a little background is important to what prompted this response. Someone on a Twitter thread questioned the benefit of the Hausa language and asked: what has the Hausa language brought to the North?

For a long time nobody replied to his question. Like many who passed the tweet so many times, I too was incredibly paralyzed to respond. I was riding for work. As buildings flew back, I craned my head through the window, imagining the man basking in glory for the Messiac act of seeing the truth under our noses. I itched and ached, with a guilt, weighed down by the moral responsibility to not let this go unchallenged.

Secondly, I am shocked while going through the Twitter thread to learn that one would be mocked in the South for speaking indigenous language in public. Quite the opposite in the North.  If you speak English in public you will actually be looked at, though speaking the language is a sign of class and elitism. But it’s just not our lot to speak English all the time in public as a sign of advancement. For his penchant to speak in English, as a custodian of Hausa culture, the Emir of Kano Muhammad Sanusi II was some weeks ago dissed for delivering a remark in English at SOAS graduation in London while one of the Europeans spoke in Hausa. 

One of the commenters on the thread averred: “It’s funny because no matter how worldly, cosmopolitan or sophisticated a Chinese man is, the chances that he speaks Mandarin or Cantonese is very high. Whereas with us, our sophistication comes along with a loss of identity and language.”

Another agreed, putting the blame on colonization. Nations or sub group that “experienced none or less of it (colonization) are more likely tied to their culture, history and language.”

Compare Northern Nigeria to the South. “The result of indirect rule in the North caused the political, social and cultural system to barely budged,” he said. Colonial officers adopted the language for easier communication and discharge of their duty.   

I am surprised, the way our southern counterparts, mostly Lagos-based, are surprised that we go to work in caftan. The supervisor at the work place I am currently engaged with, a consultant from Lagos, has jokingly expressed dismay over our love for coming to work in Hausa dress. It’s only in Kano, he said, that he sees a bank manager go to work in caftan. We roared in laughter in protest, all of us Hausas in the hall, similarly surprised why we should go to work every day in suit and tie, or as he urged us, to at least appear in jeans and shirt. This is one case from a larger unifying sense of love for the settled culture in the North. A participant at a financial inclusion seminar by the CBN Kano disclosed to the stakeholders that part of the why that undermine the financial inclusion drive is the colonial dress system of the bankers which scares rural communities away from the banks. 

I grew up to a weekly supply of Alfijr and Al-Mizan newspapers at home. Our father read the Ajami paper while we perused the Hausa publication for the week. That someone is demanding to know what benefits has the Hausa language brought to the North is shocking to me to say the least, almost insulting. The heavy rhetorical question is laced with scorn, implying that the use of the language in the North is the cause of our development dilemma. 

The question as to how speaking the language has benefitted the North is a typical psychology of seeing everything North bad. Excepting that, one can see immense benefit, sure. People speak the language freely, which helps keep the written and spoken part of it alive. Even with colonization and English as formal language, Hausa language is still very active in the North in teaching, learning, governance, business and diplomacy – nearly as it was before and during colonization – which ultimately connects the people and culture to the wider world. 

Pride in the language, therefore, encourages foreigners to learn the language for business, and in some instances, helps in forming cultural ties and discharging diplomatic duties. Chinese business people in Kano, for instances, and the Indians, not talk of Lebanese who made Kano their homes and early colonial officers that adopted the language. While people globally are learning Mandarin, the Chinese learn the Hausa language, which created not only business ties but also a strong cultural affinity between the two cultures. There is recently a Chinese Chieftaincy in Kano by the Kano Emirate (Sarautar Wakilin Ƴan China). 

Some international development agencies also have Hausa language desk to their businesses; technology giants such as Facebook have since adopted the language, bringing in revenues to the language practitioners and professionals across the fields in addition to helping in spreading the language globally. There are over 10 international media services broadcasting in Hausa language, more than any other language in Black Africa, including China Radio Online whose language is the next hot cake, and over dozen print and electronic local media operating in Hausa language.

The Kannywood Industry, which produces films in Hausa language, has also brought immense economic and cultural benefits, having a market presence across the West African sub-continent and some Central African nations and beyond.  

The language is also a subject of studies in academia across continents, bringing several cultures into contact as researchers come to learn and speak the language in the process of their work. On the continent, Hausa is the second largest language aside Arabic with most indigenous language-based literature, thereby preserving the language and culture through narrative just as the English writers did for their own.  

It is also a communication bridge for the diverse ethnic groups in the North. It’s subtly, and very often, overtly said that Hausa language is a language of colonization. I can see where people are heading to with this argument. There might be some semblance of truth in what they say, however, this falls flat in the face of century-old effort by the Hausas in using their language and the pride they take in it. Hausa language did not become Lingua Franca in the North and particularly the Middle Belt and elsewhere via violent aggression and invasion. The credit is more to overwhelming use of the language, trade and movement through which the people retain their intangible cultural heritages. The biggest problem, therefore, is more of political than the language use.

