posted
Finally, something is to be done about the ugly Arabic script that appears on Naira notes, and this hausa man is not happy about it.
quote:Nigeria: Still on CBN's Restructuring of the Naira Daily Trust (Abuja)
OPINION M. T. Usman Kaduna
The Guardian editorial, "Restructuring the naira?" trounces the decision of the Central Bank of Nigeria as announced by the governor, Professor Charles Soludo to restructure the naira and concludes -"Thus, beyond the award of fresh contracts, currency restructuring is the anaemic child of diminution in the value of a poorly-managed currency with no economic benefit.
The proposed exercise should as a result --" (The Guardian issue of April 2006). Sadly, a more sinister motive is at the heart of the exercise than the opportunity to award fresh contracts. It is nothing less than the cultural cleansing of the naira to efface all vestiges of Northern cultural or artistic expression from the nation's currency notes. Such outcome has been canvassed since the beginning of the Obasanjo administration and is now finding fulfilment under the watch of Professor Soludo.
The campaign against Arabic inscription on our currency notes (Ajami to give it proper classification) began life in the intellectual circles of the South-West among whom Obasanjo's return to power has engendered a triumphal and an unconcealed desire to eliminate Northern influence in the politics and economy of the country. The presence of the inscription was touted as evidence of an attempt, or a plot to Islamise Nigeria, deliberately ignoring their antecedent in the first place. Zealots in the youth wing of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) found in this a suitable battle-cry and instituted a court action seeking to halt the practice. The challenge of CAN provided the authorities in the Central Bank with the needed excuse; they then proceeded to declare a "trade dispute" so to speak and went on to seek arbitration from on high. The politics of the third term or tenure elongation has meant that the administration could use this issue to garner support as it h as done with similar divisive issues. The Presidency could thus unabashedly approve the removal of the Arabic inscription as underhandedly sought by the Central Bank on the ground that it had the potential to cause religious unrest.
What is scheduled to replace the inscription when it comes out will make Nigerians wonder at the banality of our leadership. But why should the removal of the Arabic inscription matter or cause angst among Nigerians? The presence of the Arabic/Ajami inscription on our currency notes matters because it is an affirmation that we have a literary past, a pre-colonial history of literacy. The peoples of Northern Nigeria had, centuries before colonial rule and in the wake of the arrival of Islam, adapted the Arabic script to write their native languages. This engendered an appreciable level of literacy for that age among the populace, especially among the rulers and religious leaders. Such was the height attained that the leaders of the 19th Century Sokoto Jihad could write books, treaties, poems, etc. using the Ajami script (in addition to Arabic) to propagate their causes.
British colonial rule therefore met in Northern Nigeria a people accustomed to literary pursuits in all ramifications. It was this fact of relatively widespread literacy that caused them to incorporate the Ajami inscription to denote the value of the currency notes in the native Hausa language, which incidentally has been the lingua franca of the region. It offered nothing but practicality and was an acknowledgement of the cultural heritage of Nigeria as a whole. Its retention on the currency notes of independent Nigeria undoubtedly derived from the same premise. Cultural icons from other regions of the country received similar exposure.
The brief excursion into history above should help properly situate Nigeria's heritage of Islamic culture of which the art of Ajami writing is just a small part. Symbols of Christian heritage abound in our daily life, from the system of government to the calendar and so on. In the wider world, Saudi Arabia, that quintessentially Islamic country, has English inscription on its currency notes (denoting value still) without it being perceived as a threat from Christianity.
What we have witnessed in this episode is the brazen application of power to banish from official public display a part of the iconography of the North in order to satisfy the irredentists of the South-West. Yet more is likely to follow. The apex bank could easily decide to put the portraits of President Olusegun Obasanjo and Charles Soludo on the soon-to-be-reissued notes and coins, one for being the longest-serving ruler of Nigeria, the other for being the first professor to head the Central Bank. This should not be laughed out of court. In this season of Oba-worship, such thoughts are never far from the minds of the dwellers of the corridors of power.
Whatever the motivation was for including the Muslim script on our currency, it is now time to remove it.
posted
Rather than worry about the possible removal of the Arabic script on the Naira, Mallam Usman should be more concerned about the VALUE of the Naira, and what steps could be done to make the Naira appreciate in value, or to compete favorably in the international market. I am sorry, but after reading this, I came away with the feeling that this piece was quite simply, gratuitous emotionalism over “worthless” pieces of paper.
