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This article examines the gendered subjectivity of the Nigerian woman in the militarized space of Boko Haram. Through the use of rape and other forms of physical and emotional abuse, Boko Haram militants have transformed abducted women into weapons in war. Referring to the traumatic experiences of the female protagonists in Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani's Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree (2018) and Patience Ibrahim's A Gift from Darkness (2016), this article demonstrates how the female body becomes a battleground for settling masculinist quarrels. Using a feminist postcolonial and womanist conceptual framework, this article explores the Nigerian woman's survival wisdom in terrorism and her quest for self-healing and agency within the militarized masculinist space of Boko Haram. It is observed that African women's resilience and rebellion against sexual terrorism and masculinist violence is a womanist tendency., INTRODUCTION: THIRD-GENERATION NIGERIAN WAR NARRATIVES First- and second-generation Nigerian war narratives prominently address the genocidal Nigeria-Biafra War (1967-70). Flora Nwapa's Never Again (1975) and Wives at War and Other Stories [...]

Issues on women's deprivation, marginalization and empowerment are well documented in literature. The impact of women's empowerment on the well-being of unemployed women in Yakurr Local Government Area of Cross River State, Nigeria, is yet to receive sufficient investigation from scholars. Thus, this study explores the relationship between women's empowerment and the well-being of the unemployed women, aged 18-45 years in Yakurr Local Government Area of Cross River State, Nigeria. It specifically examines the types and access to available women's empowerment programmes, the nature of empowerment programmes that women have benefitted from, as well as areas of positive impact in the context of socio-economic well-being. The study adopted an exploratory design using quantitative and qualitative data, obtained from 660 unemployed women recruited via multi-stage sampling technique. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and Chi square in testing the two hypotheses. Results indicate that 31.9% of respondents reported the provision of agricultural facilities as the most common women's empowerment programme, while 58.3% acknowledge that they have benefitted from any given women's empowerment programme. A total of 19.9% indicated that they have benefitted from micro-credit facilities, while 20.8% reveal that women's empowerment programmes have positively impacted their well-being. Findings further reveals a statistically significant relationship between education and the impact of women's empowerment programmes; and a statistically significant relationship between place of residence and the impact of women's empowerment programmes. Based on the findings, it was concluded that women's empowerment programmes have positively impacted the well-being of unemployed women in Yakurr, Nigeria. Thus, there is an urgent need for the Cross Rivers State Government to develop grassroot women's empowerment programmes that will enable these women to take advantage of available resources and to know that apart from non-governmental organisations and the government, women are endowed to actively help themselves and be drivers of their own destiny. Keywords: Deprivation, Empowerment, Unemployed, Unemployed Women, Nigeria, Wellbeing, Women, Introduction Unemployment is a socio-economic problem that has besieged the entire global community, with developing countries suffering the most (Adebayo, 2011; Agetue & Nnamdi, 2011). The problem of chronic unemployment [...]

Abstract The aim of this article is to initiate a new debate on vigilantism in Nigeria by arguing for a re-examination of the links between crime and vigilantism. It contends [...]

ABSTRACT This article concerns literary culture and the representation of romantic love in colonial Nigeria's print media. It examines how Nigerians, during the first half of the twentieth century, began [...]

