This thesis investigates the major areas in which 'Abd Allah ibn Fudi (d. 1245/1829) contributed to the Fulani Jihad which was initiated by his brother 'Uthman ibn Fudi in nineteenth century Hausaland.

Since the commencement of the 4th Republic in Nigeria in May 1999, one relatively permanent characterisation of the country’s political landscape has been belligerent ethno-nationalism or ethnic militancy. The activities of ethnic militias exacerbated insecurity; confronted the status of the state as the sole legitimate monopolist of the instruments of force and violence; exposed the weak loyalty and allegiance of the populace to the Nigerian nation-state project; and threatened its continued existence as a corporate entity. Decades of marginalisation and injustice foisted on the Niger Delta people by the Nigerian state in tandem with major Multinational Oil Corporations (MNOCs), precipitated the nasty experience of frustration and deprivation, which triggered a section of the youth in the region to embark on the formation of militia groups as an extra-constitutional method for negotiation, and redressing the political cum socio-economic dehumanising conditions of the region. Thus, there is a historically established case of grievance instigated by environmental degradation and despoliation, neglect, poverty, political exclusion and intensified military repression of the Delta people by the Nigerian state in collaboration with the MNOCs. However, though there are ethnic militias in other parts of the country, its rampant proliferation and seeming sustainability in the region -- in the face of organised state violence -- is unprecedented and deserves scholarly investigation. This study, therefore, investigates the extent to which the quest for opportunism and predation by the ethnic militias has led to the escalation of armed conflicts in the Niger Delta region during the timeline of this research. It seeks to establish a linkage between economic gains (through hostage taking for huge sums of money and illegal trading in petroleum products) and the intensification of armed conflicts by ethnic militias in the region. Further, the study systematically interrogates the extent to which international commercial collaborators boosted the violent activities of ethnic militias in the Delta geopolitical landscape. Using the qualitative research approach and data from both primary and secondary sources, the study establishes a correlation between economic opportunism, the proliferation of militias and the escalation of armed conflict in the region during the timeline of this research. Several young people also became highly attracted to belligerent ethno-nationalism in the region as a result of the greed to corner resources from illegal oil bunkering, kidnapping, outright patronage from the political elite and the MNOCs. There was rampant multiplicity and mutation of militias and armed gangs whose main purpose appears to be their involvement in the highly lucrative criminal business of hostage-taking for ransom rather than a principled struggle for resource control and socio-economic justice. Clearly, several people and groups have used such injustices as a rationale for justifying what otherwise would be criminal activities: oil theft, armed robbery and hostage taking for ransom. The quest for various forms of gains therefore motivated the ‘democratisation’ of ethnic militancy purportedly fighting for the Delta region; while in reality, criminality was being deployed as a veritable instrument for illegal resource exploitation, political patronage and primitive accumulation. The phenomenal attraction of people to militancy in the region reached alarming proportion in 2006 when kidnapping for ransom became a strategic weapon popularised by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND). Generally speaking, it has been estimated that militias may not have been more than 20,000 persons in the region during the pre-kidnapping years. But by January 2009, field studies revealed that no fewer than 50,000 people were involved in militant activities -- a figure that represents more than 50 % of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Further, this research also establishes a linkage between the activities of ethnic militias, illegal oil bunkering, foreign opportunistic traders and the sustainability of conflict in the region during the study period. The purchase of stolen crude oil by opportunistic international commercial traders from various countries of the world was the major source of sustainability of militia movements until 2005. It provided the much-needed arms and money for the cycle of violence and conflict and, thus, became a source of attraction to more militias. With the improved performances of security forces in the region and the consequent diversification of the militias into hostage taking, however, the level of conflict sustenance through oil theft and foreign networks reduced drastically between 2006 and 2009 in comparison with the pre-kidnapping years of 1999 to 2005. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2010.