Badalar Kano, the Dying Days of History

Badalar Kano is a symbol of great ancient civilization and universal value. It is also an important marker of Hausaland civilization.  The building of the great walls started in 1095-1134 through to the 14^th century, expanded to current positions in 16^th century. 

The walls were designed for defense and security, to protect the city against enemy invasion. Like many historical landmarks, the moat survived its original use and came to serve as an important cultural heritage. Kano residents can still see its original purpose.   

In 2007, UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee had, among other sites, put the ancient Kano city walls on the Tentative List of world heritage sites. Which means further work on conservation and protection before the Committee can finally declare it world heritage site. But this is unlikely due to administrative negligence, political corruption and trespassing that undermine the possibility of its inscription on the World Heritage List by UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee. 

 

Original site of Ƙofar Kabuga in a state of neglect and disrepair

These horrible factors are not limited to Kano heritage sites alone. Only two Nigerian sites are conclusively listed on World Heritage List - Sukur Cultural Landscape and Osun-Osogbo Sacred Grove, due understandably to poor maintenance culture and care and preservation.

Africa as a whole likes to boast as the cradle of civilization yet none of the countries is among the nations with most UNESCO heritage sites. This is a challenging statement to our civilization as a result of longstanding uncultured and uncultivated leadership. 

It pains me to the bone the walls are gradually disappearing, as though people are hacking at me when I see them hack at the walls. But there are some handful residents that still feel about the Badala.

Mallam Abdulkarimu Na-Badala is taking it up on himself to protect and rebuild the walls, at least the portion around his home, as I have seen him at work with his men. Twenty-five years back, he rebuilt the collapsed portions. This time age is telling on him, he stood and supervised. 

Men at work

Tijjani Aliyu  Sultan, a resident of Ƙofar Waika, spoke favorably of the Na-Badala’s effort. “This is long overdue” he said. “It is good, because we grew up hearing Badala and its history. We will not hope to see this cultural legacy being eliminated. It is really good job.  My friend and I are ready to come out and actively participate. We can be given a portion to work on as much as there are tools and materials.”

Neighboring communities to the wall face obvious challenges: open defecation in the ditches, drainage blockage, air and land pollution, and having their kids easily infected by diseases such as cholera.  Often, when the refuse is set on fire dense smoke fills their houses. One family lost their asthmatic baby to the smoke. 

Bashir Abubakar, 25, was happy and grateful. Na-Badala’s work is a good initiative, he said, it is a welcome development because the walls still offer security. The ditches is being used as hideout by grass smokers and criminals, so it shields us from them thugs, thieves and other miscreants, he said.

It is hard to find a man all over Kano who feels so personal about the walls like Mallam Na-Badala. 

Why is he called that name? It’s a long story, he said, when his lone house stood near the walls. He was being referred to as the man near Badala to direct pregnant women seeking medicinal herbs to his home. It is very common to hear people who live near the walls being referred to with the walls. Abban Badala, for instance, my primary school friend.

Na-Badala’s story goes beyond living near the walls alone. The late emir Dr. Ado Bayero knew of  his work. When the portion of Badala to his home fell twenty five years ago and bikers were falling into the ditch, he sought permission from Sarkin Ƙofa Na-Liti. The shocked Sarkin Ƙofa was surprised but granted the permission nonetheless. 

Traditionally in Hausa culture it’s the Palace’s duty to coordinate and execute public work. Na-Badala embarked on the job out of respect for the Palace. 

 “If you stretch a rope and measure the entire walls,” he said, “it spans 12 miles, no more no less. It was meant for security, to protect the town against fighters and invaders.” 

Goron Dutse was initially carved out of the walls but the then emir foresaw security threat: invading armies could climb on to the hill and launch their attack. 

Abdulkarimu Na-Badala supervising the work

Bricklayer at work

Na-Badala has much in his head but is unwilling to share. Once university students came to him. He refused to go on speaking when he realized they’re taking notes. It took minutes to convince him to speak to me. 

Gates are named after significant events that took place at the spot or a passage route for some far away communities travelling through to the city. Ƙofar Waika, for instance, or Ƙofar Dawanau, are passages for Waika people and Dawanua respectively.  

It is from him that I first learnt Ƙofar Ruwa as Ƙofar Lunkwui.  And it all made sense. I have been passing through the Lunkwui area but hadn’t made the connection.   

Cultural heritages like Badala are protected by relevant city authority. The Federal Government in 1959 took over control of the walls. However, the walls are continually being erased to erect personal structures, shops and dwelling houses. Politicians can allocate or sell the land at wills to their cronies and acolytes. In 2004, three years before appearing on the Tentative List, the German government donated the sum of $68,000 for the rehabilitation of the walls.  

Securing international protection is unlikely if the walls are continually being chiseled away and damaged. The UNESCO Committee may even go ahead to inscribe the walls on the List in Danger and finally delist it. 

For nothing at all, there is a need to preserve the crude labour of our forefathers which symbolizes a significant stage in our civilization.