Underdevelopment has plagued Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), since independence the post-colonial African states have experienced extreme poverty, unemployment, and other economic ailments that have persisted in the region. The aim of this thesis is to critique the null hypothesis of dependency theorists that it is structural factors that cause underdevelopment instead this study proposes an alternative hypothesis through Neo-Classical Realism to explain that it is in fact state-level actors and domestic issues that are the true culprit of causing the dependent variable. The methodological approach is a single embedded case-study with an explaining-outcome process-tracing. The thesis found that the cause of the underdevelopment in Nigeria is firmly rooted in the domestic sphere and that it delves much deeper than the main factors; resource dependence, lax institutions, prebendalism, and Sino-Nigerian relations, but it is the socio-political culture that has produced the norms which the elites operate on and possibly contributing to the exasperation of the negative aspects of the main factors that have perpetuated and sustained underdevelopment in Nigeria and SSA.

Text in English / Through an in-depth analysis of selected texts, this study engages with the ways in which Ogun is reimagined by recent selected Nigerian playwrights. Early writers from this country, influenced by their modernist education, misrepresented Ogun by presenting only his so-called negative attributes. Contemporary writers are reconceptualising him; it is the task of this thesis to demonstrate how they are doing so from a decolonial perspective. These alleged attributes represent Ogun as a wicked, bloodthirsty, arrogant and hot tempered god who only kills and makes no positive contribution to the Yoruba community. The thesis argues that the notion of an African god should be viewed from an Afrocentric perspective, not a Eurocentric one, which might lead to violence or misrepresentation of him. The dialogue in the plays conveys how the playwrights have constructed their main characters as Ogun representatives in their society. For example, Mojagbe and Morontonu present Balogun, the chief warlord of their different community; both characters exhibit Ogun features of defending their community. The chosen plays for this study are selected based on different notions of Ogun, the Yoruba god of iron and war, presented by the playwrights. A closer look at the primary materials this thesis explores suggests Ogun’s strong connection with rituals and cultural festivals. These plays exemplify African ritual theatre. Being a member of the Yoruba ethnic group, I have considerable knowledge of how festivals are performed. The Ogun festival is an annual celebration among the Yoruba, where African idioms of puppetry, masquerading, music, dance, mime, invocation, evocation and several elements of drama are incorporated into the performances. The selected plays critiqued in this thesis are Mojagbe (Ahmed Yerima, 2008), Battles of Pleasure (Peter Omoko, 2009), Hard Choice (Sunnie Ododo, 2011), and Morontonu (Alex Roy-Omoni, 2012). No in-depth exploration has previously been undertaken into the kinds of textual and ideological identities that Ogun adopts, especially in the selected plays. Therefore, using a decolonial epistemic perspective, this study offers a critical examination of how the selected Nigerian playwrights between the years 2008 and 2012 have constructed Ogun, the Yoruba god of iron. Such a perspective assists in delinking interpretations from the modernised notions mentioned above, in which Ogun is sometimes a paradoxical god. Coloniality is responsible for such misinterpretation; the employed theoretical framework is used to interrogate these notions. The research project begins with a general introduction locating Ogun in Yoruba mythology, which forms the background to how the god is being constructed in Yorubaland. Also included iii in this first chapter is a discussion on a decolonial perspective, the principles of coloniality, the aims and objective of the study, and the relevant literature review. Thereafter, chapter two focuses on Battles of Pleasure and argues that the play re-imagines Ogun as a god of peace and harvest as opposed to a god of war and destruction. Chapter three discusses how Ododo’s Hard Choice reconceptualises Ogun as a god of justice, in contrast to him being interpreted as a god who engages in reckless devastation of life. Chapter four explores Ogun’s representation in Yerima’s Mojagbe as a reformer who gives human beings ample time to change from their wayward course to a course that he approves. In chapter five, Ogun’s reconception as a remover of obstacles in Roy-Omoni’s Morontonu is examined. The study concludes with a discussion on how Africans should delink themselves from a modernist Eurocentric perspective and think from an Afrocentric locus of enunciation. / English Studies / D. Litt. et Phil.(English)

