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