The following item from the Daily Trust about a visit of Nigerian
writers to Niger was seen on the Daily Trust site at
http://www.dailytrust.com/weekly/bookshelf.htm . I have not been able
to find any follow up articles... DZO
Daily Trust
When Nigerian writers stormed Niamey
Saturday, Dec. 23 - Dec. 29, 2006 / DHUL-HIJJAH 3 - 9, 1427 A. H
Maryam Ali Ali, just back from Niger
Members of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) from five states
Kano, Katsina, Sokoto, Plateau, and Zamfara- and some friends of ANA
from different organisations, went on an eight-day literary
tour/workshop to Niger Republic from the 2nd to the 10th of Dec.,
2006. The tour/workshop tagged International Writers Forum was
coordinated by the Kano chapter of the Association of Nigerian Authors
(ANA) in collaboration with its Nigerian counterpart Gashingo.
The journey started by 8:00am in two buses. One, a mini bus, had Prof.
Uba Abdallah of the Centre for Cultural Studies and lecturer with the
Department of Education Bayero University Kano (BUK), Dr. Yusuf Adamu,
ANA Kano chairman and a lecturer with the Geography Department, BUK,
Dr. Malumfashi of the department of Nigerian Languages Usmanu Dan
Fodiyo University (UDUS), and ANA Kano chairman Ado Ahmad Gidan
Dabino. Vice Chairman Aisha Zakari, Sa'adatu Baba Ahmad, and auditor
Zahraddeen I Kallah did a good job looking after our welfare.
The second bus, a 30-passenger Coaster, had among its passengers Alh
Salim Yahya Huda, the Deputy Director, Ministry of Information, and
Alh Ibrahim Sadauki Kabara, Special Assistant to the Kano State
Governor, Alh Balarabe B. Sango, PR (English) ANA Kano. It also had
representatives of many media houses the Trust newspapers, Freedom
Radio, the local independent radio station, as well as the BBC Hausa
section correspondent, and many ANA members from the five states
listed above. About 40 participants attended from Nigeria.
The journey was smooth up to the Nigerien border, where we had some
documentation problem concerning one of our drivers, but was soon
sorted out and we proceeded to Niger. It was when we entered the
Nigerien territory that we realised we were in foreign land. There
were no check points, we never reserved some money to give to the
police or the gendarmerie (as the case may be) at those check points
we have here in Nigeria. There were only security checking points and
all they did was to check our travelling documents and verify our
number, and they did that with some courtesy; they greeted us first
before asking for the papers. The only problem we encountered was when
our Coaster bus developed problems half way through the journey and
its spare parts had to be sourced from Kano. We were thus forced to
spend the night in a village called Gidan Rinji. Some had to sleep on
benches in some classrooms in the local primary school. We (the female
members of the team) were conveniently hosted by the school
supervisor, and we came out in the morning refreshed. But the bus was
yet to be repaired, thus we were forced to hire two commercial buses
with which we proceeded to Niamey.
The journey was quite entertaining as the intellectuals engaged us in
a brainstorming debate akin to what we had in our bus on our way back
from Bayelsa after the ANA Convention. We arrived Maradi in the late
afternoon where had lunch and changed some of our Nigerian Naira to
the Nigerian currency, while a few of us bought new SIM cards for
their cell phones. Celtel was the leading (if not the only) network
available there. We then proceeded on that evening and travelled all
night. We arrived at the entrance of the city of Niamey some minutes
after midnight, only to be stopped by the Nigerien Gendarmerie, the
law of the land being that no commercial or "foreign" vehicle would be
allowed into the capital city after midnight. No amount of `English'
vocabulary poured torrentially by the Professor and the PhDs among us
would make them budge. We ended up spending that cold night on our
butts inside our vehicles looking at the city even as the stared at
us. It appeared they knew nothing about 'Nigerian Factor' there, which
I am pretty sure some us would have readily applied to solve the problem.
