A Mathematical Approach on Solving Hausa Puzzles in Northern Nigeria

Hausa Puzzles is a traditional way of learning Mathematics in Northern Nigeria. The puzzles are stated verbally in form of word problems or storytelling and the listeners solve the problems through reasoning and tell the answers. However, there is no standard method of solving these puzzles. This paper gave a historical background and compiled some of these puzzles which appeared to be mathematical problems in nature and give a general method of solving them. We formulated some of them into mathematical problems in form of system of equations, Arithmetic or Geometric progressions and solved them using the respective techniques. In addition, each problem was analyzed. The paper also shows that it is possible to solve Hausa puzzles analytically using mathematical approach of solving word problems.