Editorial

This Volume 25 of Lagos Notes and Records presents another round of well-researched scholarly contributions from established and middle-level career researchers spread across key disciplines in the humanities namely language, literature, communication studies, history, linguistics, conflict resolution and crisis management, and music. Articles received from authors outside the traditional base of the journal continue to confirm the transdisciplinary reputation this journal has acquired over the years and its increasing national and international appeal.

The first article by Takehiko Ochiai examines the Sandline Affair and the United Kingdom’s interference in the Sierra Leonean polity in the 1990s, which led to violations of the United Nations sanctions against Sierra Leone during the country’s civil war. The author argues that the role played by the UK, coupled with the complexity of the relationship that existed among the various actors in the conflict, complicated the war situation in the country.

Albert Oikelome, in the second article, examines the issue of compositional elements in the music of Fela Kuti, focusing on selected songs of the Afrobeat legend and the key to understanding his creative resourcefulness. The author analyses the techniques employed by the musician to achieve his enviable feats in music and concludes that Fela Kuti’s vocal elements were exceptional.

The third article by Lọla Akande offers a new approach to our understanding of city life by confronting the rural bias which tends to privilege the countryside over the urban space. Based on a close-reading technique that engages the city as a living space, Akande argues that neither the village nor the city is a haven, but that each demands choices that are both personal and public for inhabitants to survive the various obstacles in life.

In the fourth article, Eric Mensah examines Nkrumah’s rhetorical urgency as an argumentative tool for the establishment of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). He demonstrates ways through which major rhetorical constraints could inhibit a successful rhetorical performance and how effectively a rhetorician can deploy relevant tools in addressing a composite audience using the example of Kwame Nkrumah.

Akinmade Akande, Kofo Adedeji, and Anjola Robbin on their part examine how stand-up comedy has impacted the linguistic order in Nigeria. They employed recorded performances of seven popular Nigerian stand-up comedians to illustrate the importance of the profession to the development of Nigerian pidgin. The authors argue that Nigerian stand-up comedians are social critics and communicators whose purpose of condemning immoral acts of political leaders is driven by their desire to change the society for the better.

Sunday Ofuani, in the sixth article, examines the compositional utility and rationale of figurative-sounds in the vocal music of some eminent Nigerian composers. He argues that sonic idioms creatively permeate sonic-imagery, sonic-reference, and sonic-allusion of replicated phenomenon. He concludes that Nigerian contemporary composers in their search for indigenous sonic materials stylistically indulge in utilizing figurative sounds in their vocal music.    

Ayọdeji Adedara, in an ecoparadox based article, examines some gubernatorial speeches of Babatunde Fashola selected across his eight-year tenure as governor of Lagos State, Nigeria. He identifies the extent to which the Fashola administration was ecocentric both in policy formulation and programme implementation, noting that the speeches show that the former governor was an earth-friendly leader. However, the fact that some aspects of the speeches portrayed instances in which economic considerations got primacy over environmentalism contra the expectation that political leaders should value the environment the same way they value economic interests. The paper concludes that the framing of climate change in governmental discourse needs to transcend valuing the nonhuman world only extrinsically.

In the eight article, Abosede Babatunde emphasises the need to rethink the Eurocentric conflict management strategies often adopted to manage conflicts in Africa given their inherent inadequacies. Consequently, she makes a case for more creative, contextual, and innovative approaches to conflict resolution in Africa that would combine both African and Western conflict management strategies.

Carol Anyagwa’s article investigates the dominant linguistic pattern of Catholic liturgy in Lagos based on data elicited from seven out of the fifteen deaneries of the Church in Lagos. It opines that there is a subsisting case of unconscious linguicism resulting in a tendency towards mono-lingualism and the domination of English over Latin and indigenous Nigerian languages. It concludes by recommending the need to reverse the trend.

The tenth article by Adeyẹmi Adegoju and Bukunmi Adetunji is concerned with the use of linguistic resources to thread ideology in selected political teachings of Pastor Bakare. The authors focus on the pastor’s elucidation of leadership-citizenship responsiveness required for building an enduring and participatory democratic culture in Nigeria. They observe that the pastor is ideologically radical in his texts‘ structuring with the intention to ignite nationalism in his audiences in order to consolidate democracy in Nigeria.   

