Kannywood

Kannywood: Between Selfishness, Dilemma and the Search for Aesthetic in Film

Attahiru Kawu-Bala

The last six months, depending on the side you freely choose to belong, saw the fall of Kannywood from the “heroic” stand it has enjoyed among its fans. It has been anticipated in many quarters even among the few, early Kannywood’s defectors. Since then Kannywood has been in the news and the debate is fascinatingly raging on. We need to thank the journalists that conducted the series of the interviews. Even if for a single thing it has lend a hand to unearth, once again, the dilemma that has kept hanging on the affairs of Kannywood.

A very interesting issue, according to many people, in the first interview is the fact that the MOPPAN (Motion Pictures Practitioners Association of Nigeria)’s Chairman has dragged to court the Kano Censors Board (Weekly Trust, Saturday, March 15, 2008); very interesting, isn’t it? The battle has shifted from mutual understanding and table talks to the court of law. In the said exclusive interview, the reporter stated that “Sani Mu’azu has described the actions of Malam Rabo [the executive director of the Kano Censor’s Board] as “deceptive” and “not in tandem” with normal film practice, internationally”. Sani Mu’azu, to quote him verbatim, said that “The members [of the Kano Censor’s Board] are sycophants and deceptive in their actions as regards filmmaking in the North, or Kano in particular. They fail to understand that most of the regulations they are imposing, like banning the use of tight-fitting clothes, shooting films in the night, etc., are balderdash. They need to understand that films do not start in the North and thus their actions are not the practice internationally”.

Anyway the MOPPAN’s Chairman has just told us his own personal appreciation of the “rights” so to say of a filmmaker internationally or “the practice internationally”, quoting once again the Chairman. But, which international practice is he talking about? Liberal American practice? European? Or, what? Let’s not be deceptive, please. To any student of filmmaking or someone who is conversant with the practice in countries, the world over, as far as filmmaking is concern the practice is obvious: apart from the threshold of liberal characteristics here and there at the surface which the so-called liberal democracies allow and which do not amount to anything of value, if the filmmakers can tell the truth, everything hinges on censorship.

Any film, most especially the one whose theme do not augur well with the powers-that-be even in the advanced democracies, it’s bound to be censored. I do not intend to keep on citing examples, but for reference sake, the MOPPAN’s Chairman should ask Spikes Lee to hear the other side of the story when the script of his [Lee’s] film, Malcolm X, was written. The US government censored many parts of the film and this is evident if one even read the book [Malcolm X: An Autobiography] upon which the film was based. The script didn’t augur well with the establishment there—despite their claim for superiority in terms of neo-liberal nostrums they are spoon-feeding the world forcefully with. Another good example also, is films on 9/11. Many films on the subject didn’t see the light of the day; not to talk of films bordering on slavery purported to be filmed by the Afro-Americans and other minorities there.

Coming back home, it is unfortunate that the dilemma that engulfed and still engulfing the so-called Kannywood has not been allowed to feature within the context it ought to have been and the inability and unwillingness of the practitioners in the Kannywood to understand the disdain of the people towards them is unfortunate. No sensible society worth protecting its heritage would allow things to degenerate to the level the Kannywood or any film industry for that matter has gone to in the name of making film that is in parallel with the Aesthetics in film. [This is a topic I have been gathering clips since the episode that happened, which the “Hausa” film practitioners have been fruitlessly disassociating themselves with, but whose remoteness has been due to the degeneration in the “Hausa” filmmaking since inception. Remember, the word “Kannywood” like Nollywood and Bollywood are catch-up words from the Western World owned Hollywood. You see even in their chosen identity, the defeatists’ mentality has manifested].

At the tail end of the interview, the MOPPAN’s chairman was quoted saying that “films are tools that Muslims are using worldwide to propagate the religion…” mentioning interestingly a number of countries in the Muslim World. But, even the countries he mentioned, films there have not somersaulted to the level being brought to us in this part of the globe by our brethrens. And moreso they started on what some intelligent critics kept on asserting, “On good cultural foothold”. If one were to take filmmaking as an art (theatrically), which certainly is, trying to make it more refine in tune with decency should have been the wish of the practitioners so that they guard jealously their trade and “business” as they kept on telling the people that the government is trying to block their means of livelihood—there is wisdom and to the advantage of the filmmakers in that there will be more money for them since there will be less competition when all the Toms, Dicks and Harries have been flushed out, those who Ja’afar Ja’afar in one of his fine write-ups rightly characterised as the ones that take camera overnight and start shooting what they call films!

