University Botswana Journals
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A STUDY OF IBUSA NAMES: GENDER, MEANING, AND ATTITUDE
Get PDFThe issue of gender is a topical one. Feminists conceive that males dominate females in different spheres of life ranging from politics, religion, the judiciary, and to the way people use language to express social reality. This paper examines how gender is reflected in the personal names of the Igbo people of Ibusa, in the Delta State of Nigeria. It does this by exploring the meaning of the names and by investigating the attitudes of the name bearers. Data was collected by means of a questionnaire and an oral interview from two secondary schools and one social club in Ibusa, from the 6th to the 31st of October 2007. The analysis is based on 160 traditional names that were collected during the process. The results reveal that Ibusa names for both males and females have sexist undertones. Furthermore, that names ascribed to males are associated with objects of social significance while female ones generally comment on mundane things. Moreover, the paper reveals that 86% of males and 93% of females have positive attitudes towards their names, while a negligible percentage of males (10%) and females (6.6%) claim that their names portray them in a negative light. It was anticipated that a significant number of people would have negative attitudes towards their names because of the meanings encoded in such names, but the data shows that names which were thought to be negative were in fact positive because of the context under which they were given
Botswana’s Tribal Land Act of 2018: Confounding Innovations with Congenital and other Defects
Get PDFThe paper interrogates Botswana’s revamped Tribal Land Act, No. 1 of 2018, to tease out, applaud and celebrate its positive attributes, and to decry its shortcomings and weaknesses, which may be newly fangled or carried over from the old, repealed Tribal Land Act, No. 54 of 1968. The study shows that much of the new Act is a reproduction of the old Act. It has therefore come into existence with ‘congenital defects.’ Some of the welcome innovations in the new Act have also been introduced with profoundly troubling elements. On balance, therefore, there is not much to applaud or celebrate in Botswana’s Tribal Land Act of 2018
Strengthening Statutory Measures for Good Governance in Nigeria’s Public Procurement
Get PDFNigeria, in line with the requirements of the international public procurement framework-law, the UNCITRAL Model Law, reformed her public procurement system and practice and institutionalized statutory measures for ensuring good governance in public procurement. This was done through the enactment of the Public Procurement Act (PPA)in 2007. This study is concerned with the implementation and effectiveness if this Act. It finds that the Act has only been partially implemented and, consequently, not so effective in ensuring good government in Nigerian public procurement processes. In view of this, the study recommends, among other things that the Nigerian Federal Government should take steps to fully implement the Act, especially with regards to the constitution and inauguration of the National Council on Public Procurement (NCPP) as provided for in the Act. The study also calls for less interference by political executives in public procurement process so that professional civil servants may discharge their statutory duties and responsibilities as envisaged under the law
Protecting and Balancing Rights of a Child and Adherence to Religious Beliefs of Parents in Nigeria
Get PDFIn Nigeria, as in many other jurisdictions, parents or guardians may act on behalf of children and other persons deemed as lacking full legal competence to act on their own. This may include deciding on the religious belief to be practiced or followed by the child. The right of parents to do this is recognized in both domestic and international law. The paper discusses Nigerian cases in which the right of a parent to choose a religious belief or practice for a child was invoked in reference to submission to medical treatment considered by the parent as contrary his or her religious beliefs. The paper argues that law and religion, jurisprudentially, are media of social control and do have their divergence and convergence. It finds that while Nigerian courts recognize the right of parents to choose religion for their children, they will not permit any religious practice prejudicial to the child. Court decisions on this subject are largely predicated on the ‘best interest’ of the child principle encoded in Federal and State legislation on children’s rights. The paper further makes recommendations on balancing the trajectories of law and religion, by advocating that sanctity of human life, in recognition of which suicide is outlawed, requires that even adults should not be allowed to object to medical treatment on religious grounds where refusal may result in death. This is ‘disguised suicide.’  
