A lecturer with the Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, Dr Binta Kasim Mohammed has taken to her twitter handle @Bazazzaga to tongue lash the media and the indigenous movie industries for misrepresentation of the north and the northerners in their contents.
She said “The Nigerian media has assisted in the negative stereotyping of northerners who are always seen as Maiguard, Maisuya, Maitsire or a rich pot bellied Alhaji sleeping around with southern girls while his many wives are very invisible. All of them speaking a most outrageous English.”
She said the average Southerner who has never been down to northern Nigeria therefore believes what the media teaches him thereby conditioning his thoughts about the northers.
She accuses the Kannywwood, a Hausa movie industry based in Kano for complicity in spurring the misrepresentations, saying they are doing nothing to counter the negative representations.
“The Nollywood is even nice not to portray the many beggars littering the roads of Lagos, Port Harcourt & many more southern cities. Our own Kannywood has done nothing to alleviate this with their dominant storylines of courtship, marriage, dancing among trees or village miscreants” She added.
The average Southerner who has never been down to northern Nigeria therefore believes what the media teaches him. In real life too he sees those same class of people portrayed in the media, barely literate in the Sabon gari’s, vegetable, grains and livestock markets of Alaba & co
Nollywood is even nice not to portray the many beggars littering the roads of Lagos, Port Harcourt & many more southern cities. Our own Kannywood has done nothing to alleviate this with their dominant storylines of courtship, marriage, dancing among trees or village miscreants.