My utter dismay, again, is on the other interview conducted with Ali Nuhu. In the Weekly Trust of Saturday, March 29, 2008, the actor made us believe that he is leaving Kano, his base, as he himself admitted. What struck minds the most in the interview is that he was, I stand to be corrected, trying to politicise the whole issue. And a lot of people are not surprised [including this writer] as this is just another shadow chasing by those who have been trying to put a thinly veiled defence right from the onset instead of widening their horizons. In the interview which is good to be recapped, wouldn’t you be surprised when you hear this? When asked about his fans since he’s leaving, the actor responded that “[T]his is democracy. I’m just surprised that the fans are part of the people that voted for the present governor [Malam Shekarau] and I expected them to have revolted when the ban was imposed because it stops them from enjoying what other people in other states are free to enjoy” (emphasis mine).

Anyone who has been keeping date with the happenings in the Kannywood and by extension Nollywood, the filmmakers’ larger umbrella here in Nigeria, since the making of its first film, Living in Bondage, sponsored by a Nigerian entrepreneur, Ken Nnebue, in the early 1990s will know that majority of the criticisms has been due to themes being featured in the Nigerian home-made films. In the beginning, “the television dramas that preceded Living in Bondage” stated the novelist, Ike Oguine, in New Internationalist (October 2004, Issue 372) “had mostly been rather polite, rather middle class. Where such dramas treated sexual relations or resort to supernatural forces, they did so coyly.”

The novelist went further to state some of the criticisms levied against Nollywood “for shoddy production and disjointed storylines”. “The typical video movie” said Mr. Oguine, “is shot in a week or two from a hurriedly written script, usually a rehash of the last successful movie”. Of course, producers and directors (merged into one in Nigeria’s film industry!) are in a hurry to hit the market and beat their chest that their films have now clocked to so and so numbers, there is hardly any effort to be creative and creativity coupled with sense of direction do not matter either.

The same topic of hurriedness was featured in an interview rendered last year to Aljazeera by a notable director in the Nollywood. In the programme, The Fabulous Picture Show, the director and his coterie of employees were shown in some selected clips with their camera rehearsing, the actors and actresses running; someone was, again, doing the finishing touches of make-up while the director was heard chanting: “Action!” and the film goes like that. The programme’s anchor later asked the director something like: “Is that how you make films?” and “How many do you make in a week?” You guess the answer, he said “we rehearsed and shot at the same time and produced many in a week”. Little wonder then that in the series of interviews aired by the Hausa Service of the VOA (Voice of America), many “Hausa” actors and actresses could not even know the number of films they have starred in. The numbers run into hundreds and imagine somebody who admitted that he or she just started acting few years ago. I am not lost in jealousy or envy as to the number of the films each one of them is claiming to have featured in; no, far from that.

Film worth its salt requires reasonable time to be scripted, shot and completed. Nollywood has acknowledges, albeit by the tongue, its problems and short-comings but, hiding under the umbrella of “we are learning” all the time I strongly feel is clever way by half, running away from accepting guilt and responsibility the industry ought to have shouldered. Ironically, Kannywood, to my knowledge, refuses to date acknowledge a sense of guilt. Instead it has gone too far to declare a battle with the entire Hausa-speaking world and the States that have been hosting them since its emergence.

The greatest solace has been comments made by the earlier Hausa dramatists. For instance, Kasimu Yero’s interview in Weekly Trust’s of Saturday, March 22, 2008. In their legendary characteristics most of these real Hausa filmmakers have been consistent in articulating their criticisms of these “modernised” “Hausa” filmmakers who have polluted and flung our homes into cultural confusion in the name of filmmaking. The dilemma is that people have been trying to bring sense to their kinsmen and brethrens and by way of sheer selfishness the kinsmen have failed to see the light. To the extent that many people have now resorted to seeing them as “agents of detractors of the Ummah”, who by way of covert design and hypocrisy have found an easiest landing ground to penetrate our citadels with cultural imperialism using “enemies from within” to achieve their aged-old hatred for the cultural values they have been longing to destroy since time immemorial. You understand a person well from his own attitude to things in life, including his background: as life is interwoven; at times one is tempted to dismiss everything even if you press harder it will be difficult for these recent filmmakers to appreciate this sound argument being put forward by a number of concerned individuals. They are products of the larger society and the larger society is confused [or rather has been confused by the many maelstroms bedevilling us as an Ummah] so a person is tempted to again say that one is fooling oneself demanding some level of sanity from this bunch of these so-called filmmakers.