CONSTITUTIONALISM IN BOTSWANA
Get PDFThere is talk of constitutional reform, led by the incumbent President and the ruling party, in Botswana. This is to be celebrated considering that the resident and his party hold the sort of majority in parliament which would allow them to easily subvert the constitution if they chose. Importantly though, the approach to constitutional reform preferred by President and the ruling party centres on drafting a new constitution. Based on the fact that global experience with constitutional reform efforts, which have met with varied levels of success, have established that attaining constitutional reform fundamentally requires more than the turn to a new constitution, this paper argues that the key to attaining constitutional reform is securing a recommitment to constitutionalism. Following from this, the paper argues that rather than focusing on drafting a codified constitution in the Botswana context, which would take long, if their goal is to secure constitutional reform, the incumbent President and the ruling party are better served by recommitting to constitutionalism in easily attainable ways that include changes to policy and legislation
AN INVESTIGATION OF THE STRUCTURES OF THE ENGLISH NOMINAL GROUPS IN SELECTED FICTIONAL AND NON-FICTIONAL TEXTS
Get PDFThe nominal group is an important syntactic element for sentence formation and is used across languages by speakers of all ages. Despite this, more knowledge is still needed on its comprehensive structure and the possibility of structural similarities and dissimilarities that may exist among texts of different types. One hundred randomly sampled nominal groups from 12 different text types (six fictional, six non-fictional) were analysed using the Hallidayan experiential and logico-semantic grammatical models. Twenty-eight structural patterns were identified across texts, which were categorised into deictic-headed, numerative-headed, epithet-headed, classifier-headed, and “Thing”-only structures. The deictic-headed was the most productive and most frequently used, with 13 sub-structures identified. The “Thing”only category was the least productive and least used. There were structural patterns that cut across texts but there were also patterns that were peculiar to some texttypes. The use of SFG for analysis provided more insight into the understanding of the structure of nominal groups, and it clearly showed that every lexical element in the group structure has its syntactic and semantic role. The analysis further revealed that some text-types have tendencies for more frequent use of some structural elements than others. For example, editorials showed high frequencies of epithets and classifiers, textbooks showed high frequencies of qualifiers, religious texts showed low frequencies of epithets and classifiers, while poetry showed peculiarly low frequencies of qualifiers. An understanding of the structure and text-based structural variations of nominal groups can help in the correct use, analysis, and interpretation of nominal groups in English
INTERNET MEMES AS DECONSTRUCTIONS OF MYTHS: A PRAGMA-SEMIOTIC APPROACH
Get PDFThis study argues that memes, though considered ‘unserious’, may lead to social and political reformation since they potentially express dissent against societal ills. The study utilises Mey’s (2001) Pragmatic Acts to evince how memes are used to express varied reactions and receptions to pressing social and political issues in Nigeria. It explores thirty internet memes by categorising the nature of communication in them, analysing their communicative functions, and discussing the deconstruction of dominant societal beliefs and myths in them. The study contends that internet memes represent a new kind of comment culture and play a significant role in contemporary societal reformation and restructuring
Epistemes, Etiquette, Praxis and the Anglo-African Cultural Experience
Get PDFReflected in culture are patterns of behaviour which are classified as correct or wrong and therefore acceptable or reprehensible. Acceptable behaviour occupies such an important role in human experience that the society formulates codes of conduct which are enshrined in language in a given culture. The proverb is studied today as a literary form associated with Orature or oral literature; its genesis in the oral traditions is closely connected to its functional value in communicating precepts that regulate human behaviour. It also contains wisdom based on the observation of experience which sheds light on certain aspects of human life. Like everything else, these codes of behaviour change with time and circumstances. This essay examines some of the ways in which the attitudes to some of the codes of conduct which emanated from the Renaissance Age, and whose ripple effects spilt into the Victorian Age and were felt by postcolonies such as Nigeria, have been affected by changing times and circumstances
The Social Development Policy Mismanagement of the Khoisan Ethnic Affairs
Get PDFThis paper uses the post-colonial theoretical perspective to analyze the social situation of the Khoisan or San ethnic groups in Botswana. Due to their social history of hunter-gathers, these minority communities in Botswana have been dominated and marginalized through the actions of current social policies which excluded them from specific social and cultural developments that should sustain their existing as distinct ethnic communities. They do not have rights to their language and culture, and do not have any development policy consideration for a reservation of land where they could exercise and enjoy their rights as people that bear their ethnic identities. The egalitarian approach used by the government has no guarantee that the Khoisan can preserve their identity, language and culture. The argument of the paper is that when such policies are applied to people, their socio-cultural affairs are mismanaged. This social condition is akin to post-colonialism and its consequences is that in modernity, ethnic groups such as the Khoisan can experience death of their cultures and languages
Required and Urgent: An Upgrade of Pidgin English in the Cameroonian Tower of Babel
Get PDFThe problem with Cameroon’s brand of bilingualism is that it does not grant official status to any of the indigenous languages existent in the country. The product of this status quo is that Cameroonians are divided into disparate groups with distinctive linguistic loyalties that often breed internal strife, undermine effective inter-ethnic relationships and threaten the very survival of the nation-state. In the absence of a dependable language policy, Cameroon’s most pressing need remains that of a common medium of communication and instruction that is inclusive of all social strata and ethnic identities. This paper makes a case for the official adoption of Pidgin English in Cameroon by drawing attention to some of the sociolinguistic benefits that would accrue to the country in the process