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Director: Sufyan Lawal Kabo

Language: Hausa

Release date: 26-11-2021

Company: Islamic Film Empire

Cast: Musa Lawal, Ibrahim Hassan, Mahmoud Mukhtar, Fatima Lawal, Binta Miko, etc.

Most of the criticisms around Kannywood are rooted in its personnels’ attitude towards filmmaking. They seem to focus on irrelevant, modern love stories, neglecting serious topics. Their films are therefore accused of cultural aberration and promoting moral decadence. However, as the criticisms became louder, a production company, Islamic Film Empire, came to change the narrative with its movie titled Gari Guda.

Set in Northwestern Nigeria, Gari Guda explores social vices like banditry and kidnappings that bedevil the region. It commences with a scene of a bandit attack on a village, where they kidnap many people, including its Chief Imam, and take them to their hideout in Dunguru Forest.

There is Abdul (played by Musa Lawal) on another side. He is a family man who, after losing his job, becomes bankrupt and cannot cater for them. His fruitless search for another job gets him increasingly frustrated with life, and he decides to end it all. He goes far away to Dunguru for the execution but eventually finds himself in the bandits’ camp. However, after hearing his story, their kingpin, Jalo (played by Ibrahim Hassan), asks him to work as their cyber-man.

Would Abdul accept the offer or turn it down? Find out in the cinemas!

Gari Guda is, indeed, a powerful film, not only for dealing with a pressing issue but for doing that effectively. It is shot in suitable locations that perfectly capture Northern Nigeria’s ecology. This makes it a realistic portrayal of the region and its current condition.

The film is a socio-political critique of the Northern political elites. It depicts their abuse of power as the posits that as the primary cause of the terrible mess the region faces. This is suggested when Jalo tells Abdul that he holds an LL.B degree, and his inability to afford “Law School” makes him resort to kidnapping. The intention of Abdul to commit suicide also reiterates the misconducts unemployed citizens could engage in.

The film is, in addition, overtly didactic. Its portrayal of Abdul, who encounters troubles for throwing his parents away, clearly symbolizes the consequence of parental disobedience. There are also many instances where the director incorporates moral teaching into the dialogue. I salute him for the job well done, together with all the cast and crew members.

Nonetheless, the film’s plot progresses too slowly. And while some scenes are lengthy with unnecessary details, some important points are missed. For example, what transpired with the people kidnapped at the beginning remains unknown. The director also fails to strike a balance between education and entertainment. Except for Abdul’s comical father character, there is no comic relief – something to allow the audience to recover from the tensions and excessive gunshots – in the film.

In conclusion, Gari Guda enlightens and educates. It is typical of what you would expect from the “Islamic Film Empire”. Therefore, I recommend it for the serious-minded—rating 3/5.

Reviewer:

Habib Ma’aruf

habibumaaruf11@gmail.com

By Muhammad Sabiu

By Uzair Adam Imam

Following the boat mishap on Tuesday, 30th November, 2021 in Bagwai Local Government of the state, the Kano State Government has announced a ban on the use of commercial boats in transporting passengers in the river.

The Daily Reality has reported the incident that had claimed the lives of twenty nine people. Adding to that development, Kano State governor, Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje disclosed the ban in a statement issued to journalists by the State Commissioner for Information, Malam Muhammad Garba.

In her effort, the Kano State government has provided two buses for passenger shuttle between Badau and Bagwai, while three new boats would be procured for effective water transportation in the area.

He added that: “Other control measures are expected to be instituted when the investigation committee set up by the state government submitted its report for implementation.”

By Isah Nasidi

A report has it that about three hundred and sixty-one million (361,000,000) videos were uploaded on YouTube in just 30 days, and about 19,200 articles have been published on Google Scholar in the year 2020. Similarly, around 550 million tweets, including terms like “coronavirus,” “COVID-19, or “pandemic”, were recorded in March 2020. These are just a few platforms where information is produced, distributed, and consumed. Imagine the gross total of all the information shared on the entire world of conventional media, new media, and media.

New information technologies fueled the overabundance of information known as the “infodemic,” which is now the new feature of the information flow. Due to technological affordances, a fair percentage of people have the technical know-how to produce authentic and unauthentic information and circulate it without any professional gatekeepers. This makes it difficult for people to differentiate between accurate and inaccurate information, which in the end may cause disinformophobia. However, it is not only about the accuracy but also the safety or health of the information.

For journalists, social media influencers, and the entire audience or users to produce, circulate and consume safe information and avoid information disorder syndrome, media literacy on the ecosystem of information disorder is a must.

Basically, fact-checking organisations use truth metres or scales to categorise information. Depending on the in-house style, information can be divided into four categories based on the dimension of true or false: purely true, largely/partly true, false, largely/partly false, unconfirmed.

True information is not always good. Information can be true yet harmful to society. Information that is true and harmful is labelled as “malinformation”. Such information can be hate-speech, leaks about personal privacy without any justification of public interest, stereotypes, prejudice, and embarrassment. For instance, it is a true representation of identity when you call a Hausa man Aboki or Malam, but the intent and the approach may be harmful.

The largely/partly true information is the most common strategy for information contamination and is very dangerous and challenging to deal with. Here, the root of the information is genuine but diluted with false information, misinterpreted or misrepresented. This is what I call diluted information (dil-information). The intent may be good or bad. For instance, the military has been accused of reducing the number of casualties from their side while increasing the number of casualties from the enemy side. Yes, the Nigerian Army indeed killed some scores of bandits, but the number is not correct.

The false information can be classified as “false,” “transformed false,” or “unknown false. False information happens when both the producer and the consumer know the false status of the information. The majority of the content shared for entertainment purposes is false, and it is treated as such. However, known false content may be shared with another community of consumers that do not know the origin of the information, thus considering it true, which is transformed into true. This is very common in this era of globalisation, where content can be shared easily across the globe.

The unknown false information can be from either the source or the consumer. For instance, a journalist may unknowingly receive false information and share it as true, or he may deliberately fabricate information and share it as true. The former is classified as misinformation while the latter is called disinformation. In both cases, the consumers of the information do not know the false status of the information.

We will continue.

Isah Nasidi is a media consultant and research fellow at PTCIJ.