Lastly, Adewale Tiamiyu examines the significances of the romantic period in two romantic plays through the analysis of their actions based on the dichotomy of the classics and the romantics. The author applies the Greïmas’ theory in three different dimensions to illustrate the conflict between the classics and the romantics and concludes that while men grow classical in marriage, women often desire to retain their degree of romanticism in courtship.

Finally, it is my desire and hope that the academic community will find the articles in this volume interesting, meaningful, and useful in their quest to expand the frontiers of knowledge.

Prof. Olufunkẹ Adeboye

Dean, Faculty of Arts

Editor-in-Chief

FOREWORD

It has been established that the Nigerian Army came into existence as an army of occupation introduced by the British colonialists to protect their economic, strategic, and political interests in Nigeria. However, Professor Abayomi Akinyeye’s From Colonial Occupation to a National Force: The Army in Nigeria, Past Experiences, Present Realities and Future Prospects has demonstrated that a major challenge facing the transformation of the Army has been how to transit from its perceived colonial role to that of a national force. The paper discusses the growth of the Nigerian Army from its inception to its present state.

Professor Akinyeye highlighted the following as some of the inadequacies of the Nigerian Army: the perception of regional domination of the force due to the lopsidedness in the demography of the officer’s corps and rank and file; the issue of the Army’s inability to successfully tackle internal insecurity due to some lapses in its composition and operational strategies; and the lack of acquaintance by troops with their operational environment and other related constraints. The author recommends amendments to the structure and operations of the Army for better, efficient and effective operations as well as some critical adjustments for efficient future operations. These include a review of its policy to ensure that its personnel do not serve in their homelands, or alternatively establish a language policy whereby all personnel are encouraged to be proficient in one major Nigerian language apart from their native tongues; and the need for the establishment of a new corps that would be trained in guerrilla warfare to tackle internal security.

I commend Professor Akinyeye for the fresh insight he has provided on the evolution and operations of the Nigerian Army  right from its inception to its present state. This piece, no doubt, is a worthy contribution to the Faculty of Arts Monographs Series as it continues to publish top notch studies to promote scholarship and advance the frontiers of knowledge.

Professor Akanbi Mudasiru Ilupeju

Dean, Faculty of Arts

University of Lagos

Editorial

I am delighted to announce the successful publication of Volume 26, 2020 of our esteemed journal, Lagos Notes and Records. This current edition is made up of thirteen well-researched articles across the various disciplines of the Humanities and Social Sciences namely History, Philosophy, Creative Arts, Language Studies, Literature, Communication Studies, and Linguistics.

Lynn Schler in the first article, ‘The Local and the Global in African Studies: An Essay in Honour of Prof. Ayodeji Olukoju @ 60’, argues that in every geographic context, African studies evolved as an intersection between local and global flows of ideas, politics and capital. She concludes that the future of African studies requires scholars to view Africa as both a singular idea and a conglomeration of vastly diverse cultural contexts. Scholars must be aware of what is distinctive in local contexts and also take cognizance of global solutions. 

In the second article, ‘Identity and Ideological Positioning in Popular Nigerian Ethnic Jokes’, ’Rotimi Taiwo and David Dontele examine the discursive constructions of selected jokes to determine their expression of attitudinal and ideological dispositions of the ethnic groups within the multilingual/multicultural context of Nigeria. They argue that ethnic jokes in Nigeria construct stereotypes about linguo-cultural signs, and that the jokes have been stripped of their stigmatizing effects owing to the ability of Nigerians to laugh collectively at their perceived prejudices and stereotypes. In a related article, ‘Impression Management and Face Sensitivities in Delta State Courtroom Interactions’, Olasimbo Takpor and Felix Ogoanah investigate impression management and courtroom interactions in High Court proceedings in Delta State of Nigeria within the theoretical framework of Rapport Management Model (Spencer Oatey). They conclude that to manage face sensitivities, courtroom interactants create diverse impressions of themselves or others by deploying impression management strategies such as self-promotion, intimidation, apologies, ingratiation and conformity as determined by the peculiarities of legal procedures and cultural norms, which mediate judicial proceedings, interpretations and decisions.

