Tashe, translatable as wakeup-call or get up is a popular (but a dying) Hausa cultural practice that is mostly done during the holy month of Ramadan.
The word tashe is said to have gotten its origin from the act of waking people to take food at night known as sahur in order to fast for the day.
While most people engaged in the practice for how lucrative it was. As after the day’s fast is broken at dawn, young men and women with children alike all gather up in groups and match to several homes for the show.
How Tashe is Done
With rags and unfashionable clothes, the young generation of enthusiasts match around beating drums buckets as well as gallons to entertain the inhabitants of the region for a little token in return.
They usually sing songs of praise and enchant the households. In return, these individuals give them gifts of different proportions to show their appreciation for the craft being displayed.
Others engage in dramatic plays of some Islamic and Hausa morals and traditions. Sometimes, it is seen that women mostly dressed in men’s clothes partake in these dramas, where they act in a manner a wife is expected to behave towards her husband. Others depict how children should act to their parents.
But the practice differs from region to region as cultural predisposition plays a major role in determining how the practice would be. People also engaged in Tashe to tell a story of past events or express an emotional display for that event.
For example, after the civil war, in Kano state, they started a form of Tashe called “Ngozie uwar Ojuku” to shake off the tremor the war had caused.
The act isn’t done only by the young generation, the older generation also partakes in the tashe festivities.
Although theirs take a much different turn, particularly to wake young unmarried men, owning to the fact that they don’t have wives to wake them up for sahur.
Why the Practice is Slowly Dying
With modernity, the fast-growing rate of technology and urbanisation, the practice of tashe is slowly going extinct.
Most youngsters and children (male and female) being the major participants aren’t interested in such practices.
They’re mostly engaged with their smartphones and other technological gadgets such as video games, while others are hooked up to their televisions for the several TV shows available.
Also, with the increase of Sunni practices across the country, it has played a major role in the reduction of such tradition, as it has no prophetic history to it.
Furthermore, the rise of insecurity within Nigeria and the world at large has caused a drastic effect on the acceptability of Tashe. People are always sceptical about gatherings and strangers, and these have caused a great deepening to the already wounded festival.
Conclusion
No matter what the reason is, the festival of tashe is fastly becoming a thing of the past, more individual stories would need to be documented to preserve it. No one can brag about their history if they haven’t judiciously documented it.
Hajiya Barmani Sa’adatu Ahmad Choge, popularly called Barmani Choge, is a popular northern Nigerian musician, majorly known for her rather blunt lyrics is with almost no doubt the most popular Female Hausa musician of modern times before her death in 2013. While some Barmani as one who had the interest of women and society at heart, to others, Barmani Choge is considered to be an obscenely vulgar woman who promoted foreign concepts to the Arewa way of life. Whatever one’s perception of her, it can’t be overlooked that she was indeed an interesting personality who hailed from Northern Nigeria. Along with Mamman Shata, Barmani has influenced Hausa music perhaps more than anyone in the 20th Century.
Birth and Early Life
Born Sa’adatu to the family of Mallam Aliyu in 1945, in a little village called Gwaigwayi, located in present-day Funtua of Katsina state. Barmani’s father was a preacher and teacher of the Islamic faith, and thus, made Barmani undergo the foundational studies of Islam to a certain level of comprehension.
As a child, Barmani used to partake in the play done by the children in front of house porches called dandali, where she possibly discovered her early love for music and performing.
Barmani got married at the age of 15 to Alhaji Aliyu, who was also very much into music, but was more of an instrumentalist, playing alongside his father the instrument known as garaya (a locally made guitar). Alhaji Aliyu also fueled the musicality of Barmani, encouraging her to sing and perform her music. She bore him 12 children through their stay together, until his death in 1991. Barmani Choge later remarried in 1995 to Alhaji Bello Kansila, unfortunately, the marriage only lasted a year.
After her divorce from Alhaji Bello Kansila, Barmani Choge never remarried as she only became engulfed with taking care of her children and her musical career and performances.
