BUK Shines Again at University of BUK Shines Again at University of Warsaw African Week Warsaw African Week

Bayero University has once again shone and demonstrated competence, as well as resilience at the University of Warsaw, Poland during the just concluded 2017African Week The Department of African Languages and Cultures of the University of Warsaw invited Dr. Aliyu Mu'azu as a visiting scholar for a period of one month during which several academic engagements took place. As part of the activities, he presented two separate lectures on myriad of issues surrounding Hausa Studies. The first lecture seminar organized by the department as part of the lecture series on African Day was entitled st“The Hausa Culture and Etiquette in the 21 century thon the 18 May, 2017. This lecture was attended by distinguished scholars from the Department and the Polish Academy of Science, School of Oriental and African studies London, Postgraduate and Undergraduate students of the university and several other academics from other sister institutions. The second presentation was a public lecture presented rdon the 23 May, 2017 entitled, “An overview of Hausa Literature,” deriving conclusions from the vast area of Hausa literature and the historic events that shaped the prospects and posed the contemporary challenges in the Hausa literary world. Another important event was a roundtable discussion with the administration of the department and the Faculty. This formed a suitable environment for both parties to review the achievements so far, and the challenges confronting the collaboration. All issues of
engagement were tabled and important points discussed exhaustively. The most important resolution of the roundtable discussion was the agreement to organize an International Conference on Hausa Studies African and European Perspectives in September 2017 as was done in Kano and Italy in 2007 and 2009, respectively. The tentative conference theme' is “Cultural distance through Linguistics Evidence.” Furthermore, an agreement had been reached to publish the translation of the Hausa classic Magana Jari Ce, by Abubakar Imam into Polish. In this regard, B.U.K. was saddled with the responsibility to solidify the relations of Imam and the publishing house for approval. The meeting resolved to use the collaborative efforts between the two universities to publish it. It has further been suggested that a Hausa-Polish and Polish – Hausa dictionary be written and published through the collaboration to enhance the benefit derived from this cooperation. It is pertinent to note that already a Hausa – Italiano Italiano – Hausa dictionary had already been published in 2016. It will be recalled that Bayero University, Kano and the University of Warsaw, Poland have maintained a long fruitful academic cooperation, particularly in the field of Hausa studies. Over the years, the two universities have kept their MoU functional, through various academic activities, such as student exchange, visiting scholars and exchange of publications, as a result of which positive benefits were witnessed by both parties.