Cocoyam is a traditional crop and a cultural foodstuff in Nigeria. It has not received much research attention in spite of its great adaptability to varying farming systems and its nutritive and commercial food values. The crop is a yam substitute that occupies an inferior food status in the study area. It is mainly cultivated by women and in most cases planted as an intercrop in a previously established farm. It is, therefore, regarded as a lazy man's crop and consequently a poor man's food. The aim of this study was to revive the acceptability of cocoyam as foodstuff in order to solve the food crisis, which Nigeria has been experiencing since 1978. A structured interview schedule was used to obtain information from randomly selected 322 respondents from 24 cocoyam producing communities in four states in the region: Ondo, Ekiti, Ogun and Lagos states. The question items included personal and socio-economic characteristics of respondents and cocoyam utilization. The data were described using frequency counts, means and percentages while multiple regression analysis was used as inferential statistics to determine the relationship of the independent variables to the dependent variable. Results revealed that 64% of the respondents were males and 84% were married. Their ages ranged from 20-70 years with a mean of 44 [+ or -] 16 years. About 68% of them were literate with 58% of their spouses literate. They were mostly (39%) farmers and artisans (12%) with no secondary occupation, only 28% of the farmers produced cocoyam but almost all (97%) of the respondents consumed cocoyam. Cocoyam was utilized in 24 different ways in three categories of unprocessed solid, processed solid and powder in the study area and utilization level was 20%. The multiple regression analysis was significant at p< 0.05 and R=0.3469, meaning that the independent variable: socio-economic characteristics had jointly accounted for 35% of cocoyam utilization level. F value was 5.334. The variables that contributed positively to utilization level were producers of cocoyam, sources of cocoyam and cocoyam being brought home from journey while cosmopolitan, flexibility on food choice and decision makers on menu contributed negatively. Commercial processing of cocoyam to flour for baking, canned foods, baby food formulae and other cocoyam products are recommended to increase utilization. Farmers were advised to increase cocoyam production in the study area. Key words: Utilization, Cocoyam, household, southwestern Nigeria, INTRODUCTION Cocoyam (Colocasia and Xanthosoma species) is one of the major five tuber crops produced in Nigeria for local consumption alongside yam (Dioscorea spp), cassava (Manihot spp), irish potato (Solanum [...]

I cannot subscribe to the view that in Nigeria women police between the ages of 40 and 50 will be better able than the existing policemen to prevent prostitution. ... [...]

Fela Anikulapo-Kuti's afrobeat occupies a pivotal position in Nigeria's musical continuum and socio-political discourse. Through Fela, a new medium of social and political criticism was unearthed for the critical mass [...]

This paper examines the limits of British power in light of cultural and linguistic ambiguity in colonial Igbo society. Through humor, the interactions between the British District Commissioner and his Igbo court clerk and translator in the Nigerian drama Icheoku become opportunities to explore the notion of cultural agency through oral speech forms. Although Icheoku's humor lies in the translator's difficulty understanding the commissioner's affective English, this essay proposes that what is performed as consequence of a language barrier is actually the clerk's way of undermining his colonial employer's authority by tapping into his culture's verbal resources. The essay expands the discourse on native agency in the face of colonial cultural and political dominance, here through popular theater., Icheoku is a popular Nigerian television show that ran for over a decade, ending in 1992. Set in the colonial era, it featured the daily exchanges between a British District [...]

ABSTRACT Eddie Iroh made the observation that writers of his generation, who had lived through the Biafran conflict, were too close to the suffering to write the definitive accounts of [...]

This article reports findings of a qualitative inquiry on representations of unsafe sexual conduct among female sex workers in Aba, Nigeria. Participating sex workers viewed their work as a form of business, a survival imperative in the face of poverty, and they generally considered it both risky and disgraceful. However, they frequently framed unsafe sexual behavior in terms of poorly remunerated unprotected sex with clients. Sex workers in the study were not only generally willing to grant, but also confirmed regularly granting, unprotected sex to clients offering to pay a premium for it. Receiving 'good money' for unprotected sex made higher degrees of risk acceptable to these women and was considered an effective way to avoid clients assumed to be carriers of infections. In their struggle for sexual health, sex workers in Nigeria are hindered by poverty, powerlessness, and marginality. Future programs must aim, inter alia, at supporting sex workers' willingness to insist on condoms no matter what clients offer them to do otherwise.

THE RECENT REIMPOSITION OF Islamic criminal law in northern Nigeria has forcefully brought gender issues in the region to international attention. Sentences of death by stoning handed down to Safiya [...]

An instance of illegitimate practice is studied to focus on the exchanges between drivers and security personnel on north-eastern Nigerian highway checkpoints. It is revealed that illegitimate dealings are committed in exchanges by security personnel by discursively shielding illegal acts, exhibiting their power in the language they use and underhandedly extort money from drivers thus defining the plight of the socioeconomic dynamics of the Nigerian society.

The article examines the lessons that Nigerian women even today need to learn from women of ancient Greek, Roman and Nigerian societies who did not take their secondary status as a matter of fact but established themselves in political arenas and did not passively accept subordination.

The study investigated cognitive impairment and quality of life (QOL) among 109 consecutive stroke survivors and 109 normal controls. Each group comprised 64 (58.7%) men and 45 (41.3%) women. The modified Mini Mental State Examination (mMMSE) and the WHO Quality of Life Questionnaire (WHOQOL-Bref) indicated that 19 (17.4%) stroke survivors had cognitive deficits (mMMSE score < 16) compared with 5 (4.6%) control participants [x.sub.1.sup.2] = 4.27, p < .05). Control participants performed significantly better on orientation, language comprehension, laterality, and the WHOQOL-Bref. Being GHQ-30 positive predicted poor performance on the mMMSE among the stroke survivors and reduced QOL on three of the four domains of the WHOQOL-Bref. In addition, previous psychiatric illness, paresis, low education, and shorter time elapsed after a stroke predicted reduced QOL on one or more domains of the WHOQOL-Bref but age and sex of the stroke survivors were not associated with quality of life, and not with cognitive function.

In Sylhet, Bangladesh, remittances sent home by sons and husbands working abroad have led to new inequalities conducive to the proliferation of sorcery accusations. In cases of illness, sorcery is often the preferred diagnosis. The virilocal rule of residence positions the son's wife as an outsider and, as such, she has been traditionally viewed as the prime suspect in cases of sorcery. This structural tension has been intensified by overseas migration as sons working abroad increase the isolation and vulnerability of their wives. Patients and their families do not passively act out structural contradictions but actively pursue a sorcery diagnosis. Through a detailed case study of one woman's struggle to come to terms with infertility, I show how a diagnosis of sorcery acts as a face-saving mechanism in situations of material inequality between kin. A Sylhet, au Bangladesh, les fonds envoyes par les fils et les maris travaillant a l'etranger ont cree de nouvelles inegalites qui suscitent une proliferation des accusations de sorcellerie. Si quelqu'un est malade, cette maladie sera le plus souvent imputee a un envoutement. Or la regle de residence virilocale place la femme du fils en position d'intruse et en tant que telle, elle est traditionnellement la premiere suspecte lorsqu'on invoque la sorcellerie. Cette tension structurelle a ete intensifiee par l'migration, puisque l'absence des fils partis travailler dans un autre pays accroit l'isolement et la vulnerabilite de leurs epouses. Les patients et leurs familles ne se contentent pas de suivre passivement le fil des contradictions structurelles, mais etablissent activement un diagnostic de sorcellerie. A travers une etude de cas detaillee concernant la lutte d'une femme pour affronter sa sterilite, l'auteur montre comment le diagnostic de sorcellerie permet de sauver la face dans les situations d'inegalite materielle entre membres d'une meme famille., Ethnographic evidence from post-colonial Africa and elsewhere has called into question the Weberian equation between modernity and disenchantment. Modernity, far from being antithetical to witchcraft and sorcery, creates new inequalities [...]

The article explains the concept of women's economic development in Nigeria wherein the Yoruba women strive to adopt new strategies in trading which make them self-sufficient and help them survive.

The principles of primogeniture in Benin culture, which highlight the importance of the position of the first son, are reviewed to study the extent to which the primogeniture principles were applied in the past and how they are practiced today. The advent of Western education and capitalist economic ideologies have affected the roles, statuses and rights of primogeniture and the extent to which changes in these principles reflect the changes resulting from Western influences are examined.

The problem of corruption in Nigeria through the lens of its emergence as a label for governmental malpractice in northern Nigeria across the twentieth century, focusing in particular on enduring legacies from the colonial regime that constituted structures persisting as those of the Nigerian state is presented. Corruption is the legacy of a long history of politics, state formation, economic exploitation, and of a complex interplay between indigenous and foreign understandings of appropriate governmental conduct.

ABSTRACT This article examines the ways in which the legacies and collective memories of Biafra, the secessionist state established at the time of Nigeria's civil war from 1967 to 1970, [...]

Democratic solutions and fortification are reported to be urgently required in Nigeria, which faces overall weakening or collapse of social, economic and political governing bodies. In this context, Indian democracy through its comparatively successful experiences is considered suitable to offer instructive lessons to Nigeria, as a situation similar to Nigeria existed in India at the time of decolonization and exists even presently.

Introduction When in the summer of 2002, after almost twenty years of absence, I returned to Amakiri (pseudonym) an Ijaw community in the Niger Delta, with my 16 year old [...]

Two active youth associations, which have had encounters with the state of Nigeria since 1998, the Ijaw Youth Council and Isoko National Youth Movement, revealed violent encounters, occasioned by an insensitive state that is prone to repression as an instrument of conflict resolution. Several lessons emerge from the analysis like violent mobilization, intense civic confrontation with the state and intense civil society mobilization.

As HIV/AIDS continues to ravage sub-Saharan Africa, questions about the demographic effects of the pandemic have become more pronounced. In addition to the suffering and mortality of those afflicted with [...]

This essay presents Joshua Uzoigwe as a Nigerian intercultural composer. A short biography of the composer shows the influence of two cultures--Nigerian (Igbo/Yoruba) and European--on his creative outputs. Uzoigwe's experience in the two cultures has enabled him to compose music which is indisputably a synthesis of Nigerian and European musical idioms. His works are classified into five categories, while the creative style exhibits purely original compositions and works in which Nigerian musical elements are directly utilised. A discussion of Uzoigwe's music includes elements of tonal organisation, elements of dance, elements of musical conception and instrumentation. The issue of bi-culturalism, national identity and the search for a Nigerian audience are some of the problems Uzoigwe attempts to solve in his compositions., The history of art music in Nigeria is shaped by several related experiences through contact with two domineering forces, the Christian church and colonisation. The establishment of the Christian mission [...]

Over the last 35 years, the acclaimed American political economist, Thomas C. Schelling, has asserted his belief that organized crime is purely monopoly enterprise. His definition of the phenomenon remains highly influential and continues to form the basis of many definitions of organized crime today. This article outlines Schelling's economic definition of organized crime and then applies it to an analysis of the major organized crime groups operating in the states of the European Union. It concludes that a purely economic definition is inadequate to define organized crime in Europe in the twenty-first century and that, in order to understand the phenomenon fully, other variables need to be introduced and appreciated.

The Ekperi speak an Edo language and trace their origins to the Edo kingdom of Benin in their orthodox history. Nevertheless, they and other northern Edo peoples living in eastern [...]

Since the 1970s there have been several studies of Hausa women in northern Nigerian cities (e.g. Pittin, 1979; Coles, 1983; Knipp, 1987). Cities were chosen for research because they supposedly [...]

This article examines the relationship between gender and extramarital sex in southeastern Nigeria. Using ethnographic case studies from the Igbo-speaking region, analytical attention is focused on how extramarital relations are [...]

Women's (mis)behavior in intimate relationships is a constant topic of commentary among women and men in Ado-Odo, southwestern Nigeria. Today's women are said to be wayward and troublesome, defying their husbands in pursuit of other men's love and money. Yet, many women maintain marriages in which there is no love and no money. And for those who do leave, remarriage offers little attraction: neither for love nor for money. In this article, I explore the interplay between love and money in intimate relationships in Ado-Odo and implications for the ways in which gender and agency are construed and enacted in everyday life. [Nigeria, Yoruba, women, gender relations, love, money]

The relationship between the rulers and the ruled in colonial Nigeria is examined. The author, analyzing ethnographic photography, argues colonized people often behaved and performed 'tradition' in a manner decided for them by the colonizers.