Barmani Choge Songs
Barmani started her music career as a backup singer for other local musicians when she was 27 years old. It was not until 1973 when she was 31 years old did she decide to go solo, after realizing she was good at it. Over the course of her career, Barmani Choge is said to have sung over a hundred original singles, mostly created on the spot. Her topics mostly revolved around topics related to marriage, marital relationships, intimate female problems, life, wealth and everyday problems.
She usually performs her music at weddings and ceremonies that are mostly female-dominated, as most of her lyrical content were more relatable to them. The songs are danced to the tune of Kidan Kwarya (Calabash tune).
List of Some of Barmani Choge’s Songs
Amongst her most common songs includes; wakar Kishiya, Sama ruwa kasa ruwa, Azaga Zogala, wakar duwaiwai, Allah kabamu Nairori, ku kama sana’a mata, sakarai bata da wayo and many others. These were songs that were popular and are still the most sort after songs of Barmani Choge.
Wakar duwaiwai (Song of the bottom) is said to be the song that made her popular within the womenfolk.
Her Influence and Legacy
It is no news that through her musical career, Barmani Choge has influenced women to act in ways not common to the northern woman, as well as coerced more women into joining music and becoming musicians, despite the religious connotations of it not being legal, and the cultural and religious stigma of the waywardness of female musicians.
When Did Barmani Choge Died?
Barmani Choge fell ill after her last performance in Kaduna state on the 15th of December 2012. This led to her timely death on 2nd March 2013 in Funtua.
She is survived by children and grandchildren.
Controversy Surrouding Barmani Choge and Her Songs
Barmani Choge was quite the controversial figure, as from time to time she prompted women to take charge of their lives, as well as take up their rightful position in this world in which men dominated. This didn’t sit well with a lot of Islamic scholars as they believed she was opening the path for destruction. Other times, she is believed to be promoting immorality as was depicted in her song wakar duwaiwai.
Wakar kishiya, (Song of the co-wife) despite originally not being hers, got its popularity from when she sang it, giving a new life to it. The song was said to be going against some of the teachings of Islam, thus making her songs red-flagged by scholars and cautioning people against it, especially women.
Whatever one thinks about Barmani Choge and her songs, one can’t deny her immense contribution to Hausa literature and the language in general.
Ladi Kwali is a woman who has moulded her name deep into the Sands of time as one of the greatest Nigerian potters. A woman from a long line of potters, Ladi Kwali has indeed carved her name in gold as probably the greatest female potter that Nigeria has ever known and one of the female heroes who helped shape Nigeria.
Birth and Early Life
Ladi Kwali was born in 1925, in a small village called Kwali, a village predominated by the Gbagyi tribe (Gwari) located in current-day Abuja where it has widened and massively expanded. Though mostly identified as Gwari by locals of the surrounding region, Ladi was Gbagyi by tribe, the tradition that influenced her deeply in her arts. Ladi took the name of her village, which is how she became known as the Ladi Kwali.
In Ladi’s village, one of the known popular occupations of women was pottery and she was born to a long line family of potters. She was taught this art by her aunt when she was only a child, using a traditional procedure known as the Gwarin Yamma coiling and pinching method. In quite a short time, Ladi Kwali began making different kinds of pots such as the large pots used as water jars and cooking pots, made bowls and others.
Ladi Kwali’s Education
Ladi Kwali isn’t known to have received any form of formal education whilst she was growing up, but she was so good in her pottery that her brother said; “even in the early years of pottery making, Ladi Kwali excelled in the crafts and her wares were often sold even before they were taken to the markets”.
It was during this time that Michael Cardew, a man appointed by the British colonial government as pottery officer to the Department of Commerce and Industry in 1951 first saw Ladi’s work in the Emir of Abuja’s house, Alhaji Suleiman Barau, he was so impressed that he made plans to mee her.
Mr Cardew went on to establish a pottery training centre in Abuja (now Suleja), in April of 1952. In 1954, Ladi joined the centre as the first female potter of the institution where she learned the art of wheel throwing, glazing, kiln firing, production of saggars, and the use of slip. Within a short period of time, Ladi Kwali took up the position of instructor.