Felix Ajiola’s ‘Colonial Capitalism and the Structure of the Nigerian Cocoa Marketing Board, 1947-1960’ examines the origin, structure and impact of the Nigerian Cocoa Marketing Board (NCMB) from its inauguration in 1947 up to 1960. The author argues that the NCMB served various interests and purposes, which hardly benefitted cocoa producers, but rather exploited them through intolerable taxes, harmful price regulations and unfavourable grading policies. In another article, ‘The Language Factor and Internet Penetration in Nigeria: A Practical Assessment’, Olushola Are examines all the unstated assumptions behind quests for more language options on the internet with specific reference to Nigeria. The author concludes that the provision of Nigerian language options online would not significantly enhance internet penetration in the country without broader adjustments to the roles and status of indigenous languages as well as greater socio-economic and political reforms to fight general social exclusion for which linguistic exclusion of any form may be merely symptomatic. 

In the sixth article, ‘Theatrical Intervention towards “Birth Preparedness and Complication Readiness”’, Oluwatoyin Olokodana-James examines Birth Preparedness and Complication Readiness (BPCR) strategies. She argues that BPCR reduces the risks of complications in that it helps health practitioners to detect danger signs from both mother and the newborn early enough. Using qualitative research approach, the author employs theatre and dance as interventionist tools to educate women within Ifako-Ijaye LGA in Lagos State on the usefulness of BPCR. In a different article on ‘Stress Patterning in Polysyllabic Words among Educated Yoruba Speakers of English in Lagos’, Emmanuel Osifeso investigates one hundred (100) undergraduate and post-graduate students across Lagos State to underscore the role of stress patterning of polysyllabic words among educated Yoruba speakers of English in Lagos (EYSEL). He concludes that EYSEL have a propensity for shifting the main stress in English polysyllabic words rightward.

Victor Ariole’s article, ‘Peul (Fulani) Worldview as seen in Ba’s Work: A Critique’, identifies the cultural integration constraints in Africa using Ba’s discussion of the Peul/Fulani as a case study. He concludes that Ba’s thought patterns are quite relevant in understanding the Peul’s worldview which sees probity and constituents’ responsibilities as inalienable with peaceful living or existence. Babatunji Adepoju in the ninth article, ‘Cohesion in English Biblical Narratives: A Study of “The Prodigal Son”’, examines the different methods that writers/speakers employ in making English narratives coherent. He discusses the reasons why many texts are considered disjointed/disorganised thereby making such texts lose the desired radiance. He concludes that the unity of a text is enhanced by adherence to the appropriate usage of grammatical and lexical ties in English narratives. 

Ayọdele Shotunde in ‘A Discourse on the Nature of Crime and Punishment in the Administration of Social Justice in an African Culture’ evaluates the nature of crime and punishment among the Yoruba of Nigeria. Adopting the critical and prescriptive methodology, he concludes that it is important to take an insightful look at the traditional Yoruba conception of crime and punishment given its embedded spirit of forgiveness because such has the potential of fostering better social ethics in contemporary Nigeria. In the next article, ‘China-Hong Kong Dual System: Twenty-Three Years of Uncertainty and Broken Promises’, Henry Ogunjewo argues that the relationship between China and Hong Kong in the last twenty-three years has been characterised by broken promises, failed covenants, unnecessary political meddling, judicial undercutting, press gagging and restrictions on freedom of expressions, leading to protests and political tension in Hong Kong. He concludes that the United Kingdom, former colonial administrator of Hong Kong, needed to bring international pressure on China to protect the interests of Hong Kong.

Bisoye Eleshin’s ‘High-Toned Vowel Prefix in Yoruba’ examines prefixation as it relates to gerund derivation in Yoruba. He uses the morpho-syntactic approach to establish the claim that there actually exists a high-toned vowel prefix i- in Yoruba and that the class of noun it derives is gerund.

