Abdallah Uba Adamu, a film critic and professor of Science Education and Curriculum Development at Bayero University, Kano, takes Sylvester Asoya through the Kano film industry.

What is your assessment of the Hausa film industry?
A: The Hausa film industry in Kano is very vibrant. In the last 15 years, we have produced over 1300 films. The first film produced in Kano is called Turnmandanya. It was produced in 1990 and since then, we have produced over 1,300 films. But the barrier to the understanding of these films in Kano is language.

They are all in Hausa Language and people who don’t speak the language may not have access to them. So, our films are actually exported to Ghana, Niger, Senegal, Cote d’ Ivoire, Burkina Faso and other places where there are many Hausa speakers.

Aside the home video culture, do you still have cinemas in Kano?
A: Kano has many cinemas. The first, called Rex Cinema, was established in 1935. Then, all the cinemas in Kano were established by the Lebanese and up till now, they still control many of them. So, there are cinemas. The only problem is that females are barred from cinemas. Women don’t have access to the cinemas, so it is mainly the men. But when video became available in the 1970s and 1980s, most of the films that were shown in cinemas were also shown on television, bringing them to women at home. And when the Hausa movie industry kicked off in 1990, women also began having access without inhibitions.

How would you explain the apparent marriage between Hausa and Indian films?
A: The move from Hausa film to Indian films was championed by non-ethnic Hausa. Let me explain this very carefully. We have people who call themselves Hausa; they don’t have any other language but Hausa and their mindset and orientation is exclusively Hausa. Then, we have millions of people who grew up in the North with the Hausa. They have a primary language that they speak at home, but because of their acculturization, they speak Hausa language and dress just like the native. Many of them are Moslems and therefore, are more experimental in using media technology to display culture than the main Hausa. The main Hausa speakers tend to be very conservative. If you notice, for instance, in music, you hardly get a pure native Hausa using modern instruments in the 1960s and 1970s. Those who were using modern instruments to sing in Hausa language were not Hausa, like Sony Lion Heart, I.K. Dairo.

They were familiar with the Hausa language, but they were not mainstream Hausa. The mainstream ethnic Hausa find it very difficult to use modern instruments. When the film industry came, many of the films that were shown earlier, both in the cinemas and on video, tend to reflect Hausa folklore. So, many people found it very easy to absorb and understand. But when the non-Hausa, those who can speak the language, but are not ethnic Hausas, entered the industry, they brought about a revolution. This is because, they find it easy to pick up Indian elements and reproduce them in Hausa. They know that the Hausa like singing and dancing. Most Hausa folklores contain singing and dancing. These non- ethnic elements find it very simple to tap the wealth of Indians in creating story lines that are similar to the Hausa. And these revolve around three areas. The first one is forced marriage, where a girl is forced to marry a man she does not love. The second one is Kishi, which means rivalry between two women for one man, that is when a man is married to two wives and the two women are always fighting. The third one is singing and dancing. Now, all of these elements are reproduced in the cultural space of the Hausa in their folktales. But the mainstream Hausa have not successfully downloaded them into their video films. When the non-ethnic Hausa came in and were using them, because the non-Hausa were not necessarily interested in the Hausa mindset, they were only interested in making films and money. When they discovered that the Indians had captured the elements of Hausa folktales effectively, they grabbed it. And they were using the plot from Indian films rather than from Hausa folktales. Over 150 Indian films have been adapted into Hausa films. They will pick up an Indian film and convert it into Hausa, complete with songs and dances. The characters will remain Hausa characters and if you are not good at watching Indian films, you would not know that they had copied an Indian film. But that is why they are facing a lot of problems. It is not that Hausas don’t like singing and dancing, it is not that Hausa don’t agree with rivalry and it is not that Hausa people do not accept that there are forced marriages, but they do this singing and dancing like the Indians and this is causing tension. When they sing and dance, they will dress in western dresses. They will wear jeans and blouses, but Hausa girls don’t wear jeans and blouses. Hausa girls cover their hair, and they will have a boy and a girl singing and dancing together, rolling on the ground in a park or a garden and so on. These have attracted condemnation from the traditional establishment. It is not that we don’t sing and dance, we sing and dance, but not in this way. If they were to do the singing and dancing in a traditional way, nobody will bother. It was only when they became too much that the traditional establishment started analysing these films and we discovered that the majority of the people who promote the films were non- ethnic Hausa. And they were saying that people love these films and buy them, so, it is hypocrisy to say that we are corrupting their culture. But, of course, they like it because it is entertainment. My position is that we must look at it carefully and not point fingers at everybody. There is a vacuum. Young people between 10 and 25 years have a cultural vacuum. The traditional Hausa musicians for instance have all faded away. Shatta is dead. Nangworo is dead. In the interviews they gave before they died, many of them said they didn’t want their children to go into music because the Hausa society sees arts as the province of the lowly.That is why singing and dancing are more important. Ask any person in Kano to tell you the plot element of any film, he will not remember. But he will remember the songs and dances.

And these filmmakers are saying that films don’t sell without singing and dancing. There are many films, full of philosophy and meaning, but they don’t make money. But if you make a film with singing and dancing, particularly one that is sexually provocative, the more money it will make like Bakarashana. It made a lot of money, but Kano State banned it because they showed women dancing and shaking everything. But the filmmaker, a mainstream Hausa, said it is not against our culture. And the boy made almost one million naira. The youths are looking for something to entertain them and they don’t care who provides the entertainment. After all, if you go through Kano, you will see a lot of pirated compact discs of African-American musicians like Ja-Rule and many others. Nobody is saying that they are corrupting the culture and the reason is because they are speaking English and therefore they don’t care. But if you start singing in local language, you are now sending wrong messages to the younger ones. This brings about the issues of censorship or regulation. I am against censorship, I think we should regulate. If somebody is 18 and above, he should know what is morally right or wrong. If a filmmaker says he is making his film for mature audience, I don’t think you have the right to say that people shouldn’t watch it because some of these things do happen in real life. This is essential tension and for any researcher, this is a beautiful conflict to study and analyse. As a researcher, we don’t provide solutions. We just simply describe and then bring to the attention of the audience that this is a tension that exists between culture and cultural transformation because of the availability of media technology.