The Nigerian history machine and the production of Middle Belt historiography

While existing studies on Nigerian historiography cover renowned historians, major historical writings and prominent historiographical traditions, there is hardly any exploration of the institutional processes and concrete circumstances within which historical knowledge is produced. Deploying a range of sources, from in-depth personal interviews - with historians, archivists, museum curators and publishers of history texts - archival research to museum displays, this thesis examines the production of history and the socio-political tensions and conflicts associated with it in postcolonial Nigeria. Specifically, it explores the linkages between Nigerian history as a discursive practice and the institutions where historical knowledge is produced such as history departments, archives, museums and the publishers of history and scholarly texts. I see these processes as a kind of "history machine", defined as the interconnected system of social technologies through which the Nigerian state defines the discursive limits of the nation by appropriating, packaging and relaying discrete ethnic histories as Nigerian history in specific national cultural institutions such as archives and museums. But it is not robotic or a centrally run machine. The Nigerian history machine, originally activated as a nationalist intellectual mechanism against colonialist historiography in the wake of decolonization, broke down into a multitude of regional compartments in the postcolonial period, leading to the proliferation of "extranational" discourses in areas like the Middle Belt region. The practices of collecting, organizing, classifying, naming and appropriating discrete cultural symbols activates, as much it silences, the voices of certain communities. Each site of production strives, ostensibly, to produce Nigerian history, retaining and concealing the distinctive historical repertoires of each constituent ethnic community as they go through the history machine. In the process certain communities were ostracized to which they responded by manufacturing their local histories against the institutional representation of their pasts in History Departments, National Archives and National Museums. Through a textual analysis of the writings of historians and other scholars of Middle Belt extraction, this study posits that the textual tradition of the Middle Belt historiography is animated by a discourse of marginality and resistance to the dominant interpretations of northern Nigerian history and historiography, an epistemic struggle by the minorities to reassert their "historical patrimony" or reclaim their "historical dignity" through the creation of projects that highlight their historical past

The system of rice intensification (SRI) practices and mechanization needs

This study discusses the unique and labour intensive practice of the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) and suggests specific mechanization option/approaches for its mechanization. Despite the continuous growth in global human population, there still exist substantial labour shortages in the agricultural sector, because of outmigration of the work force. Much of the focus on agricultural research improvement efforts in recent decades has been on modifying crops' genetic potential more than on improving cropping practices, mechanization, automation and production systems. The demand for rice being a staple food for more than half of the world population will continue to increase, hence the need for increased yield. The System of Rice Intensification (SRI) has shown that by modifying crop, soil, water, intensive weeding and nutrient management, can under most of the circumstances evaluated to rise of the productivity of land, water, seeds, capital and labour used for irrigated rice production. However, SRI practices such as Paddy nursery, single seedling transplanting, single direct seeding, water management and intensive mechanical weeding requires specific mechanization approaches. This study summarizes and reflects on the cultivation practices and possible specific mechanization and automation through mechatronics and Information Technology application for the system of rice intensification (SRI)

Effect of extraction variables on total phenol yield in some selected legumes indigenous to Nigeria

There are increasing research efforts on the possibilities of the utilization of natural sources of bioactive compounds for the dietary management of certain degenerative diseases due to their deleterious health effects associated with the the use of synthetic chemicals. Therefore, this study evaluated the yield of total phenol from bambaranut, cowpea, red bean and pigeon pea. A set of single factor experiments, namely solvent types (acetone, ethanol and methanol), solvent concentration (20 – 100 %, v/v), extraction time (30 – 50 min) and extraction temperature (40 – 60 C), were evaluated for the optimization of total phenol recovery. The results show that extraction variables significantly (p < 0.05) affected the total phenol yield. Ethanol at 60% concentration (v/v) incubated at 50 C for 40 min gave the highest total phenol (217.11 mg/100 g) yield in bambaranut. In cowpea, ethanol at 90% concentration (v/v) incubated at 50 C for 50 min gave the highest total phenol (192.61 mg/100 g). Methanol at 100% concentration incubated at 50 C for 40 min gave the highest total phenol (212.00 mg/100 g) in the red bean while methanol at 100 % concentration (v/v) incubated at 50 C for 40 min gave the highest total phenol (196.33 mg/100 g) in pigeon pea

Performance of mechanical weeding levels on yield and vegetative component of rice under the system of rice intensification (SRI) at Tanjung Karang irrigation scheme, Malaysia

