Content and Editorial

Abstract

Editorial
This Issue of Lagos Notes & Records contains a range of scholarly, engaging and well-researched theoretical and data-driven papers in key disciplines in the humanities. Although the different articles are diverse in terms of topics and subjects, they all unite around the concerns within the disciplines of the humanities.
In the first paper, “Chinua Achebe’s Engagement with City Life in No Longer at Ease and A Man of the People”, Lola Akande goes beyond the usual approach to Achebe’s works, the cultural consequences of the unequal interaction between Nigerian peoples and the colonial overlords. The author calls our attention to Achebe’s no less nuanced treatment of city life in No Longer at Ease and A Man of the People, two novels set in early post-Independence Nigeria.
In another article on literature in English from the genre of drama, “‘Crisis of the Soul’: Religious Trauma and Hypocrisy in Selected Plays of Ahmed Yerima”, Bosede Afolayan furthers the discourse of postcolonial contradiction in contemporary African society when she examines Ahmed Yerima’s apparent fixation with the theme of religious disharmony. Osita Nwangbo’s “Identity and Language Attitudes among Sierra Leonean Refugees in Oru Camp, Ogun State, Nigeria” is a sociolinguistic investigation of the social-linguistic intercourse between Sierra Leonean speakers of Mende, Temne and Limba and their Nigerian Yoruba hosts in the Oru refugee camp. Orimogunje Oladele Caleb’s “The Salient Issues in the Yorùbá Indigenous Health-related Verbal Art” discusses the socio-mythical approach to the health-related belief system in Yorùbá culture.

In Sirajudeen Owosho’s “Cartesian Foundation of Husserlian Phenomenology: A Critical Appraisal”, yet another attempt is made to show how much Western philosophy has been a response to the writings of the man dubbed the father of modern Western philosophy: Rene Descartes (1596-1650); Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl (1859-1938) is, thus, shown to have been significantly influenced by that precursor philosopher.

Dan Ekere explores the thesis that scepticism is a theory of knowledge and an instrument for the advancement, affirmation and consolidation of knowledge in his paper, “The Heuristic Value of Scepticism”. He establishes the point that scepticism, which in a sense is criticism, rather than destroy, builds a system of knowledge that is stronger for as long as it is done with an open mind.

On their part, Emmanuel Irokanulo and Blaise Gbaden point out the relationship between visual art and philosophy, suggesting that visual art is creativity just as creativity is philosophy; their paper is titled “Painting as an Object of Philosophy”. Still on visual art, Chinyere Ndubuisi reports the major contribution of pioneer modern Nigerian artists as the philosophy of natural synthesis in which precolonial Nigerian forms and motifs were blended with the best of European tradition.
Friday Aworawo’s paper, “The Nature of Threat to Nigeria’s Defence Policy in a Fluctuating World Order: A Historical Analysis”, aims to show how erroneous assessment of a country’s defence position in the international system may result in underestimation or overestimation which will produce wrong policy options. He therefore advocates cooperation between Nigeria and her closest neighbours as well as the Great Powers. Still on the international dimension, Peter Akinwale advocates linguistic sustainability when he argues that Nigeria-France cultural interactions should involve mutual interchange in the ‘Francophonie’ even if French would be adopted as a second official language in Nigeria. Akinwale makes his call in “Feasibility of Nigeria’s Future Membership of the “Francophonie”.
Finally, this volume features two reviews. Oluwaseyi Kehinde reviews Albert Oikelome’s Lets Teach You to Sing, a detailed discourse on the nature and function of the singing voice, while Charles Ogbulogo reviews a special issue of Research in English and Applied Linguistics (Vol. 9) – Essays on Language in Societal Transformation: A Festschrift in Honour of Segun Awonusi. Ogbulogo provides a balanced critique of the twenty-three entries comprising the four sections of the special issue. The book is a collection of scholarly papers in linguistics, literature, pedagogy and education management.

We are confident that scholars and researchers will continue to find contributions in our issues of Lagos Notes & Records to be a very enriching and rewarding repository of knowledge and research findings that will enhance development both in academia and the larger society.
The editorial board will continue to encourage and promote transdisciplinary academic discourse that will contribute to knowledge within the humanities. I congratulate all the contributors whose papers scaled through the rigorous peer review mechanism. Equally, I deeply appreciate our panel of reviewers for their usual support.

Muyiwa Falaiye, PhD

Professor of Philosophy 

Editor-in-Chief