Gender paradoxes and agricultural monopoly in Nigeria: implications for policy and food (in)security in Africa

There is no doubt that Africa today is food challenged (insecure) and confront huge poverty despite the fact that much of African lands are arable and suitable for agriculture. This is essentially paradoxical. While policies and scholarly attempts have focused the roles of mechanization, processing, subsidies, redistribution, export and, recently, climate change, the role of gender relative to sustainability, social justice, exclusion/inclusion and agricultural optimization for food security remains largely policy and scholarly appendages. This is however not surprising given the patriarchal econo-social and power relations in most African societies only also playing out in land and agricultural space. It is impossible to have agriculture without the important roles of women, as women are responsible for about 80 percent of agricultural productions through their small farm holdings. Yet, local and global monopolies do not factor in the role of women sufficiently and often marginalize women thereby creating a gulf of sidelined critical gender mass. This gender sidelining is not only in terms of access to land, but also in terms of access to inputs, food and agricultural commodity markets that are mostly male dominated. This is more so in exchange and transactional terms as well as at policy domains. This paper thus maintains that the continued lack of real, substantial and practical appreciation of the role of women in agriculture through policies, interventions and practices contributes highly to the high level of food insecurity and policy failures in Africa and this only demonstrate the unsustainability of current lopsided agricultural monopolies in Africa. This paper brings useful Nigerian case studies that will contribute immensely to the ongoing debate on the problematic in manners that will enrich scholarship, policy and practice on the continent

Worldviews on erectile dysfunction: perspectives in knowledge systems and development

Abstract: In a bid to achieve sustainable development, there is a need for a connection and integration of knowledge system and western knowledge (medicine). More specifically is in the area of health care for sustainable development. In a bid to achieve sustainable development in the health care system, there is a need for deeper understanding of diseases in terms of its worldview by key actors especially in indigenous settings based on peoples’ contextual knowledge. It is against this background that erectile dysfunction, known as Idakole in Yoruba indigenous knowledge systems was examined. This article investigates the knowledge gap relative to worldviews of erectile dysfunction in Ibadan metropolis, Oyo State, Nigeria. The interpretation of Idakole in western medicine is erectile dysfunction. The research that informed this article was conducted in 2018 and it adopted quantitative methodology. Very useful findings were made with implications for policy and scholarship

This is who we are and why!: Ethnography of weddings in Ibadan,Nigeria

Background: Wedding ceremonies celebrate marital unions of two individuals/families in accordance with socially sanctioned arrangements. Among the Yoruba of south-western Nigeria, weddings of various forms exist. Elaborate and relatively grand weddings are common among the Yoruba people but studies are insufficient on these weddings. More attention is thus needed to understand the trajectories and ramifications of these weddings especially within the socio-economic conditions and rapidly changing social environments that have implications for population and development. This article is therefore an attempt to describe contemporary marriage ceremonies among the Yoruba in Ibadan, Southwestern Nigeria and the meanings associated with the ceremonies. The article is a detailed ethnographic narrative of Yoruba marriage processes.Data Sources and Method: Primary and secondary data were gathered. For the primary data, qualitative research method was used. Data collection methods were participant observations (10 different wedding venues) and 15 in-depth interviews. Interpretive research approach through interviews, observations and pictures were used because of their capacities to extract reliable contextual meanings and implicative elements of social realities. Secondary data were gathered from journal articles, books, newspaper clippings and reliable internet sources. Data analysis was done through content analysis of texts and pictures.Results: Findings reveal very original and dynamically creative ways of celebrating weddings and significance of such weddings among the Yoruba people with implications for better understanding of Africa’s socio-economic and cultural systems, population and development.Conclusion: Weddings are significant social realities in context. While they preceed family formation and traditionally crucial, they are both physical and cultural just as they are systematically symbolic and demonstrative of familial and sociocultural statuses and class in Africa. Weddings in the context are indication and legitimation of identity and existencies and these have strategic implications for social change, cultural systems and population