Prof. Dr. Abdalla Uba Adamu - NOUN VC 2016 
Prof. Dr. Abdalla Uba Adamu, holds double professorships in Science Education (1997) and Media and Cultural Communication (2012) from Bayero University Kano, Nigeria. The Professorial Inaugural Lectures he delivered in each discipline are available on this site.
His main research focus is on transnational media flows and their impact on the transformation of Muslim Hausa popular culture especially in literature, film, music and performing arts. He is the creator of the Foundation for Hausa Performing Arts (Kano, Nigeria, www.fohapa.com) whose main focus is archiving traditional performing arts heritage of the Muslim Hausa.
In 2012 he was appointed European Union Visiting Professor for the project 'The Modern University' at the Department of African Langauges and Cultures, University of Warsaw, Poland from 1st March to 31st May 2012. At Warsaw, he taught two highly popular courses: Transnationalism and African Popular Culture, and Oral Traditions in Local and Global Contexts. His recent publications are listed in this website.
He is currently working in the area of Cultural Anthropology, with a specific focus on the identity formation among Hausa-Arabs in northern Nigeria.
Specialties: Media and Cultural Communications, Science Education, Ethnoscience, Research Methdologies, Management Information Systems, Translations
Interests
Ethnomusicology cultural anthropology digital archiving of literary texts
research methodologies media anthropology performances
Experience
Department of Mass Communication, Bayero University Kano, Nigeria
October 2012 – Present (3 years 5 months)
Teach courses in media and cultural communication, especially as both relate to the Muslim Hausa of northern Nigeria, and specifically in areas of popular culture such as music (both traditional acoustic and electronic), literature (mainly contemporary Hausa literature) and Hausa video films, film theory and criticism, film techniques, film production, literary criticism, social media and online identities, online communication, media research methodologies
Bayero University, Kano
October 1997 – Present (18 years 5 months)
Teaching and research in Science Education, Ethnoscience, Ethnomathematics, science education curriculum development, indigenious knowledge in science and environment, indiginization of Arabic script (as ajami) by the Hausa in literacy campaigns, History and Philosophy of Science
Bayero University Kano
July 1980 – Present (35 years 8 months)
Visually Ethnographic Networks
March 2003 – Present (13 years)
Visually Ethnographic, established in 2006 in Kano city, northern Nigeria, is a research company with a focus on field recordings of ethnographic data, especially in northern parts of Nigeria. It mainly produces non-commercial, educational documentary films for libraries, schools and NGOs on various aspects of cultural anthropology of mainly Muslim Hausa as part of its contributions towards digitalization of the cultural experiences and transformations in the region. Its main focus is on media and cultural communication.
Foundation for Hausa Performing Arts
January 2008 – Present (8 years 2 months)
Ethnomusicological research, digitization and archiving of n Hausa traditional folk music in northern Nigeria
Center for Hausa Cultural Studies
January 2003 – December 2007 (5 years)
NGO with a focus on research on Hausa media technologies especially film, music and literature
Skills
Ethnographic Documentary Filmmaker Film and Music Director
Film Producer
Traditional Hausa Music Production and Direction
Translations (from Hausa to English, or vice-versa) Research
Qualitative Research Teaching Ethnography Film Creative Direction
Intercultural Communication NGOs Creative Writing English See 11+
Education
D.Phil, Education and Human Resource Dvt
1985 – 1988
M.A., Science Education
1982 – 1983
Chelsea College, Bridges Place, University of London
Dip Sci Education, Science Education
1981 – 1982
B.Sc. (Ed), Science Education/Biology
1976 – 1979
Publications
In Isma'ila A. Tsiga & M. O. Bhadmus (Eds.), Literature, history, and identity in northern Nigeria (pp. 101-128). Ibadan: Safari Books Ltd. Safari Books Ltd, Ibadan, Nigeria
January 2016
Authors: Abdalla Uba Adamu
Music in the World of Islam Conference, Assilah, Morocco
August 2007
This paper is a study of how transnational musical genres and forms, specifically from Hindi film music, became appropriated and domesticated by Muslim Hausa of northern Nigeria and integrated as part of their youth popular culture, as well as religious musical performances. It specifically analyses how the Muslim Hausa music of northern Nigeria became transformed first as a result of Islamic encounters, and subsequently as a result of global media flows which appraises the musical relationships that have been formed and continue to be formed between different regions of the world of Islam. It looks at how Hindi film music became appropriated by the Muslim Hausa and recast as a new form of secular and religious performance in an Islamicate society, and the consequences of such circulation on the structural character of Hausa traditional music.
Authors: Abdalla Uba Adamu
Bayero Journal of Political Science (Maiden Edition), pp. 65-89. Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria
June 2014
The political climate of the Kano State, Nigeria, partisan political administration from 2003-2011 reveal a state of constant clash between the Kano State government regulatory agencies and the indigenous entertainment industries. This resulted in banning, for instance, the Hausa video film industry for sometime, and the jailing of many entertainers on the pretext of contravention of one censorship law or other. The result of these government activities created an atmosphere of angst in the entertainment industry, leading to the virtual collapse of the entertainment industry as a result of the exodus of many entertainers from Kano. When the 2011 elections came up, the biggest group of youth mobilizers were those from the entertainment industry who through music and lyrics created a message tunnel to youth to vote against the then current government in power. Situated within the theoretical frame of voter mobilization, this paper therefore analyses the feelings of angst and expression of anger towards the political class in 2011 Nigerian elections and politics by non-partisan Hausa urban electronic musicians in the northern Nigerian city of Kano.
Authors: Abdalla Uba Adamu
In 9/11 and its Remediations in Popular Culture and Arts in Africa, Edited by Heike Behrend, Tobias Wendl (2015), pp. 39-57. Berlin, Lit.Verlag.
June 2015
This chapter analyzes the remediation of 9/11 event in two Hausa video film comedies that parodied both Osama bin Laden and the American President George Bush. The two video films, Ibro Osama, and Ibro Saddam, provide a light-hearted look at an extremely serious event, re-mediating the event through re-interpretation of the event based on news reels as reported by international news media. In this way, the Hausa filmmakers re-tell the story from a different point of view to an audience largely sympathetic to Osama bin Laden.
Authors: Abdalla Uba Adamu
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World. 6 Bde. Oxford 2009. Bd. III, S. 459-462
2009
Encyclopedia entry on Maitsine religious cult in the 1980s in northern Nigeria, updated from the original by Allan Christelow to include Qur'anniyun (The Submitters) in Kano.
Authors:
Abdalla Uba Adamu, Allan Christelow
The Journal of African History, 55(1): 129-130
March 2014
This is a review of Role of the Press and Communication Technology in Democratization: The Nigerian Story. By Aje-Ori Agbese, and published in The Journal of African History
Authors: Abdalla Uba Adamu
Visually Ethnographic Networks
July 2014
This is the video segment of my second professorial inaugural lecture which I delivered on Wednesday 9th July 2014 in Bayero University Kano, Nigeria. The text of the lecture is available on this site. I cringe whenever I hear my voice -- so I understand if you also cringe :-)
Authors: Abdalla Uba Adamu
Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria
July 2014
Full text of my second Professorial Inaugural Lecture, delivered on Wednesday 9th July 2014.
Authors: Abdalla Uba Adamu
Bayero University Kano, Nigeria
April 2004
Full text of my first Professorial Inaugural Lecture, delivered on Saturday 24th April 2004.
Authors: Abdalla Uba Adamu
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