She was good at making designs with sgraffito decoration, for which made bowls. This involved dipping vessels in red or white slip and using a quill from porcupines to scratch the decoration through the slip to the underlying body. At the start of her professional career, her cultural background and immediate environment influenced her art which made her create pottery pieces of Gbagyi connotations as well as displayed with personal idioms.
There was an obvious display of symmetrical finishing in her works that is said to have highlighted a form of mathematical undertone. With the role of instructor, by the time Mr Michael Cardew left the training centre, there were four new females that enrolled in the centre to learn pottery.
Despite being known to have no form of formal education before joining the training centre, Ladi Kwali was appointed to be a resource person of the Abuja Pottery Training Centre; Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna State; and has demonstrated her skills and prowess in some institutions in Europe and America.
Ladi Kwali’s Achievements, Awards, and Legacy
Ladi Kwali has achieved so much during her life, and as a result, has received several awards. Amongst the many awards she received are; In 1977, Ahmadu Bello University Zaria awarded her an honorary doctorate degree. In 1980, she received the highest national honour for academic achievement by the Nigerian Government, the Nigerian National Order of Merit Award (NNOM). Ladi was equally awarded the national honour of the Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON) in 1981.
Ladi Kwali’s designs which included pots and others have been featured in international exhibitions of Abuja pottery in 1958, 1959, and 1962, in which the founder of the Abuja pottery training Center Mr Michael Cardew organized. In 1961, she did a live demonstration at the Royal College, Farnham, and Wenford Bridge in Great Britain. In 1972, she toured America with Cardew.
Ladi Kwali during her tour In 1972, with Cardew.
Ladi Kwali’s has toured multiple countries in the West and her works can be seen all over the world, such as Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, USA, Victoria and Albert Museum, and Aberystwyth University Ceramics Gallery, United Kingdom.
Her work has equally shown to great acclaim in London during Nigeria’s independence celebration in October 1960, as well as early in the ’50s, Ladi’s works were in an exhibition at the Berkeley Galleries, London.
In 1963, she was awarded Member of the Order of the British Empire, MBE. That same year, at the 10th International Exhibition for Ceramic Art at the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, she received a Silver Award for Excellence.
The same year she received an honorary PhD from Ahmadu Bello University, was the same year her picture was printed at the back of the Nigerian N20 Naira bill.
A portrait of Ladi Kwali on the 20 Naira note
She has a major street named after her in Abuja and Niger state, in recognition for her services, the roads are called Ladi Kwali Road.
One of the biggest convention centres in Abuja, located in the five-star hotel Sheraton holds acclaim to the Ladi Kwali Convention Center. In the early 1980s, the Abuja Pottery Training Centre was renamed The Ladi Kwali Pottery Centre.
Ladi Kwali’s Death
Ladi Kwali died in Minna, Niger state, on 12th August 1984 from natural causes. She was buried there.
Gaskiya ta fi Kwabo, an ingenious northern newspaper, which arguably created the standard of contemporary Hausa writing, which mixed both the Hausa form of writing using Arabic letters known as Ajmi and the Roman form of writing in order to carry along to two kinds of literates in the colonial Hausa days.
Gaskiya Ta fi Kwabo is said to be a documentation of the Hausa people and the perspective they held regarding World War II. The newspaper became the longest indigenous language newspaper that existed in Nigeria.
What is the Meaning of Gaskiya Ta Fi Kwabo?
Gaskiya Ta Fi Kwabo, a term coined for a Hausa based newspaper and periodicals which means “Truth is worth more than Kobo”.
The concept of the newspaper started in 1936 when the government of Northern Nigeria wanted to find a better means of passing information and the newspaper was officially launched in January 1939 and immediately started publication right after, which was under the auspice of the Gaskiya corporation, which was earlier known as The North Regional Literature Agency (NORLA).
