COVER WRITING WITH PASSION AND PURPOSE

Surprisingly, I can only boast of a secondary school certificate as of now. All that I had learnt, I learnt without finishing from a university to acquire any degree. After finishing my secondary school, at Queen Amina College Kaduna, I proceeded to the College of Arts and Science where I made my papers ready for university. I then started reading Law at the Congo ABU campus, and then I dropped out.

I should have graduated from the university many years ago but things took a different twist for me.Many would be disheartened to learn I was unable to accomplish something so simple, so necessary as having a degree. But actually, I am fine. Well, as fine as I could be. I am happy to say, I have learnt all that I have to learn from the school of life.

I am not saying that I am happy that I dropped out in my first year, but at least I can say that Law wasn’t my path, as I had wanted to study Literature.

At the end of this life, I will look back along the road I have walked, and I am generally happy with my path, because I have become what I had dreamt of becoming -a writer - with no formal training, except for some study in psychology and some little enlightenment here and there.

Well, as I have explained in talking about my educational background, I have independently struggled over the years to make it as a writer, and by Allah’s will I have reached to a point where I can happily call myself one.

I have all in all published nine works in my writing career, three of which have been used in post-secondary schools.

I have published Rabiat, Rabiat’s Diary, Picking Up The Pieces, Memoirs Of A Modern Hausa Girl, and Reply To A Letter.

In Hausa there are four published novels, which are Macentaka, Kace Nace, Duniya Madubi, and Duniyar Gizowhich has been used as a reference book for Masters students of Hausa in ABU Zaria.

About three more of my novels have been used in literature in FCE Zaria, Unimaid, and Sokoto University.

Yes..! Writing is such a huge part of me it’s difficult to pinpoint an exact reason as to why I do it.

Let me just start by saying that I write to express myself. I must be a born writer to be able to write so comfortably and passionately as I like to do all the time. Writing is me;I mean I can’t stop. Life is nothing without my words and my quotes, and without novels etc. Without the aforementioned, I am nothing. I need writing. When I am not writing, I don’t feel like myself. To take a long break from writing is to feel lost. I am the words I write.So, to me, writing is like breathing:If I stop writing, I no longer exist. This is it. interview by Aishatu Gidado Idris, also called Uwa or Uwanbaba by family and friends, was born on the 9th of July 1960 to Alhaji Gidado Idris and late Rabiatu. She has been writing under her surname for the past 20 years. She wrote her first book in 1993 and has been writing novels in both English and Hausa, since then. Aishatu,who is the first born of her parents and has 10 brothers and a sister, is from Zaria in Kaduna State. She is married and has three male and two female children.

I grew up a moody but happy child, only interested in having my way, in most cases. I remember being a victim of bullying by children bigger and bolder than myself and that had made me fearful of being as friendly as I could be then. When I remember what I was like as a child I can’t believe it.

I was extremely gullible. I absolutely believed what everyone said. My family knew this and would take advantage to their great entertainment. I was six years old, and my aunty used to talk to me sarcastically when I acted stupid, and funnily I never understood the difference between sarcasm and real talk. But being a ‘first born’ a lot of people around me most times, excused my stupidity which came from being naïve.

I also remember when I was little I loved to climb the roof of our house and just sit there enjoying the privacy. I don’t know why I liked to do that.

I was a tomboy caught in the body of a shy quiet girl. In fact I came out as someone full of contradictions yet someone with a mind of her own.

I miss the carefree freedom of my childhood; I miss the peacefulness of our street where there was no crime or anything like that; I miss the music of the seventies; I miss the Goody Goody sticky chocolate; I miss my doting grandparents.

Being a writer is challenging at times. It’s not just the writing, it is the publishing and the selling.

Over the last two years, I have had so much difficulty searching for good publishers that can publish and help sell my books. So I always ended up selfpublishing.

In my years as a writer, I have faced many challenges, financially.

I have experienced some readers even telling me to write about what I am not even interested in or have no knowledge of not knowing that as a creative writer, creativity is the watch word. I used to tell them that the beauty of a writer is in his or her originality.

Without any doubt, the poor reading culture in our country is a big challenge to the publishing industry.

Books rank very low on the preference list of an average Nigerian, and this has made it difficult to achieve turnover that is commensurate with our huge population. There is also no cooperation from Nigerian publishers and the marketability is somehow low. It’s enough having to write, edit, and publish your work. But when there is no marketability then it’s too bad. I wish the government can come to our rescue on this matter.

Life has taught me some great lessons. The greatest lesson life taught me is to have faith in Allah, My Creator, as anything else is folly. Life taught me that time is money, because I have faced people talking about my entire life, but never to me and faced being judged on hearsay and malicious gossip. So life has taught me to ignore all that, and face my life’s path, since nothing is going to go on forever, so why should I waste my precious time worrying about what people say?

Life waits for no one. Life has also taught me to be mindful of how I interact with people as one never knows if it’s going to be for the last time. Life has taught me how divine forgiveness can be. All in all the best lessons life taught me is that of patience.

LIFE WAITS FOR NO ONE. LIFE HAS ALSO TAUGHT ME TO BE MINDFUL OF HOW I INTERACT WITH PEOPLE AS ONE NEVER KNOWS IF IT’S GOING TO BE FOR THE LAST TIME. LIFE HAS TAUGHT ME HOW DIVINE FORGIVENESS CAN BE.

First and foremost, being a mother to me means, being in a position to be compassionately understanding to those children Allah has entrusted me with, as mother. I love being a mother and I have wonderful children that challenge me in a good way to be the best mother