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A research report submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, 2017 / This research report conducts a critical examination of Ayo Akinfe’s Fuelling the Delta Fires by paying attention to the writer’s use of satire to highlight social problems such as corruption, deception and exploitation in Nigeria. The focus is on how Akinfe’s novel represents exploitation, waste, and excess that have become normative in a country on the brink of collapse. The work also seeks to identify and critique how Akinfe employs satire to interrogate the syndrome of the ‘big-man’ in Nigeria, showing how their actions contribute to social decay and violence. The research will also examine issues of ecology in the Niger Delta. Ecology has often been construed as a Western ideology that has little resonance within the framework of the African novel. However, this work, tries to show that as the scholarship on ecological humanities has evolved over the years, African alternatives which take account of the unique challenges of the continent have also being developed. Akinfe draws from these proposed models of ecology to focus attention on the ecological issues that are a direct outcome of the exploration of oil in the Niger Delta and by so doing, brings attention to the transgressions of government and multinational corporations who go to great lengths to extract oil in the region. Applying ecocritical examples suggested by scholars like Anthony Vital, Byron Caminero-Santangelo and others, the research report demonstrates how literature has been used as a medium to expose greed that facilitates ecological degradations and how the culture of consumerism affect the daily lives of the inhabitants of the Niger Delta. / XL2018

Ce travail est une réflexion sur la place et le rôle institutionnels du Parlement au Niger ; au-delà de la simple présentation de ses fonctions législative et de contrôle du gouvernement, qui, au demeurant, ont été amplement étudiées, mais intégrées dans une approche dynamique et globale de la question. La première partie traite de l’apport du Parlement dans l’institutionnalisation de l’État nigérien. Il y a, d’abord, le rôle historique de l’Assemblée nationale dans la formation des institutions étatiques du Niger et l’accession du pays à la souveraineté internationale, en 1960. Il y a, ensuite, le fait que les structures de l’institution parlementaire donnent véritablement forme et corps à l’État nigérien. La seconde partie traite de l’apport du Parlement dans la démocratisation de l’État nigérien. Il y a, d’une part, son rôle de modérateur de pouvoir exécutif, en veillant à ce que ce dernier n’abuse pas du pouvoir d’État dans l’exercice de ses fonctions. Être en mesure d’arrêter le pouvoir exécutif, en renversant le gouvernement et/ou en provoquant la destitution du Président de la République. Il y a, d’autre part, la participation des citoyens à l’exercice du pouvoir d’État, à travers le mécanisme d’élaboration de la loi par le Parlement, représentant le peuple souverain. / This study is deals with the institutional place and role of the Nigerian Parliament. It is more than a mere presentation of its legislative and supervisory functions of government, which, have not only been extensively studied, but approached in a dynamic and comprehensive manner.This scientific work is divided into two parts. Part one deals with the Parliament’s contribution to the institutionalization of the State of Niger. It first presents the historical role of the National Assembly in establishing state institutions of Niger and attaining international sovereignty in 1960 before describing how the structures of the parliamentary institution really give shape and body to the government of Niger. Part two deals with the Parliament’s contribution in democratizating the State of Niger. It plays the role of executive power moderator as it ensures that there is no abuse of State power in the exercise of its duties by ousting the government and/or impeaching the President of the Republic. Moreover, citizens can have a say in the exercise of State power through the legislation-drafting mechanism of the Parliament which represents the sovereign people.

É possível afirmar que a produção literária de qualquer sistema social dialoga com o contexto histórico, cultural, econômico e político dentro do qual está inscrita, e tal contexto, por sua vez, também dialoga e reage a essa produção definindo um constante movimento sistêmico. Tais imbricações entre literatura e contexto social incidem na construção das personagens, muitas vezes, mobilizadas, nos textos literários, pela construção de suas próprias identidades e em tensão não só com o contexto social dentro do qual vão sendo inscritas, mas também e, inevitavelmente, com as demais personagens que integram a narrativa ficcional. É a partir desses movimentos entre a constituição das personagens, suas identidades e seus respectivos contextos sociais que os romances, O Sétimo Juramento, da escritora moçambicana Paulina Chiziane e, Hibisco Roxo, da escritora nigeriana Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie serão analisados. Tendo por base conjunturas históricas cujas especificidades estão demarcadas, Moçambique e Nigéria, é que as personagens femininas dos romances de Adichie e de Chiziane serão aproximadas e se distanciarão entre si, mas, continuamente em tensão, confrontam o universo masculino. Essas personagens acabam por ascender nessas narrativas ficcionais como mulheres que vislumbram rupturas de sistemas sócio-político-econômico-culturais e acabam por desencadear, sobretudo, novas relações plurais de identidade. Em ambos os romances, de maneira confluente, a dinâmica das tramas reside na movimentação, transformação e ação das personagens femininas que se redescobrem na pluralidade de sua constituição como seres humanos e plenas de possibilidades concretas e objetivas de transformação social para conferirem diferentes saídas para as sociedades de classes, historicamente, opressoras, machistas, patriarcais e opressivas. / It is possible to affirm that the literary production of any social system dialogues with the historical, cultural, economic and political context within which it is inscribed, and that context, in turn, also dialogues and reacts to this production defining a constant systemic movement. Such imbrications between literature and social context focus on the construction of the characters, often mobilized in literary texts, for the construction of their own identities and in tension not only with the social context within which they are being inscribed but also and, inevitably, with the other characters that integrate the fictional narrative. It is from these movements between the constitution of the characters, their identities and their respective social contexts that the novels, O Sétimo Juramento, by the Mozambican writer Paulina Chiziane and, Purple Hibiscus, by the Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie will be analyzed. Based on historical conjunctures whose specificities are demarcated, Mozambique and Nigeria, is that the female characters of Adichie and Chiziane novels will approximate and distance themselves from each other, but continually in tension, they confront the masculine universe. These characters end up ascending in these fictional narratives as women who envisage ruptures of socio-political-economic-cultural systems and end up triggering, above all, new plural relations of identity. In both novels, in a confluent way, the dynamics of the plot lies in the movement, transformation and action of the female characters who rediscover themselves in the plurality of their constitution as human beings and full of concrete and objective possibilities of social transformation to give different exits to the class societies, historically, oppressive, macho, patriarchal and oppressive.

