Global Journal of Human Social Science, G: Linguistics and Education, Volume 21 Issue 4

Gimba’s Sacred Apples (1994), Seytu in Alkali’s The Descendants (2005) and Hadiyya Munir in Somewhere Somehow – the novel under x-ray do. At this juncture, however, it is imperative to make it clear that Habi and Jiniya should not singlehandedly be blamed for bleaching their skins. The attitudes of young men towards dark-skinned girls coupled with patriarchal nature of the northern Nigerian society necessitate them to engage in doing it. What will be their fate if they do not bleach their skins? Will they remain unmarriageable in their locality? Or will they fold their arms and allow the light-skinned women like Janine Senchez, the supposed American lady, who recently married Sulaiman Isah Penshekara, a handsome young black man from Kano to take the lead? By implication, if the dark-skinned ladies in Kano are not very careful, more Janines will come from America and probably marry all the handsome young Hausa men. Bleaching, so to say, the best! Thus, one can boldly argue that Sulaiman like Hamisu metaphorically marries Janine’s light skin not the real Janine. VI. H adiyya M unir: T he D ark- S kinned L ady Through the graphic portrayal of a dark-skinned girl, Hadiyya Munir, the author vehemently cautions bleachers like Habi and Jiniya against the disastrous effects of bleaching. The high education she acquires enables her really to know who she is and understand the value of black skin. She emphatically believes that only poorly educated black women like Jiniya and Habi bleach their skins. Sympathizing with Jiniya’s premature death, Hadiyya pathetically says to Hamisu: … Even though her skin appeared to lighten, it actually looked dead by taking on a corpse-like look. If she had known that the black melanin pigmentation in our skin protects it from sunrays, she wouldn’t have cleaned it from her skin. Unmarried girls do it not to look totally white but, as they mistakenly believe, to enhance their beauty and become more marriageable. But Jiniya continued with it even after her marriage (p.254). Culturally and religiously, Hadiyya is a virtuous and an upright lady. Her first appearance in the novel confirms this. “He saw a female colleague of his swathed in a hijab that only left her face and hands- even that latter from the wrist to the finger tips-free for one to see” (p.205). This, no doubt, is one of the reasons that compelled Hamisu to have great admiration for her. In a monologue, he draws a diametrical analogy of the two women: With Habi, their talk usually gravitated towards family issues, running the gamut of marriage and naming ceremonies, sibling rivalry and domestic tensions sparked off by childish exuberance or spousal intransigence; but with Hadiyya, it ranged from student performance in English, the bad effects of information technology on students learning that language… (p.217) This and other reasons convinced Hamisu to wed her. In the last page of the novel, he justifies his intention to marry Hadiyya to Habi. He categorically says to her: I want to inform you that I have met a colleague of mine by name Hadiyya Munir to whom I have already presented a marriage proposal. She is dark while you are light-skinned- that should serve as a hint for you to desist from bleaching your skin. I find them diverting and so esteem impeccable manners much more than fatuous prettification (p.266). To this end, the significance of black skin to African women is obvious as Hadiyya points out. Therefore, girls like Habi and Jiniya, who come from familes that lack the means to sponsor their wards to university, can engage in petty businesses common to Hausa women which will enable them to independent economically in addition to getting marriage suitors. For instance, Ashiru’s sister in Silence and a Smile sells dubulan (dumplings), Dijengala in Life Afresh sells soup ingredients, Larai in A Possible World sells Kafikaza (more tasty than a chicken) and Saude, Sadi’s wife in No Sweat sells varieties of children snacks in the “order of groundnuts (boiled, salted and roasted), tiger-nuts (roasted, sugary and bare), sesame-seed (salted and sugary), peas (boiled and roasted), local fruits ( goriba , aduwa , kanya , dinya , kurna and magarya ), powdered milk and tsamigaye , prepared with baobab pulp and sweetened to taste ( No Sweat , 2013:42). This restores marital homes as they contribute in the family’s budget with the money they gain in the business. VII. C onclusion The central argument so far in this paper is to fully depict how ‘colonial mentality’ psychologically affects young girls in northern Nigeria, who at all cost prefer to shed out their black skin in favour of the white but tragically fail. Briefly, Somewhere Somehow is a clarion call to women who are easily deceived in these deleterious days. Lucidly, it preaches to ladies like Habi and Jiniya to curtail their inordinate ambition and engage in petty businesses common to Hausa women as earlier pointed out or to further their study to university level like Hadiyya Munir and Safia Ma’agi in Alkali’s Invisible Borders (2016). This will assuredly enable them to find things for themselves apart from being independent economically. However, as critics, the questions that come to our minds as we conclude this paper include: Can a person who read English up to PhD. Level, teach it and predominantly write in it challenge colonialism? Does he use English for global recognition at the detriment of his own language? Is using English as a medium of communication not promoting its dominance on his indigenous language forever? Or has he taken Achebe’s submission that “If a White man is not ashamed of colonizing us, we should not be ashamed of colonizing his language” into © 2021 Global Journals Volume XXI Issue IV Version I 68 ( G ) Global Journal of Human Social Science - Year 2021 Literature, Modernity and Cultural Atavism in Aliyu Kamal’s Somewhere Somehow