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Men and their Portrayal in Beloved: The Framing of Black and White Masculinities in a SlaveOwning World
No full textBecause Toni Morrison explores the lives of women in all her novels, most critics read her works as mainly woman-centered, while most studies of her male characters present the men and their stories as secondary to that of the women characters. However, Morrison also explores the constructions of masculinities as complicated by race and history in her works. Through her male characters’ lives in Beloved, Morrison demonstrates the complexities and paradoxes inherent in the making of black masculinities and the oppression and denial of selfhood they experience in a slave-owning era. She thus tells the stories of black male characters and invests them with voice and visibility. To clearly bring out the realities of being black, male and subordinated, she contrasts black masculinities with the dominant white hegemonic masculinity practices that restrict and negatively define black men. Using the lives of selected black and white male characters in Beloved, this paper examines the manifestations of white hegemonic masculinities in the white characters’ lives and their impact on black men. It also analyzes the creation and operations of black or subordinated masculinities within the oppressive and often horrific circumstances in which black men find themselves
Nigeria’s Fiscal Deficits: A History of its Colonial Foundations, 1899 – 1959
No full textIn the last thirty years, deficit financing has become a major impediment to fiscal balance in the administration of public expenditure in Nigeria. From the middle of the 1980s up to the present, the federal government has consistently overspent its actual revenue accruals and have even borrowed in the pursuit of projects for which she has too little revenue backing. In fact, since the beginning of democratic rule in the current fourth republic, government has increasingly failed to balance its budget with grave consequences for price levels, interest rates, inflation and macroeconomic stability. This paper shows that deficit financing of public expenditure by the Nigerian government is however not a recent issue and that it can be traced to the formative years of Nigeria’s public finance in the colonial period. The paper however argues that unlike the current practice, deficit financing was driven more in the colonial period by the need to build an infrastructure base for the economy rather than on personnel and overhead expenses manifested in the lopsided allocation of the greatest proportion of public revenues to the recurrent budget as it is the practice in Nigeria today
An Analysis of Grapho-phonological Infelicities in the Nigerian Political Discourse
No full textWhen one fails to pronounce one’s words acceptably, the listeners may not quickly and easily grasp the meaning or significance of what is said. Consequent upon so many factors including, most importantly, the grapho-phonological incompatibilities in English, many Nigerians do pronounce their words far from what is acceptable. This is because English, unlike many Nigerian languages, does not have letter-sound correspondence. So capricious are the orthographic representations of many English sounds that analogy is practically impossible. An attempt at analogizing brings about faulty articulation of the word thereby impairing or at least delaying intelligibility. In this paper, an attempt is made to analyse some of the grapho-phonological infelicities in the Nigerian political discourse. Using the speech act theory, it is discovered that many Nigerian speeches are infelicitous and the performances unhappy. A lot of deviations are noticed due to one reason or another among which is the unavailability of many of the sounds mispronounced in Nigerian indigenous languages. Besides, unaware of the morphophonemic realizations in word extension, faulty analogies are made. Finally, it is discovered that many Nigerians do mix up certain sounds or are completely ignorant of how such a word might be pronounced. However, the problems of grapho-phonological infelicities are not insurmountable. Mental alertness, good reading and speaking habits, conscious studies of such words that pose difficulties, listening to the native or near native speakers would go a long way to improve the standard of Nigerians users of English
Social Function of Ibadan City Anthem in Southwestern Nigeria
No full textMusic in African societies is functionalized. This is true of anthems, which represent the belief, faith, purpose, and hope of a nation, a city, a school, or just an association. This paper focuses on the social functions of Ibadan City anthem. It brings out the place of Ibadan anthem in the daily functioning and activities in Ibadan as composed into the anthem. Three persons were interviewed. Also the content and textual analysis of the anthem was carried out. It was discovered that Ibadan anthem plays the role of education and enlightenment, prayer and petition, history, criticism and correction, longevity for Obas, praise and commendation and many others. The paper recommends that the anthem should be mastered, sung in all the schools in Ibadan city, and should be incorporated into all the activities that may be organized in the city be it conferment of chieftaincy titles, coronations, festivals and ceremonies like burial, and especially festival of arts of Oyo state
Bilingual Creativity In Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus
No full textBilingual creativity is both a sociolinguistic and literary realities that the world of scholarship has accepted and identified with. It is not surprising since the world itself has had to record more instances of bilingualism than monolingualism. In other words, there are more societies, more individuals making use of two or more languages than those using only one language. And this trend seems to be on the increase. Grosjean (1982: viii) estimates that about half the world’s population is bilingual while Crystal (1997) and Grimes (1992) capture this rising trend of bilingualism. Crystal points out that twothirds of the world’s children grow up in a bilingual environment. Grimes demonstrates that today, there are many more bilingual or multilingual individuals in the world than there are monolinguals. The implication of this among other things is that bilingualism has received and is still receiving much scholarly attention in different parts of the world. Bilingual creativity in Chimamanda’s Purple Hibiscus is therefore a reflection of a sociolinguistic reality which contributes to the success of the novel
National Reconstruction and Commitment in Nigerian Theatre: A Reading of Femi Osofisan's Morountodun and Other Plays and Tess Onwueme's The Reign of Wazobia
No full textThe female protagonists in Morountodun and The Reign of Wazobia bestrode their Chiefdoms as Regents of peace and re-engineered the machinery of state with an exceptional vigor and steam which achieved the desired unity and stability in their domains. This research paper affirms that the female gender is able to govern and lead a nation, even in times of crises; is able to bear the elephant tusk over her shoulders. The thematic focus of this paper is to advocate for an equitable and level playground for all, irrespective of gender, and the undying spirit of unity of purpose, sacrifice and commitment to participate in the work of community development by all and sundry; atrophy the incubus of sectional synergy that plague our conscientious drive for growth and fulfillment
BOOK REVIEW: Aspects of Split Ergativity
No full textIn Aspects of Split Ergativity, Coon argues for “a theory of aspectbased split ergativity” (p.1). She deals with the languages with aspectbased split ergativity in which splits in agreement or morphological case are the result of different syntactic structures. This theoretical work is an expansion of the ideas of split ergativity in progressive aspect, proposed by Laka (2006) for Basque. Coon proposes that “transitive subjects are always marked ergative; intransitive subjects and transitive objects are marked absolutive” (p. 1). The author focuses on nonperfective aspects with complex auxiliary constructions and demoted objects
Content and Editorial
No full textEditorial 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-Chie
The Beleaguered State, the Archetypal Patriot, and the Hope for National Rebirth: a Stylistic Criticism of Remi Raji’s Lovesong for My Wasteland
Get PDFExisting studies on the political poetry of Remi Raji have largely focused on the critical appraisal of its themes, technique and style against the backdrop of the context in which the poetry is produced, without paying close attention to linguistic evidence with which the poet engages his world and unveils his artistic vision and social commitment. This paper stylistically analyses Remi Raji‟s collection, Lovesong for My Wasteland, which captures the dilemma of an archetypal patriot given Nigeria‟s sordid history in about the first five decades of independence. It analyses six purposively sampled sequences out of the forty-five sequences of the long-breath poem. Engaging the tools of stylistic criticism, the paper identifies and analyses some style markers with which the reader‟s subjective impression of the text could be verified, objectified, and validated. The article reveals that the poet uses certain schemes and tropes which strikingly portray Nigeria‟s sordid post-independence national life, the persona‟s disillusionment/dilemma and remarkable demonstration of patriotic feelings, with the tropes of „love‟ and „hope‟ anchoring the prevailing message of national rebirth. Generally, the study demonstrates that truly the poets of the third generation of Nigerian poets, like their predecessors in the second generation, have abided by the stylistic peculiarities of the „alter-native tradition‟, pushing to the background the style of obscurantism of the first generation of Nigerian poets in their bid to effectively convey their message of social regeneration to the people.  
Nigeria and ECOWAS since 1999: Continuity and Change in Multilateralism and Conflict Resolution
Get PDFNigeria, the West African local hegemon, has been actively involved in the integration process and stability of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) sub-regional arrangement since 1975 when the organization was established. Though motivated by national interests in line with her foreign policy objectives, Nigeria’s role in ECOWAS was even more profound particularly in her genuine, benevolent, hegemonic peacekeeping and peace-enforcement operations in Liberia and Sierra Leone. However, since the beginning of the Fourth Republic in 1999, the country’s position, especially on commitment towards peacekeeping and enforcement operations as a strategy for the resolution of West African armed conflict, has been passive. It is against this background that this article interrogates continuity and changes in Nigeria-ECOWAS relations since the democratic dispensation of the Fourth Republic. The study upholds the fact that a fundamental issue, which has influenced Nigeria’s unwillingness and unenthusiastic stance in the use of force and huge financial contributions in ECOWAS intervention in West Africa armed conflicts, is because majority of Nigerians back home consider such adventure as wasteful for a country that lacks critical infrastructure and basic amenities. Closely related to this is the fact that democratic and civilian regimes are more vulnerable to pressure from public opinion, parliament, and the press. This brings to bear the nexus between foreign policy, public opinion, and domestic politics. The study concludes that Nigeria government must improve domestic situation in order to enjoy popular support for her ECOWAS objective of regional stability.