Artists battle censorship in Islamist-ruled Nigerian state.Byline: Inter Press Service Inter Press Service (abbreviated: IPS) is a global news agency. Its main focus is the production of independent news and analysis about events and processes affecting economic, social and political development. Summary: "I don't sell cocaine," says the video vendor in Kano's Rimi market when I ask for Adam Zango's music video CD Bahaushiya. He is not referring to the white powder, but to a new illegal substance - Hausa films that have not passed through the Kano State Kano State is a state located in North-Western Nigeria. Created on May 27 1967 from part of the Northern Region, Kano state borders Katsina State to the north-west, Jigawa State to the north-east, and Bauchi and Kaduna states to the south. The capital of Kano State is Kano. Censors This is an incomplete list of censors of the Roman Republic
Amina Koki Gizo Inter Press Service KANO: "I don't sell cocaine," says the video vendor in Kano's Rimi market when I ask for Adam Zango's music video CD Bahaushiya. He is not referring to the white powder, but to a new illegal substance - Hausa films that have not passed through the Kano State Censors Board. The video CD I'm asking for is an especially hot drug: a series of six music videos satirizing corrupt old men, lamenting fickle fick·le adj. Characterized by erratic changeableness or instability, especially with regard to affections or attachments; capricious. [Middle English fikel, from Old English ficol, girlfriends, and featuring dancing Hausa girls. The musician, Adam Zango, also an actor and director in the Hausa film industry, was arrested and jailed for three months for releasing the collection during a ban on Hausa filmmaking film·mak·ing n. The making of movies. in Kano. The censorship board in Nigeria's northern Kano State was instituted in 2001 after the controversial implementation of Islamic Sharia law Noun 1. sharia law - the code of law derived from the Koran and from the teachings and example of Mohammed; "sharia is only applicable to Muslims"; "under Islamic law there is no separation of church and state" Islamic law, sharia, shariah, shariah law in the state. Film-making was at first banned outright, but the filmmakers' association of Northern Nigeria Northern Nigeria is a geographical region of Nigeria. It is more arid and has less population density than the south. The people are largely Muslim, and many are Hausa. Much of the north was once politically united in the Northern Region, a federal division disbanded in 1967. (MOPPAN) suggested a "review" board as a compromise measure, which allowed the industry to continue, though with certain restrictions on language, dress and "close dancing between men and women." Five of the 10 laws were specifically related to women's clothing or interaction with men. The censorship board and the film industry underwent an even more dramatic transformation in August 2007 when a private mobile-phone video of a popular Hausa actress and her lover having sex was leaked to the public. The actress, Maryam "Hiyana," and the man who had surreptitiously sur·rep·ti·tious adj. 1. Obtained, done, or made by clandestine or stealthy means. 2. Acting with or marked by stealth. See Synonyms at secret. recorded the video immediately went into hiding. Within days, hundreds of black-market entrepreneurs in Kano, the center of the Hausa-language film industry, were charging thousands of naira to see what was being called "the first Hausa blue film." Outraged religious and political leaders called for an indefinite suspension of the Kano film industry and the mass expulsion of other performers suspected of "improper" behavior. By late September, the Kano State Censorship Board, under the leadership of its new director general, Abubakar Rabo Abdulkarim, had issued new, stricter guidelines to both filmmakers and writers in the state. Article 97 of the censorship regulations states that "Any person who ... publicly exhibits any indecent stage show or performance, play or any show or performance tending to corrupt public morals, is guilty of an offense and is liable to imprisonment Imprisonment See also Isolation. Alcatraz Island former federal maximum security penitentiary, near San Francisco; “escapeproof.” [Am. Hist.: Flexner, 218] Altmark, the German prison ship in World War II. [Br. Hist. for three months or to a fine or to both." The imprisonment clause has been put into effect many times. Besides Adam Zango, who was imprisoned im·pris·on tr.v. im·pris·oned, im·pris·on·ing, im·pris·ons To put in or as if in prison; confine. [Middle English emprisonen, from Old French emprisoner : en- in September 2007, pioneering Hausa director and former Kano State gubernatorial gu·ber·na·to·ri·al adj. Of or relating to a governor. [From Latin gubern candidate Hamisu Lamido Lamido (plural Lamibe) is a term in the Fulbe language, or Fulfulde, used to refer to a ruler. It is related to the verb "lamugo" meaning "to lead", and hence may be translated more specifically as "leader". Iyan Tama was jailed after copies of his film "Tsintsiya" were impounded from a video shop in Kano in May 2008. He was accused of not registering his company, Iyan Tama Multimedia, with the censorship board. A court case reveals that the company had, in fact, registered and paid the required fees. Ironically, the director was arrested the day of his return from the Zuma Film Festival in Abuja, where "Tsintsiya" had won an award for Best Film on Social Issues. The new censorship regime has had the effect of suppressing Hausa filmmaking in Kano, northern Nigeria's largest city. The exact size of the industry is hard to determine, but a 2002 study by the national censors board counted 133 Hausa films produced between January and August of that year, making the Hausa film industry second in size only to Yoruba. Although filmmakers are still doing post-production in Kano, locations have been moved to neighboring neigh·bor n. 1. One who lives near or next to another. 