Type | Radio network and website |
---|---|
Country | |
Availability | International |
Owner | BBC |
Launch date | 13 March 1957 |
Webcast | www |
Official website | www |
Language | Hausa |
BBC Hausa is the Hausa-language service of the BBC World Service meant primarily for Hausa-speaking communities in Nigeria, Ghana, Niger and the rest of Hausa speakers across West Africa. It is part of the BBC's foreign language output of 33 languages, of which five are African languages. The service includes a radio station, a bureau office based in Abuja and a frequently-updated website which serves as a news portal and provides information as well as analysis in text, audio and video formats and online access to radio broadcasts. The radio service is broadcast from Broadcasting House in London with preliminary editing done at the BBC's bureau office in Abuja. [1]
BBC Hausa was the first African-language service operated by the BBC and is one of the five African languages it broadcasts. The service was launched on 13 March 1957 at 09:30 GMT with a 15-minute programme by the BBC World Service presented by Aminu Abdullahi Malumfashi: a translated version was later read by Abubakar Tunau in the programme West Africa in the News. [2] [3] The programme was then aired on Wednesdays and Fridays, with daily programmes beginning one year later on 1 June 1958, and has continuously done so since. [3]
In March 2017, the BBC celebrated the Hausa service's 60th anniversary in Abuja, with attendants including the director of the BBC World Service group, Fran Unsworth, quoted as saying in part:
"We are very proud of the BBC Hausa service and the many years of vital broadcasting it has provided for our audience. This fantastic milestone shows its great success, and long may it continue". [2]
Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari also sent a voice message at the occasion where he made known that he was a loyal listener of the service and spent many years listening to its programmes. [2]
In its early days BBC rose to prominence in Hausa speaking world due to style of its reporting. It has conducted interviews with many prominent African politicians.
The BBC's Abuja office was opened in 2002. [3]
The service has, among other roles, senior editors, producers, assistant editors and senior reporters. There are also stringers in key Nigerian cities such as Kaduna, Kano, Jos, Enugu, Abuja and Sokoto as well as overseas stringers in Niger, Ghana and China. [4]
Many BBC programmes are rebroadcast by Nigerian media houses through a special partnership with the BBC World Service, including the following: [5]
As of 23 December 2024, the Ascension Island and Woofferton transmitting stations were known to broadcast Hausa programming on varying shortwave frequencies, with the hours ranging from 2 hours on Mondays-Thursdays to 9 hours on Saturdays. [6]
With the advent of digital means of communication, listenership through traditional radio sets have been steadily declining since the 1990s. [7] BBC Hausa radio reaches around 17.7 million people every week and its website is one of the most visited in Nigeria. [8]
A 2010 research report by the BBC Trust found that there is "a wide distrust of local media in the Hausa speaking regions of Africa where locals perceive local broadcasters and journalists as open to manipulation." [9]
Hausa is a Chadic language that is spoken by the Hausa people in the northern parts of Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, Benin and Togo, and the southern parts of Niger, and Chad, with significant minorities in Ivory Coast. A small number of speakers also exist in Sudan.
Shehu Usman Aliyu Shagari was a Nigerian politician who was the first democratically elected president of Nigeria, after the transfer of power by military head of state General Olusegun Obasanjo in 1979, which gave rise to the Second Nigerian Republic.
Niger is a state in the North Central region of Nigeria. It is the largest state in the country by area. The state capital is Minna. Other major cities are Bida, Kontagora and Suleja. Niger state was formed in 1976 when the then North-Western State was divided into Niger State and Sokoto State. It is home state of two former Nigerian military heads of state — Ibrahim Babangida and Abdulsalami Abubakar. The Nupe, Gbagyi, Kamuku, Kambari, and Hausa form the majority of numerous indigenous tribes of Niger State. Other tribes in the state are Adara, Koro Gungawa, and Hun-Saare.
Jigawa is a state in Nigeria, located in the northern region of the country. Jigawa was created on 27 August 1991, under the General Ibrahim Babangida military administration. Jigawa State was formerly part of Kano State and was located in the northeastern-most region of Kano State, and it forms part of Nigeria's national border with the Republic of Niger. The state capital and largest city is Dutse. Jigawa state has 27 local governments.
Kaduna is a state in the northwest geopolitical zone of Nigeria. The state capital is its namesake, the city of Kaduna, which was the 8th largest city in the country as of 2006. Created in 1967 as North-Central State, which also encompassed the modern Katsina State, Kaduna State achieved its current borders in 1987. Kaduna State is the fourth largest and third most populous state in the country, Kaduna State is nicknamed the Centre of Learning, owing to the presence of numerous educational institutions of importance within the state such as Ahmadu Bello University, Nigerian Defence Academy, Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT), Kaduna Polytechnic, etc.