The last paper by Mosunmola Ogunmolaji and Oyinade Adekunle ‘‘Madam Due Process’: The Public Life of Obiageli Ezekwesili’ is a biography of Obiageli Ezekwesili. The authors analyse the public life of Obiageli Ezekwesili providing insights into her lifestyle, especially the major forces that spurred her interest in politics and public administration. They conclude that Ezekwesili is an intellectual who has broken gender barriers in Nigeria. She possesses pragmatic understanding of the yearnings of Nigerians through deliberate identification of their problems, acquisition of necessary problem-solving tools, and swift responses to the problems whether or not she stepped on toes in the process.

I hereby warmly recommend these articles to the academic community with the hope that scholars will find them interesting and useful. I congratulate the Editorial Team for a job well done despite the constraints of the COVID era!

Professor Olufunkẹ Adeboye

Dean, Faculty of Arts

Editor-in-Chief

I am delighted to announce the publication of Volume 29 (2023) of our esteemed journal, Lagos Notes and Records. The volume contains nine (9) well-researched articles representing contemporary thoughts in various disciplines of the humanities with particular focus on African Studies, Literature, Creative Arts, Language, and Linguistics.

The first article by Akinmayowa Akin-Otiko, “Making a Case for Integrative Medicine in Yoruba and Western Health Care Paradigms” focuses on disease causation, diagnosis, and treatment found in Yoruba Traditional Medicine (YTM) as a framework for integrative healthcare in Africa. The paper argues for a complementary blend of African Traditional Medicine (ATM) and the Western model as integrative healthcare is aimed at providing a holistic approach to diagnosis and treatment of the mind, body, and spirit. It deploys the Yoruba principle of ‘Àgbájọwọ́ la fí n sọ àyà, àjèjé ọwọ́ kan kò gbé ẹrù dé orí’ (one hand is not good enough to lift a heavy load unto one’s head) to make a strong case for the integration of ATM and Western healthcare.

            In the second article, “From Historical Fiction to Historiographic Metafiction: Lawrence Hill’s The Book of Negroes as Deviant Literature,” Charles Tolulope Akinsete deploys Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction and Linda Hutcheon’s conception of historiographic metafiction in examining the controversy between history and literature. The paper treats The Book of Negroes as a subversive text predisposed to some postmodern stylistic techniques with its portrayal of obtrusive matters affecting the Black race in contemporary American society. It notes that Hill employs historiographic metafiction to reconceptualise the narrative of African American slave history thereby deconstructing a fixed categorisation of historical hermeneutics of African American slave narratives as limited to the issues of slavery, captivity, racism, oppression, and the like. The paper concludes that historiographic metafiction is substantiated as a counter-discourse against the lopsided criticism that deprecates black history and literary artistry as immaterial.

            The third article by Razaq Kalilu and Timothy Ogunfuwa “Spatio-Environmental Conflicts and Artistic Resolution: Case of Three Nigerian Diaspora Artists,” discusses conflict theory by examining spatio-environmental conflicts and their impacts on artistic practices using three Nigerian diaspora painters - Dayo Laoye, Olu Oguibe, and Victor Ekpuk -, as examples. The paper presents morphological analyses of the pre-diaspora and diaspora works, and the spatio-environment of the selected artists with results indicating that intrapersonal and interpersonal conflicts from the artists’ spatio-environment - work-space, communities and their socio-political-cultural tendencies, audience and critics, art materials and the artist’s resolution of these conflicts - always influence aspects of their art practices. It concludes that studying art from spatio-environmental dynamics broadens discourse on conflict resolution and aids the understanding of artists’ practice shifts, as they show -practice dynamics that can be linked to spatio-environmental conflicts.

            Douglas Kaze in the fourth article, “Twinhood, Allegory and the Ambivalence of the Postcolonial Nation: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun”, interrogates Nigeria’s state of postcolonial nationhood through the depiction of key characters’ experience during the Nigerian Civil War. The paper discusses the interweaving of personal lives and national narrative in Adichie’s novel, arguing that the author’s use of twins and other forms of pairing allegorizes the complex temporalities of the modern postcolonial nation. Depending on Frederic Jameson’s conception of national allegory that “Third World” narrative fiction is inherently representative of the national, and Homi Bhabha’s idea of the ambivalence of the nation which proposes a narrative doubleness combining historicist and everyday temporalities of the nation as a means to understanding modern nationhood, Kaze positions Half of a Yellow Sun as a text that,  in spite of its narration of a conflict between two opposing national forces, constructs a postcolonial African nation as a complexity that does not succumb to simple binary interpretation.          