Introduction: Tobacco smoking continues to raise serious concerns for health promotion practitioners and health bodies globally. It has been tagged the single largest cause of all premature deaths globally. Efforts at discouraging tobacco use especially among the youth are not only aimed at reducing smoking prevalence in the short term but at disrupting the chain of supply for the tobacco marketers who see the youth population as their source of replacement smokers. Measures to curb smoking prevalence currently rely heavily on policy regulation but there is need to have a holistic approach towards finding out what influences the youth to smoke in order to have relevant context-specific interventions to further tobacco control efforts. This study is aimed at ascertaining the risk influences for smoking behaviour amongst the youth in Southern Nigeria with specific focus on cultural/environmental, interpersonal and intrapersonal factors serving to increase smoking initiation and perpetuation as guided by the Theory of Triadic Influence (TTI). Method: Exploratory mixed methods research design was employed in carrying out this study. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 27 persons in 24 individual interviews (comprising of 18 young smokers aged 18 to 24 years, 4 political analysts and 2 community leaders) and 1 focus group discussion with 3 community leaders. A total of 550 youth aged between 18 and 24 years participated in the survey (quantitative) phase of this research. Non-probability sampling was used in recruiting participants for this study. Purposive sampling was used for the qualitative phase while multi-staged convenience sampling was used in the survey phase. Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) with the aid of the software Nvivo 9 was used in analyzing the qualitative data while the software Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 19 was used in the analysis of the quantitative data. Results: Qualitative and survey results show that there are an array of factors at various levels influencing the youth in southern Nigeria to view cigarettes as attractive and less harmful. At the cultural environmental level, there exist traditional practices in some parts of Southern Nigeria that make cigarettes easily accessible to the youth. Contact with cigarettes as a minor was found to be the best predictor of smoking among other cultural factors involving tobacco use while exposure to second hand smoke was the best predictor of smoking. With an absence of a functional national tobacco control law presently, cigarette is cheap, easily accessible to young people and tobacco manufacturers and marketers still promote their businesses in many ways which target the youth. At the interpersonal level, youth were influenced majorly by their peers to initiate smoking but indirectly by parents, older sibling and role models who smoke. At the intrapersonal level, youth were found to smoke for a variety of reasons ranging from wading off depression, coping with social stress and wanting to live up to the expectations of friends. Youth’s knowledge about the effect of smoking on health and well-being did not translate to a desire to quit smoking. Conclusion/recommendations: The Nigerian government needs to take urgent steps to address the tobacco question in the country through policy formulation and implementation. There is need to raise more awareness in the population on the dangers of smoking. Cessation clinics are also needed to help those who desire to quit smoking. Cultural activities involving the use of cigarettes and other tobacco products need to be properly addressed through the right channel to ensure this practice is stopped. A theoretical model explaining the risk influences for smoking among the youth is presented and suggestions are made with regards to a re-categorization of constructs in the theory of triadic influence which guided this study. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2013.

The dissertation records changes in the Kano palace landscape between 1500 and 1990. Patriarchal practices that shaped the initial palace layout at vernacular domestic and state levels are outlined. Royal women were secluded and male slaves occupied public household domains, state strongholds. Later increases in eunuchs' and slave women's powers and spaces are also recorded. The demise of slave women's political realms and the rise of an autocratic and militaristic male state structure following the Fulani jihad of 1807 are then detailed. Lastly, the impact of British imperialism on the landscape of male and female slavery is presented. Because male slaves were placed publicly, they were the main receivers and negotiators of colonial change, and their spaces underwent the most forceful change. / Throughout the analyses, landscapes are seen as politically created and communicative material structures. Examination of epistemological relations used in landscape analyses demonstrates important linkages between how field research is structured and relations of power.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Diss.--Faculty of catholic theology--Bonn--Friedrich Wilhelms University, 1990. / Bibliogr. p. 254-273.

This article considers the earliest evidence of complex societies in sub-Saharan Africa. The evidence derives from two archaeological entities located in Nigeria, West Africa: the Gajiganna Culture of the Chad Basin and the Nok Culture of Central Nigeria. Studies of both cultures, carried out by the author’s team during the last years, indicate a significant cultural change during the 1st millennium BC. The change concerns social, economic, and technological aspects, described and discussed for each of the two mentioned cases. It is supposed that the change was a nucleus of social complexity that triggered further developments up to the great West African empires emerging from the end of the 1st millennium AD onwards. / El presente artículo trata acerca de las evidencias más tempranas de sociedades complejas en el África subsahariana procedentes de dos entidades arqueológicas ubicadas en Nigeria, en la parte occidental de este continente: la cultura Gajiganna, localizada en la cuenca del Chad, y la cultura Nok, del área central de este país. Los estudios realizados acerca de estas dos sociedades por parte del equipo dirigido por el autor durante los últimos años indican una transformación cultural significativa durante el primer milenio a.C. Este cambio se relaciona con aspectos sociales, económicos y tecnológicos particulares que se describen y discuten para cada uno de los casos mencionados. Se postula que ese proceso constituyó el núcleo de la complejidad social que desencadenó desarrollos posteriores hasta llegar a los grandes imperios del África Occidental que surgieron hacia fines del primer milenio d.C. y en adelante.

