Hard times in Kannywood

Kano film industry under the mullah’s thumb

On 12 February, I arrived at the mobile court at the Kano Airport on the back of an achaba (commercial motorbike). The harmattan was heavy that day, swathing the streets of Kano in grey. When I entered the court I saw my friends, actors, producers and singers in the Hausa film industry sitting on benches, waiting.

Our friend, Sulaiman Abubakar, a 28-year-old Hausa film editor, music video director, and student at Bayero University, had been arrested at 7pm the night before, after returning from his lectures at the university and starting work at the studio.

Sulaiman later told me that the policemen said he would be detained only as long as it took his boss to bring papers to the police station in the ominously named No Man's Land, proving that their company, H2 Concepts, was registered with the Kano State Censorship Board. However, after the Hisbah, the Shari'a enforcer, who was giving the orders, made a phone call, they told Sulaiman that papers or no papers, he would sleep at the police station that night.

Sulaiman's detention is only one of the latest in a series of arrests and quick trials at the mobile court established specifically for censorship- board-related cases. Following an August 2007 scandal in which the phone video footage of a Hausa actress having sex was leaked to the public, the Kano State Censorship Board began to implement stricter penalties on the Hausa entertainment industry.

Dozens of filmmakers, performers, and studio employees have been arrested alongside hundreds of book, newspaper, and video vendors, workers at video gaming and football viewing centres, traditional medicine sellers, and other employees in entertainment/media-related professions.

The severest sentence so far has been carried out on award-winning Hausa film director, Hamisu Lamido Iyan-Tama. The former Kano State gubernatorial candidate is currently serving a three-month prison sentence inclusive of a N300,000 fine, with another sentence of a year in prison with the option of fine, for allegedly not registering his company with the Kano State Censorship Board and for releasing his film Tsintsiya in Kano without having it censored.

Iyan-Tama has a receipt for registration and had stated on radio and in newspapers that his film was not for sale in Kano. However, representatives of the censorship board say that his registration paperwork was not complete and that he had not communicated officially with the board about not selling this film in the state.

Although most of the film industry practitioners taken to the court are given lesser sentences with the option of fines, several detainees claim they were encouraged by court workers to plead guilty without a defence lawyer present.

Sulaiman related that he and his boss were afraid to involve a lawyer in their case for fear that what happened to Iyan-Tama would happen to them. In October 2008, one of the most popular Hausa comedians 'dan Ibro (Rabilu Musa) and his colleague, Lawal Kaura (director, producer and actor) were sentenced by a mobile court to two months in prison without the option of a fine.

They were charged for not registering their production company with the board and for [releasing] an uncensored video compilation of songs and dances taken from other films where Ibro featured.

When asked about the fact that there was no defence lawyer present at that trial or at other mobile court trials, the Director General of the Kano State Censorship Board, Abubakar Rabo Abdulkarim, responded that over 85 percent of the cases in the mobile court "were undertaken in the presence of defence counsels....

But of course yes, if somebody pleads guilty immediately after a charge is mentioned to him, and, there is not any counsel, and he did not intend to present any counsel, then obviously the judge has every right to respond to his confessional statement before the court of law.

With regard to the case of Rabilu Musa, Robo indicated that "he pleaded guilty.... He was even asked what he was appealing to the court. He responded to the court that he wanted mercy, he wanted some sort of leniency. That is how the judge went ahead to pass his verdict."

In an interview conducted with Lawal Kaura in November 2008, after his release from prison, he provided another side to the story. He claimed that Rabilu Musa initially denied charges that he owned a production company.

However, during the break in proceedings, they were advised by court workers to plead guilty, [that] the court would have mercy on them. In the absence of a defence counsel to advise him, Musa entered a guilty plea and was accordingly sentenced.

Kaura also told me that when they were arrested they were not shown any police identification and were transported to the court in a private vehicle.

An actress who requested anonymity, related a similar story. She described how she was waiting alone in the office of a director when she was confronted by a man without a uniform or police ID who asked her who she was and what she was doing in the studio.

When she answered him flippantly, he sent her to the mobile court in a vehicle with dozens of workers from other studios. When she was able to produce her identity card proving her registration with the censor's board before the court, she was released.