            In the fifth article, “Yoruba Indigenous Advertising: A Preliminary Report”, Ọladiipọ Ajiboye and Bisoye Eleshin interrogate the Yoruba open market systems which do not use stalls, shops, or malls to carry out trading activities but operate at specific intervals of days at designated market squares where people converge for various forms of trading activities. They focus on the indigenous nature of advertising across Yorubaland in which diverse formats and strategies such as hawking, use of descriptive and deceptive expressions, beckoning, etc., are employed to entice potential buyers to purchase advertised goods. They present various types of goods/products and services that are advertised vis-à-vis the sociological and linguistic features of such products and demonstrates that there is a high degree of interdependence between sellers and buyers in Yoruba Indigenous Advertising where advertisers rely on their communicative competence and the dexterity of their language-use to attract buyers. The paper concludes that trade/goods advertising using the speech forms of the people is key to successful business transactions in Yorubaland.

            The sixth article by Bosede Afolayan and Owoicho Odihi, “The Hero as Villain in Armed Resistance: A Comparative Study of Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s The Trial of Dedan Kimathi and Ahmed Yerimah’s Hard Ground”, treats heroism as a Marxist concept in the evaluation of armed struggles by liberation movements. The paper examines the character of the heroes in the two plays against the backdrop of the Mau Mau war in Kenya and the Niger Delta insurgencies in Nigeria. Deploying a Marxist literary theory, the authors investigate the actions of the heroes and the motives that propel their revolts. Given that Dedan and Baba, the protagonists in the selected plays, are innately gentle, committed and caring leaders driven by the quest to liberate their people, they conclude that, rather than uncritically accepting ‘establishment’ or ‘official’ categorisation of leaders of insurgency/armed struggles as devilish, brutal and bloody ogres, a nuanced understanding of their social and political conditions which necessitated their actions must be thoroughly considered.

            Azeez and Rafiu’s “Understanding the Effects of L1 Oracy Skill on Phonological Awareness among Yoruba Beginner Readers” is the seventh article. It pushes a deduction that understanding how oracy as a skill interacts with phonological awareness (described as the highest predictor of success in reading) gives useful pedagogical insight on reading in a bilingual context. Using the Linguistic Interdependence Hypothesis, the paper examines the effects of Yoruba oracy skills on Yoruba phonological awareness among beginner readers with the aim of having an empirical understanding of how oracy skills affect literacy development. The paper discovers that oracy in Yoruba enhances word awareness just as syllable, onset-rime, and phonemic awareness are dormant in Yoruba beginner readers prior to literacy instructions in the language. It recommends investigations of the influences of oracy on other metalinguistic abilities, e.g., morphological and syntactic awareness, in the language.

Kofoworola and Nwodo, in the eighth article “The Lucifer Effect in Kaine Agary's Yellow-Yellow”, explore a critical concept that utilises a novel’s genre as a means of illuminating issues of evil and situations in their examination of Agary's Yellow-Yellow. The paper dissects Agary’s portrayal of the relationship between evil, situations that engender it, and the systems that promote it within the selected context of human experiences. Using the Luciferian approach, the paper substantiates the claim that no one is above mistakes nor intentional in wrongdoing. It concludes by showing how invaluable situations and systemic powers can impact human experiences.

The ninth article by Carol Ohen and Florence Oghiator, “Language as a Tool for National Cohesion and Development in Nigeria”, argues that language is one of the main components in the formation of national identity and that Nigeria, being a multiethnic and multilingual nation, needs an effective policy on usage of language to help her remain united as a nation for the sake of her overall development. The paper examines the role that language plays in the socio-cultural, economic, educational, cultural and political life of a nation and submits that language is a necessary agent for peace, harmony, unity and progress. It recommends the teaching of English as a lingua franca to every Nigerian for better integration of Nigerian communities. The paper concludes that language is a major tool of cohesion and national development for Nigeria.

