INTERVIEW WITH SULAIMAN IBRAHIM KATSINA

This interview was conducted in London on the 11th November 1998 when I was in the UK.

ADAMU: Mallam Sulaiman, would you please tell us a brief about yourself?

KATSINA: I was born in Katsina in the Northern Nigeria over 40 years ago. I had my primary education over there, after that I went to a school at Lagos and the school was not approved by government and I left it. I started working at a very young age as a typist, but seeing that education was not enough at that time so I registered for home studies. I did GCE O level after that I went to Katsina Polytechnic as a staff and then they started Diploma courses. Because I have these GCE papers I joined in and did National Diploma in Accounting. After that I came to BBC and while working here I also register foe MA in Communication Policies Studies and I did it and finished in 1994. I have a wife and five children.

ADAMU: Thank you. What influenced you to start writing?

KATSINA: Well, speaking honestly, it was the situation that I was seeing around me, even though Nigeria was wealthy at that time, there were a lot of things that were going wrong, and the seed of corruption in Nigeria was being planted. So a lot of things were going wrong though less wrong than now. That was the main influence.
The other influence was the competition that was organised by northern Nigerian Publishing Company. Even though I had the hope to write, I didn’t put pen on paper until that competition came up.

ADAMU: So that was in the1970s?

KATSINA: That was around 1978. I wrote most part of MALLAKIN ZUCIYATA at Katsina Oil Mill where I worked for a brief period of time. We were working there but there was no groundnut there so we were virtually doing nothing. So instead of wasting our time doing nothing in an air-conditioned environment, I found it was very easy to write there and it was pleasurable experience.

ADAMU: How did the idea of the story came about?

KATSINA: As you can see, if you read MALLAKIN ZUCIYAT, it was a story of a …….there are multiple stories. There is the story of Usman and Sakina, the girl he loved and a rich man as it happens in our society. He wanted to get the girl instead of this young man who had nothing. It is the story of that young man. It is a struggle to see that he did not participate or help in embezzlement or a short of corruption, Because a gentleman was asking him to fill- if I can remember a tax form for him and to do shady things for him, and he refused to help him. So it was that story. It was also the story of his father who was not educated in the western sense. He wasn’t even educated in the Islamic sense. He didn’t have much education, but still realised that it was a good thing for his children to have Islamic and modern education, so that they will be able to help themselves, when he was away. It was also that struggle, so it wasn’t just one story but many stories in one.

ADAMU: Can you remember how old you were at that time?

KATSINA: Well, at that time I wrote the book I would say I was in my early 20s.

ADAMU: How did you come to know about the competition?

KATSINA: The competition was advertised in gaskiya ta fi kobo and ,ithink the new nigerian. But I saw mine in gaskiya ta fi kobo and I started writing immidiately. And it was only a day yo the closing date ,that I was able to find some body who was going to Zaria. That mean I didit even know him I gave him the maniscript and lockily enough he delivered it before the closing date. And I was happy the book selected among the rest for a price.


ADAMU:You second book ‘Tirmin danya which also mean competition, seemed to take a new dimention. That was taking about smuggling and corruption in and more detail way, perhaps because katsina you decision to write on that ?
KATSINA: yes and seeing what was hoppening in katsina at that time, in terms of smuggling , that was the greatest influence. And I was very close to some of them (the people who are paticipating in the smuggling) some of them even leave close to my area and I wouldn’t he sitate to say some of them didn’t take smuggling to be a crime. But may be because they saw that most of the customs officers who were there to protect the borders usually perticipate in this illegal act.
So, having come from katsina as city near the boeder of niger republic actually inluenced that novel.


ADAMU:Your third novel.’ Tura ta kai bango ‘ is a political novel poblished in a era what informed that decision.
KATSINA:That decision as yo were probably a were there was the 1979 hand over from military to civilian regime and I participated in politic at that time and the amount of rigging and colloboration between the politians and the polio was the main reason for the book. Iwas thinking that may be if I write on how such a thing were taking place and yhow the people can stand up and avert to it that could influence what happened in 1983. But unfortunately if Icould remember the book came out later ,but idon’t think even ,if` it come out ealier it would have been able to avert that because not every body reads hausa novel but it was a small attempt from my on part to see things change and people take steps to see that their ambition were realised or the people they voted for are those who came to power at the end.



ADAMU: So to what extent have you participated in the politic in the second repoblic

KATSINA : I participated to extent of standing for election for katsina North – west consituecy but unfortunately we were rigged out of victory, but I didn’t regret participating



ADAMU: So it seems from your starty ‘ Tura ta kai bango ‘ you political ideology is progress, what I mean by progressive , in the nigeria since , Iam al right ?
KATSINA : Well, if you mean progressive….if by progressive you mean being so much revotionary I Will say that I you’re correct . Because when I participated in politic I was with were calling for change from what was happened at that time to new silvation where by those who were exploiting the people were stopped from doing so. If that is the what you mean by progressive Iparticipated on the progressive side of politic and I will continue to do so.


ADAMU: So can I guest you’re in PRP?

KATSINA: Iwas in the PRP and you know there was an alliance between the PRP and the GNPP and even with UPN so I stood for election on the ticket of GNPP at that but later when, we were defeated I departed my PRP.



ADAMU : So if you had mean, how would you cope up as a writer whose ideals may go contrary to that of your political associates or party at the time?

KATSINA: I know it would ve bean very tough especially what would happen at the end and though even if I had won and money people like me had won may be the kaduna stee house assembly would be a different place.but unfornutely becuose of the messive rigging that took place it was the npn that donated the house . if that situation ifound. Myself in, I could do much but to contribute as much asi could . what I mean by that is that the impact of what I will be able do wouldn it be much because they control the house assembly and they stopped all the progressive steps that balarabe musa , the first ciuilian govornor of kaduna state was trying to take to establish the industries in all the local government of kaduna state .
If were elect, still we didn’t here the majority in the house, I did’t think the impact would be much with the majority of the NPNand their determinationto stop progress.

ADAMU: after reading your 3rd book in 1985 we haven it read another one, we just heard your on BBC, what happen /
KATSINA: yes you didn’t read another book because when I came to BBC I though the work would be light and the I would be able to write because I had at that time the intention to continue with my education and that was the reason for coming here to work for the BBC and at the same time to do my MA. I found the job very hectec and there wosn’nt much time to write but all the same I was writing on and off and I was writing poems as well as the hausa novels and some of the english service . And some of the hausa peoms I wrote and I read, kwazon mata’ with I wrote and read over the BBC some years ago but I didn’t stop writing live been writing only that what live been writing has not yet been published. I hope it will be soon published in sha allah


That means must have written some other book if yes, how many/
I’ve one completed hausa novel but I am going over it to see I’ve made correction here
And there
Apart from that I’ve translate something into english and that too Iam going over it to see that I’ve made correction here and there and see that it is as readable as possible. And present iam writing another one, Ive just started writing a new novel and that too… I don’t know when that will finish for it is being writing now.


KANO: can we here an idea about the novel you’re complete?

KATSINA: Well I don’t want to talk about it now I don’t want to talk too soon about it – until it comes out.
KANO: What of the on- going one?

KATSINA: The on-going one is a political novel is about a president an africa president a military and you know we here many military president and many military despots in the past. It is in that area that iam writing in the moment , it would reflect the amount of corruption that happen under such military and how the arrested democracy and they arrested development in their countries. An how african is suffering all because of that.

ADAMU: And now let us go back to the character in your novel, it seems you here given your charecter may be the character in your peotry book, for example ; usman in ‘ mamallakin zuciya ; mukhtar in turmin danya ; hassan in ‘ tura ta kai bango’ are very strong , What informed the decision to make these character very strong?

