By Moh Bello Habib Zaria
A professor of Hausa Language, Dan-Datti Abdulkadir, has advocated the use of Hausa as the offi cial language in all states of the North. He made the suggestion at a one-day international conference with theme “Hausa Nation: Th e present, the Past and Future” organised by Department of Hausa, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, at the University Assembly Hall, recently. He said it would be of paramount importance to promote the language in the country particularly in North which predominantly Hausa speakers by making it the offi cial language and translate into English for the benefi t other citizens.
Abdulkadir, a one-time Vice Chancellor, Bayero University, Kano, also said the language was internationally accepted, especially in Africa, adding that it was instrumental and functional. He said the language was among the fi rst to be used for broadcast for African by British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), while Arabic language was second. In his lead paper, Executive Secretary, Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC), Prof. Isma’il Junaid, said the language traversed social kinship system into strong political systems that constituted diff erent Hausa states.
“Th e Hausa states within the process of their development the states like Kano, Katsina Zazzau, of the remote past were brought under the control of ancient empires of Ghana, Songhai and Mali. Although the Hausa nation states were subjugated politically, the contact with the other people raised their political astuteness.” Earlier, the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Ibrahim Garba, described the language as “the factor that unites all Northerners” irrespective of their ethnic or religious diff erences. According to him, the language has the potentiality of becoming an offi cial language because all fi elds of knowledge and endeavour could be translated into it without diffi culty