I sincerely thank and congratulate the Editorial Team and the Advisory Board for their effort and hard work in ensuring the delivery of this volume. I also congratulate the authors for the success of getting their papers published in our journal. I am hopeful that the academic community will find the articles therein interesting and impactful as we continue in the quest to expand the frontiers of knowledge in the humanities and allied disciplines.

Professor Akanbi Mudasiru Ilupeju

Dean, Faculty of Arts

Editor-in-Chief

Editorial

I am delighted to announce the publication of Volume 27 (2021) of our esteemed journal, Lagos Notes and Records. The volume contains twelve (12) well-researched articles in the various disciplines of the Humanities such as communication studies, history, language studies, linguistics, literature, and other related disciplines.

The first article by Abimbola Adesoji, “Newspapers and the Sharia Debate in Nigeria: Contexts, Issues and Trend”, examines some selected newspapers’ and magazines’ coverage of the Sharia debate in Nigeria with focus on bringing out their different dimensions and patterns of the issues and the contexts in which they discussed them. The newspapers and magazines are Daily Times, Nigerian Tribune, New Nigerian, National Concord, The Guardian, Newswatch, Tell, as well as New York Times, London Times, and the Global Mail of Canada. Using the historical and comparative research methods, the author concludes that the positions taken by the various newspapers were influenced by the way they assessed how Nigerians perceive religion and allow it to influence their decisions and actions in their relationship with one another.

In the second article, “Ananse/Èşù Rising: Trickster Figures andShakespeare in Davlin Thomas’s Lear Ananci, a Caribbean King Lear”, Lekan Balogun analyses how Thomas appropriates both Shakespeare’s King Lear and Ananci in order to provide forceful and penetrating insights about the failure of postcolonial realities in the English-speaking Caribbean country of the author. He argues that Thomas’ Lear Ananci uses Shakespeare’s King Lear and the Yoruba (diasporic) tradition about the trickster Ananci, who assumes the personality of Esu, to address the post-colonial political failures in Trinidad and Tobago in particular and the Caribbean as a whole. The third article by Faruq Idowu Boge, “Water Challenges in Post-colonial Ikorodu Area of Lags State, 1967-1999”, examines the history of water infrastructure and challenges in Ikorodu area of Lagos from 1967 to 1999. It employs the qualitative method and historical research approaches to discuss the issues of water challenges, such as inadequate water supply and poor infrastructure, and their impact on the socio-economic development of Ikorodu and its environs during the post-colonial period. The article closes with the recommendation that the government should partner with the private sector to address the problems associated with water supply in the area.

Ademola Fayemi and Abiola Azeez, in the fourth article, “Epistemic Unfairness in Barry Hallen’s Account of Agency in Yoruba Moral Epistemology”, examine the problem of unfair treatment and discrimination against epistemic agents in knowledge production, knowledge sharing, and consensus practices in Hallen’s account of Yoruba epistemic thought. The authors are of the view that understanding epistemic agency is essential to examining the depth of epistemic harm and the conclusion inherent in Yoruba epistemology.

In the fifth article, “Perspectives on Cultural and National Development as Reflected in Two Igbo Poems”, Ujubonu Okide discusses some cultural and national development initiatives and strategies that can be derived from some Igbo poems. The author uses the theory of inference and implication to scrutinize issues such as the attributes of a good citizen and the portrayal of leadership as contained in Maduekwe’s “Ezi onye obodo” and Ekechukwu’s “Obodo anyi” selected from Akpa Uche’s (1979) An Anthology of Igbo Poems. She concluded that the attainment of national unity and progress should be seen as the outcome of a mutual sacrifice consciously undertaken by cultured citizens and leaders.

