For instance, the story of this article is in Senegal where there is an official norm and effort to normalise ajami scripts for specific local languages [1] (many of the Wikipedia pages on the topic seem to be only in French).

Overall, the article feels very misleading and politically orientated. There's not 'discovery' apart from the fact that that guy didn't known about it, which is actually strange from a Senegalese person, whose father could write it, and who teaches linguistics. Maybe his father wanted him to be 'modern' and to get a good career and to study in French only (the Senegalese elite tends to speak better French and to know more about French literature than most French...)

[1] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caract%C3%A8res_coraniques_har...