KATSINA: Well the character here to be strong to fight the battle that they were fighting, a battle against the forces of evil and the forces of evil usually very strong in order to be able to fight against them you here to be strong, very strong it was not unconcious decision on part to make them very strong, it was the circumtances they made them very strong.

ADAMU: You fewer character are also very strong or rather supporter for example the wife of hassan in tura ta kai bango ‘ is it also not deliberate?

KATSINA: Of course that was very deliberate because I want show those who doubt our woman really do a lot in their effort to liberate their children and those women who felt reluntant or those who felt they don’t here role to play that it is a sort of example to them and that such women can do as hassan wife did there fore it is a sort of encouragement to them. It was a deliberate decision to show that women too can participate and help in the way that they can. That they (women) should’t be passived.

ADAMU: It seems you share the idea of punishing the guilty in your books right even if it is right.
KATSINA: Well it is right, although people are saying that in realirty , guilty people usually or in some cases go cut free but in my case I don’t want to see guilty people going to cut free expecially if they are very guilty and so it really my intention to see that in the end a guilty person gets punished. And with our lack of development if guilty people do not get punished then the development can hardly come our way I think, the main punishment of a guilty in our society is the main reason why we are left behind.

ADAMU: You must have earlier read Hausa fiction who and who here you read and which among them influenced you must?

KATSINA: Yeah, you’re right ire read many hausa novel writted by hausa writers. The first one that comes to mine is the late abubakar imam ire read most of his writing and ire also read one book .. or few books of writers like amadu ingawa who wrote ‘iliya dan mai karfi ‘ abdullahi kawuji who wrote dare’ dubu da daya ‘ and many othae
I would say the influence is from most of them that help me writing today I cant say a particular author was main inpiration but all of them.

ADAMU: What of english writers.

KATSINA: Yes; ire read many book writing by english writers and nigerian writers like ; chinua achebe and late like labararu and muhammad sule and many others also african writers like gwaigwawa obinti and out side; charles dinkens and geoge bannershow and shakespare and gabreil garcia so I have read many books writted by english writers both poet and playwhrights.

ADAMU: Has that also influenced your style of writing generally .

KATSINA: Well you can not read all those books with out being influenced by them. They here influenced my style of writing a lot. I can not say they’re done in one respect or the other, but for instance the revolutionary out look of NGUGI has great influence on my writing. And the revenve in the poems of Christopher okigboh has also a great influence because I read and I like his poems even now. And gabreal gaga …I like his style, so can’t pick one author and say the author influence me more than the others. But I enjoin the I will continue to enjoin them and I think what I read would usually influence what I write.
ADAMU: can we say that your explosive to general literature may be more than the hau8sa literature so you’re read English literature and Africa literature and this might’ve influence your style of chosen thing instead of writing about what was the dominant things to the period; writing about jinns and empires, you decided to write about contemporary things ?
KATSINA: yes, that is true ready these contemporary novel had really influence the way I write and the other thing was the theme I was writing on thought a very good writer can write them in the way that the previous HAUSA writers were writing but for me I found it easier to make things as contemporary as they can be so that my readers would be able to understand what I’m writing and the message I am trying to deliver. And reading these contemporary writers books really influence me and I think I can write the same way as HAUSA writers are writing.

KANO: may people consider the generation if we may call those writers as revolutionary but it is a revolution which has momentarily failed because you decided not write again and that has given rise to the new style of writing is rather taken us back instead of taken us forward. What can you say about that?

KATSINA: when you say my generation, you make me feel very old. But in my own case , I haven’t stopped writing and I hope to continue to write . and as I have told you earlier I am still writing and I hope most of my books will be out soon. I am more emphasatic on the HAUSA ones and specially this literature that you said is existing at HAUSA land in this moment, and if it is not satisfactory I don’t think it will be our own part , because we’ve written that we could write and if that we wrote is good , those who read it will be able to improve upon it and the standard will be more than our own standard, I believe that what ever ones needs, should be able to improve upon it not to give up for seeing how far many have gone ahead of him or her.