Among the practices of System of Rice intensification is the intensive mechanical weeding need at 10 to 12 days intervals up to 40 days after transplanting (DAT) or canopy closure. This practice aerates the soil, adds biomass and increase yield. This study was carried out to evaluate the effect of levels of mechanical weeding using four different locally fabricated rotary weeders on the yield and vegetative components of rice under the System of Rice Intensification at Tanjung Karang Irrigation Scheme of Malaysia. Results indicated that mechanical wedding levels had a significant effect on vegetative paddy height at P (0.05) level with 60.05 cm as the highest average vegetative height obtained at three levels of rotavation (mechanical weeding) using treatment D. The analysis of variance of the yield from the treatments indicates a significant difference in yield with increase in the levels of mechanical weeding with 13.1 tons/Ha being the highest obtained from treatment D (three levels of rotavation) at 30DAT. The lack of machine ground clearance hindered weeding up to canopy closure or 40 DAT

Development of a high clearance android-controlled inter-row weeder for rice intensification system

Research was carried out to develop a high clearance inter-row weeder machine with Android control system, to address the challenge of high crop damage associated existing inter-row weeding machines due to low ground clearance under the system of rice intensification. This research was carried out in three main stages namely: Preliminary studies to evaluation of some existing inter-row weeders, Development of a prototype high clearance Android controlled weeding machine and Evaluation of the prototype machine. Four existing mechanical inter-row weeding machines with different design configurations used by farmers in Tanjung Karang Malaysia under system of rice intensification were selected and evaluated in terms of crop damage factor at forty days after transplanting. The result revealed that none of the four existing machines could weed up to forty days after transplanting (40DAT) due high crop damage as a result of inadequate machine ground clearance. The frequency of weeding cycles was found to increase rice yield, with 13.1tons/ha for the three cycle weeded plots, whereas a maximum of only 9 tons/ha was recorded with two cycle weeded plots. A prototype hydraulic powered inter-row weeder having 60cm ground with Android control was developed to weed in paddy field at different stages of paddy heights under the system of rice intensification. The machine was built on Kubota S125 engine as its prime mover. A 120cm diameter cage wheel designed with lugs to aid traction, adequate adjustable track width of 25cm to 30cm to accommodate variation in inter-row distance to reduce crop damage. Other components of the machine are the main frame attached to the prime mover; five row rotary weeding assembly units with hydraulic depth control attached to the main frame. A 12V 3-2 way solenoid directional control valves mounted on MMC-01-4 Manifold block regulate flow to and out of actuators. An android application was developed to automate the prototype machine via Android phone Bluetooth within 100m operating radius. A 2.4G wireless video module on the machines as the mobile node transmits real time video signal, thus enabling tele-operation of the machine via android phone. The prototype machine was evaluated to establish its performance parameters at block D, Sawah Sempandan, Tanjung Karang, Selangor Malaysia. The experiment was a Split Plot Design experiment with five (5) main and sub-plots were studied. The plot size of 2.3m x 16.5m (37.95m2) each was used for the evaluation. The main plots are two levels of plant spacing of 30cm x 21cm and 30cm x 18cm, Number of weeding cycles (5 levels), two level of rotor 500 RPM & 600 RPM, Seed rate (two levels). Mechanical weeding was carried out using the high clearance inter-row weeder at 10 days interval as recommended by the system of rice intensification (SRI). Data collected on machine weeding performance were subjected to ANOVA and DUNCAN test analysis using the SAS (version 9.3) statistical software. Result showed that the prototype machine was able to weed up to fifty days after transplanting with low percentage of crop damage of 2.54%. The mean comparison of rice vegetative height were 61.90cm and 62.18cm while yield were 7.09tons/ha and 7.01tons/ha respectively for the fourth and fifth weeding cycles. These results suggest no significant difference between the fourth and fifth weeding cycles, thus implying weeding can be stopped at the fourth cycle without significant loss in yield. The seed rate and hill spacing were also observed to significantly influence the yield positively. The single seedling plots yielded an average of 9tons/ha both for four and five weeding cycles, while the 2-3 seedling per hill plots yielded an average 5.5 tons/ha to 6 tons/ha for same level of weeding. The analysis of machine rotor rpm was shown to be significant on weeding efficiency and fuel consumption at P ≤ 0.05 level, having 92.93% and 1.29 lit/hr respectively at 600 rpm. However, a similar trend was observed in the percentage of crop damage with increase in rotor speed. The android control user interface design implementation among three groups of planters (A) 18-25 years, (B) 26-32 years and (C) above 32 years, revealed no significant different in the scores of the three age groups that participated in the evaluation. This suggests the ability of all age groups to satisfactorily operate the machine via the android control

