on MAY 26, 2011 · in NEWS

London – A London leading retailer shop, Debenhams, has adopted Hausa, a language spoken by nearly 45 million people in West Africa including Nigeria, to woo customers as race for summer sales starts.

The retailer had placed a bold sign reading: “Na gode don sayayyarka a Debenhams’’ in Hausa meaning, “Thank you for shopping at Debenhams’’ at the entrance of its Oxford street Branch in London.

Speaking to a group newsmen on the issue on Wednesday Mr Marcus Appleton, a Senior Store Manager said the decision was based on an assessment of its shoppers who come from outside Briatain.

He said it was discovered that 71 per cent of foreigners who visited the shop in 2010 are Nigerians followed by Chinese and the Arabs.

Appleton noted further that while some of it Nigerian customers were keen on designer suits, Chinese shoppers favoured cosmetics and perfumes.

According to the 2001 census, more than 300 languages are being spoken in London.(NAN)

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2011/05/london-leading-retailer-shop-adopts-hausa-language-to-woo-customers/

Wouldn't most of those 71% be southerners, though?

I'm suspecting that their market research is a bit flawed

I couldn't agree more with you. Funny that they think every nigerian speaks Hausa.

Definitely, one of those folks who learn about Nigeria from googling. Smh.

I think the shop owners may just be misinformed. Igbo or Yoruba would have been better.I have met very few hausas in the UK. . .very few.

^^^ Could be based on buying power of the group.

Actually, the Hausa are the richest Nigerians (by percent of their population) in the UK and they are the ones who support these shops the most. So it's Debenham's federal government is spending their money in.

[size=14pt]I Disagree with people saying that it should be Yoruba and Igbo[/size]

I have A LOOOOOT of firneds in the UK , am quite popular there 
And i can say that Most of the people are Hausa speaking, Facts here, followed by dem yourubas boys then lastly Igbo ,

In US i dont have many friends there, but i guessed it is Yoruba, whether it is or not, Hausa is last

You need to go to Dubai, in streets and especially Malls, when passing you would hear someone say "ya ne" , "ya duniya"  - In hausa only to turn and see them on the phone and see other hausa people around ,

in UK from the STUDENTS the Hausa are more, and soon it would be +1 when Xterra2 goes to Middlesex university for his degree

So basically, if you are searching for your missing state allocation funds, Debenhams would be the best to go looking for it,

if you go along the lenght of oxford to edgeware road on a sunny summer afternoon then you will find out that the hausas have created a reputation as big spenders.if you want respect as a nigerian go into any of the shops and tell them you are hausa they will almost roll out the red carpet for you, saw babangida and chris uba in close proximity for the first time in edgeware road shopping as if pounds sterling was going out of circulation

@Lucabrasi

You went AWOL on NL abi

Hope they won't complain when Boko Haram visits them

lucabrasi:

if you go along the lenght of oxford to edgeware road on a sunny summer afternoon then you will find out that the hausas have created a reputation as big spenders.if you want respect as a nigerian go into any of the shops and tell them you are hausa they will almost roll out the red carpet for you, saw babangida and chris uba in close proximity for the first time in edgeware road shopping as if pounds sterling was going out of circulation

Na wah o.Just learning something new today.

xterra2:

in UK from the STUDENTS the Hausa are more, and soon it would be +1 when Xterra2 goes to Middlesex university for his degree

lucabrasi:

if you go along the lenght of oxford to edgeware road on a sunny summer afternoon then you will find out that the hausas have created a reputation as big spenders.if you want respect as a nigerian go into any of the shops and tell them you are hausa they will almost roll out the red carpet for you, saw babangida and chris uba in close proximity for the first time in edgeware road shopping as if pounds sterling was going out of circulation

I dont know where you guys get your statistics from.

How many hausas even go to UK in the first instance?

shotster50:

@Lucabrasi

You went AWOL on NL abi

no i was in nigeria for like 5 months o,extended working holiday how is the economy treating you came back to hear everyone complaining about d cameron and his slash/cut cut slash i think the guy and osbourne must have worked as a butcher in their previous life lol

reindeer:

Na wah o.Just learning something new today.

yes o,if you live in uk,go to the shop under the hotel on edgeware road its run by an egyptian man once he knows you are nigerian he will start giving you a vip treatment

Akolawole:

I dont know where you guys get your statistics from.

How many hausas even go to UK in the first instance?

its not about the numbers but the buying power

Like someone said "their reserach is flawed". Their are even more Edo peeps in London than Hausa. Igbo or Yoruba would have made more sense. Better still they should have just used pidgin english or left it in Queens english because Nigerians are too tribalistic. The moment an Igbo tribalist sees that the place is named "Ekabo" they'll stop going there and vice versa.

afam4eva:

Like someone said "their reserach is flawed". Their are even more Edo peeps in London than Hausa. Igbo or Yoruba would have made more sense. Better still they should have just used pidgin english or left it in Queens english because Nigerians are too tribalistic. The moment an Igbo tribalist sees that the place is named "Ekabo" they'll stop going there and vice versa.