This avatar of yours speaks volumes. How about that? Forget it, the Naira will never again appreciate in value with a bunch that are bent in ruining the nation. So, when is your share coming up?
Don't tell me you are not interested.
TB LIVES HERE!
___________________ THE MORE YOU LOOK THE LESS YOU SEE Posts: 539 | From: Sin City, Sin World | Registered: Mar 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Thompson Buraimoh: Anaedo,
This avatar of yours speaks volumes. How about that? Forget it, the Naira will never again appreciate in value with a bunch that are bent in ruining the nation. So, when is your share coming up?
Don't tell me you are not interested.
TB LIVES HERE!
It is a test avatar. Many of the avatars there need to be updated or yanked out altogether. You know fuzzy or blurred ones. I wonder if the avatar I added is going to be accepted though.
"Naira dubu" is clearly visible in Hausa Ajami, not Arabic (or Persian or Urdu). Indian money has the denominations in over a dozen languages, two of which use Arabic script, neither of which are Arabic.
The list would appreciate it if those who are in Nigeria could keep us updated about this story, which is hard to follow outside the country, but which is of interest to most all of us on the list.
I do not know the reason that Hausa was chosen for the currency in the first place. It is true that Hausa was the official language of the Northern Region, but I believe Ibo was also the official language of the Eastern Region, and Yoruba of the Western Region. Thus the three of them gained the special status at the Federal level that they still enjoy today. Perhaps Hausa in Ajami script was singled out because of the many economically important northerners who could not read Roman script in colonial days. Without some archival research that remains a hypothesis. There were many hypotheses about why Hausa had been chosen for the official language of Northern Nigeria and why it was Romanized, but I didn't know what the real story was until I did some archival research. Perhaps some Nigerian scholar on the list can visit the archives of the Central Bank of Nigeria and learn why this decision was taken. Perhaps some scholar in Britain can find the answer in archives there. We would all be in debt to such scholars and they would certainly improve the tone of the debate about the spurious "Arabic" on Nigerian banknotes.
Hausa on the currency is an issue that should have nothing to do with religion or ethnicity. My advisor, Boniface Obichere, was an Ibo Catholic who spoke no more than a few words of Hausa, but he regularly passed Nigerian banknotes around in classes to explain to students that this was not Arabic on the money but Hausa, and that Nigerians had had literate cultures before colonialism. I myself use reproductions of Nigerian currency notes in PowerPoint lectures to explain the same thing to students. Russ Schuh (Malam Takalmi) has posted such a reproduction on the UCLA Hausa pages at the bottom of page <http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/aflang/Hausa/Pronunciation/writing.html>;. I don't want him to have to remove that.
This is an issue which affects all of us who teach about Africa, especially Nigeria, and I think we have a right to write to ask the Central Bank of Nigeria what is its justification for removing Hausa from the currency, creating currency notes entirely in colonial language, something the colonialists themselves never did. If anything I would have expected an independent government to add more African languages. How does it look if the 21st century money is less Nigerian than the colonial currency was?
quote:Reflections on Arabic inscriptions on Nigeria's Currency By Dr. Nowa Omoigui nowa_o@yahoo.com
The only reason an Arabic inscription is, in combination with English, on Nigeria's currency today is the influence of history.
It has been so from the very first time paper currency was printed for Nigerian use (either for British or indigenous Traders). Before the Nigerian pound (replaced in 1973 by Naira and Kobo), the old West African Currency Board (WACB) pound (also known as West African Pound (WAP)) was in use, first from 1913 in restricted distribution, and then more generally from 1946 until 1959 in Nigeria, 1957 in Ghana, 1965 in Gambia and 1964 in Sierra Leone. Liberia also used the currency until 1943 when it changed to the U.S. dollar. British Southern Cameroon used it too, until the plebiscite of 1961.
The WAP - from which the post-independence currencies of Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone and Gambia were derived - also had Arabic inscriptions on it.
The original reason for Arabic was that Frederick Lugard (who was the first Commander of the West African Frontier Force (1897 - 99) and later the first High Commissioner of Northern Nigeria (1899 - 1906); and later the Governor of the protectorates of Northern and Southern Nigeria (1912 - 1914); and finally the first Governor General of post-amalgamation Nigeria (1914 - 1919 ); identified Arabic the only written "indigenous" language anywhere in Nigeria/West Africa, particularly among the widely spread Hausa trader class across the region. (See Lugard report to Parliament, 1919) Arabic inscriptions were, therefore, used as symbols, not only for currency but even on official West African Frontier Force badges etc... which persist until today in Nigerian Army badges etc...