When Was Gaskiya Ta Fi Kwabo Founded
Gaskiya Ta fi Kwabo was founded in the late 1936, when the government overseeing Northern Nigeria was interested in ways to reach out to its citizens about their various activities. This became imminent when rumors began to spread around the country that the British colonial masters were intending to handover Nigeria to Hitler, who was on his world conquest.
To curb the wide spread of fear and rumors flying around the country, a suggested solution was to create a medium of disseminating information in a way that would be easily comprehendible by most citizens in the North, which was how Gaskiya Tafi Kwabo came about.
Gaskiya was important for providing information about World War II to Nigerians, and the stand the British were taking and planning to take in order to curb the tension that was consuming the minds of the populace.
The headquarters of the newspaper, was in Zaria which was where the Gaskiya Corporation was situated, and where the periodicals were also published. The paper played a great role in increasing the popularity of the war happenings and the effort the Government was putting towards the war effort during the early 1940s.
The first Editor of the news paper was Mallam Abubakar Imam Kagara, who was a well versed and incisive man and was just the perfect fit for the job. He did an almost perfect job that the newspaper, Gaskiya Ta fi Kwabo is argued now to have set a standard in Hausa writing; from spelling, to the grammar implored in the periodicals, as well as the style and vocabulary used.
The New Nigerian Corporation (now New Nigerian Development Corporation – NNDC), which was a company set to take over the management of companies and entities in Northern took over the management of the Newspaper in January 1966.
For How Long Did Gaskiya Ta Fi Kwabo Last?
Gaskiya Ta fi Kwabo has the longest life span of all indigenous language to have set up a newspaper outlet. It operated entirely in Hausa from 1939-1965, and in 1965, the Gaskiya corporation had an English version titled Nigerian Citizen. In 1966, after which the NNDC took over amongst many things changed the name to New Nigerian. In the sense of being purely a Hausa based newspaper, it lasted for over 26years before taking another form.
The NDDC set up a corresponding plant in the Southern part of the country in March, 1973, alongside that of Kaduna. They concurrently sold the newspaper in both Kaduna and Lagos which improved the wide distribution of the paper.
However, when 12 states were created in the North by the Federal Government in July 1967, possession and control of the company became that of the Northern states, and was temporarily under the Interim Common Services Agency (ICSA). The Federal Government in 1975 took full control of the company and was placed under the Federal Ministry of Information.
It is currently under the 19 Northern states as it was handed back to them in 2006.
Achievements and Success
Gaskiya Ta fi Kwabo has recorded tremendous success from its inception. Amongst them is the ability to reach a wide range of readership from the populace, thanks to the creative idea of introducing the Ajmi scripting of Hausa letters. Also, amongst their many achievements is the role they played in the Nationalistic fight.
Gaskiya Tafi Kwabo became a popular outlet to discuss contemporary issues, as was well utilized by one of the front liner Nationalist, Sa’adu Zungur, to mention a few and how it became an outlet to educate people.
It was also a landmark achievement through the successful establishment of the Gaskiya Tafi Kwabo, on the clear reason that it was the first attempt by the Government to set up a newspaper.
Professor Aminu Mohammed Dorayi, an alumnus of Ahmadu Bello University, a well-renowned educationist and Professor of Chemistry, set the record to be the first Nigerian to travel a whopping 4,000 miles in 24 days from London-England to Kano State in Nigeria, crossing across two continents using his car- a Peugeot 504.
So how did he do it?
How Professor Dorayi Made the Record Breaking Trip
Professor Aminu Mohammed Dorayi considers himself as an adventurous individual as his autobiography evidently shows, titled “The Adventurous Chemist”. While in the UK, he is said to be inspired by the likes of Marco Polos, and Mungo Parks, also being a person that has always been fascinated by the stories of adventures, decided to make one of his own.
Professor Aminu Mohammed Dorayi made a record-breaking trip by driving his Peugeot 504, down from London to Kano, a distance of about 4,000miles, equivalent to 6437.376KM in 24 days. This is almost equivalent to the travel from Maiduguri to Lagos; the farthest distance in Nigeria, six times.