Lest I forget, some years ago this same paper, Weekly Trust, interviewed Muhammad Danjuma Katsina (known in drama then as, Kasagi). He sounded also critical, as we expected, and he too hammered on the practitioners in the Kannywood. Kasagi said, throughout his days as an actor he didn’t know where Halima [the woman that often acted as his screen wife] stayed. The directors/producers (and in their days) were the Departments of Theatre Arts in our universities and other reasonable people working at the expense of government-owned television stations, such as the NTA, would just transport them to locations and they only meet and depart there. And we had watched their dramas with our parents; at the Emirs’ palaces; during even agricultural exhibitions, live performing their art! The decency was there and we all appreciated the aesthetics in the then cherished Hausa dramas.

Someone recently put forward to me a reasonable question: “Have you seen Dan Wanzan in a room with ‘Yar Mai-Albasa?” I replied in the negative ‘No!’ And in the 80s, I watched many dramas starred by Dan Wanzan and you never will spot that thing. Whenever Dan Wanzan decided to enter a room you will surely find ‘Yar Mai-Albasa coming out. That’s decency in line with the kunya cultural values of the Hausa-speaking community, nay African. But, our own recent filmmakers have skyrocketed, becoming “advance” that you can watch kato climbing a bed, an inch-closer to his screen ‘amarya’, dramatising wai newly wedded couples. That’s “Hausa” film for you, the production of the millennium!

I must confessed that I have, out of curiosity to articulate my criticisms even before the Hiyana saga, watched several of these so-called “Hausa” films produced by Kannywood; and this writer had offered a course in Drama at a certain level of his higher education; less any self-centered person join issues with me. One is not trying to be myopic and shallow in thinking, but look widely please. It is only in the making of Hausa films that anybody can come to the industry and say he is producing films based on this sublime culture cherished for so many years by our forefathers. Why can’t they try that in say Yoruba or Igbo cultures? And see the reactions of the people who will surely consider it as a fight to finish, thereby defending their cultural values.

Some years back, I visited a friend and he introduced to me in his words “a terrible film” titled, Bakar Ashana, though the film was later banned but its circulation has gone far and wide, the nooks and crannies of our very homes, courtesy of Kannywood. There is this film, Dan Kasuwa, which featured some of the who’s who in the Kannywood. The film’s theme was, as the director wanted us to believe, on “hoarding of essential commodities” but come and watch—the ‘Yan Kasuwa after holding meeting on their purported design to hoard goods were later seen dancing and pouring naira notes on the bodies of the featured adult, matured women in the film. So, how do you correlate the act of “hoarding” with the scenes shown? You see most of the films end up like this, confused ever as the directors, actors and actresses alike.

Ordinarily, Kannywood’s practitioners should have learned wisely from the complex lessons and episodes that engulfed them in recent memory. I read Gidauniya magazine that did a cover story that time on the issue and have read the views of some notable actors and actresses in the Kannywood, but alas people are quick to forget things and they have proven to be dunderheads. Some, as the magazine reported, there and then deleted the names of their colleagues in the filmmaking business from their mobile phones; while others took shelter pronouncing “Inna lillahi!” Collectively, we all buried our faces in shame. The headlines in the media world were so teasing that a certain website mockingly stated that it is now that “the Muslims have taken the right path!”

“A bird that sings for rain”, wise men say, “will one day be beating by it”. Kannywood has sung for rain, but we all have been beaten and still being beating by the rain. It has shown and compounded its weakness and lack of direction from all fronts you can name it in terms of crises management and what have you. When it frustratingly announced the suspension and expulsion of few of its members arising from their “immoral behaviours” etc. so said Kannywood, what did we see and hear? The whole of the industry [permit me for referring to it as industry] fell on the ground like pack of cards. It cannot even put its house in order when some key members who felt discontented with the suspension and expulsion appeared in the news making sweeping generalisation that “all are immoral” too. The small argument they have been canvassing which, to people of commonsense, is like holding to a straw in a deep blue see by a drowning man is that “there are a lot of sinners in the community”. Okay, agreed, but does that make it right to compound the problems of the community? Shouldn’t our people become agents of positive, social change to the benefit of all and sundry?