In recent years, a research consensus has coalesced around the notion that human capital development and an efficient public service are critically important determinants of societal transformation, especially in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). However, there is no similarly wide agreement on how to systematically drive improvements in the quality of a nation's human capital or its public service. This thesis contributes to this debate and adds to the literature on strategies for effective civil service human capital development and management in a developing context. Specifically, the study interrogates and explores the experience of a developing country - Nigeria, to illustrate the dynamics of a typical civil service human capital and capability development (CD) strategy. I critically examine the social and relational complexities of the policy process and how dominant neo-liberal logic is constituted, forming part of the metanarrative in state identities that perpetuate unequal power relations, elite interests, and ineffective institutional arrangements. Influenced by post structural and social constructivist philosophies, the research challenges the dominant neo-liberal orthodoxy on human capital. In this regard and utilising a case study approach, the study critically explores and reveals how the standards for human capital development are negotiated in the Nigerian federal civil service (NFCS), and examines the discourses and practices they produce. I utilise the sociology of knowledge approach to discourse (SKAD) as well as policy documents and semi-structured interviews with senior policy planners, to capture the nuanced realities and everyday meanings that are lost in dominant metanarratives of civil service human capital reforms in SSA. These explorations are positioned within the broader development debates about the need to adopt social constructivist research frames to better understand contextual issues in the capability development (CD) process. The research findings indicate that while most reform programmes in the NFCS have been captivated by the capacity development and service delivery rhetoric, the complex interplay between the dearth of human capabilities and the politicisation of the implementation process means that the impact of such policies have been very minimal. The study reveals that the relational complexities between policy agents have been engendered largely by the nature of Nigeria's political economy, which appears to have produced dynamic and interweaving unequal power relations that have helped constitute discourses centred on institutional inefficiencies, including: 'patronage', 'intense rent-seeking', and 'personalisation' of the policy process that are currently ongoing. These discourses are actively navigated, produced and reproduced according to Nigeria's social and political contexts. I argue that this socially constituted and re-constituted locale creates a complex and uniquely challenging context for reforms, such that developing civil service capacities has become a major challenge, because 'reform' policies tend to serve the interests of a few powerful elites, who are bent on maintaining the status quo. The thesis makes key recommendations that recognise these challenges and provides policy options and a framework to help the Nigerian federal service embark upon a capability development initiative that will help improve the efficiency of the Service and lead to accelerated national development.

This research is situated within the practice-led method, enabling me as a playwright to gain stimulus for creating trauma informed plays. The framework for creating such plays in this research is the centre-periphery concept (Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin, 2013, 43) situated with the imagined nation as backdrops for understanding postcolonial trauma. In order to gain stimulus for playwriting in this research, I explored Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart and Wole Soyinka's Death and the King's Horseman to understanding postcolonial trauma in my part of Africa, being Nigeria. I also explored other sources for the purpose of gaining stimulus from embedded trauma motifs, useful for writing The Longest Snake, The Endless Walk and the Alternative plays. The Alternative plays draw meanings from the initial plays and are interventive and socio-dramatic; revealing how trauma may be understood from other perspectives. The originality of this research and contribution to knowledge may be perceived in the new plays which incorporate trauma notions; the role of the 'circle' in conceptualisation and the use of the 'centre-periphery' concepts as template for playwriting and analysis. The originality may also be inferred from the interventive relevance of the created plays, touching on how postcolonial trauma may be understood from the lens of the imagined nation, and events in the centre-periphery context. It is also important to mention how the collectives are traumatically affected by the negative effects of colonisation as mirrored in the textual sources explored. Equally relevant are my personal experiences and the African folklore and folktale milieu, which are relevant for understanding postcolonial trauma through praxis; reiterating Gray and Marlins' (2016: 2) thoughts that 'We learn most effectively by doing - by active experience, and reflection on that experience,' which may be seen in the context of the practice-led approach I adopted in this research.

