MSc (Med), Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, 2006

The purpose of this study is to show how television has affected the politics, education, economy, and religions of Nigeria. The background of each area is outlined to lay the groundwork for showing the influence of television on these aspects of the lives of Nigerians. A brief history of the development of radio and television in Nigeria is presented. Although government control of Nigerian television precludes unbiased political reporting, the medium has raised the consciousness and interest of Nigerians in political activities; education, however, is the area in which television proves its worth and potential. Under the direction of the government's unification goals, Nigerian television has been an informative, moderating, and conciliatory influence on the divisive elements in Nigeria.

This is a demographic study of Nigeria between 1952-1982. Relationships between population growth and economic development are described in detail. Comparisons are made of demographic growth in Nigeria with other developing countries, particularly those in Africa. Population pressure, the condition of the rural areas, and some internal and external population problems are discussed in length. The government's position and the public view on population control and family planning programs are also examined. Current programs of family limitation are discussed and evaluated. The study concludes with recommendations for solutions. Emphasis is placed on the need for immediate recognition and action. Various solutions, particularly education, are evaluated.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine and re-evaluate the questions involved in federalism and political problems in Nigeria. The strategy adopted in this study is historical, The study examines past, recent, and current literature on federalism and political problems in Nigeria. Basically, the first two chapters outline the historical background and basis of Nigerian federalism and political problems. Chapters three and four consider the evolution of federalism, political problems, prospects of federalism, self-government, and attainment of complete independence on October 1, 1960. Chapters five and six deal with the activities of many groups, crises, military coups, and civil war. The conclusions and recommendations candidly argue that a decentralized federal system remains the safest way for keeping Nigeria together stably.

The present study was concerned with seeking the opinions of Nigerian employers, Nigerians studying in the United States, and those studying in Nigeria concerning the need for human resource development in Nigeria. Data were collected through questionnaires mailed to selected Nigerian employers and to Nigerian students studying at various United States college campuses and at Nigerian university campuses. Problems of unemployment and critical shortages of skilled manpower continue to be rampant in Nigeria. The present investigation, through an analysis of questionnaire responses, seems to support the impression that little is really being done by Nigerian organization to upgrade and strengthen personnel talent in a planned and organized way. Most companies have no central long-range goal to guide their manpower development efforts. Much more time, effort, and expense are likely being devoted to the introduction of new operating systems or pieces of equipment than to the improvement of people.

The purposes of this study are to describe the past and the present system of secondary education in Western Nigeria; to examine the goals, achievements, and failures with special consideration for three distinct periods: (1) prior to the arrival of the British people in Western Nigeria, (2) between 1842 and 1960, and (3) between 1960 and 1976; to formulate generalizations about secondary schools, and to offer suggestions for the improvement of the secondary educational system in Western Nigeria. One recommendation that the study makes calls for mass secondary education, not education of the elite only. The recommendations call for programs that would lead to industrial and technological progress.