Opening up recently about the journey, he said, “England is an Island. So, when you reach Southampton, you have to take a boat, you and your car, to Calais, France.
I started driving through Paris and so on through Madrid, Gibraltar, and when you reach Gibraltar, you reach the Mediterranean Sea where you also take a ferry to Algeria. From there you enter the road all through, though there is no road, so to speak, across the desert because you are guided by your compass, your map.
There was a place I passed in Algeria, and the day I arrived, it was raining heavily. Little children of 13 years and below were running helter-skelter and crying.
When I asked the elders why they said those children had never seen rain before. No rain for 14 years, so they thought heaven was falling. They had to be counseled by their elders. That’s something I clearly remember.
Biography of Prof Dorayi
Prof Aminu Mohammed Dorayi was born in Kano on November 16, 1942. His father was an educated and trained medical personnel, who worked amidst British doctors and nurses as a result of the low number of educated personnel in Nigeria.
His father, alongside his British medical counterparts, set up the then Kano City Hospital. Being an educated man, he made sure his children were equally educated which at the time was going against the flock.
He grew up in Dorayi Quarters kano, which was located behind the hospital his father help set up which initially started as staff quarters for main nurses. It was close to Zango, which was an area dominated by craftsmen and artisans.
Whilst he was a young man, he is said to have interacted much with children from these areas which according to him, gave him “dual experience and value”.
Like other Muslim parents of that time, his parents made sure that he and his siblings attended the customary evening Qur’anic school. After they returned from the western school in the afternoon, they rested a bit and went to the Qur’anic school in the evenings.
Education
Professor Aminu Mohammed Dorayi started schooling at the Kano City Primary School. During that period, there were about four to five primary schools in Kano city; one at the Emir’s palace, one at the Alhassan Dantata area; another was at Sahuci which he went to, and another was at Gidan Makama and then at Tudun Wada, said the professor. The schools were really few schools as there were few people to attended those schools.
Professor Aminu Mohammed Dorayi said he was a skilful footballer in primary school, so at secondary school, it was easier to showcase himself. He made it to the school team while he was in Form Two. He had a smallish body but was very skilful that by the time he was in Form Four in 1960, he was selected to play for Nigeria’s secondary school team.
Professor Aminu Mohammed Dorayi got admitted to the Provincial Secondary School, Kano to study for advanced level for two years where he studied Physics, Chemistry, and Pure Mathematics after he secured his Cambridge School Certificate in Kaduna.
In 1965 he gained admission to study chemistry at Ahmadu Bello University. Although he was scouted by a professor of Mathematics who was the first Head of the Department of Mathematics, at ABU Zaria, Professor D.J. Hofsommer went scouting for students who’d come and study the course. He was well fitted to be selected as he won a prize for Mathematics at his advanced A ‘level studies.
Aminu Dorayi got his Master’s degree and PhD from the University of Oregon, the USA at the young age of 30.
Work-life and Career
After concluding his PhD at the University of Oregon in the US, he received several offers from different institutions including the University of Oregon, all of which he declined, as he was equally offered a job at the Ahmadu Bello University to teach Chemistry, Physics, and Mathematics which he gladly took.
During his early days of teaching Chemistry, Physics, and Mathematics, the then vice-chancellor, professor Ishaya Audu, invited him to join the Faculty of Education and produce well-qualified science teachers that would go on to teach future engineers, doctors and scientists, an offer he gladly accepted.
Professor Aminu had to travel to the UK to further his studies at the University of Reading, where he obtained an advanced diploma in Science Education.
Awards, Achievements and Accolades
Professor Dorayi is a former president of the ABU Students Union Government (SUG) for 1966/1967. He was a commissioner for trade in Kano and due to his many foreign expeditions was the man who set up the Sharada Industrial Estate in Kano and organized the first trade fair in Nigeria in 1977 which was very successful. The federal government later invited him to help them organize a trade fair at Lagos.
