Haidar's Corner

Writing in any local language is invaluable because it is thru language that the essence of cultures are transmitted. That is why using 'English' denies us to transmit the unique 'flavors' and 'nuances' of our cultures and we become somewhat sterilized. But in the extreme, using a language other than your mother tongue gradually makes you to adopt the 'foreign' language's cultural identity which is why we have people being referred to as 'oyinbo'. While adopting good traits due to the influence of English language such as 'keeping to time' is a definite advantage, other 'traits' might not fit well with your environment and would make an individual 'confused' and end up being like a 'bat', neither here nor there! 🤣 Taking a look at Hausa language as a case study, I think the writings done in Hausa have been the main things that enabled the language to endure and keep expanding. Being that it used ...

If you do not critically assess your situation and take corrective measures, unfailingly you will be forced to do so under the glare of everyone without an ounce of privacy and dignity, accompanied by the derision and gloating of your detractors. If you refuse to be visionary in charting a collective route for societal rejuvenation, you will be resigned to the fate of scattered debris that the wind tosses and turns and eventually dumps in the random and empty wilderness of time. If you favour the immediate satisfaction of momentary pleasures and selfish abundance of the few and decide to avoid the brief passing pain of rigorous perseverance, refusing to invest towards reaping tomorrow's orchards, preferring to eat today's seeds, you will be bequeathed with flapping, tattered cloths, treeless barren spaces and harvest the dry empty bowls of beggary! I no longer care. I will join you to bemoan the sorry state before I return my head back into the s...

You see when I say I love you like rice and beans, you will not agree! The only Jollof rice that is in my heart! All the Egusi soups and Dage-dage stews bow at your feet! Everytime my heart pumps, sugar cubes form a clot in my veins and so I have to look for hot bitterleaf soup to melt them. Please don't let the chicken wings of my ardor over-roast! The Tsire that pierced my heart; the Kilishi and Balango that wrapped it! I will always always be your Ice-cream and the chocolate cake by your side. Yours sumptuously ever, Baban Tahir. P.S. Even Lipton cannot come between us because without you my Honey, it is not worth it! Haidarwali 201701251514hrs

I remember an evening when Sun was calm and its shadow shone against the ground when leaves of autumn dotted the earth vividly I remember conversing with Me that one day I would write these same words being replayed on screen of my mind's eye then, only a silent snapshot devoid of words stored till this unveiling. . Haidarwali 201701261957hrs

Recently, I saw someone accuse another of promoting the preference of Tech Events over Quranic Recitation competitions and the accuser emphasized the superiority of the religious over the mundane. It made me to wonder why they had to be 'mutually exclusive'. Why can't we have both? Why can't we have private individuals spending on public goods such as schools, hospitals, scholarships, foundations, endowmen ... ts etc., with the same dedication and commitment that is put into the building of mosques and sponsorship of people to Hajj! I don't think the spiritual realm is limited to those aspects of the religion that are Ibadat and therefore we should not limit the activities that will enable gaining salvation to just ritual acts of worship. For even in the mundane there are innumerable opportunities for salvation. A case in point is the woman who was known as a prostitute that was forgiven and granted Paradise for the seemingly 'mundane' and trivial ac...

Fiona Lovatt is an inspiration. She's a testimony that smallness of means is no excuse not to act and that such simple, yet sincere efforts can create ripple-effects that eventually leads to change. She teaches the reality that we mostly have all we need to make a difference, one step at a time. . When I first met her she was living in the inner parts of Kano city just inside the old city walls call 'ganuwa'. Hearing about her 'modest' effort working with the 'Almajirai' (plural of Almajiri) it seemed so surreal that a 'baturiya' (white woman) would travel thousands of kilometers from New Zealand to mentor these young boys. . Yet after meeting her I realized why it was so. Here was a person who saw potential where most of us saw hopelessness. She looked at the 'big picture' and zoomed in on the most critical factor which was to do her own part in making a difference rather than waiting, 'wailing' or walking away, she set out to cr...

In our society today we have a bias that is very evident in the way we pursue 'certificates' at the expense of practicable knowledge. This is what breeds garbage-in-garbage-out and kills the ability to engage in critical reasoning thus denying many from obtaining 'functional knowledge'. I remember hearing Jelani Aliyu (General Motors) say he has never been asked for a certificate to show that he can design! Now imagine the number of unknown gifted 'divergents' we have in our society - people who may not necessarily be on an IQ of 150 but have abundance of creativity. These individuals are resigned to unfulfilled lives simply because we chose to make the basis of success to be how well one person can retain information compared to another. Essentially that is what our education does and for the winners we give them a piece of paper and send them off to a career which is not necessarily even optimal for them! That is why we need a paradigm shift in thinking a...