The sixth article, Clement Odoje’s “Confluence of Interests in the Translations of Ake: the Years of Childhood and Aké: ní Ìgbà Èwe: An Appraisal of Language Retrieval and Translation”, investigates the interests behind the literary translation of Wole Soyinka and Akinwumi Iṣọla’s translations of Ake with the view to establish the necessary features of translation and language retrieval employed in the process. The author argues that, although both writers employed the same strategies such as language transposition and equivalence, there are certain features that distinguish one from the other. Arising from the above, the author concludes that translation exhibits two different cultures and languages while language retrieval exhibits the same culture but different languages in the source and target texts.

Ayọdele Oyewale’s “The Ethos of Homage-paying and the Assessment of Ethical Issues in Yoruba Verbal Arts” is the seventh article. It examines the moral issues involved in Yoruba homagepaying using seven explicit Yoruba proverbial sayings on homage, selected Ifa verses, and two oral genres as case studies. Based on the ethical determinism approach, the author concludes that while early Yoruba professional artistes had clear understanding on how germane the Yoruba concept of homage was in their society, their contemporary counterparts appear to have deviated from the norm.

John Olubunmi Faloju and Eniayo Sobola in the next article, “The Meaning, Function, and Contextual Usage of Metaphors on Women in Russian and Yoruba”, employ the theory of context by Bronislaw Malinowski to investigate the meaning, function, and contextual usage of metaphors on women in Russian and Yoruba cultures. They argue that metaphors are used to project the worldview of people in different speech communities on social issues and women generally, and that metaphors in the two societies portray women both positively and negatively, especially in terms of their social functions and speech acts.

The ninth article by Raheem Oluwafunminiyi, “Writing on Marginal Muslim Figures: The Religious Career of a Community Mu’adhdhin in FESTAC-Town, Lagos, Nigeria”, discusses the activities of some of the “marginal” Muslim figures in FESTAC Town, who played significant roles in the historical progression of Islam in the area. The author also addresses some of the misconceptions associated with the Mu’adhdhin in a typical Yoruba Muslim community and recommends the need for the Muslim community to accord the Mu’adhdhin the recognition specified by the Shariah.

Folorunso Adebayo’s “Comparative Literature in Nigeria: A Thematic Examination of Gogol’s The Government Inspector and Osofisan’s Who’s Afraid of Solarin?, which is the tenth article of the volume, discusses the relevance of comparative literature, intertextuality, and modern drama in Nigeria with focus on the distinction between literary adaptation and translation in Femi Osofisan’s Who’s Afraid of Solarin and Nicolai Gogol’s The Government Inspector. The author concludes that for countries to address some of the social, economic and political crises plaguing them, they need to dramatise important literary texts for their sociopolitical re-orientation, and that Nigeria needs to incorporate such texts in the school curriculum at the primary and secondary school levels.

In the eleventh article, “Undressing to Confront the Bullet: Nigeria’s Niger-Delta Women Mobilizing against Malpractices and Violence in the 2019 Rivers State Gubernatorial Elections”, Olasupo Thompson examines how some women in Rivers State during the 2019 gubernatorial election in the state deployed nudity as a form of non-violent protests against the crisis that trailed the election. Based on the qualitative method of research, the frustration-aggression, and the J. Curve theories employed, the author argues that the use of the unconventional method of nudity by the women in Rivers State to press home their demands succeeded in thwarting electoral malpractices in the affected areas of the state.

In the concluding article, “The Impact of ‘Ghana-Must-Go’ Returnees on the Agricultural and Community Development of Ghana”, Paul Njemanze and Omon Osiki investigate the impact of Ghana’s returnees, who were victims of the 1983 mass expulsion exercises in Nigeria, on the agricultural and community development of Ghana. They argue that the activities of the returnees assisted in great measures in reducing the humanitarian crisis and food scarcity associated with the expulsion exercises, and that this assisted in no small measure in their reintegration into the Ghanaian society.

Finally, I want to sincerely thank and congratulate the Editorial Team and the Advisory Board for their efforts and hard work in ensuring the timely completion of this volume. I also congratulate the authors for the success of getting their papers published in our journal. It is my sincere hope that the academic community will find the articles therein interesting and meaningful in their quest to expand the frontier of knowledge in the humanities and allied disciplines.


Professor Olufunkẹ Adeboye

Dean, Faculty of Arts

Editor-in-Chief