É possível afirmar que a produção literária de qualquer sistema social dialoga com o contexto histórico, cultural, econômico e político dentro do qual está inscrita, e tal contexto, por sua vez, também dialoga e reage a essa produção definindo um constante movimento sistêmico. Tais imbricações entre literatura e contexto social incidem na construção das personagens, muitas vezes, mobilizadas, nos textos literários, pela construção de suas próprias identidades e em tensão não só com o contexto social dentro do qual vão sendo inscritas, mas também e, inevitavelmente, com as demais personagens que integram a narrativa ficcional. É a partir desses movimentos entre a constituição das personagens, suas identidades e seus respectivos contextos sociais que os romances, O Sétimo Juramento, da escritora moçambicana Paulina Chiziane e, Hibisco Roxo, da escritora nigeriana Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie serão analisados. Tendo por base conjunturas históricas cujas especificidades estão demarcadas, Moçambique e Nigéria, é que as personagens femininas dos romances de Adichie e de Chiziane serão aproximadas e se distanciarão entre si, mas, continuamente em tensão, confrontam o universo masculino. Essas personagens acabam por ascender nessas narrativas ficcionais como mulheres que vislumbram rupturas de sistemas sócio-político-econômico-culturais e acabam por desencadear, sobretudo, novas relações plurais de identidade. Em ambos os romances, de maneira confluente, a dinâmica das tramas reside na movimentação, transformação e ação das personagens femininas que se redescobrem na pluralidade de sua constituição como seres humanos e plenas de possibilidades concretas e objetivas de transformação social para conferirem diferentes saídas para as sociedades de classes, historicamente, opressoras, machistas, patriarcais e opressivas. / It is possible to affirm that the literary production of any social system dialogues with the historical, cultural, economic and political context within which it is inscribed, and that context, in turn, also dialogues and reacts to this production defining a constant systemic movement. Such imbrications between literature and social context focus on the construction of the characters, often mobilized in literary texts, for the construction of their own identities and in tension not only with the social context within which they are being inscribed but also and, inevitably, with the other characters that integrate the fictional narrative. It is from these movements between the constitution of the characters, their identities and their respective social contexts that the novels, O Sétimo Juramento, by the Mozambican writer Paulina Chiziane and, Purple Hibiscus, by the Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie will be analyzed. Based on historical conjunctures whose specificities are demarcated, Mozambique and Nigeria, is that the female characters of Adichie and Chiziane novels will approximate and distance themselves from each other, but continually in tension, they confront the masculine universe. These characters end up ascending in these fictional narratives as women who envisage ruptures of socio-political-economic-cultural systems and end up triggering, above all, new plural relations of identity. In both novels, in a confluent way, the dynamics of the plot lies in the movement, transformation and action of the female characters who rediscover themselves in the plurality of their constitution as human beings and full of concrete and objective possibilities of social transformation to give different exits to the class societies, historically, oppressive, macho, patriarchal and oppressive.

Trade between the United States and Africa decreased 32% from US$125 billion, in 2011, to US$85 billion, in 2013; however, MNCs from other regions have continued to increase investments in Africa. Multinational corporations (MNCs) generate most of their return on investment (ROI) from the Western world. Globalization, increasing middle classes in emerging markets, and decreasing population in the Western world have lead to unsustainable ROI. Nigeria, the most populous and largest economy in Africa and the 27th largest economy in the world, offers new opportunities with an annual growth rate forecast of 6% to 8%. Utilizing the diamond theory of competitive advantage of nations, this single case study was an exploration of the strategies that managers of MNCs have used to optimize Nigeria's higher ROI. Interview questions on new entry challenges, operational obstacles, and strategies to mitigate the challenges contributed to answering the overarching research question related to the strategies that managers of MNCs have used successfully to take advantage of Nigeria's high ROI. The participants were 5 executives at the Nigerian operation of a global technology conglomerate with presence in 166 countries. Data collection included a series of semistructured face-to-face interviews. Data analysis using modified van Kaam method resulted in 5 themes: business environment, effective entry strategies, challenges in Nigeria, mitigating challenges in Nigeria, and volatility of Nigerian market and mitigation strategies. Findings may contribute to ROI optimization and influence social change by providing more jobs, thereby increasing standard of living in Nigeria.