It is argued in this thesis that the Nigerian Novel is an attempt to transliterate traditional customs, beliefs and attitudes, the characters of myth and legends, a whole universe of ancestors, into an entirely new context of the twentieth century, employing a language to which the modern reader can respond. The work gives detailed consideration to the salient features of this attempt and assesses, with particular reference to the novels of Tutuola, Achebe, Aluko, Nzekwu, Amadi, Balewa, Egbuna, Adaora Ulasi, Nwankwo and Okara, what in each case is the atti tudeof the novelist to the indigenous culture of his country and how successfully the link between tradition and modern experience has been established. The approach adopted in the thesis is one of close analysis of texts in an attempt to find out how critically an author has presented those aspects of tradition he has selected for treatment and how skilfully he has dramatized the realities and dilemmas of the present. On each author answers are sought to a numer of searching questions. What are the particular values the writer is upholding or opposing, and what is his attitude to them? What particular emotional or intellectual effect does he hope to achieve, and does he succeed? If he does, by what methods of communication? If he fails, from what problems of communication has failure resulted, and what effect does this have on the reader? What sympathies are evoked, and how do we see a particular work in the body of works of a particular author? A writer's language is a mirror held up to his personality and his particular circumstances. It is through his use of language that he reflects his individual awareness of a given situation. The detailed study of language leads, almost inevitably, to a consideration of the more fundamental problems of communication. Even though all save one of the novelists to whom this thesis is devoted use English as their creative medium, they do so in the consciousness of the fact that they are presenting a Nigerian experience, and the best of them reveal in their works a specific mode of the imagination which derives from their Nigerian background. It has therefore been necessary in all cases to examine closely the use of language by each novelist and try to assess how effectively the artist has communicated. Because of the historical and cultural environment of the Nigerian novelist considerable interest is taken in the influence which the mother tongue (LI) has had on the writer's English (L2). The thesis concludes by identifying the essential requirements for the establishment of a successful link between tradition and modern life: an important theme, a consistent imaginative scheme, a language which recognizes the characteristics of LI and skill in the use of language. Only works in which many of these conditions are fulfilled as, for example, in the novels of Achebe, Amadi, Okara and Aluko achieve satisfactory results. The link between tradition and modern life is valuable only if it widens satisfyingly our experience of what it is to be human and thus contributes to the solution of the political and social problems of the present.

This study is directed toward the relationship between population growth and socioeconomic development in Nigeria for the period 1960-1984. A controlled population growth would positively affect every segment of the economic and social environment. With hunger and starvation, disease, poverty and illiteracy plaguing large portions of the world, Nigeria's limited resources would best be utilized if shared among a smaller population, Nigeria, like other developing African countries, does not have an official population control policy. The diversity in the Nigerian culture, the controversial nature of the subject of population control, and possibly, implementation difficulties, account for the absence of a population control policy in Nigeria. This study offers in its concluding section some policy recommendations on how to tackle Nigeria's population problem.

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1978 O38 / Master of Science

Though the Nigerian-Biafran War has been the subject of numerous literary and other artistic representations in the four decades since its conclusion, Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s 2006 novel Half of a Yellow Sun has recently received tremendous international attention for its treatment of the 1967-1970 conflict. Contrary to the assertions of many critics, the novel’s complex representation of the war functions as much more than a setting for a series of family dramas at the foreground. Providing a counterargument to such readings, which emphasize the personal over the political in Half of a Yellow Sun, this paper will propose and trace a political allegory legible within the characters’ personal relationships and historical circumstances. Specifically, I will argue that the relationship between two protagonists, the twins Olanna and Kainene, aligns with the relationship between (Northern) Nigeria and the Eastern Nigeria, known as Biafra between 1967 and 1970, during its attempt to secede. In the way that Kainene grows emotionally distant from Olanna, eventually stops speaking to her, and suddenly disappears, so Eastern Nigeria increasingly clashed with Northern Nigeria during the early 1960s, seceded as the Republic of Biafra in 1967, and eventually “disappeared” at the end of the war in 1970, as it was absorbed back into Nigeria. Rather than indicating a sense of finality, however, Adichie’s text refuses closure in ways that ultimately suggest an alternative both to the notion that the novel has an apolitical, purely tragic ending, and to dominant narratives about the Biafran secession’s “inevitable” failure. This reading thus intervenes in critical conversations about Half of a Yellow Sun, the Biafran state, and secession and self-determination throughout Africa. If Kainene’s disappearance does not only testify to the tragedies of war, and if her character allegorically corresponds to Biafra, then what political possibilities might her disappearance allow? Does Biafra—and in turn, the possibility of secession—remain at large too? Far from the prevalent scholarly and political rhetoric that relegates Biafra to a narrow three-year time frame, Adichie’s novel conceives of a Biafran existence beyond the pages of some finalized history. / text