The filmmakers I interviewed in Kano expressed frustration with the climate of uncertainty created by frequent police raids. Baba Karami, a producer, actor, and marketer of Hausa films, was taken before the mobile court in November but released when he was able to show that his papers were in order.

He told me that he had a family that he was trying to provide for and that he would follow whatever law was put in place. However, he was concerned about the frequent arrests. He called on the government to work through the filmmakers' association to discipline filmmakers who broke the law rather than arresting individual stakeholders.

With detainees regularly paying fines ranging from N20,000 to N300,000, stakeholders are concerned that large numbers of people are being put out of work in a state where unemployment is already high.

Ahmad Sarari, Vice President of the Motion Picture Practitioner's Association, Hausa film producer, and brother of the jailed Iyan-Tama, told me that until 2007 the Hausa film industry had been worth billions of Naira, roughly 35 percent of the Nigerian film industry, and employed thousands of youth, many of whom had not been able to complete school and who but for their creativity and entrepreneurial skills would be unemployed.

"Some were among those who sell petrol on the street. Some were real hooligans. In fact, some were even armed robbers... But can you imagine, they got a job! Everybody got a job to do. Those who were armed robbers, they abandoned that armed robbery, got engaged. ... Some bought houses. Some got married with children." He expressed concern about what happens when such people are put out of work: What options do they have to fall back on?

Critics of the Hausa film industry and other creative works point out that not all jobs are of equal standing in society. In an editorial published on 28 January in Sunday Trust, Mohammad Mahmud argues that "the provision of employment will never be an alibi for spreading evil in the society.

"All other vices could be established in our midst in the guise of providing employment if we fall for this bait. Brothels, drug traffickers, armed robbers, fraudsters, riggers, corrupt officials, etc, could as well find this theory handy."

On the issues of the steep fines paid at the mobile court, Mallam Rabo claims the law makes provision for large fines and points out that it is up to the "discretion" of the judge "to quantify the gravity of the offences" in sentencing. He further said that "the issue of fine is not our affair, it is that of the judicial service commission.

The board does not take any kobo. Even the receipts that were issued, is not that of the board..."

Although a frequent criticism of the film industry is that it is spoiling culture and the religious upbringing of the youth, filmmakers often protest that they too are Muslims.

Actor and producer, Nura Hussein, said that it is not Kannywood that is spoiling the upbringing of the youth but poverty and irresponsible parenting. He said, as Muslims, the filmmakers agreed that they should follow the rules of religion and the law of the state, but added that attempts to destroy the industry were wrong.

Mr. Sarari described how he and his imprisoned brother, Iyan-Tama, had both received awards from the censorship board in the past for their positive portrayals of Hausa society.

He enthused that filmmaking was actually a way to educate the world about Hausa culture and Islam. Filmmakers are apparently not the only ones who feel this way.

In a February 2009 FIM Magazine interview, Hausa superstar, Sani Danja, described how he received an award called the Star of Islam from an Islamic organisation in Ghana for how he "helped tradition" in his film D'an Zaki. And while filmmakers are frustrated by the frequent raids and arrests, they often point out that God's justice will eventually be done.

One performer was arrested and given a N1,000 fine at the mobile court for "obstruction of justice" when she questioned the police who were arresting her friend. "I never thought I would find myself in such a situation," she told me, requesting anonymity because she didn't want to face stigma for having been arrested.

"But I told them to go ahead, since I had not done anything wrong. Since I hadn't stolen anything, I hadn't done anything immoral... God will take care of them."

Sulaiman was released the next day in the mobile court when his boss paid a N10,000 court fee to the Kano State Judiciary and N5000 "compensation" to the Kano State censorship board, which they were told was for moving their office from the registered location. However, that wasn't the end of the story.

The next week, police officers came again to the studio asking for Sulaiman by name. This time they were checking for individual registration. Although the police didn't find Sulaiman in the studio, they did arrest two other editors and one performer from nearby studios and took them to the mobile court.

Most filmmakers look forward to the future. When asked what they hope to do in the next few years, they say they believe the Hausa film industry will grow and accomplish things they had never dreamed of. But for now, they say, they'd like the arrests to stop, and they would like to get on with their work.