2. A person, place, or thing adjacent to or located near another. 3. A fellow human. 4. Used as a form of familiar address. v. states, the majority now being shot in neighboring Kaduna State Kaduna State is a state in central northern Nigeria. Its capital is Kaduna. History The state is the successor to the old Northern Region of Nigeria, which had its capital at Kaduna. . Filmmakers bypass the Kano State Censors Board by marking "Not for sale in Kano" on their films and selling them in other states. Following the exodus of the Hausa filmmaking scene from Kano State, Malam Rabo, the director general of the censorship board turned his attention to the writers in the state. On Friday, August 8, pamphlets from a mysterious "Organization for Islamic Values Protection" were distributed in mosques around Kano claiming that writers in Kano State are agents of foreigners in a plot to destroy the Islamic upbringing of children and promote immorality IMMORALITY. that which is contra bonos mores. In England, it is not punishable in some cases, at the common law, on, account of the ecclesiastical jurisdictions: e. g. adultery. But except in cases belonging to the ecclesiastical courts, the court of king's bench is the custom morum, and . The flier specifically called for the restraint of Ibrahim Sheme, an award winning Hausa novelist to be "restrained." According to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. his blog, Sheme has also received anonymous death threats. The standoff between writers and the censorship board is escalating. A letter directed to the five writers' organizations in Kano dated August 12 confirmed a request first made on June 5 for each writer in the state to register individually with the board before they can publish or distribute writing. The requirements included submission of a comprehensive list of association memberships, biographical data and past publications of every member, and individual subject files to be created for each author. In response, the writers' associations, under the leadership of Ado Ahmad Gidan Dabino, chairman of the Kano Association of Nigerian Authors The Association of Nigerian Authors represents Nigerian creative writers at home and abroad. It was founded in 1981 with the novelist Chinua Achebe as President. External links
In an email update to the Association of Nigerian Authors, Yusuf Adamu called on members to demand Rabo's sacking sack·ing n. A coarse, stout woven cloth, such as burlap or gunny, used for making sacks; sackcloth. sacking Noun coarse cloth woven from flax, hemp, or jute, and used to make sacks Noun . "Write in the papers please, people write," he said. "Those of you from the north should please write to your state governors and complain about it." After an August 25 meeting with both state and national leaders of the ANA, the censorship board agreed to require registration of writers' associations rather than individuals. Novelist Saadatu Baba speaks passionately against the censorship board: "I want the governor of Kano State to sack Malam Rabo from his seat. We need a reasonable person, a person who respects literature, a person who can judge us both writers and filmmakers, because I know that if we have somebody who loves literature, he cannot do this to us." Her passion is echoed in the responses of other artists, from Kano ANA chair Ado Ahmad Gidan Dabino, who has said in a radio interview that the government should build a new wing of the prison for writers, to Nazir "Ziriums" Hausawa, a hip-hop musician who recorded a song requesting God to send plagues of piles to those who keep them from producing their art. Adam Zango has responded to his 2007 imprisonment with a new song calling Rabo a donkey. Such songs are banned from the radio, but pass virally from handset to handset. The suppression of creativity in Nigeria is hardly a new phenomenon. Writers have been imprisoned and even executed like novelist and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa Kenule "Ken" Beeson Saro-Wiwa (October 10, 1941 – November 10, 1995) was a Nigerian author, television producer, and environmentalist. He was the son of Chief Jim Wiwa. . However, the popular imagination combined with the subversive possibilities of such new technologies point to the impossibility of the task undertaken by the Censorship Board. Filmmakers travel out of state to film and bring the digital tapes back in to edit, taking them back out of state to market. Writers, kept from publishing articles in local newspapers, repeat sentiments on blogs and pass digital photos of correspondence with the censors via email listservs. Bus drivers plaster the windows of their ramshackle vehicles with stickers ofAa "porn-star" Hiyana. Young people cite watching movies as inspiration for using their phones to record conversations with corrupt lecturers and authority figures who they then expose as hypocrites. In the Clarendon lectures given at Oxford University in 1996, formerly imprisoned Kenyan novelist Ngugi wa Thiong'o Ngugi wa Thiong'o (ĕng  `gē wä tē-ŏng`gō) or James Ngugi, 1938–, Kenyan writer, acclaimed as East Africa's foremost novelist. theorized
that whereas the state seeks to silence alternate stories, "art
tries to restore voices to the land. It tries to give voice back to the
silenced."
Copyright 2008, The Daily Star. All rights reserved. Provided by Syndigate.info an Albawaba.com company |
|
||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion