144 african appropriations
Despite the fact that the film was not for sale in Kano, and even though
Iyan-Tama was able to prove that his company’s registration was up to
date, he had to spend several weeks in custody. In January 2009, he was
finally sentenced to three months without bail and could either pay a fine
of 300,000 naira (2,200 U.S. dollars) or serve an additional twelve months
in prison (McCain, Hausawa, and A lkanaw y 2009; Sheme 2009a).^5 In
October 2008, Kany wood’s most popular comedian, Rabilu Musa Dan-
lasan (aka Ibro) and his sidekick, Lawal A lhassan Kaura, were charged for
showing indecent dancing in two of their video films (Ibro Aloko and Ibro
K’auran Mata) and for allegedly running a film production company with-
out registration. They denied the charges, and although both films had
been released prior to the implementation of the new censorship guide-
lines, Ibro and Kaura were sentenced to two months in prison without bail
(McCain, Hausawa, and A lkanaw y 2009; Sanusi 2008).
The “travesty of justice” (Sheme 2009b) carried out in the name of re-
ligion and culture by Abubakar Rabo, his staff, and Magistrate Mukhtar
Ahmed, who presided over the mobile court (and whose competence was
later publicly questioned by the Kano state attorney general), led many
to suspect that Rabo—and perhaps even some people higher up the po-
litical ladder—used the opportunity offered by the censorship law to
settle old scores with their political enemies among the filmmakers. Sani
Mu’azu, president of the Motion Pictures Practitioners Association of
Nigeria (moppan), suspected that Iyan-Tama had become a victim of his
political activities. As a candidate for the governorship of Kano state in
the 2007 gubernatorial elections, Iyan-Tama had vociferously targeted
the Shekarau administration’s lack of openness and, according to Mu’azu,
was now forced to pay the price for it: the “Kano Censors Board is just
being used to get through a script written from the Government House”
(quoted in McCain 2009). The conviction of comedian Ibro would fit the
same pattern. His film Ibro Aloko featured a satirical song that made fun
of a certain kind of striped robe worn by the Kano state governor, Ibrahim
Shekarau. Ibro was arrested on October 6, 2008, after a mob of protest-
ers, frustrated with Shekarau’s administration, pelted the governor with
stones. The incident took place in September 2008, at the end of the last
Eid-el-fitr prayer, a public event celebrated at the emir’s palace in Kano.
The crowd sang the satirical song from Ibro Aloko as they threw stones at