The emergence of Hausa entertainment industry in Northern Nigeria, popularly known as Kannywood, has indeed reshaped Hausa-Fulani culture and the way people around the world once thought about the conservative region. In one way or the other, Hausa films have entered nook and crannies in Nigeria especially the North. There is no single house in the region that can exempt itself from Hausa movie contents, it is everywhere.

The industry formally got momentum around 1990s. The movers and shakers were eager to attract more Hausa audience, thus they come out new concept of cinematic synthesis of Indian and Hausa culture, which evolved and became extremely popular. Turmin Danya (The Draw), 1990, is usually cited as the first commercially successful Hausa film. It was followed by Gimbiya Fatima, In Da So Da Kauna, Munkar, Badakala and Ki Yarda Da Ni. The actors like Ibrahim Mandawari and Hauwa Ali Dodo became popular and set the stage for the emergence of super-star-like female actresses later on.

No doubt, Kannywood remains a driving point for economic activities in centre for commerce and industries in Africa, which is Kano State, as film production is fast becoming one of the highest employers of labour in the country.

As lucrative as it is, Kannywood is considered as the third leg of a national tripod supporting a hub of an emerging commercial activities through national film industry, Nollywood. It could be recall that, in 2001, the Kano State government accepted the film industry as very important by constituting the State Censors Board with film as its main area of concentration.

Recent statistics from the Nigerian National Film and Video Censor’s Board (NFVCB) show that of the over 1,000 Nigerian films approved by the board annually, English language films surprisingly made up only around 15%. By contrast, around 50% of the films were in Yoruba, and around 30% in Hausa.

The rising number of Nigerian language films indicates that, despite the global media focus on English films; Nigerian audiences seem to prefer productions in Nigerian languages. In 2010, DSTV opened Africa Magic channels in Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo. There are rising trends in opening new Television Stations who are competing with one another in terms of showing Hausa films. The Arewa 24, Farin Wata, Gamzaki are one of the popular channels broadcasting Hausa film on daily basis, and soon to opened Kannywood TV which is currently establishing by Dr. Ahmed Sarari.

Precisely, no one has number of total films produced in Kannywood. This happens as a result of lack of information and database to access that. But, it has been said that Kannywood produces not less than 300 films per year, making it one of the most producer of visual/feature films. 2017-2018 is considered as one of the commercially successful years in the history of Kannywood where films like Mansoor, Rariya, Kanwar Duba Rudu, Auren Manga, Mijin Yarinya, Yaki A Soyayya, etc recorded success at the Box Office. Recently, Kannywood filmmakers were quite adventurous in their movie themes. From action thrillers to romantic flicks and dance movies, they ensured that their audience remained spoilt for choice all year long.

The industry has witnessed growth in the aspect of new talented actors, producers, musicians and directors. According to some uncensored reports, Kannywood provides jobs to not less than 500,000 people across the country, direct and indirect.

Recently, most of Kannywood movies are being released in Cinemas across the country, particularly Filmhouse cinema situated in Kano, where movie-goers troop the hall in large numbers, take selfie with their idols and share pleasantries. Marketing is one of the major challenges Kannywood faced, considering the number of movies it produces every year, there is no doubt when one say cinema should be a priority.

The filmmakers are the most important elements in Kannywood film industry; because they are the producers of the movies and without them, there will be no Kannywood. Then after them, the second most important stakeholders are the film distributors; bringing and selling the movies to the consumers through the film exhibitors owing the cinemas, vendors of the DVDs and online exhibitors. There are over 300 active producers, production houses and distributors in the industry.

There is no way you can talk about film distribution without talking about movie piracy. The tragedy of piracy in Nigeria is the fact that even the filmmakers, music producers, artistes, distributors, exhibitors and vendors are all consumers of pirated movies and music recordings. This is one of the major factor Kannywood needs everyone’s hand to be on deck in order to stem the menace of copyright violation and infringement of their contents.

