Playing "Carrot and Stick" : Canadian press coverage of Nigeria on the hanging of nine Ogoni rights activists, November-December 1995

Events are made to mean by their definers. So with one voice the international media "shocked' the world in 1995 with the story that the military regime in Nigeria hanged Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni ethnic rights activists. International reactions were dramatic especially at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in New Zealand where the body swiftly handed a two-year suspension to Nigeria. Offences against democracy and human rights became the trigger-phrases that rendered the executions in Nigeria meaningful. This thesis does a contextual, epistemological interrogation of the Western definition of the Nigerian event based on the study of the contents of three Canadian daily papers--the Globe & Mail, the Ottawa Citizen and Le Devoir. Employing cultural-critical discourse analysis, the research found that (i) the Canadian news dislocated the Nigerian story from its native moorings and employed Western/Canadian fiction about Africa and the developing world in framing the news narrative; (ii) the Canadian news embodied the Western tendency to universalize its socio-cultural and political (ideological) values; and (iii) the dominance of the Western news interpretation rendered alternative and oppositional interpretations unacceptable and hence delegitimized. By drawing attention to news as a cultural event, and to the occlusion of Other cognitive contexts, the Canadian news, as part of the international news discourse and containment of events in the non-Western world, is seen to have kept alive a questionable, but yet dominant, Western paradigm of representatio

The role of the Church in the quest for political restructuring in Nigeria

The present political structure of Nigeria has proved unfavourable to Nigerians. This has led to catastrophic situations in Nigeria. This article evaluates the role of the Church in the fight to curb these catastrophes in the form of rising spates of insecurity, corruption, separatist agitation and marginalisation. These challenges have led to serious underdevelopment, poverty and unemployment, mostly in South-East Nigeria. Nigeria's inefficiency as a nation stems from a long history of poor leadership from the time of colonial rule until today, partly because of the unbalanced political structure in the country. The history of poor leadership has denied Nigerians the opportunity of achieving a new Nigeria like other countries of the world. The study uses a descriptive historical approach to investigate this challenging situation. As a result of the lack of true federalism demonstrated in the lack of a proper political structure in the country, the study advocated for restructuring the country's political structure to meet the immediate and long-term needs of all, especially in South-East Nigeria. CONTRIBUTION: Many Nigerian scholars have researched on the need to restructure Nigerian polity, but there is a paucity of literature on the role of the Church to achieve this, leading to a dire want of research materials in this regard. This research, therefore, contributes its quota to the search for the lingering problems of Nigeria as a nation.http://www.hts.org.zaNew Testament Studie

Effects of three leafy vegetables on the growth performance of Giant African Snail Achatina (Lissachatina) fulica

This present research was performed to evaluate the effects of three leafy vegetable diets [bitter leaf (Vernonia amygdalina), fluted pumpkin leaf (Telfairia occidentalis) and pawpaw leaf (Carica papaya)] on the growth performance of Giant African Snail (Achatina fulica). A total of ninety (90) A. fulica were used for the study. Thirty (30) snails each were subjected to three different dietary treatments in three replicates of 10 snails per replicate and fed with the fresh leaves of these vegetables over a period of 12 weeks. Results obtained recorded no significant differences (P  0.05) in terms of weight gain, shell length, shell circumference and shell thickness. On the whole, A. fulica fed on T. occidentalis leaf performed better in terms of mean weight gain when compared with those fed on V. amygdalina and C. papaya leaves. Conversely, snails fed on C. papaya leaf had the best mean shell length gain, mean shell circumference and mean shell thickness when compared with those fed on V. amygdalina and T. occidentalis leaves. The study clearly showed that the tested vegetables can be successfully utilised as diets for rearing of A. fulica. For farmers to achieve optimum productivity, Telfairia occidentalis and Carica papaya leaves are recommended in the dietary menus of snails while bitter leaf can successfully serve as an alternative to the other leaves

Waste leachate induces histological alterations in Limicolaria aurora (Jay, 1839) digestive gland

