Muhammad Sulaiman Abdullahi

By Dr. Muhammad Sulaiman Abdullahi

There are some few, effortless and simple things, which I have already assured myself that, if they are not confronted and solved squarely and completely in Nigeria, we should all continue to consider Nigeria as a joke. In other words, if the Nigerian rulers and the ruled are unable to solve these simple managerial crises, we should all forget about anything development and continue to wallow in our self deception mode. On these issues, I have assurance but I remain to be corrected. They are only four (4) simple things, among others;

1) Fixed date for the payment of salary: this doesn’t mean that, salaries should be paid on 24th, 25th… it should be paid on whichever day chose!n by the government. However, one thing must be considered, that’s FIXING a specific date for that purpose. Salary is something that must be paid, then, why this deceptive and unorganized approach? Right now that I am talking to you, many workers haven’t received their pay for April, and May is already on.

For Nigeria to even start thinking of development, workers must be truly and carefully considered. Their rights must be paid on time, because, as they say, it is not a privilege. If the government likes, let it pay it on 30th of each month, or even make every month to contain 31 days and pay it on the 31st. Let’s have a fixed date please. If not, let’s take the police for instance. A police may not know when to get his salary for risking his entire life to protect people; however, he is sure, he can be bribed by the poor through corrupt ways. How can you deny him something that he is certain about with an uncertain? This penetrates deeper into every sector.

2) Respecting time: one of the cantankerous evil that people abuse all the time. It comes to the extent that responsible people would call for a meeting and say 4pm, but deep down in their mind they know the meeting would start by 5pm. If you ask them why, they would say people would not come on time. I use to be confused on this. So in Nigeria we respect late comers more than how we respect punctual people! We give them extra time and we don’t mind those who come on time. They, their punctuality and the respect they give to time should all go to hell. Unless we change this attitude, we will never do it right.

If you want to fight with (responsible) Nigerians insist on punctuality. Many of us, including leaders fail in this respect.

When we are in Nigeria, we hardly do official things on their respective timing. But when we go elsewhere we keep to time. Therefore, it is obvious that the problem is from us and we can easily adjust if we know there is repercussions.

3) Scheduling the epileptic power supply: distribution must be scheduled and properly planned. We are not even talking about standard supply, we are talking standardizing the supply of the short one we get. The little we have must not be given at random. People are entitled to know when they should expect the little light. Let it be 10:20am-11:20am on Wednesdays? Saturdays and Sundays nights? Two hours every day? When? All these must be planned and relayed to the payers if we are not jokers! This electric power people switch on and off at their will and we pay for the rubbish.

4) The National Carrier: this is bigger than us due to corruption. We should have a National career at least for our internal development. There are so many countries around the world especially in Africa which Nigeria and Nigerians underrate and undervalue, however, they have their Sudan, Ethiopian, Mali, Malawi, airlines, but the so-called giant of looting rely on ants for its air transport survival. This is a mischief of the highest order.

5) The over dependence and over reliance on dollar. Mark what I say, overdependence! Nigeria can use dollar. This is one of the obvious weaknesses which many people have agreed to live with, especially the Nigerians. However, the overdependence is alarming! Almost every individual in Nigeria, big or small, knows about dollar. Nigeria should learn to uplift its currency and leave dollar alone. Even ordinary people now know how to hoard dollar at the expense of the economic development of the nation. The bigger you are the more detached you are from using Nigerian currency. Kobo, 1 Naira coin have all gone into extinction physically but they are still there in our calculations. Now Tinubu’s government has made 5, 10 and 20 naira notes valueless and meaningless. They look so ugly to be touched by a clean hand.

There are so many other simple things which you can help to count. In other countries they are not even remembered because they are subconsciously arranged for over hundred years. But in Nigeria, we are still battling with something which can be corrected in two months. In Nigeria we face price hikes, lack of infrastructures, no medicines, no qualitative education, no good roads and no nothing….. You can continue counting our lacks, they are so many. However, the above mentioned five things are very simple, they can be corrected with a simple verbal order, without putting much money and effort. May Nigeria be great soon!

