William (Bill) Miles (a.k.a. Mallam Bello) is a Professor of Political Science at Northeastern University who learned Hausa as a Peace Corps volunteer in Magaria, Niger Republic between 1977-1979. As a Fulbright scholar, he returned in 1983 and 1986 to that same region of Hausaland to conduct research on the long-term effects of colonial partition between British Nigeria and French Niger. In 1999, while back in the Nigérien village of Yekuwa (Yékoua) thanks to a grant from the American Philosophical Society, he commissioned a praise song for himself from the balladeer Kwamso (“peanut shell”). In the ballad, Mallam Bello is honored for his accomplishments as “The King of Work” and for being very well-traveled and known throughout the border region. (He is also good-naturedly teased for his absent-mindedness.) The live performance of the ballad was emceed by the praise singer Na’oulé dan Jagga of Yékoua. “Bello” first presented the ballad at the African Studies Association annual meeting in 2002 under the title “Hubris in Hausaland: Perils and Insights from ‘Going Native.’"