I once listened to Radio Nigeria Kaduna’s programme, Hannu da Yawa, during the heated debate that followed suit what has then happened, one of the leaders in the Kannywood said, on music, that it is the people that want it like that. Attributing this to the people’s attitude that it is because they like the music that is why they are featuring it will never hold water even for seconds. In Psychology, there is this theory, called the Pavlov’s theory of Conditioning, which is very interesting to cite here. You can condition an animal or human being to act the way you like. Those who patronise the piano music as featured in the “Hausa” films are more or less victims of this theory whether they understand this or not.

Analysts, who focus on the unfolding process of transformation in the “Hausa” entertainment industry, are of the view that the dilemma that have assumed this proportion will eventually lead to disastrous consequences. To them, what we witnessed is just a tip of the iceberg. The degeneration has come a long way and it is not without a track. African television stations, like most other institutions, have been severely smashed by the introduction of liberal economic theories and philosophies. Most of these stations have been told to fund their programmes and activities; their subvention was cut off and in so many instances wherever it exists, it has been rendered minimal. We saw within the twinkle of an eye (since funds are no longer appropriated for public service, norms and values too privatised!) the disintegration into pieces of good, ethical dramas and the rest of the programmes dying down one after the other. Our television stations have now been taken over by the multi-national companies, who are beating their chests, buying slots and air time to use films/dramas imported from abroad advertising their products and this has not been without consequences as a lot of people are silently, grudgingly, complaining and lamenting.

During the saga of that infamous clip, I deliberately declined to comment for two reasons. Like most people, I was shocked, seriously shocked and secondly I do not want to be part of those in the arena of fargar jaji, beclouding my reasons with emotions. For, it was reported by many world’s leading media houses and news agencies (including several websites) because of the charged atmosphere then that people were calling for the heads of the “Hausa” filmmakers. But, if we may ask ourselves: Where was the Ummah when the Soyayya “novels” flow the drainages of almost all the biggest literary markets and bookstalls in our major towns and villages? Who issued licenses to the countless video rentals and viewing centers in our major towns and villages? Who patronise the video rentals and viewing centers? Before our very eyes all these things happened and their wings grew up to such a status that they are now threatening almost everybody and have taken the community to ransom.

The issue should have been seen as a family affair if at all we mean well for ourselves. But, it has gone beyond that surprisingly. You cannot separate films with links from the philosophy behind the societal values in which the films are produced. That is the context in which we ought to see the dilemma of the “Hausa” filmmakers and their inability or unwillingness to appreciate the reasons behind the disdain being shown towards them.

Taking a clue from an argument by Sheikh Yusuf Qardawi, in his book, Ethics of Disagreement, if we were to take that the acts of terror in the West are the handiwork of the Muslims, he opined that he see no reason why Muslims should indulge in that. To him, some of the Islamists accused of the acts where the ones that were chased from their home countries by their home-governments and got asylum later in the West. Using similar argument, since the “Hausa” filmmakers have taken Kano (for those who have migrated to the ancient city) as their “base” reason dictates that they join hands with the sons-of-the-soil not to debase the cultural values of their host community. That’s if the sons-of-the-soils are ready to appreciate the dilemma we are all in!

A lot of things need to be done. The answer to the dilemma is two ways fold: simple and hard. Simple in the sense that: if Kannywood is ready to listen, it should and must try a radical break from the very nature of its shallow, false start. It should be ready to appreciate the meaning of homecoming and it will be in its own interest that it comes back home before mother totally disown her child. But, the way things are going it appears the hardest and the last if ever Kannywood will give it a trial.

The cleansing of the rot, to Analysts, should not be seen as that of a certain state government to sail alone. It must be embarked upon as a collective starting with our kinsmen (who are proving to be stubborn), their collaborators and sponsors that are hell bent in seeing that decency no longer thrives; then carrying the journey up to the shores where the dumping of cultural imperialists’ products elevated to an art with multi-billion dollar investment has become the order of the day!