The next morning at exactly 6:00 am, the road was opened to all
vehicles, including foreign ones like ours. We entered Niamey tired
and cold, eager to lay our tired cold limbs on a warm bed.
Day 1, Tuesday 5th, December 2006
Because of the unexpected delay, the time table for the programme had
to be rescheduled since we were one day behind schedule, thus the
first session commenced on the 5th of Dec. at about 4:00 pm instead of
the 4th. It started with an opening prayer by Abdullahi Mukhtar, after
which the Chairman gave the welcome address in Hausa and French in
which he read out the agenda for the session. Also ANA Kano Chairman,
Ado Ahmad gave reasons for ANA's tour to Niger. He said that the main
objective was to establish a link between Nigerian writers and their
Nigerien counterparts. He added that a similar tour would be
undertaken to Sokoto next year during which writers from other West
African countries like Ghana, Cameroon, etc would be invited. The
Chairman then left for the Nigerian Embassy in Niger along with some
people. The session continued with the introduction of all the
participants from the two countries.
Malam Bako Audou then presented a paper titled Characteristiques de la
Production on Langue Nationale au Niger. Mallam Jafaru Sale did the
Hausa translation of the presentation. During the question-and-answer
session, Dr. Ibrahim Malumfashi observed that though the paper
discussed a very interesting subject, most people did not understand
it. He advised that the paper be translated in either Hausa or English
for the benefit of non French speaking participants.
The session went on break at 6:25 pm. It resumed at 7: 20 pm. The
session resumed with reading or stories and poems under the
chairmanship of Dr. Yusuf M. Adamu. After the presentation, the
question-and-answer session followed. Salmou Hassan's story elicited
most reaction and generated reactions, for the story had it that a
girl allowed herself to be put in the family way by her lover who was
rejected by her parents only for the lover to reject her in the end
and marry a different girl She regretted her action at the end, asking
herself what was it exactly that made her do what she did. Was it
really love or stupidity? Thus the title "What made me do it?"
A fierce debate on soyayya (Romance) writing suddenly erupted
especially when Dr. Malumfashi and Ado Ahmad presented their
passionate poems, which most people (especially the conservative old
writers) saw as too pornographic. The second session of the readings
continued with more presentations, which were followed by
translations. Five languages were used throughout the presentations-
English, Hausa, French, Fulfulde, and Zabarmanci (a Nigerian language).
A participant observed that writers do not use the power of
description in their writings as they should, but Dr. Malumfashi
explained that writers are at liberty to use either labartawa
(narrative), siffnatawa (descriptive), gardantawa (demonstrative) etc
in their writings. He further said that in short stories (not in
excerpts), writers can go straight to explain what they want, focusing
on one of the things mentioned above. It was also observed that Hausa
orthography is often neglected.
On this, Dr. Malumfashi countered that the words were actually spelt
correctly. He added that words like bada, originally bayar da, are
written together. Prof. Abdalla Adamu offered to give a lecture on
Hausa orthography based on a research by Hans Vischer. An announcement
was then made that ANA Sokoto plans an anthology of Hausa stories.
Submissions of maximum of seven pages, eleven points, Rabiat (Font),
one and a half line space, are to be submitted not later than 31st of
January, 2007. Ado Ahmad then announced a tentative programme for the
next day, which included visitation to the Nigerian Embassy and other
places. Malam Sadauki Kabara said the closing prayers at exactly 9.30
pm. Participants were taken back to Francophone, an estate akin to
FESTAC Town, which hosted the meeting of African French Speaking
Countries in 2005. The estate was said to be built by some Nigerian
Governors, but we don't have any proof for that, but as it is, it was
there, un-occupied and wasting, most of the houses have three to four
bedrooms while some are duplexes, a beautiful sight to behold. If only
we can transfer the estate to Lagos or Abuja, or Jos, or anywhere in
Nigeria!
To be continued.
©2006 Media Trust.Ltd
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