Validación de los contextos

Katsina city is just 170 kilometres away from Kano and is one of the biggest and oldest cities closest to Nigeria‘s northern border with Niger Republic. Previously a city-state, it was probably founded in the tenth or twelfth century (Palmer,

1926)—‗there is much less information on the early history of Katsina‘ (Adamu, 1984, p.273). It has been a well-established centre of Islamic education since the fourteenth century (Palmer, 1926; Adamu, 1984) and was one of the early trade routes linking North African merchants with West Africans (Palmer, 1926). It had bitter rivalry with Kano, though, over the control of the trans-Saharan commerce for two centuries (Fisher, 1975). ‗Early in the seventeenth century, two Kano Sarkis (kings) died on campaigns against Katsina,‘ noted Fisher (1975, p.117).

‗Both Sarki Kutumbi of Kano and his son Al Haji were killed in battle by the Katsinawa, after which a treaty of peace was made between Kano and Katsina,‘

wrote Herbert Richmond Palmer (1926, p.226) who had served as British colonial resident for Katsina, Kano and Bornu Provinces. The war between Kano and Katsina, both under the leadership of Muslim kings, apparently ended when they were confronted by the threat of invading non-Muslim armies of Kwararrafa who actually invaded Kano and moved east to besiege the then powerful Muslim kingdom of Bornu until they ‗were driven back‘ by its ruler Mai Ali Umarmi ‗and apparently severely defeated around 1680‘ (Palmer, 1926, p.226).

So Katsina had quite a long history of politics, war, commerce and learning long before the advent of colonialism at the beginning of the twentieth century. During the colonial administration too Katsina was among the earliest places in the North to get Western type of schools. Northern Nigeria‘s first colonial education officer Hans Vischer in 1912 opened a formal Western school in the city and established in 1923 Katsina Teachers‘ Training College (Stewart, 1986) where a significant number of early Nigerian leaders, including its first prime minister Tafawa Balewa and Northern Nigeria‘s premier Ahmadu Bello, were trained. Katsina State itself produced many prominent Nigerian scholars and leaders, including former head of state General Muhammadu Buhari who later became Nigeria‘s opposition leader, former president Umaru Yar‘adua and his brother General Shehu Yar‘adua, who was the deputy of the former Nigeria‘s military leader Olusegun Obasanjo in the 1970s. Currently, the state capital has many higher educational institutions, including Umaru Yar‘adua University and Katsina University. It terms of composition, Katsina is a classic Hausa-Fulani state, almost entirely Islamic (non-Muslims are mainly migrants), and Hausa is the native language.

The historical and geopolitical importance of the city as well as the background and composition of its population, being the natural target of the BBC Hausa Service and many other international Hausa language broadcasters, made Katsina a natural choice for focus group discussion. Familiarity with the city, being the birth place of the researcher, and massive contacts with the people—despite long absence—made it quite easy to plan and hold a focus group discussion in the city.

Personal friends and acquaintances were first contacted on telephones to make contact with local community leaders and sound the idea of their possible participation in a panel discussion. Elderly community leaders did not give positive response but middle-aged elected politicians and local officials were somewhat enthusiastic. Ten of them were contacted, seven agreed, and five turned up for the discussion.

A venue was suggested by one of the participants, the secretary of Katsina Local Government Council, who along with the other participants felt that it was convenient for all of them to be there early evening. It was a construction site where some of them were building new houses, in a newly-provided site near the highbrow Government Reservation Area (GRA), the neighbourhood of the rich and influential people in the city. GRA quarters, which exist in almost all Nigerian towns and cities where colonial administrators had lived, were colonial creations meant to separate the British colonial administrators and their staff from the natives (Larkin, 2008). These were areas demarcated far away from the original towns and cities where the natives lived; it was in those reserved areas that the houses of the colonial officers and their staff were built; and they lived there during the colonial administration. After independence, however, the local administrators who replaced the colonial officials moved to those places. Many rich and influential locals too bought plots of land and built houses and moved to those areas. In the case of Katsina, though, there are still many rich and influential people who still live in the old city (as has also been the case in many other cities in Northern Nigeria). Some of them own residences in both the highbrow neighbourhood of GRA and in the old city.

The venue for our discussion was in the area that is part of the extension of the GRA; and the participants were among a growing number of ‗young‘ politicians in

the city whose prosperity was reflected by the new houses they were erecting. We met in the early evening of Tuesday, 22 February 2011, at the construction site.

New roads were being built and their houses were near completion. We gathered in one of the uncompleted buildings, owned by one of the participants. The five participants were all male, aged 34 to 50, and apparently comfortable with their positions as local officials in the city. They comprised of the secretary of Katsina Local Government Council, its supervisory councillor in charge of education and social services, supervisory councillor in charge of agriculture, one elected councillor, and a former bank worker-turned-politician. They all have at least college-level education, have wide access to a variety of international media products and were well exposed to local politics, which was not surprising, considering the fact that they are career politicians.

The discussion was held openly and freely, unhindered by any form of interference. The participants were very familiar with one another, and none of them attempted to force his views on others. There were some divergence of views on some issues at the beginning but gradually their views began to converge as each participant brought forward his arguments. The whole discussion was conducted in Hausa language. The researcher served as the moderator while at the same time tape-recording the session. The recorded length of the discussion was 33 minutes. The time spent with them was well over one hour, though. There was obviously no demand for payment for participation in the discussion; and given their comfortable social status, no offer of drinks was made to any of them, knowing fully well that it would be turned down.