The life of followers of African Prophetic Churches is divided between an intense, completely localized community life and exceptionally large mass gatherings linked to evangelist campaigns or to pilgrimages. Through the trajectories of immigration that these Churches accompany and the missionary functions exercised by their pastors and prophets, who are constantly crossing borders, the lives of their followers are increasingly governed by the networked rhythms of national and international exchanges. But although globalization is generally synonymous with loss of sense of place and with opening-up to a virtual network of converts, the African Churches remain attached to a strategy of territorializing their religious identity. `African-style transnationalization' describes the expansion, beyond its initial borders, of a religion that may have been born of a local syncretism, and is certainly rooted in a reference territory -- notably through attachment to holy places -- as well as marked by certain original features of its ethnic and national identity, such as the use of an ethnic language regarded as sacred. This process is illustrated here by the example of the Celestial Church of Christ, which is of Beninese origin. Focusing attention on the implications of a pilgrimage to the Celestial City of Imeko shows that the model of the assembly of Angels of God (celestial beings) is still confronted by the demons of ethnic and national identities and that migrant, pilgrim religion may go hand in hand with an overwheening parish-type logic.

In Kalabari there is a remarkable pervasiveness of tripartite schemes. This was not the situation centuries ago, and it is at variance with the baseline culture in the Niger Delta. In the past, and still among other Ijo communities, number three and odd numbers in general were associated with men; and even numbers and four in particular were associated with women. This paper investigates why the number-symbolism changed and 'feminine' numbers disappeared from the traditional religious cosmology Our analysis suggests that the transformation of Kalabari society from fishing village to trading state altered the gender balance in favor of men. With their newly found dominance in long-distance trade, which relied on violence for success, the reproduction of social relationships was structured in various ways to produce and maintain the worldview that what was masculine and strong was good for the governance of society. The prominence of number three in Kalabari social relations is, therefore, an 'archaeological' a rtifact of historic transformation of gender relations., Introduction There is a remarkable pervasiveness of tripartite schemes in Kalabari, Eastern Niger Delta. From organization and 'design' of society to gods, from worldview to business strategy, from the celebration [...]

1. Introduction The question as to the number of indigenous languages Nigerians use along with English has not been resolved. This, according to Emenanjo (1990: vi), is because 'Nigeria is [...]

ABSTRACT In September 1996 the city of Owerri in south-eastern Nigeria erupted in riots over popular suspicion that the town's nouveaux riches were responsible for a spate of ritual murders [...]

The human misery that exists in rural regions of Sub-Saharan Africa is a complex phenomenon with many causations and consequences that reinforce each other. This articles seeks to examine the many salient features of the Nigerian rural economy, and the role that rural-based Community Banks should take and are already taking to achieve rural development. This article notes that the key aims of establishing a community bank are to promote rural development through the provision of finance and banking services. As such, a need arises for actions that will remedy the deficiencies. These deficiencies call for increased monitoring and supervision to ensure adequate internal control within the community banks.

This article evaluates the role of civil society in economic and political reform in Nigeria. The author addresses the negative aspects of civil groups in the developing democracy, focusing on the divisive, parochial and divergent nature of civil groups in plural soceities.

DR. NAST is an assistant professor in the international studies program at DePaul University, Chicago, Illinois 60614--3298., ********** This paper retrospectively examines my two years of doctoral fieldwork in the palace of Kano, Nigeria, where I integrated my former training as a geologist into social geographical field [...]

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Church Missionary Society missionaries, both of African and European descent, became interested in gaining converts among Igbo-speaking women in southeastern Nigeria. Schooling was an integral part of the conversion process. This article contends that separate body/mind disciplines for Igbo 'youth' were not only based in European gender categories but helped to develop a separate category of personhood among Igbo themselves: ndi kris, the Christian people, who marked gender dichotomies differently than their unmissionized compatriots. The article discusses what the development of this socially separate, gendered, and youthful category of persons meant for Igbo society, and offers a way to consider how gender is necessarily part of the historical construction of 'youth' in colonial contexts. Keywords: West Africa, missionization, gender, youth, education