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Role of International Advocacy Groups to Nigeria’s INEC Capacity Building
Get PDFInternational advocacy groups such as DFID, CIDA, EU, UNDP, USAID and IFES are considered external actors of national development process. Reports on international advocacy groups exist but are limited to academic orientation. This paper focus on the role of these international advocacy groups on Nigeria’s INEC capacity building through a qualitative method of data collection and analysis. Findings conclude that the contributions of these organizations have differed both in their approaches and so is the kind of assistance they rendered to Nigeria’s electoral process since inception of the new democratic transition in 1999. They organised programmes on capacity building for INEC staff, and civic education programmes for the electorates, they enhanced political participation by women, youths and other marginalized groups; improved democratic quality of political commitment; strengthened channels of civic engagement; and promoted credible, transparent and sustainable elections. They also provide funding/ grant sponsorship of pre-election and post-election workshops for accredited observers and training for security officials. This is indeed significant to the prospect’s democratic development, and individual well-being of the citizenry which these international advocacy groups and norms advocate
Preprints: Accelerating Scholarly Communications
Get PDFSlide deck of my presentation during #BioRTCNig2022 at Biomedical Science Research and Training Centre (BioRTC), where I talked about #preprints and open science and how they accelerate scholarly communications. I specifically discussed about an existing African preprints server, AfricArxiv, where our scientists and #researchers could share their research work freely and be digitalised using #doi assignments
Impacts of Covid-19 Pandemic and Adaptive Strategies to Build Resilience in the Kenyan Aquaculture Sector
Get PDFThis study examines the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic and adaptive strategies to build resilience among stakeholders and actors in the aquaculture value chain in Kenya. Prior to the pandemic, Kenya's aquaculture sector had progressed from a minor player to a key component of the country's fish food system. Fish and fishery products have become the most heavily traded food commodity in the Kenyan markets. The results indicate the pandemic had significant impacts on the access to aquaculture inputs, fish trade, and socio-economic livelihoods of the aquaculture value chain stakeholders and actors during the two whole years. Thus, initial and longer-term adaptive measures, in particular by private sector players and government agencies, can contribute to building resilience to multiple shocks and stressors among stakeholders and actors in the aquaculture sector. Some measures include a government incentive package to overcome the damage to the fisheries and aquaculture sector, improve farming operations and win the market trust and adopt new methods such as intelligent sensors, camera systems and automated or remotely controlled monitoring/feeding strategies to reduce labour intensity. Such measures and policies can cushion the sector against future shocks occasioned by such pandemics
Obligatory Controlled Subjects In Bùlì
Get PDFThe paper argues that despite the lack of morphological marking to distinguish between finiteness and nonfiniteness, such a distinction does exist in Bùlì. It also argues that unlike the nonfiniteness of the English type languages where nonfinite clauses take a null subject (PRO), the nonfinite clauses of Bùlì obligatorily take overt pronominals. The fact that the controlled element is overt in the language, I argue, shows that phonetic nullness is not an inherent property of the controlled element
Focus Marking And Dialect Divergence In Līkpākpáln (Konkomba)
Get PDFIn this paper, I discuss some salient aspects of focus marking in Likpakpaln, a Mabia (Gur), Niger-Congo language spoken mainly in the northern parts of Ghana. I compare focus marking in two dialects of Līkpākpáln, namely, Līnàjùúl and Līchábɔ́l. I treat the notion of focus from the angle of Dik (1981). Data draws from a multi-source corpora digitally recorded from stimuli-based elicitations and other natural discourse settings. Following the analysis of data, the study reveals that the use of focus particles constitutes the most significant means of focus marking in Līkpākpáln as that focus strategy is shared by both Līnàjùúl and Līchábɔ́l. Also, a common feature for both Līnàjùúl and Līchábɔ́l is that there are syntactic restrictions for the distribution of various focus particles in the sentence. On the question of divergences, I note that sentence final vowel lengthening also assumes a focus function with respect to Līnàjùúl. Also, the focus markers in Līnàjùúl (ń, ńká and a sentence final focus particle of varied phonological shapes) differ in form from the focus markers, lé and lá in Līchábɔ́l. Finally, I suggest that the focus marking differences between Līnàjùúl and Līchábɔ́l possibly stem from the fact that Līnàjùúl appears to have innovated a complex focus system vis-à-vis focus marking in the Mabia languages of Ghana. However, more thorough investigation into focus marking in other dialects of Likpakpaln and Mabia is recommended. This will help establish whether the Līnàjùúl case is an isolate system or not
Dialogue With Ancestors? Documentation Data From Akie In Tanzania
Get PDFThe Akie language (khúúti táa Akiyé ‘language of Akiye people’) is a small