A recent threat by Kano State Censorship Board to arrest and jail Kannywood practitioners will not yield to a positive results, rather create another problem to the industry that may take time to overcome. Those who are familiar with Abubakar Rabo, the then Executive Director KSCB, during Ibrahim Shekarau can agree with me.

Kannywood as a Cultural Revolution pertaining marriage in Hausaland makes impact on social life. It has been portraying the tradition of marrying off young girls to old rich and powerful men, affirming the right of a girl to choose whom she wants to spend the rest of her life with.

As new trend of new world order and the advent of technology and other medium of displaying content, Hausa younger stars found other space to showcase their talent after the unfortunate death of popular Kofar Wambai Market. YouTube and Instagram is now an alternative forum for upcoming artists to tell their stories to the world.

Immediately after his resumption to office as the Executive Director, Kano State Censorship Board, Na’Abba Afakallahu vowed to arrest and jail anybody that uploaded a video on any of world-existing social media platforms particularly YouTube. Most of the Hausa video content providers considered his words as joke, because no one believes that person can be jailed just because he did not censor a song meant to be uploaded on YouTube. Though this has frightened sections of the community and it is a clear war against Kannywood, the objective of the war was straight forward.

Last week, a Kannywood director arrested on 2-count charges, one of it is that he released a songs on YouTube without certification from the board, which he (the director) denied. The court remanded him in prison for six days. This action has divided the industry into pieces, where some actors believe that the arrest was politically premeditated and led them to announce their resignation from the Kannywood.

This has already posed a great danger to the Northern entertainment industry. As much as fundamental the society seems to be, we should also consider the threats of this crack.

Precisely, more than 80% of the filmmakers in Kano and other neighboring states have registered with Isma’ila Na’Abbah Afakallahu-led Censors Board, but there is fear of what it stands for. The Board cannot really define what it wants other than it is fighting what it refers to as ‘Badala’ in Hausa.

Of course, Kannywood films are not and cannot be completely compatible with Islam or Hausa ‘culture’, but some of them try to abide by religious and cultural tenets. Kannywood is the only cinema where a man and a woman cannot be shown sleeping on the same bed, among other religio-cultural boundaries. Although some wish it were not that strict, it is and shall remain so.

No one will deny this fact that, Kannywood is no longer a Kano-based film industry but National. Many other producers from the Southern part of Nigeria has already started making movies in Hausa language and distributing it worldwide. In some instances, they hug, kiss and cuddle in their films and Kano State Censorship Board has no authority to stop them.

The talented Northern Nigerian youths have got job by themselves. They have reduced Government’s burden in providing job opportunities. I know a lot who cannot work in any Government agency no matter how much will be earning, they will rather be independent and register with State’s authority.

Nigeria, a capital poverty in the world, is being ranked as one of the countries with highest number of unemployed youths, needs to invest more in entertainment industry, because it is a lucrative business. The nation has failed to do that, and the citizen obtain succor using their God-given talent.

If we look at the situation, some Nigerians has chosen the road of causing mayhem to their fellow neighbors through insurgency, banditry, robbery and kidnapping. The perpertrators of​ these heinous acts are receiving amnesty from Federal and State governments, because everybody wants them to return back to the society. It is a bad idea for the government to be arresting and jailing its own citizen, who are making positive impact to the development of their states, socially and economically.

Besides, whether or not we talk about these “immoral” people, their existence (beyond the screen!) affects us. Celebrities are opinion-shapers globally. We can see how President Muhammadu Buhari, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, Kano State Governor Abdullahi Ganduje, Abba K. Yusuf, among other politicians in Nigeria, sought for their endorsements before the 2019 elections.

At this juncture, I call on Kannywood stakeholders to save their industry from crashing. The ongoing arrest and imprisonment of their members expose several things about both the actors and the industry. These include a conspicuous absence of committed leadership, total disrespect for elders in Kannywood, politically-engineered play and how the Hausa culture may probably crash if stakeholders allow people from nowhere to take over the industry. I am coconcerned!

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