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This paper is a historical and ethnological review about the Anioma people of Nigeria. The popular narrative regards the Anioma land as Benin kingdom territory, and generally describes the people as Benin immigrants or refugees in their present locale. This brand of thought has been amplified to the extent that their past is distorted, and they are now experiencing crisis of identity and with time, they will be as little informed about their past. The paper deploys the critical historical analysis method to interrogate the origin of the Anioma clans. It depends on primary source materials which consist of archival and oral testimonies obtained from the field and supplemented with available secondary materials. The paper argues that any workable hypothesis on Anioma identity in the present time must begin with a plausible explanation of the original groups. It shows that the current identity crisis among Anioma people has much to do with the event of the Nigerian civil war. It concludes that although there were external stimuli into Anioma area, such had been absorbed linguistically over time, the innovations they came with reinterpreted completely in the climate of the aboriginal Igbo culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the neglected subject of the beginnings of civil aviation in Nigeria in the aftermath of World War I. Until now, the literature on civil aviation in British colonial Africa had focused largely on Kenya, Central and South Africa and on post-World War II West Africa. This paper, relying on previously unexploited archival material, examines policy debates and options considered by the Colonial Office, the Air Ministry and the Nigerian colonial government. The unique, pioneering aviation drive of Nigeria's Governor Hugh Clifford took place in the context of immediate post-World War I dynamics: economic vicissitudes, Anglo-French rivalry in West Africa and the policy interface between London and the colonies. This paper demonstrates that aviation development in Nigeria had roots in the early 1920s, and that the initiative was not a metropolitan monopoly, thereby illustrating the extent of colonial gubernatorial autonomy vis-à-vis London. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the cultural imperatives to determining democratic survival in Nigeria. It observes that the general notion that cultural inequality may systematically obstruct democratic participation by the members of subordinated groups is trite. It argues rather that the current crisis faced by democracy is linked essentially to the lack of a space capable of dealing with both social complexity and cultural pluralism. The paper is a desk study borrowing heavily from secondary sources of data and review of extant literature. While not pretending about the potential for ethno-cultural and religious violence imminent in Nigeria's attempt at democratic consolidation, findings, however suggest that in a multicultural society like Nigeria, democracy has the potential to flourish if the different cultural groups understand and tolerate one another by enlarging the space for public participation and debates naturally encapsulated in the principle of popular rule. It recommends that a practical engagement with federal democracy, rooted in the principle of federalism, remains an attractive model for the survival of Nigeria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the panic-buying of COVID-19 vaccines by wealthy countries for their citizens, otherwise known as 'vaccine nationalism', and the quest to develop local capacity for the production of vaccines in Nigeria. The paper argues that in the light of the global race, and attempts by countries to urgently secure the COVID-19 vaccines for their citizens, it behoves on the government of Nigeria to invest in the health security of its citizens and put aside the over-dependency on charity and goodwill of Western countries at every turn. The paper concludes that vaccine nationalism can spur the development of home-grown capabilities not just for vaccine against COVID-19 but vaccines and other novel therapeutic or prophylactic products for the prevention and treatment of endemic and emerging disease. This will in turn create jobs, improve healthcare delivery, curb medical tourism and stem the tide of migration of health professionals. The methodology is descriptive in approach, relying on personal observation and data gleaned from journals, magazines and Newspapers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Akoko is a Yoruba subgroup in south-western Nigeria, where people from different origins are found in clusters of autonomous communities. A common identity of Akoko is heterogeneity of its cultures. This heterogeneity is more profound in its social practices, such that there is fundamental departure from general Yoruba tradition. Drawing evidence from Akoko's social relations, this paper discusses peculiarity of social grading system in pre-colonial Isua Akoko (an Akoko community). Like many communities in this sub-group, the history of origin of Isua is shrouded in migrations and connections from different directions such as Edo and Yoruba. This diversity makes the history interesting to gender, particularly the cultural fluidity in its social grading system. The grading was crucial to Isua's identity. This paper argues that social grouping cannot be homogenised between the two sexes: while males were grouped through age, females were categorised with the parameters of marriage and procreation. However, these trajectories of female grouping created a vacuum of uncelebrated women: the infertile and childless that did not have progeny. Inculcating these women in social grouping