Imhotep: The Collective African Blog

Algeria: Haunted by Ghosts of the Past?

By Thomas Jing

In the popular lore, Algeria is an Arab country. This is a fallacy, for it is not. At least not like Saudi Arabia. If this fallacy were designed to unite the country around a common language and culture, it has often backfired.  An extract from “Dossier” published in The Estimate exposes this falsehood. “After Boumedienne’s death in 1978, the pressure for Arabization continued. In 1979, students at the University of Algiers, backed by Islamists, pressed for a reduction of the use of French. New Arabization measures were introduced.

The African Woman I Know

By Thomas Jing

Far from being a passive observer, a baby factory and a sufferer, the African woman has been a prime mover in the history of the African continent.

In 1976, Prince Nico Mbarga, a musician of Nigerian and Cameroonian extraction, burst onto the African musical scene with his song Sweet Mother. In less than a month, the record soared to the top of the continental chart and not long it had become a fixture in most households. In Cameroon and Nigeria especially, where the content of the music was fully understood and its impact greatest, children wriggled their butts to the song after gorging themselves senseless with rice and pork during the Christmas season of that year.

"A Tale of Two Sultans - Sokoto & Rey Bouba": A Rejoinder

By Jing Thomas

A Tale of Two Sultans, a piece by Kenneth Ndeh posted on the Imhotep collective blog provides for very interesting reading.  However, I seem not to share one of his views on Modibo Adama. In the article, he writes:

“Usman Dan Fodio established his Sokoto Empire around 1804. Shortly thereafter he sent his son, the Modibo Adama to the east, to establish. The Modibo established his headquarters in 1805 in present day Cameroon, at Gurin, near the River Faro.”

According to all the documents I have consulted so far on the Fulani jihads in northern Nigeria and Cameroon, I have not come across any which states that Adama was the son of Usman Dan Fodio.