In the mind of the British colonial administrators in Nigeria - whose administrative experience was heavily influenced by their military service in Northern Nigeria and other parts of the sahel belt of West Africa - rightly or wrongly, Arabic writing was to West Africa as Latin was to Europe. In addition to English, therefore, they used Arabic to domesticate British instruments meant for local use. The fact that such symbols still exist is one of many scars of the era of colonial rule. However, not all former British West African colonies still use Arabic translations on their currencies as a footnote to history. Nigeria and Gambia do. Ghana and Sierra Leone do not:
In the West African Francophone colonies, where the local Franc (CFA) was adopted, the French policy of association and assimilation persisted, and the language used was exclusively French. No outlet was allowed for any indigenous written language.
In summary, the persistence of Arabic writing in some Nigerian State instruments to this day is the legacy of one man - Lord FD Lugard - "our" first Governor General.
By the way, coincidentally, the word "Naira" means "big eyes" in the Andean language of Quechua, where it is used as a name for girls. It is also a Spanish name - Naira o Nayra - for both boys and girls. We were probably not aware of this in 1973 when - in an effort to escape from the "colonial" word "pound" - we adapted the name "Naira" from the word "Nigeria" - which in of by itself was originally suggested by then Flora Shaw (later Lady Flora Lugard) by collapsing the colonial geographical phrase "Niger-Area". "Niger-Area" became "Nigeria" on January 8th, 1897.
Even the word "Niger" is not indigenous. As I have observed elsewhere, the word "Niger" is actually a Greek imposed Latin name, which means "Black" or “very dark brown”. Needless to point out that the word "Area" is English.
Lastly, come to think of it, all I have written on the subject above is in English, which, whether spoken or written, is neither indigenous to my Edo nationality or Nigeria.
It seems we have a crisis of identity in every direction we turn!
Am still unsatisfied. That the colonial whatever said arabic was the most read does not mean it was written in stone for us to be lobbed into something super majority do not care for.
___________________ BIAFRA: The land of my ancestors now, yesterday and always. So it will be! Posts: 2482 | From: Ala Igbo | Registered: Apr 2004
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I enjoyed reading your piece on titled, ""Islamic Terror", Islam phobia and all that."
In particular, I was struck by the whole brouhaha regarding "Islamic inscriptions" on the currency. The Ajami script, of Persian origin, was merely a form of alphabet used to translate some West African languages, such as Hausa, Fulani etc... which is how it got on the Nigerian descendant of the old common colonial West African Currency. Ditto the motto of the West African Frontier Force.
As you rightly pointed out, Arabic inscriptions are not historically synonymous with Islam, although many tend to wrongly presume so because the Koran was originally written in Arabic alphabet (although now widely available in Roman alphabet), Arab countries are today predominantly Islamic and Arabic alphabets are not in widespread use outside the Arab world.
In fact Arabic alphabet predates Islam. It originated from the Nabatean alphabet - in which Aramaic – the language that Jesus spoke - was written. Aramaic was derived from Phoenician.
You also make a good point about the widespread use of the Hindu-Arabic numeral system (i.e. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc) in the western world today - a fact that many Nigerians who complain about the Ajami script are curiously ignorant about.
It may be pertinent too to add that Latin phrases adorn many mottos of schools and organizations in Nigeria, not to mention its widespread use in Medical and Legal education, among others. Why anyone should be inherently more comfortable with Latin than any other alien language beats me.
Furthermore, I recall reading in the newspapers that some Nigerian Universities, assisted by Chinese government grants (with the knowledge of the Nigerian government), are planning to introduce Chinese (along with Arabic, Huama and Suzhou numerals and Hanzi (Chines alphabets) as a language of study.
Nigeria is an interesting country. There is certainly something wrong in an educational system that fails to imbue basic knowledge of the history of numerals and alphabets in its citizens. All alphabetical and numerical systems in use in Nigeria are of foreign origin, each with its own unique historical significance.
Ignorance can be dangerous, especially when mixed with misguided religious sentiment.
Nowa Omoigu
Posts: 36 | From: united kingdom | Registered: Aug 2006
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