makes this research germane. With focus on Isua, the paper advances existing scholarship by discussing intersections that knit gender and micro history. The paper is approached from historical perspective with the methodology of narration and critical analysis of data. Theory of African womanism is used to interpret gender narratives in the sources and analyse data. This study concludes that social grading in Isua reflects gendering unique to its history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The world is currently facing a global pandemic, code-named the Covid-19, which is seriously wrecking a devastating blow on world health care system. Since the first index case was reported in Lagos, Nigeria, in February, 2020, the Federal and State Governments have put measures in place to curtail the spread of the deadly virus in the country. Some of the measures include the constitution of the Presidential Task Force (PTF), provision of isolation and treatment centres for confirmed cases, and the pronouncement of lockdown order by the President and some State Governors. Amidst these measures, cartoonists (artists, or authors in literary context) have taken to the media to creatively present humorous and satirical depictions of the pandemic and social realities in the fight against it. This study, thus, analyses the humorous and satirical depiction of the pandemic, the state of the Nigerian health sector, and the country's major actors in the fight against the scourge, using selected cartoons from the Nigerian context. These cartoons can be classified as graphic literary texts that can be subjected to different interpretations. The cartoons/texts are selected from the Facebook pages of popular Nigerian cartoonists/authors. A total number of ten (10) cartoons/texts were randomly selected between March and April 2020. The number of cartoons was limited to ten (10) in order to accommodate the rigour of qualitative analysis, which, in turn, informed one of the limitations of the study. This study adopts two (2) models/theories in interpreting the cartoons, which are Suls's (1983) Incongruity Resolution (IR) model, a linguistic tool of lexicalisation, re-lexicalisation, and shared sociocultural knowledge used to explicate humour and satire in the cartoons, and Structuralism, which requires human behaviour (as represented in texts or cartoons) to be understood in the context of a broad social system (otherwise called structures) in which they exist. This study observed that the cartoons are not just independent texts or images, but that they are products of the Nigerian social condition, and that understanding them requires a level of familiarity with their contexts of production.It also revealed that, as a means of visual communication, the cartoons exposed the realities in the country and refused to be relegated to simply satirical images of issues and events in the country's history. The analysis showed that cartoons are an important part of the discourse on the pandemic. Equally, the paper revealed that, the cartoonists have deployed both verbal and non-verbal incongruity to present comical images that show beliefs of Nigerians about the pandemic and the level of the country's preparedness in flattening the curve of the contraction of the virus. Although the paper is concerned with Covid-19 in the Nigerian context, it is limited to the linguistic and literary analysis of the pandemic in selected cartoons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nature and pattern of sustenance of democratic rule in Nigeria since the inception of the fourth republic which followed the exit of military rulers in 1999 have continued to generate scholarly debates. The conundrum of whether or not the country has freed itself from the ominous influence of the culture of military rule is a huge concern. Using former President Obasanjo and current President Buhari as case studies, this article examines the extent to which the reemergence of Nigeria's former military Heads of State as civilian administrators since 1999 has affected constitutionalism and democratization in Nigeria's political leadership. The patterns of administration of civilian government as well as democratic infractions of both regimes are considered. The paper relies on secondary data and the descriptive method of analysis. The Military Transition Model, a strand of Transition Theory, was used as a framework for further clarification. Rather than improve on the tenets of democracy, findings show that elements of absolutism and arbitrary rule are strongly perceptible. There are no convincing proofs that the reappearance of Nigeria's former military rulers into political leadership is reinforcing the country's long awaited democratization processes. The current political leadership in Nigeria has not demonstrated sufficient political will to eschew the dregs of contempt for rule of law. The study concludes that problems of democratic infractions are prevalent in the current political system largely due to the persisting influence of military culture of political leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work is a review of historical and anthropological knowledge about the Isoko that gradually developed in the literature on ethnic groups in Nigeria. The paper has harnessed this to demonstrate the distinct identity of the Isoko, as opposed to colonial usage that considered the Isoko as a sub-group of the Urhobo, tracing the life of the group from the pre-colonial period. The work is premised on the historical method and interpretation deploying primary and secondary data to achieve its objective. It avers that any endeavour to manipulate identities according to perceptions of political or economic interest has to start