Muhammad Kano
May day 2017

NB: This was written in 2017, with little correction now but nothing much has changed.

By Dr. Muhammad Sulaiman Abdullahi

I have recently seen the proliferation of the use of some letters which are clearly not part of the mainstream Hausa writing system. These letters are now getting ground and are even trying to push away the real and bonafide owners of the place. These are no other than the new Ƙ and Ƴ and some of their other dependants.

You see, in the field of Hausa orthography, we are already battling with various challenges that defy simple logic and reasoning and lack uniformity amongst the Hausa scholars. However, I find this recent one very shocking and disturbing. This is simply because, when you have a controversy about how to write a Hausa word, that may not be a big problem as perhaps each variant of the spellings may have some scholars backing it, and they may have a cogent and academic reason for that. But for these new entrants – Ƙ, Ƴ, ƴ – I don’t know who backs them. I don’t know who sent them. I don’t know who among the scholars promotes and propagates them. I feel like they are sent by some hidden forces of technology.

I can guess from where these recalcitrant intruders are coming. They are from our (newly) electronic gadgets and some Hausa keyboard applications, which are just sent into the market without any regard to the experts and knowledgeable professors in the field. Someone who has a company of smartphones will just employ those who think they know Hausa or, those who speak Hausa, or those who don’t even care about Hausa to do the Hausa technical dealings for him. This is where the problem probably came from. If you check our smartphones and some computer symbols, you find these deviant Ƙ and ƴ hanging around without any reason and without knowing who brought them. They are just like gatecrashers who are trying to feast more than the invited VIPs.

The affected legitimate Hausa consonants, which are the victims of this I-don’t-care mischief, are primarily the К and ‘Y. These are the correct ways in which these two are written: /К/- /ƙ/ and /’Y/- /’y/ respectively, and not as /Ƙ/ and /ƴ/. The main point of contention is the hook and where the hook should be. For the sake of knowledge, these are the only primary hooked and twin letters we have in Hausa, both small and capital, respectively /ɓ/,/ɗ/, /ƙ/,/’y/ and their capital Ɓ, Ɗ, К, ‘Y. The hooks you see on them have their specific and fixed position. It is not hooked anyhow and anywhere.

Phonologically speaking, /К/ is the capital letter of that Hausa voiceless velar ejective sound, while the /ƙ/ is the small letter. Equally, /’Y/ is that Hausa palatalized-glottal stop sound, and /’y/ is the small letter, but we don’t know of the newly emerged – /Ƙ/, /Ƴ/ and /ƴ/, from where are they and how are they phonologically represented? All we know is, that they are the illegitimate trying to push away the legitimate sons of the Hausa alphabet. And they are gradually gaining ground and getting momentum even among those who ought to have cared a lot and dismissed them for long.

Hausa orthography is one of the essential forms of knowledge, yet many people don’t bother to learn. Many writers don’t know how to write Hausa correctly or even know they don’t (know that). So sad! But very few are trying to learn. Good!

Generally, in the Hausa language, the hooked letters suffer a lot of trouble and total neglect by those who don’t care. But we are there for them as we surely care. I recently bought a smartphone and decided to return it when I realized it doesn’t contain Hausa in its language entry setting. I took it to someone who did something to it and the Hausa is back. Later, I formatted the phone and lost the Hausa again. I feel like throwing the phone away because I always feel embarrassed when I have to type something or respond to someone while the hooks are not properly represented. This is something serious to us that many others see as nothing.

I don’t have any problem with them if they are accepted, authorized, and certified by respected members and our professors in the field, but I have problems when they keep popping up and occupying the legal orthographical space of others.

Whatever someone says about them, one thing is certain: They are not in the books or from the books. Who can clarify this for us? Please help and save me or save them. If we accept them, fine; they are welcome. If not, please jail them. They are real intruders and disrupters of peaceful and correct writing.

Muhammad Sulaiman Abdullahi is a Hausa Language lecturer with the Department of Nigerian Languages at Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria. He can be reached via muhammadunfagge@gmail.com.