Dynamic surface soil components of land and vegetation types in Kebbi State Nigeria

Land and vegetation are important components of soil and provides many benefits to surface soil including protection against erosion, climate change impact and unacceptable degradation of soil particles. Visual Soil Assessment was used as a mechanism to assess and classify the land and vegetation types of some agricultural sites in Kebbi State, Nigeria. The aim was to get better understanding of the environmental soil function for sustainable crop production in dryland and fadama areas of the State. The assessment was able to put together combinations of different vegetation types and land age classes. It is valued that the land age classes possessed the characteristics of Holocene-natural, Holocene-anthropogeomorphic, Holocene-young-natural, young-anthropogeomorphic, very-young anthropogeomorphic and very-young natural. However, the vegetation types could be related to evergreen forest, short medium forest (scattered clustered), dwarf vegetation (scattered isolated), grass vegetation, thick vegetation, stony-grass vegetation (scattered sparse) and short-length vegetation. The assessment provides an improve understanding of the current status of land and vegetation conditions of the study area and suggested regular soil management for sustainable crop production in the State

Mechanization of transplanting and weeding for rice intensification (SRI) for improved paddy yield in Malaysia

The overall objective of this research was to develop a new approach to increase paddy production with the limited resources input through management practices that simultaneously provide better growth condition. The study evaluated the management practice method known as System of Rice Intensification (SRI) using a modified Kubota Transplanter for planting of paddy and a modified high clearance weeder for crop maintenance. Main SRI management practices such as planting depth, missing hill, hill population, number of seedling per hill, soil characteristics of the sites, and moisture content and the frequencies of weeding were evaluated. The effects of different hill-spacings on 14-days old seedlings of MR219 rice variety were studied using analysis of variances. The experiment was designed at three seeding rates (70g, 75g and 240g) per tray. The plant characteristics at transplanting time consisted of 2 to 3 number of leaves, 2 mm stem thickness, 19 mm stem length and 3.5 mm root length. The planting parameter showed that increase in spacing resulted in more tillers and more panicle per plant, while hill population and sterility ratio increases with decrease in spacing. The study also evaluated the effect of levels of mechanical weeding using four different locally fabricated rotary weeders on the yield and vegetative components of rice under the System of Rice Intensification at Tanjung Karang Irrigation Scheme of Malaysia. Results indicated that wedding levels had a significant effect on vegetative paddy height with 60.05cm as the highest average vegetative height obtained at three levels of rotavations (mechanical weeding). The analysis of variance of the yield indicates a significant difference in yield with increase in the levels of mechanical weeding with 13.1tons/Ha being the highest obtained 30DAT

Total phenolic, flavonoid and antioxidant capacities of processed pearl millet and sorghum flours

This study assessed the effects of sprouting and fermentation on total phenolic content, total flavonoid content and antioxidant property of pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum) and sorghum (Sorghum bicolor). Pearl millet and sorghum were subjected to the treatment of sprouting and fermentation for 0 h, 24 h, 48 h, 72 h and 96 h. After each of the treatments, the samples were oven-dried at 60 oC for 24 h and milled into fine flour of 0.05 mm in size. The total phenolic content, flavonoid content and antioxidant capacities were quantified using standard methods. The results of the study revealed that sprouting significantly (p<0.05) increased the total phenolic, total flavonoid and antioxidant capacities of pearl millet and sorghum. However, sprouting time significantly (p<0.05) reduced the total phenolic content of pearl millet. A similar trend of increment was observed in fermentation where there was a significant (p<0.05) increase in the total phenolic, total flavonoid, reducing the power and antioxidant capacities of pearl millet and sorghum with an increase in fermentation time. Therefore, the results of this study revealed that the two bioprocesses (sprouting and fermentation) significantly increased the total phenolic, total flavonoid and antioxidant capacities of pearl millet and sorghum. However, pearl millet exhibited reduced TPC with an increase in sprouting time

Hydraulic system for wireless control of high clearance inter-row weeding in organic-product

Pedestrian tractor or Power tiller is an essential machine for horticulture in many parts of the world. They are mainly used for tilling, ploughing and ground preparation in small agricultural fields. Many custom designs of implement/machines are used on the pedestrian tractor such as seeders, cultivators/weeder and levelers. However, operating these machines is extremely tedious, fatiguing and time consuming. Thus, introducing automation on the high clearance pedestrian weeder can reduce fatigue associated to its operation. This article presents a high clearance inter-row weeder aimed at weeding at various stages of crop height, thus producing organic product. The system also enabled flexible power transmission and remote monitoring of the machine through the 12V solenoid operated valves