from pre-existing identifications. The paper demonstrates that the identity of the Isoko Nationalism was not instituted, until after 1963. The work concludes that Isoko is a distinct ethnic group made up of nineteen subcultural units with an almost common ancestry and migration stories, totems, customs and traditions who were, in official records, lumped together with the Urhobo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unarguably, hip hop has a wide acceptance among Nigerians. One of the obvious reasons for this is its fusion with some aspects of indigenous cultures and experiences. Despite the existence of several scholarly engagements on linguistic and identity formations in hip hop in Nigeria, there is however a need to further explore how the emerging urban youth lifestyles are coded in hip hop metaphor. Hence, in this paper, I focus on the music of Abolore Akande (9ice) and his use of metaphors to discuss urban lifestyles in the Nigerian social space. Through a qualitative analysis of his song texts, using Lakoff and Johnson's conceptual metaphor theory, I argue that these metaphors and their conceptual domains are discursive paradigms through which certain notions about sex, gender, social status and crime in contemporary Nigeria can be graphically visualized and understood. I conclude that rather than regarding them as meaningless, unmotivated or bare linguistic practices instantiated only for aesthetic consumption, metaphors in Naija hip hop are significant in grounding and projecting the thriving urban social realities in Nigeria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Just like in 1984 and 2003 when Nigeria's borders were closed to the neighbouring countries, the closure of Nigeria's land border since August 2019 which is intended to combat smuggling of goods and to boost manufacturing and agricultural production has been subject of controversy. This paper observes that although the border closure may have brought some advantages in the area of increased revenue, numerous seizures of illegal materials and encourages local production of rice, the appraisal of the legal, economic, political and security implications however reveal that despite the perceived advantages, it may not be the best option. It concedes that the closure of the Nigerian borders is an exercise within its sovereign authority; but however, notes that the effect of an arbitrary border closure without sufficient notice adversely affects the interests of genuine businessmen as this amounts to a breach of their fundamental right of doing legitimate business across the border. It recommends viable legal options which the government can explore in line with standard global practice such as systemic efforts to boost the economy, by ensuring effective control, management, monitoring and protection of the border. It calls for regional integration and less burdensome procedures without undermining national interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on field research in Lagos and seeks to examine a group of actors that is often neglected in the literature as well as in local discourses. I refer to these actors as informal music distributors: small-scale entrepreneurs like tape bootleggers and bloggers, whose business is the distribution of music recordings via channels that are not (yet) used by established institutions and which are not or only partially legitimized by them. Labelled with the catch-all term 'pirates', these actors are often depicted as exploiters of those who do the real work (like musicians or labels) and as both the cause and profiteers of a continuous crisis the Nigerian recording industry has found itself in since the 1980s. By contrast, I suggest a more nuanced perspective on the complex roles that informal music distributors play in this crisis. To this end, the paper investigates how the crisis unfolded, its impact on the Nigerian recording industry, and how different informal music distributors relate to it. I argue that by focusing on these distributors' entrepreneurial skills, we can learn about how they deal with crises, how they turn precarious conditions into success while their formal competitors struggle to do so and explore their larger impact on Nigerian music. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using Castell's Identity theory and Bernard Spolsky's framework, the study examines how the creative appropriation of linguistic genres in the Nigerian neo-Pentecostal discourses contribute to the construction of a unique identity among its members that differentiates them from non-members. Specifically, it explores the dynamics of religious identities and ideologies in the churches and how they are expressed in greeting and address patterns. The data were collected by interviews and participant observations of church services in three purposefully selected neo-Pentecostal churches located in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State Nigeria. The churches are; Living Faith Church (LFC), Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) and Mountain of Fire Ministries (MFM). Findings reveal patterns and functionalities of greeting and address terms prevalent in the churches which beyond phatic communion provide insight on the belief, status and identity of the interlocutors; as well as their intentionality, effect and context-dependent dynamics. The paper reflects the dynamism in address terms among the neo-Pentecostals in Nigeria, which majorly constitute an English-medium religious setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nigeria's description as a foremost black nation in the world has made it a natural leader in Africa. The ruling class has consistently professed Nigeria's leading role in Africa and deployed resources to maintain the position. While Nigeria's Afro-centric policy has had its heroic and golden moments, the era of military mis-governance – particularly under the regime of Sani Abacha – led to a reversal of diplomatic fortunes. This crisis coincided with the emergence of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo as Nigeria's democratically elected President. The impressive personal credentials of Chief Obasanjo were expected to impact positively on the conduct of the nation's foreign policy, particularly in Africa. This paper attempts to explain the salient motivations for Nigeria's peace interventions in Africa under President Obasanjo, and also examines the potency of his regime's peace efforts in Sao Tome and Principe and the Republic of Togo. Through the secondary method of data generation and in-depth interview, as well as the interpretive method of data analysis, the study concludes that President Obasanjo's interventions in both countries were influenced by realist considerations. His interventions also yielded the much anticipated peace dividends. These successes were aided by his strong personality and commitment to multilateralism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trafficking in persons, especially children within Nigeria has become a very troubling problem. This paper examines the nexus between poverty and child trafficking in the country. While most research on child trafficking, especially in Nigeria, has been concerned with trafficking across borders, this study fills a gap in the literature by focusing on child trafficking within the country. Utilizing the restricted opportunity theories, the paper argues that poverty and lack of parental support render children more vulnerable to being trafficked. Findings from the study showed that the root causes of child trafficking and the vulnerability of rural communities to trafficking are attributable to acute poverty, unemployment, ignorance and ineffectiveness of the legal framework for tackling trafficking in Nigeria. The paper also suggests strategies for addressing this problem. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Ethnic societies typically assign some degree of indigenousness or cultural originality to their arts, performances and other artefacts of their culture. This assignment has both historical and emotive values in terms of what the communities ‘call their own’. Definitions that threaten to ‘take away’ this emotive cultural anchor from them are therefore apt to meet with resistance. However, the definition of the term ‘indigenous’ is problematic today in a world that is characterized by a seamless cosmopolitanism and globalism, where neither language nor culture is free from substantial influences beyond the immediate environment. This paper asks whether the classification ‘indigenous Nigerian drama’ is valid in the Nigeria of today. The paper examines the parameters of indigenousness and applies them to the key stages in the development of Nigerian drama. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1960, Britain bequeathed to Nigeria an imperfect federation, consisting of three uneven regions. This lopsided arrangement, paved the way for the domination of the federation by the biggest region – the Northern region. This paper adopts the instrumentalist view of federalism. It interrogates the impact of ethnicity on allocation of federal finance in Nigeria between 1960 and 1966. The paper explores the constitutional basis for revenue distribution and the process of subversion by the ruling party. It examines the various mechanisms employed by the North to appropriate federal patronage for its region at the expense of other regions in the period. The paper contends that the unequal access to and competition for scarce resources at the Centre made politics become a dangerous enterprise. The ruling elite (Northerners) seized this opportunity to institutionalise iniquitous fiscal policies which snowballed into political tribulations in the first republic. Till date the ethnic factor continues to play a pivotal role in the political economy of resource sharing in Nigeria. The paper concludes that Nigeria has not been able to manage the challenge of revenue allocation well because the ruling class has been sectional and corrupt. Much more importantly the ability of the North through the instrumentality of the Central government to dominate its competitors engendered serious crisis in the Nigerian federation which eventually led to the political instability that engulfed the first republic and led to its demise in 1966. It suggests the adoption of key pillars of fiscal federalism such as equality and partnership between the centre and the federating units, state ownership of natural resources, funds transfer and scientific equalisation, all of which have made developed federations' intergovernmental relations adaptive and innovative. These measures could help evoke equity, douse tension and make the Nigerian federation very viable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the identity question and its impact on the process of nation-building in Nigeria. The paper argues that the question predates the Nigerian state. This is because the history and culture of the ethnic groups in the country recognize and accommodate a distinction between 'natives' and 'settlers'. The paper, however, contends that the nature of Nigeria's colonial and post-colonial constitutions affected the traditional notions and practice of native-settler dichotomy. This, the paper concludes, has made the issue of citizenship problematic, and a hindrance to national unity and integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of inter-group relations in Nigeria is not new as