Determinants of Output and Profitability of Aquaculture Fish Farming in Burutu and Warri South West Local Government Areas of Delta State, Nigeria

The study analyzed the determinants of output and profitability of aquaculture fish farming in Burutu and Warri South local government areas (LGAs) of Delta State, Nigeria. A multi-stage sampling procedure was adopted for this study. Eight communities were randomly sampled from the two LGAs and twenty aquaculture fish farmers were sampled from each of the selected communities to give 160 respondents that were utilized for analysis. Data were collected from both primary and secondary sources. The primary data were obtained using structured questionnaire and interview schedules and analyzed through the use of descriptive statistics (mean, percentages and tables) and inferential statistics (Ordinary Least Square (OLS) Regression Analysis and Farm Budget Analysis). The enterprise proved to be a profitable enterprise from the positive mean gross margin and mean net incomes recorded. Cost of feeds was the most sensitive cost item in aquaculture fish production. Maximum variable profit would be increased by the adoption of measures that would reduce the price of feed. The age of farmers, level of educational attainment, and farming experience as well as farming status were significant variables that affected output of fish. As aquaculture fish farming has been found to be a profitable enterprise, the Delta State government should increase the budgetary provisions to provide more funds through her already existing microcredit programme to accommodate more entrepreneurs interested in aquaculture fish farming. Through this way, more new investors will be attracted into aquaculture business. This will ultimately lead to mopping up of the teaming unemployed youths in the State and making the State the hub of fish production in the country. Keywords: Aquaculture, Determinants, Output, Profitability, Burutu and Warri Sout

"Green" or "Red"? Reframing the environmental discourse in Nigeria

This paper investigates the role of environmental social movements and NGOs in the struggle for democracy in Nigeria. In particular, it examines how environmental issues, specifically in the oil-rich Niger Delta, have come to symbolise the Niger Delta communities’ craving for greater inclusion in the political process. The paper argues that because of linkages to the nature of economic production, environmental crises have been particularly useful in driving the democracy discourse in Nigeria. By linking environmental crisis to democratisation and the interactions of power within the Nigerian federation, NGOs and social movements have been able to gain support for environmental causes. This may, however, have dire implications for the environmental movement in Nigeria. Because ownership, not necessarily sustainability, is the central theme of such discourse on resource extraction, social movements may not be framing the environmental discourse in a way that highlights its unique relevance. The paper concludes by making a case for alternative methods of framing the environmental discourse in a developing-world context like that of Nigeria.Dieser Beitrag untersucht die Bedeutung umweltpolitischer Bewegungen und Nichtregierungsorganisationen (NRO) für den Kampf um Demokratie in Nigeria. Insbesondere widmet er sich der Frage, inwiefern Umweltthemen, speziell im ölreichen Nigerdelta, inzwischen das große Bedürfnis der Bevölkerung reflektieren, stärker in den politischen Prozess einbezogen zu werden. Umweltkrisen haben den demokratischen Diskurs in Nigeria ganz besonders vorangebracht, weil sie zu den Grundlagen der ökonomischen Produktion in Beziehung stehen. Indem soziale Bewegungen und NRO die Umweltkrisen mit dem Demokratiedefizit und den Machtstrukturen innerhalb Nigerias in Beziehung setzten, fanden sie auch Unterstützung in Umweltfragen. Dies könnte allerdings negative Folgen für die nigerianische Umweltbewegung haben. Denn das zentrale Thema eines sozialen Diskurses zum Abbau von Ressourcen ist die Eigentumsfrage und nicht notwendigerweise die Nachhaltigkeit; wird der Diskurs von sozialen Bewegungen bestimmt, wird die einzigartige umweltpolitische Relevanz möglicherweise nicht ausreichend herausgestellt. Der Autor plädiert für eine alternative Themensetzung im umweltpolitischen Diskurs in Entwicklungsländern wie Nigeria

Biafran ghosts : The MASOB Ethnic Militia and Nigeria’s Democratisation Process

The Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), an ethnicmilitia, emerged in the Igbo-speaking region of Nigeria in 1999, shortly after military rule ended and Olusegun Obasanjo took office as elected President. MASSOB’s stated goal is the struggle for Igbo self-determination and the re-emergence of a new sovereign state in the eastern part of the country to be known as the ‘United States of Biafra’, thereby raising the spectre of a possible break up of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. This Discussion Paper examines the circumstances of MASSOB’s emergence in a period of political transition and considerable uncertainty as the Nigerian armed forces began to prepare to relinquish their grip on power, and the specific ways the promoters of this ethnicmilitia movement have shaped Nigeria’s still unfolding democratization process since 1999

Legacies of Biafra: violence, identity and citizenship in Nigeria - introduction

Nearly forty years after the event, the Nigerian Civil War still conjures up powerful political images, within as well as outside Africa. Internationally, the ‘Biafran War’, as it was called, recalls accounts of ethnic conflict, starving children, and humanitarian intervention. Within Africa, it resonates with the devastating consequences of failed nationalism, but also with a tenacious demand for genuine citizenship and self-determination. In many ways, these images have remained as divergent as they are relevant to contemporary understandings of Africa. As a growing number of African countries have succumbed to civil war and foreign intervention, it is a good time to reflect on what was learned from the Biafran conflict, and what was left unaddressed to trouble the fortunes of future generations. The following collection of articles represents an interrogation of the contemporary legacies of the Biafran experience. They explore how the fault lines of the Nigerian Civil War have continued to shape political trajectories in Nigeria and in Africa more broadly. In many ways, the Biafran War was not just a Nigerian civil conflict; it was a resounding challenge to the dreams of African nationhood, sending out tremors that echoed not just across Africa, but around the world. The unsatisfactory resolution of issues of identity, citizenship, and democracy that arose from that conflict continues to reverberate in contemporary struggles in Nigeria and beyond