Southern Nilotic language spoken in Central Tanzania (Manyara and Tanga Region) by approx. 300 people (among them 90 persons rated as language experts and guardians). Since 2009 this critically endangered language has been studied in a project funded initially by SIDA and since 2012 by the Volkswagen Foundation as part of the DoBeS initiative. The project focus has been on Akie documentation, mainly making audio and video recordings of a wide range of multifaceted speech events. In the recordings, a number of discourse markers (DMs) were identified. Of particular interest is the marker hm the role of which resembles an English sentence adverb like ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Its use is quite limited, being mainly selected by late Lesakat and other elders. Its main function is establishing contact with an imaginary target group called asííswe ‘ancestors’. The latter are said to be always present whenever something happens in the community. Their presence is in particular assumed during rituals such as blessing e.g. beer and weapons or wishing people a safe journey when travelling. Taking the presence of asííswe into account is a custom which is deeply rooted in Akie traditions and belief. Accordingly, the elders invite ancestors (often by name) to have a drink and some food, before they are requested to give way to the guests of the blessing. It is also a sort of appeasement, because ancestors can be harmful if they are not properly respected. In the blessing ceremony, the performing (fe)male elder answers on behalf of the asííswe with mh which is an imaginary confirmation of somebody’s presence, similar to roll calls in English. In the paper, samples of Akie texts and the latter’s English translation illustrate the linguistic component of the ceremony
Using General Collective Intelligence to Re-think Decision-Systems and Other Information Technologies & Information Systems to Better Inform Pandemic Responses
Get PDFThe emerging science of Human-Centric Functional Modeling uses functional state spaces to provide a completely self-contained representation of human perceptions in the functional domain of each consciously observable human system (body, emotions, mind, consciousness). In the case of the cognitive system (mind) this constitutes a complete semantic model of information. This semantic model is required to implement a General Collective Intelligence software platform hypothesized to be capable of acting as a collective cognition that significantly increases capacity for group problem-solving through collective reasoning. This paper explores how the lack of this General Collective Intelligence based decision-making platform, and hence the lack of this semantic modeling, might be a systemic error in all group decisions, including policy decisions, with the result of preventing governments from achieving optimal outcomes with regards to the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper also explores why this newly emerging science of General Collective Intelligence or GCI as a model of collective decision-making is predicted to radically increase capacity to solve collective problems, and why this is predicted to radically impact COVID-19 response policy
How is the coup impacting science and scientists in Sudan?
Get PDFMilitary coups (MCs) continue to occur in developing countries with alarming frequency; the current coup in Sudan being the most recent. Regardless of the arguments and rationales behind coups, there is a wide global consensus that coups pose devastating threats to the countries’ development and surrounding regions. In this short essay, we report our own view on the impacts and consequences of the current military crackdown in Sudan and its effects on scientists of Sudan. We conclude with some thoughts for the future. A particular emphasis is on the impacts of the ongoing internet blockade on Sudanese students and researchers, and its long-term and large-scale effects on their ability to build successful academic careers
Gender Relations in Indigenous Yoruba Culture: Questioning Feminism Action and Advocacy
No full textWestern feminism has diffused to many other cultures, who have imbibed without proper reflection. This is similar for the Yorùbá people of South-Western Nigeria. Yorùbá culture is gender-neutral and gender-silent; women are seen as complementary and not subordinate to men. Hence, (Oyěwùmí 1997), caution must be raised on the continual adoption of mainstream Western feminist philosophy in Yorùbá culture. Consequently, an argument was submitted for a different approach to doing feminism in Yorùbá culture. In essence, colonial imposition of gender binary in Yorùbá society; roles and gender status of women in traditional Yorùbá culture; women anti-colonial and feminist activities were discussed. The decolonization of Africa and the Yorùbá education system to include a properly historicized indigenous knowledge was recommended. Current feminist movements must also develop a 'shared text of blackness'. The duo should align and improve the worth of women based on the indispensability and esteemed status offered to women in pre-colonial Yorùbá society
On Reconstructing Proto-Bantu Grammar
No full textThis book is about reconstructing the grammar of Proto-Bantu, the ancestral language at the origin of current-day Bantu languages. While Bantu is a low-level branch of Niger-Congo, the world’s biggest phylum, it is still Africa’s biggest language family. This edited volume attempts to retrieve the phonology, morphology and syntax used by the earliest Bantu speakers to communicate with each other, discusses methods to do so, and looks at issues raised by these academic endeavours. It is a collective effort involving a fine mix of junior and senior scholars representing several generations of expert historical-comparative Bantu research. It is the first systematic approach to Proto-Bantu grammar since Meeussen’s Bantu Grammatical Reconstructions (1967). Based on new bodies of evidence from the last five decades, most notably from northwestern Bantu languages, this book considerably transforms our understanding of Proto-Bantu grammar and offers new methodological approaches to Bantu grammatical reconstruction