it has attracted scholarly attention for some decades now. As recurring as this subject may have been to analysts of inter-group relations in Nigeria, it cannot be abandoned, because the dimension which it has taken threatens the existence of the country. This paper seeks to argue that there was a relative harmonious relationship among the people before colonialism in Nigeria, but this was altered by colonial policies. The relationship among the people became more tenuous due to the activities of the political class that emerged since independence and the unfavourable economic space. The extent of the correlation between the character of the political elite and economic failure and the emerging trends in Nigerian inter-group relations is explored in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study sets out to establish that the rising militancy in the Niger Delta area of Nigeria is an outcrop of the lackluster quality of the country's leadership. Suddenly, the region has turned into a boiling cauldron, unsettling the existing political equilibrium in the country through hostage taking and vandalism of crude oil pipelines with the militants' quest being but a favorable sharing formula of the national revenue. However, at a point it appears that the militants have had their innocent goals hijacked by the local elites who come in with their ulterior motives. This is obvious following the pockets of incidents that continue recurring despite such ameliorative steps taken by the state as the ongoing amnesty to the militants and the newly established Ministry of Niger Delta to complement the already existing Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC). This paper goes ahead to suggest that a way out of the imbroglio is the scrapping of the Ministry of Niger Delta and its replacement with a sub-office of the NDDC in all the local governments in the Niger Delta to ensure widespread development, with clear-cut roles for each office to avoid unnecessary duplications. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

How do we know when a state is rehearsing genocide? This question has been answered in spectacular fashion in contemporary Africa: the veiled language of the Biafran war in Nigeria, which masked mass murder; the state-sponsored near-annihilation of the Tutsis within 100 days in Rwanda; the unbridled love for power by Islamic militias in Somalia that has rendered the country stateless; and the violation of Darfurians with impunity in Sudan. Such obvious cases make Africa appear to be a place where anything that can go wrong will destroy social norms overnight. Such instances also mask the violations of humanity occurring in neoliberal democracies such as South Africa. For example, the xenophobic attacks on resident black Africans from elsewhere are the product of the revived neurosis of separate development in the aftermath of 1994. South Africa's black middle class condones xenophobia and colludes in the state's failure to deliver real independence to the masses of unemployed South African blacks. Many of South Africa's black academics collude in the popular discourse that accuses black foreigners of taking their jobs and their women. The persecution of black foreigners, derisively known as Makwerekwere in South African official and local parlance, is also a consequence of the contradiction of globalisation and its bounded citizenship. Some have suggested ordinary South Africans have their own parochial biases, even though both local and national leaders have inspired them to assault and berate black foreigners. I draw on Francis Nyamnjoh's book, Insiders and Outsiders: Citizenship and Xenophobia in Contemporary Southern Africa (2006), and Michael Neocosmos' work, From ‘Foreign Natives’ to ‘Native Foreigners’, Explaining Xenophobia in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Citizen and Nationalism, Identity and Politics (2006), to discuss how xenophobia choreographs everyday life in South Africa. The paper argues that beyond the role that South African leaders and the masses continue to play in persecuting individual and black foreigners, other African countries have not stood up against South Africa's chauvinistic behaviour and its crimes against humanity. Whatever the source of this silence from the rest of the continent, the South African state and a significant portion of the country's population has felt free to deploy its resources to persecute, undermine and exploit foreign blacks without censure either from the African Union or from the United Nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From all indications Ojukwu's Ahiara Declaration (1969) was created as a visionary document given its proto-revolutionary and socialist pretensions. Possibly, the idea was to use it as a utopia to fire the imagination of beleaguered Biafrans and thus sustain their perseverance to ultimate victory in the Nigerian civil war. This paper contends that rather than achieve this apparently intended aim, the Declaration became a table-turning argument that produced the unintended effect of demoralising a critical segment of the population, that is, the elite, by inducing a despondent mass psychological state that hastened, among other factors, the Biafran loss of the war. This is so because the unstated aim of the Declaration appears to be the exculpation of the leader and the leadership of blame for either initiating or badly prosecuting a calamitous war. Hence the juggling of essential words and phrases that could initiate critical debate on the war and the deployment of essentialist, human-rights and religion-based arguments in a bid to create a persecution complex in the people who, in consequence, would then see themselves as victims of a global conspiracy rather than their own misadventure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The democratic consolidation in Nigeria is threatened by ethnic politics in which Nigerians struggle to contest and win elections outside their ethnic domains. This situation aggravates political marginalization and exacerbates ethnic conflicts and exclusionary politics in Nigeria. Through qualitative methods of study, this paper examines the construction of political identity from ethnic nationalism and legitimization of space, by explaining how space and identity influence Ibadan politics. The study establishes that the Ibadan indigenes, that is, the bona fide indigenes of Ibadan, employ their civic nationalism and municipal consciousness as strategies for politicization, while the non-indigenes in the city perceive themselves as being in an unfavourable position with regard to having equal and equitable access to political powers in the city. The practice endangers equal participation in democratic politics, and leads to poor performance of the political elites in this Yoruba community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the changing role of religious organizations in the dynamics of the public sphere in Nigeria, and does so both in the light of the recognition of the growing importance of faith-based organizations across the continent, and within the framework of the discourse on religion, civil society and the public sphere. It argues that this is indeed an unstable relationship, with religious forces simultaneously complementing and undermining the public domain. What is also clear from the Nigerian context is that faith-based organizations are in fact increasingly dissatisfied with what ought to be their presumed marginality in a secular political order. As such, they are using different methods to make their impact felt within the public domain, leading to an intense religious rivalry with serious implications for all involved - religious organizations, adherents, and the state itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The link between citizens and international diplomacy has received attention in foreign policy theorising. As a participant in the diplomatic process, the individual/citizen is closely connected to diplomacy and its outcome. While he is expected to be involved in the crafting and framing of foreign policy choices and their attendant diplomatic instruments, he is also the object of diplomacy as the ultimate goal of diplomacy is to promote his well-being. The managers of Nigeria's foreign relations in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under President Umar Musa Yar'Adua adopted the foreign policy thrust of citizen diplomacy to address the problems confronting Nigerian citizens at home and abroad. Although the crafting of the policy was a welcome development, there were critical issues involved in its implementation. The study observes that the pursuit of the policy was hampered by poor articulation of the policy and general abysmal exposition of diplomacy in the context of Nigeria, poor budgetary allocation to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the lack of 'full' citizenship considered sacred and inviolable by the Nigerian state. These encumbrances must be addressed if the policy must yield the anticipated dividends in the post-Yar'Adua era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food is not just a material entity in African contexts. Cultivation, production, preparation, distribution and consumption of food are laden with value, embedded with and significant in social–cultural relations. Hence, the nature and contexts of food determine and demonstrate important gender essence, realities and structures of societies. Unfortunately, food elements and trajectories are often taken for granted and not sufficiently studied even though they determine outcomes of actions in gender spaces. This article therefore engaged the interfaces/intersectionalities of gender and food in two African contexts. Because of importance and dynamism of food in understanding humans and societal identities particularly gender, contemporary Fast Food in Africa was adopted as a case study in this article. Intersectionalities in this article are the complex and often taken for granted grounds of gender and fast food subjectivities and constructivities over time. This article is within broader frameworks of food and gender against the background of deep-rooted cultural norms, traditions, values and ethos in African societies. This article is conceptual, theoretical and analytical with transnational focus leveraging on the Nigerian and South African scenarios with relevant epistemologies, findings and conclusions. This article contributes new knowledge to the scarce scholarship on the intersectionalities of food in gender discourses in African societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study explored the relevance of rural university education based on the experiences of learning challenges among undergraduates in selected rural universities in South Africa and Nigeria. Quantitative research design was adopted for data collection. Simple random sampling technique was used to select 934 students who served as participants for the study. Data were collected through the use of questionnaire which was analysed using descriptive statistics and Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The finding of the study reveals that undergraduates in the two selected rural universities experience common learning challenges amongst which include: cognitive, poor academic foundation, and lecturer-students' relationship. These are caused by lack of facilities, students' family socio-economic background, amongst others. The study