360-367Unsanitary open dumping and burning of wastes in dumpsites results to constant leaching of waste pollutants into the surrounding environment with attendant harmful consequences on wildlife and public health. Here, we investigated the histological effects of Onitsha municipal waste leachate on the Giant African land snail, Limicolaria aurora (Jay 1839). The histopathological effects of waste leachate on the digestive cells of the snails were examined following standard protocols. Snails were exposed to different concentrations (0, 6.25, 12.5, 25.0 and 50.0%) of the leachate for a total duration of 21 days. Histological results obtained showed that waste leachate caused dose and duration dependent alterations in the digestive glands of L. aurora. Obvious histological variations were observed in snails exposed to 50% concentrations of the leachate compared to other doses. Observed histological changes were mainly degeneration of the digestive tubules, fragmentation and disappearance of the digestive cells, marked increase in excretory cells, necrosis and epithelia sloughing. This study therefore highlights the potential toxicity of waste leachate of causing mild to severe damage in the tissues of organisms. Reinforcing the fact, that waste leachate contains a mix of toxic substances that could pose a severe injury to the biological system of surrounding biota, including humans

Integrating standardized whole genome sequence analysis with a global mycobacterium tuberculosis antibiotic resistance knowledgebase

Drug-resistant tuberculosis poses a persistent public health threat. The ReSeqTB platform is a collaborative, curated knowledgebase, designed to standardize and aggregate global Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC) variant data from whole genome sequencing (WGS) with phenotypic drug susceptibility testing (DST) and clinical data. We developed a unified analysis variant pipeline (UVP) ( https://github.com/CPTR-ReSeqTB/UVP ) to identify variants and assign lineage from MTBC sequence data. Stringent thresholds and quality control measures were incorporated in this open source tool. The pipeline was validated using a well-characterized dataset of 90 diverse MTBC isolates with conventional DST and DNA Sanger sequencing data. The UVP exhibited 98.9% agreement with the variants identified using Sanger sequencing and was 100% concordant with conventional methods of assigning lineage. We analyzed 4636 publicly available MTBC isolates in the ReSeqTB platform representing all seven major MTBC lineages. The variants detected have an above 94% accuracy of predicting drug based on the accompanying DST results in the platform. The aggregation of variants over time in the platform will establish confidence-graded mutations statistically associated with phenotypic drug resistance. These tools serve as critical reference standards for future molecular diagnostic assay developers, researchers, public health agencies and clinicians working towards the control of drug-resistant tuberculosis

Is it possible to obtain zero estimates of genetic diversity? A case study of the Nigerian indigenous goat breeds at the β-lactoglobulin gene locus

The current investigation was conducted to appraise the genetic diversity and genetic distance of three goat populations namely; Red Sokoto, Sahel and West African Dwarf (WAD), in Nigeria, making use of blood samples collected from 20, 20 and 20 individual from which blood DNAs were extraction, respectively. The DNAs extracted were used to study polymorphism at the β-lactoglobulin gene locus using RLFP-PCR process. Results revealed that the mean total number of alleles was 1 while the effective number of alleles was also 1. The percentage of polymorphic locus was 0% while Shannon's information index, observed homozygousity, expected heterozygosity, unbiased expected heterozygosity and inbreeding coefficient (F) were all observed to be 0.000. The pairwise Fst was 0.000 between all the breeds of goats. Variation within and between the populations of goats was 0% at p>0.05. The genetic distance between the goat breeds was 0.000. The present study revealed that RLFP-PCR may not be a powerful tool for the study of the β-lactoglobulin gene locus and hence other methodologies should be employed for a broader judgment on the genetic status of the goat population at the locus

Origin of OXA-23 variant OXA-239 from a recently emerged lineage of Acinetobacter baumannii International Clone V

Over the last few decades, carbapenemase-producing Acinetobacter baumannii has become a major cause of nosocomial infections all over the world. However, the genome identity of lineages of this species in Latin America has not been studied as much as in developed countries. Here, through a population genomics approach considering the whole genomes of 148 isolates (almost 40 from Mexico and Honduras), we describe the recent emergence of the lineage sequence type 758 (ST758), which belongs to the international clone V and has spread out to Canada, Mexico, Honduras, and Colombia. Notably, this lineage was found to coexist with other A. baumannii lineages in hospitals in Mexico and Honduras. Isolates from this lineage show considerable variation in antibiotic resistance profiles, but most of them are resistant to carbapenems. Moreover, we found a variety of acquired oxacillinase (OXA) families within this lineage and tracked the very recent inception, and subsequent horizontal transmission, of the OXA-239 carbapenemase. This work highlights the urgent need to investigate recently emerged lineages of this species in Latin America and elsewhere, as these might harbor novel antibiotic resistance genes

Author Correction: Integrating standardized whole genome sequence analysis with a global Mycobacterium tuberculosis antibiotic resistance knowledgebase.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper