Changing but fragile : female breadwinning and family stability in Nigeria

Abstract: Even though the phenomenon of female family support may not be entirely new in Africa, breadwinning is the primary role of men in most African societies. As more women get education, enter paid employment and some men lose jobs however, traditional breadwinning roles are challenged and, sometimes, inversed as growing number of women become family breadwinners. Female breadwinning may not be without implications for family stability however as it confronts instituted normative gender order in patriarchal societies. While female breadwinners are increasingly common in industrialised societies and literature exists on their trajectories in such contexts, more recent works are needed in Africa, particularly Nigeria. This article, therefore, examines the nexus of female breadwinning and family stability in Nigeria. This article is an important one on a growing phenomenon in Africa resulting from urbanization, industrailisation and economic crises in certain regions of the continent. Guided by Modernisation and Patriarchy theories, the study relied on qualitative method of data collection. 20 In-depth Interviews (IDIs) were conducted in contexts of female breadwinning families. Data were analysed and presented as interpretive narratives. An interesting relationship was found between female breadwinning and family stability in the setting. Generational influences and associated outcomes were also found and presented in this article

CONSEQUENCES OF THE ACTIVITIES OF A NIGERIAN CEMENT INDUSTRY ON THE ENVIRONMENT

The cement industry and its products are resources that have an impact on the landscape with dust and noise and disruption to biodiversity, sterilization of lakes and forests. There is also the reduction in populations of small invertebrates and decomposers, of agricultural yields, and extensive structural damage by corrosion from the factory. The industry may create employment and business opportunities in the area they are situated. The aim of the study is to identify the key issues of the environmental pollution and contaminants, the composition of the pollutants andcontaminants and hence their effect on living caused by this resource. This study was undertaken at the Lafarge Cement Factory at Ewekoro in South West Nigeria. Samples used in this study were collected at strategic points around the factory. The results from this study showed that the water samples of Ewekoro contained Pb, Zn, and Ni with values higher than the WHO standard values and as such we suggest that the water is not portable for drinking. It is suggested that trees must be planted around the factory to reduce the pollutants. Experimental values of Fe are below the WHO standard (0.300 mg/L) in plants and water samples (0.005 mg/L and 0.030 mg/L respectively) while the values are high in the rock(2.270 mg/L) and in soils (2.720 mg/L) samples. It has been suggested that Montmorillonite ore might be present in the study areas, so we believe that. Montmorillonite could probably be a contributor to the high iron content

Development of Bioinformatics Infrastructure for Genomics Research in H3Africa

Background: Although pockets of bioinformatics excellence have developed in Africa, generally, large-scale genomic data analysis has been limited by the availability of expertise and infrastructure. H3ABioNet, a pan-African bioinformatics network, was established to build capacity specifically to enable H3Africa (Human Heredity and Health in Africa) researchers to analyze their data in Africa. Since the inception of the H3Africa initiative, H3ABioNet’s role has evolved in response to changing needs from the consortium and the African bioinformatics community. Objectives: H3ABioNet set out to develop core bioinformatics infrastructure and capacity for genomics research in various aspects of data collection, transfer, storage, and analysis. Methods and Results: Various resources have been developed to address genomic data management and analysis needs of H3Africa researchers and other scientific communities on the continent. NetMap was developed and used to build an accurate picture of network performance within Africa and between Africa and the rest of the world, and Globus Online has been rolled out to facilitate data transfer. A participant recruitment database was developed to monitor participant enrollment, and data is being harmonized through the use of ontologies and controlled vocabularies. The standardized metadata will be integrated to provide a search facility for H3Africa data and biospecimens. Because H3Africa projects are generating large-scale genomic data, facilities for analysis and interpretation are critical. H3ABioNet is implementing several data analysis platforms that provide a large range of bioinformatics tools or workflows, such as Galaxy, the Job Management System, and eBiokits. A set of reproducible, portable, and cloud-scalable pipelines to support the multiple H3Africa data types are also being developed and dockerized to enable execution on multiple computing infrastructures. In addition, new tools have been developed for analysis of the uniquely divergent African data and for downstream interpretation of prioritized variants. To provide support for these and other bioinformatics queries, an online bioinformatics helpdesk backed by broad consortium expertise has been established. Further support is provided by means of various modes of bioinformatics training. Conclusions: For the past 4 years, the development of infrastructure support and human capacity through H3ABioNet, have significantly contributed to the establishment of African scientific networks, data analysis facilities, and training programs. Here, we describe the infrastructure and how it has affected genomics and bioinformatics research in Africa

Reporting on the Seminar - Risk interpretation and action (RIA): Decision making under conditions of uncertainty

The paper reports on the World Social Science (WSS) Fellows seminar on Risk Interpretation and Action (RIA), undertaken in New Zealand in December, 2013. This seminar was coordinated by the WSS Fellows program of the International Social Science Council (ISSC), the RIA working group of the Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR) program, the IRDR International Center of Excellence Taipei, the International START Secretariat and the Royal Society of New Zealand. Twenty-five early career researchers from around the world were selected to review the RIA framework under the theme of \u27decision-making under conditions of uncertainty\u27, and develop novel theoretical approaches to respond to and improve this framework. Six working groups emerged during the seminar: 1. the assessment of water-related risks in megacities; 2. rethinking risk communication; 3. the embodiment of uncertainty; 4. communication in resettlement and reconstruction phases; 5. the integration of indigenous knowledge in disaster risk reduction; and 6. multi-scale policy implementation for natural hazard risk reduction. This article documents the seminar and initial outcomes from the six groups organized; and concludes with the collective views of the participants on the RIA framework

SysBiolPGWAS: simplifying post-GWAS analysis through the use of computational technologies and integration of diverse omics datasets

Motivation: Post-genome-wide association studies (pGWAS) analysis is designed to decipher the functional consequences of significant single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the era of GWAS. This can be translated into research insights and clinical benefits such as the effectiveness of strategies for disease screening, treatment and prevention. However, the setup of pGWAS (pGWAS) tools can be quite complicated, and it mostly requires big data. The challenge however is, scientists are required to have sufficient experience with several of these technically complex and complicated tools in order to complete the pGWAS analysis. Results: We present SysBiolPGWAS, a pGWAS web application that provides a comprehensive functionality for biologists and non-bioinformaticians to conduct several pGWAS analyses to overcome the above challenges. It provides unique functionalities for analysis involving multi-omics datasets and visualization using various bioinformatics tools. SysBiolPGWAS provides access to individual pGWAS tools and a novel custom pGWAS pipeline that integrates several individual pGWAS tools and data. The SysBiolPGWAS app was developed to be a one-stop shop for pGWAS analysis. It targets researchers in the area of the human genome and performs its analysis mainly in the autosomal chromosomes

Post-Colonial Nation Building, Global Governance, Globalisation and Development in Nigeria and Africa

Development is the primary occupation of all subsisting societies. A common route that nations take is that of nation building, especially within the premise of the postcolonial societies’ construct originating from the background of colonialism in Africa particularly. It is based on this that post-colonial nation building, global governance, globalisation and development processes become relevant in  twenty-first century Africa. This is more so within the global governance environment where the global political economy is manipulated to exploit Africa’s scarce resources through the second ‘Scramble for and Partition of Africa’ under the veneer of global governance and globalisation. This article demonstrates the vulnerability of the development of Nigeria/Africa against the backdrop of orthodox post-colonial nation building, globalisation and development processes, and suggests ways to escape this quagmir

Remittances and Household Welfare in Nigeria

Remittances remain among the most researched issues in contemporary international migrations, poverty alleviation, welfare dynamics and development financing in developing countries. This is particularly so as remittances continue to rival Official Development Assistance (ODA) and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and it is being argued to be more effective in driving development than aid. While studies exist on influences of remittances on household welfare in developing countries, many more are needed to sufficiently understand the actual roles of remittances in households’ welfare in Sub-Saharan Africa- one of the poorest regions in the world. The relationship between remittances and household welfare has particularly not been sufficiently empirically tested in Nigeria- the most populous nation in Africa, among the poorest countries in the world and the highest remittances receiving nation in Africa. This article therefore examined the influence of remittances on households’ welfare in Nigeria. This is a very important article considering the increasing trend of migration and efforts to reduce poverty and inequality. Secondary and primary data were gathered for this article. Secondary data were gathered through documents, journal articles and newspapers, among others, while primary data were gathered through quantitative and qualitative methods between 2015 and 2016, Appreciable positive relationships were found between remittances and household welfare. Unlike many previous studies which claimed remittances receiving households mostly spend remittances on consumptions, more robust expenditure patterns were found. Expression of welfare was also found to be beyond the commonly noted to include important intangible welfare credits like community respect for remittances receiving households. It is concuded that development experts, partners, governments, groups and individuals should therefore better appreciate and appropriate both the financial and non-material effects of remittances on inequality and poverty in developing countries especially of Africa.

Men at work keep-off: male roles and household chores in Nigeria

Many extant studies and popular narratives have accounted for female mainstreaming in domestic roles. This has indeed become common rhetoric to the extent that literature documents the reality in most traditional African households and a few western ones. What is lacking however is the need to capture emerging issues in the same heavily traditional contexts. Hence, more works are needed in the area of objective women/men roles in the domestic realm. What then is the emerging scenario and even the old yet unaccounted for in gender relations in the traditional contexts of household chores? This article explores mainly Nigerian men’s views of the division of household labour. Using qualitative data from a sample of married Nigerian men, we examine men’s participation in housework, their attitudes towards the spousal roles, their attitudes toward men who share housework and sustainability of change. The role of background factors such as socio-economic status and level of education was also considered. This article is on an important topic and the findings could expose and teach processes of change in social norms particularly in the contexts of family.Keywords: Gender, Masculinity, Domestic Roles, Ibadan, Nigeri