Katsina is a state in the northwestern geopolitical zone of Nigeria. Katsina State borders the Republic of Niger to the north for 250 km and the States of Jigawa for 164 km and Kano to the east, Kaduna to the south for 161 km and Zamfara to the west. States. Nicknamed the "Home of Hospitality", both the state capital and the town of Daura have been described as "ancient seats of Islamic culture and learning" in Nigeria.
Northern Nigeria was an autonomous division within Nigeria, distinctly different from the southern part of the country, with independent customs, foreign relations and security structures. In 1962, it acquired the territory of the British Northern Cameroons, which voted to become a province within Northern Nigeria.
The Nigerian Television Authority or NTA is a Nigerian government-owned and partly commercial broadcast station. Originally known as Nigerian Television (NTV), it was inaugurated in 1977 with a monopoly on national television broadcasting, after a takeover of regional television stations by military governmental authorities in 1976. After a declining interest from the public in government-influenced programming, it lost its monopoly over television broadcasting in Nigeria in the 1990s.
Articles related to Nigeria include:
There are over 520 native languages spoken in Nigeria. The official language is English, which was the language of Colonial Nigeria. The English-based creole Nigerian Pidgin – first used by the British and African slavers to facilitate the Atlantic slave trade in the late 17th century – is the most common lingua franca, spoken by over 60 million people.
Nigerian Railway Corporation is the state-owned enterprise with exclusive rights to operate railways in Nigeria.
The Hausa are a native ethnic group in West Africa. They speak the Hausa language, which is the second most spoken language after Arabic in the Afro-Asiatic language family. The Hausa are a culturally homogeneous people based primarily in the Sahelian and the sparse savanna areas of southern Niger and northern Nigeria respectively, numbering around 86 million people, with significant populations in Benin, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Chad, Central African Republic, Togo, Ghana, as well as smaller populations in Sudan, Eritrea, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Senegal, Gambia. Predominantly Hausa-speaking communities are scattered throughout West Africa and on the traditional Hajj route north and east traversing the Sahara, with an especially large population in and around the town of Agadez. Other Hausa have also moved to large coastal cities in the region such as Lagos, Port Harcourt, Accra, Abidjan, Banjul and Cotonou as well as to parts of North Africa such as Libya over the course of the last 500 years. The Hausa traditionally live in small villages as well as in precolonial towns and cities where they grow crops, raise livestock including cattle as well as engage in trade, both local and long distance across Africa. They speak the Hausa language, an Afro-Asiatic language of the Chadic group. The Hausa aristocracy had historically developed an equestrian based culture. Still a status symbol of the traditional nobility in Hausa society, the horse still features in the Eid day celebrations, known as Ranar Sallah. Daura is the cultural center of the Hausa people. The town predates all the other major Hausa towns in tradition and culture.
Railways in Nigeria consist of a 3,505 km Cape gauge national railway network and 669 km of standard gauge. The Cape gauge network is in poor condition due to lack of maintenance. In 2019, the single operational standard gauge line from Abuja to Kaduna generated as much revenue as the entire Cape gauge railway network combined. The Nigerian government plans to extend the standard gauge to replace most of the Western Line, while the Eastern Line will be rehabilitated as a Cape gauge line. All trains in Nigeria are operated by the Nigerian Railway Corporation.
The Nigerian Army (NA) is the land force of the Nigerian Armed Forces. It is the largest component of the Nigerian Armed Forces. The President of Nigeria is the Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Army, and its professional head is the Chief of Army Staff, who is the highest ranking military officer of the Nigerian Army. It is governed by the Nigerian Army Council (NAC). The Nigerian Army is operationally and geographically divided into ten divisions, the basic field formation. The army has been involved in operations throughout the country, most especially during the Nigerian Civil War, and has undertaken major operations abroad. Nigerian Army officers have served as chiefs of defence in other countries, with Brigadier General Maxwell Khobe serving as Sierra Leone chief of staff in 1998–1999, and Nigerian officers acting as Command Officer-in-Charge of the Armed Forces of Liberia from at least 2007. The Nigerian Army is globally renowned for its professionalism and experience in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency; in 2022, the Nigerian Army won the award for the "Best Land Force in National Defence in Africa" in Banjul, Gambia.
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Railway stations in Nigeria include:
Niger–Nigeria relations refer to the current and historical relationship between Niger and Nigeria, two neighbouring countries in West Africa. Relations are based on a long shared border and common cultural and historical interactions.
Hausa-language cinema, known informally as Kannywood, is the Hausa-language film industry of northern Nigeria. It is based in Kano.
Freedom Radio Nigeria is a group of radio stations in Northern Nigeria. The station is headquartered in Kano State. There are three Freedom-branded stations, in Kano, Dutse, and Kaduna, and a second station in Kano, and Dala FM (88.5 MHz). Freedom Radio Nigeria is owned by The Dalhatu family.