recommends that rural university education should be improved upon in order to make it more relevant, otherwise, it remains irrelevant to both the students and nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews how citizens' corruption-reporting practices have challenged some established assertions of the classical thoughts of Durkheim on solidarity to trigger 'imodoye' – the third-tier solidarity in Nigeria. Gleaning data from secondary sources, it acknowledges the disclosure-fostering bonds of the mechanical (first-tier) solidarity and the disclosure-suppressing anomie of the organic (second-tier) solidarity. The widely presumed contempt of Buhari for impunity and his use of whistleblowers to make criminals refill the treasury they had treacherously emptied distinguish 'imodoye' solidarity as a new norm of reward-driven and disclosure-enabling anticorruption proposal. This article concludes that rewards neutralize the fear of reprisal and intensify the culture of whistle-blowing. The government should establish Imodoye Public Agricultural Settlement Agenda (IPASA) as a prison-extension facility for productive-payback services and Ownership Verification Number (OVN) to make anti-graft agencies track criminal investment of stolen money in the real-estate corridor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contemporary Nigerian state continues to be entrapped by a ferocious web of identity politics. Since ethno-religious fault lines were created and empowered by the colonial project, and despite the utilization of various socio-historical and political arrangements in post-independence Nigeria, the country is still cast under the shadows of the intransigencies associated with combative identity crisis. This article brings a fresh perspective on this subject, by drawing concurrently from three theoretical frameworks – ‘Invention of Tradition’ by Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, ‘Imagined Communities’ by Benedict Anderson, and crucially, “native-settler” as political identities by scholars like Mahmood Mamdani. Consequently, the article posits that identity formation in Nigeria has traveled the trajectories of the ‘invented,’ and the ‘imagined,’ culminating into the ‘made.’ The article employs a decolonial framework to argue for a renewed and progressive approach to national identity formation in Nigeria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on insights from the tenets of conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) this study examines the metaphorical conceptualization of God, the gods and the supernatural among the Igbo speakers of Southeastern Nigeria. This study accepts the notion that metaphor is primarily conceptual/cognitive and most times draws from the cultural worldview and ideological orientation of the people, hence the way we understand our physical and spiritual worlds, and our everyday actions, shape the form of language we use to express them. The data under consideration represent the Igbo as religious people who in their language and thought consciously recognize the existence of God and other supernatural forces. The Igbo express God and the supernatural in metaphors that show their relationships with these entities. God is metaphorized variously as a mountain/hill, river, king/wealthy person and so on while the lower gods are framed as mass killers/cleansers, destroyers and so on. Metaphors in Igbo language and thought are linguistic and cognitive representations of ideational meanings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Against the backdrop of the continued crisis of state legitimacy, precarious balance between ethnic groups, and a predatory and authoritarian political culture, this article examines the ‘Igbo Question’ and manifestations of contemporary Igbo nationalism through the activities of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB). It argues that the peculiarity of Igbo/MASSOB quest for self-determination stems from a prior idea of statehood by the Igbo ethnic group between 1967 and 1970, and a function of the failure of the Nigerian state to manage key aspects of the national question. Four decades after the civil war, MASSOB's quest for statehood and independence from Nigeria is still couched in terms of Igbo perceptions of marginalisation and exclusion from the Nigerian nation-state project. Imbued with its own contradictions and structural limitations, the Nigerian state unveils the fragmentation, paradoxes and challenges, which must be resolved in order to accommodate its multi-ethnic constituencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines two recent novels by the Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Purple Hibiscus ([2003] 2005) and Half a Yellow Sun (2006), placing them first in a dialogue with each other, and more broadly with selected Nigerian writing on the Biafra conflict. Arguing with Adesanmi that Adichie belongs to a ‘third generation’ of African literary work, it traces the novels' work of historical revisionism through gendered and embodied discourses of pain and violence. Adichie returns the reader to an aesthetics of excess firmly grounded on potently disturbing images of the ‘body in pain’, in Elaine Scarry's memorable phrase (1983): the battered, bruised and scarred body emerges as a key image, a corporeal evocation of the individual self that is traced in both novels to a legacy of colonial and post-colonial relations, and specific gendered configurations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2005 members of the Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union came to Nigeria for business. These ‘New Nigerian’ farmers, as they came to be known, were granted leases of prime lands each to be developed into ‘state-of-the-art farmlands’. The whole idea was to kick-start commercial agriculture which will eventually pave the way for improvements in agricultural technology in Nigeria. However, one wonders why it is preferable to engage foreigners instead of developing the capacities of the locals for the same purposes and what this portends for both food and human security in Nigeria. This article interrogates the issues and cross-cutting issues of concern in the concrete experiences of the ‘New Nigerian’ land deals. It notes that while many praise the arrangement and its seeming quick gains, the usual privileging of foreigners at the expense of the development of local capacity has constituted a significant downturn and snag with serious developmental consequences. It is further argued that the implications of all this, especially over land rights – a vital source of violent conflicts in the country – could be dire, as history has shown. This would ultimately impact on both food and human security in a country struggling to come to terms with food crisis and security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the years, Nigerian feminist discourse seems to have shifted its focus from the plight of the servile housewife or the peasant woman to the engagements, whether restricted or not, of the professional woman in her (urban) society. This shift in paradigm is the main thrust of my article. Using the novels of Zaynab Alkali and Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo I attempt to demonstrate that the Nigerian feminist novel, especially in the twenty-first century, has mainly concerned itself with a woman's negotiated space and how she utilises it to not only privilege and advance the condition of the woman but also to fully participate in and indeed lead socio-political struggles in her society. My contention is that the (new) professional woman of the Nigerian feminist novel, such as Alkali's Seytu in The descendants (2005), and Adimora-Ezeigbo's Nenne in Children of the eagle (2002) use their very professional achievements to pursue nationalist, not just womanist, objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article will examine the shifting tactics employed by Nigerian seamen in their struggles to improve their working conditions onboard Elder Dempster vessels in the late colonial period. Nigerian seamen successfully exploited opportunities arising within the context of colonialism to participate in globalised economies and cultures, exposing them to new solidarities and empowering them to seek an improvement in their lives. In crafting their onboard protests, African seamen historically forged ideological and organisational alliances with the wider world of the black diaspora. But the era of decolonisation shifted the balance of power between seamen and the union leadership as they negotiated with colonial shipping companies in the transition to independence. As ruling elites in both Europe and Nigeria took political, economic and ideological actions to secure lasting power and influence for themselves, seamen experienced a profound disempowerment. Although intent on engaging with the globalised world, African seamen were ultimately prevented from securing for themselves positions of power and autonomy as an effective labour movement in the post-colonial context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent times, more often than not, social capital has been presented as the virtue through which third world communities may develop. Indeed, the bonds of love, trust, friendship and kinship as social ingredients of social capital have become the salvaging grace for the third world in the face of strangulating economic decline and crisis. Through qualitative methodology, this study utilized key informant interview, in-depth interview and focus group discussion to generate data at Lalupon - a community noted for preponderance of social capital induced groups. The study discovered that Lalupon social capital is sustained not only because of economic hardship, but also the ethnogenesic notions of distinct social identity, which attaches interpretive identity meanings, distinct from Ibadan to the residents. As this seemingly alienates the community from state resources, Lalupon thus utilizes its identity-based social capital/groups to provide human/community development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New poets in Nigeria continue to historicise the decades of despoliation and despondency during which Nigeria suffered undue militarisation. Subjecting artistry to the exigencies of the society, the new poets, projecting themselves as 'town criers' (in the sense Christopher Okigbo uses the word), evolve an artistic vision that centres on the plight of the common people. This reading of Toyin Adewale's poetry attempts to explore the theme of oppression and subjugation and points out the peculiarity of Adewale as a poet of significant maturity in her age. Striking a balance between aesthetics and what is now seen as the social commitment of the African writer, Adewale dramatises the ethical and moral decay in a society messed up and a people denied modest existence by a cabal of military oppressors. In the unfolding canon of new Nigerian poetry, Adewale stands as one of the few poets who have succeeded in negotiating a space for poetry in the domain of social issues in Nigeria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the link between gender, religion and democracy in a postcolonial state such as Nigeria. Impact of authoritarian rule on the possibilities of women exercising democratic agency; Description on how religion mediates the relationship between gender and democracy; Role of specificity of religious ideology and practice.