You need to visit Harrods with a pen and pad, then write down the name of every black customer there, you will see that the Hausa people outnumber other Nigerians in this census.

Abeg, is it not tk-max, Next-Clearance most yorubas in London do thier shopping? errr, what's the name of that market in East-london where they do 'bend-down and select' ,  omo you need to see how them dey select am like say na lasgidi dem dey!

For real debs got thier stats right! Hausas in london are few but they 'smell' raw pounds when they are around!

oh wait,  SW1

Lol! hausas in London are not few, they're just easily mistaken for ethiopians and somalis. FG money has been funding their life in diaspora since the seventies on a masisve level so forget the level of entrenchment already. More than 70% of hausas in london are citizens, they logged on to the system since the discovery of oil in naija long before citizenship rules were changed debenhams group will not launch a multimillion pound marketing campaign based on spoof or tacky research, they KNOW who's feeding their pockets

^^^^ you too gbasky jare lol

Speaking to a group newsmen on the issue on Wednesday Mr Marcus Appleton, a Senior Store Manager said the decision was based on an assessment of its shoppers who come from outside Briatain..

What happened to editing?

Yes sir.   Harrods will probably be next to roll out the red carpet for Nigeria's Hausa Fulani oil sheiks, if that has not been done already.

Families of the super-wealthy Nigerian  "Ruling Class", who for the most of the past half century have been of Hausa/Fulani extraction, have lived quiet lives of opulent champagne and caviar consumption in London's ritzier addresses for the entire duration of Nigeria's 50-year oil boom.  Proud enough of their cultural heritage to insist on wearing their traditional flowing robes, and tall, cylindrical hats even when those biting winter winds lash the streets of London, Hausa's are living LARGE in the UK, and not afraid to wow mere mortals with their serious buying power.   

These folks are VERY different from you and I.  They reside in paid-up multi-million pound apartments, are chauffeured about the city in sleek limousines, and flit between continents on a whim.  It is therefore not  very likely that your typical southern Nigerian homie who lands in the UK on a student visa will move in the sort of social circle where they might cross paths with the high-flying silver-spoon scion of Hausa Old Money from St. Johns Wood, Bayswater and Mayfair.

Nigeria is pitiful.

Signs in Chinese, Arabic, and Hausa. Can you imagines Nigeria's own Hausa being coupled with the Arabs and Chinese, how much are they even spending?

[center][/center]
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23950736-thats-great-value-in-any-language-debenhams-signs-to-lure-in-tourists.do

ignorance is not good at all. Some of us southerners are so arrogant and think so much less of our hausa brothers.

From Edgeware road to marble arch to oxford street down to knightsbridge it is full of hausa shoppers. They are not husslers in the UK like southerners, they just come on holidays and spend like there is no tomorrow.

I cannot even keep count of the number of hausa politicians and businessmen i have seen on edgeware rd.

northerners are the only one who can pay for it. Because they steal government money.

Hausas and London in the same sentence? All the Hausas in London will not fill a routemaster bus.

They just googled and picked arbitrarily a Nigerian language after the assessment of shoppers. Those who shop in Debenhams are Yorubas and Igbos. I don't know why Hausas will shop there when they don't even sell Kaftans and jalamias.

Na wa for una Londoners oo

Guys, don't try hausas in uk ooo!
Those guys have so much cash, it almost unbelievable. Even my Hausa friend is an ex-governor's only son. The guy is the epitome of money ooo!!

Debenham made the RIGHT CHOICE. Most southerners are here to hustle.

the north

Abeg, becomrich matemate, let me join you.

[size=18pt]London for Southerners (economic migrants):[/size]



[size=18pt]London for Northerners (thief-thief migrants shopping tourists):[/size]



Hausa people will rather suffer in their own country than to go to another to do the same, whereas southerners are full up in the UK suffering. The irony is that both the economic migrants and the people who cause these people to migrate are living in the same city.

Southerners, stay there and be fighting yourselves, oh?!

Why the sudden hype about the HAUSAS?

I thought they a illiterate dirty stinking almajiris.
A popular hausa proverb.

"kuna muna kallon biri muna muku kallon ayaba".

which can be translated as. . .
"una dey see us as monkies while we see una as bananas"

So na for hia Abubakar Audu, IBB, Abacha, Bode George and Ohakim pikin dem they spend una oyel money?

Sorry o

See---> https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-546215.0.html