A lawyer has asked a court in Nigeria's commercial city of Lagos to compel the country's central bank to remove the Arabic script which appears on most naira banknotes. The lettering states the note's currency value.
He also wants the army to stop using the Arabic inscription: "Victory is from God", on its logo.
The move is likely to reopen an old controversy over the use of Arabic script, which some see as an attempt to Islamise the country.
But many seem unaware that the Arabic script used to write in several African languages is known as "Ajami".
It was the first means of literacy on the continent, centuries before Western colonisers and Christian missionaries arrived with their Roman script and its A-Z alphabet.
Among others, Swahili in East Africa, Tamashek, the language of the Tuaregs in North and West Africa, and Nigerian languages like Kanuri, Nupe, Yoruba, Fulfulde and Hausa all use Ajami.
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