The problem of this study was to identify student, faculty, academic administrator, and government educational official perceptions of and preferences for the goals of higher education in Imo-State, Nigeria. The purposes of this study were (1) to identify the major goal areas of colleges in Imo-State; (2) to determine the perceptions and preferences of student, faculty, academic administrators, and government educational officials; (3) to determine whether there are significant divergences of perception and preference among the respondent groups with respect to the goal areas; (4) to develop projections of the probable priorities for goal trends of higher education in Imo-State, based upon the expressed perceptions and preferences of the subjects. In addition, the study involved determining the differences in judgement among and between the groups regarding both perceived and preferred goal areas, through a one-way analysis of variance and Scheffe test.

Every human being applies their acquired knowledge during the interpretation and application of information, but all the humanly acquired knowledge are shaped by the social information processing model as determined by the traditions and values embedded in their culture. Therefore, the transition from information seeking to the application within a person is not completely dependent on cognition but in the current socio-cultural interpretation of that information. The cultural background of every individual often determines the interpretation and the understanding derivable from any information. Human socio-cultural values are the intervening variables during information seeking, and they can be grouped into three, namely psychological, physiological and environmental, but none acts alone during information seeking and application. Hence, culture as a factor must be considered both psychologically and environmentally to understand its impact on IB because culture comprises of both the tangible and the intangible aspects of human life. The aim of this study is to investigate the main reason for the contrasting results of the polio campaign across the north and south of Nigeria. The study adopted a mixed method approach comprising of a semi-structured interview and focus groups for the collection of data that adequately describe cultural variables to determine the aspects of culture directly impacting on IB, such as language, customs, traditions, and religious values which cannot be quantified or counted. The research approach considered IB in its totality and viewed information not only as tools designed by human to enhance communication and conceptualization of realities but also as the means which enabled the achievement of the desired goal for both the providers and the users of information. Therefore, IB was not only viewed from the context or content of the information but from the way people search, receive and utilise information to meet their respective needs. The study considered the how ; the what ; the where and the whom people consult when in need of information or for the explanation about the information received but not understood, to determine the chosen culture group s IB By considering culture from a multi-disciplinary perspective and IB evolutionarily, the study investigates the impact of cultural orientation on IB through the way the people of Nigeria relates with the polio eradication campaign. The study links all the factors of culture, such as language, tradition, and religion to the ways people relate to information, and the findings revealed that culture plays a significant role in the IB of individuals right from the point of the perceived knowledge gap to the point of information application. The language associated with the people s religious belief was also found to be of significant influence on language preference during communication of information, as well as in the process of encoding and decoding of information. Thus, culture did not only impact on IB during information seeking and application but also the language for the communication of information. Cultural orientation significantly impacted on the way people relates to the polio campaign as a consequence of their IB, and this informed their interpretations of the polio campaign and the eventual outcome of the campaign within the north and south of Nigeria.

Against the backdrop of debates and contestations in the literature on the efficacy of interventions of Faith-based organisations (FBOs) with regard to vulnerable people, this study subjects the social reintegration programmes of three selected FBOs working with recovering drug-addicts in South-western Nigeria to a sociological scrutiny so as to understand the social character, effectiveness and local appropriateness of their programmes. Specifically, the study examined the key attributes of the social reintegration programmes offered by the selected FBOs as well as the level and extent of compliance of such programmes with the prescriptions and idealisations as enunciated in relevant global and national policies and institutional frameworks. The theoretical underpinning of this study was derived from assumptions of structural-functionalism of Durkheim and Expectancy disconfirmation theory. Adopting an exploratory approach, the study utilised a blend of survey, key informant interviews, in-depth interviews, observation and document review to gather data. Survey data were collected from a random sample of 156 inmates of the social reintegration facilities of three (3) FBOs in Oyo, Ogun and Lagos states in South-West Nigeria. Qualitative data were sourced through 15 in-depth interviews, 9 key informant interviews and scientific information generated from observation and document review. The quantitative data gathered were analysed using descriptive statistics, while the qualitative data were processed with the use of content analysis. Findings from the study indicate that the selected FBOs have only recorded little success in terms of addressing the social needs of the inmates. For one thing, FBOs’ detoxification programme for recovering drug-addicts tilted more towards human rights violation than serve as an exercise that aided recovery. One key finding was that there was a huge disconnect between global prescriptions on social reintegration services and what the selected FBOs offered to the inmates. The study concluded from its findings that any social reintegration programmes aimed at protecting recovering drug-addicts from further social exclusion and facilitate their social inclusion in South-West Nigeria must extend beyond mere spiritual provisioning to upholding their rights to human dignity and providing opportunities and tools that address their crucial social needs in terms of housing, education, vocation and employment.