Echoes of Resistance to European Cultural Domination in Hausa Poetry: A Historical Reconnaisance

The Hausa people of Northern Nigeria, along with the other populations inhabiting the Nigerian area, were conquered and subjugated by British colonial forces. Scholars have proposed various reasons to explain why Europeans succeeded in defeating African societies militarily. In the Hausa regions of Northern Nigeria, the people sustained their resistance through non-military means. The intellectual tradition left by the Sokoto Jihadist leaders, particularly the use of poetry to disseminate information among the populace, was utilized. Various methods were employed to collect the necessary instruments for this paper. Manuscripts were obtained from the Waziri Junaidu History and Culture Bureau, Sokoto, as well as extracts from some resistance poems. These poems were composed to attack and dismiss various aspects of European culture as un-Islamic and unacceptable to a Muslim community like the one in Northern Nigeria. The banner of the "jihad of the pen" was raised to condemn anything European as heretical, leading those who subscribed to it toward hellfire in the hereafter. This paper highlights how Hausa poetry was directed toward condemning European cultural values, their romanticized education (Boko), and European cultural domination, which was a key factor in achieving successful political and economic domination.