Igbo Man Research Articles

BRAND CHOICE INFLUENCING FACTORS AND CUSTOMER PREFERENCE LEVEL OF MOBILE NETWORK SERVICE PROVIDERS

As customers switch from one network to another, researchers argue over the propelling factors behind their switching behaviour. Most people in other zones of the country believe that an average Igbo man does not joke with money, to the extent that other factors are considered inconsequential. With this in view, one begins to wonder if tarrif is the major factor that an average subscriber in the south east zone considers to switch brands. This work, therefore, examined brand choice influencing factors and customer preference level of mobile network service providers, and adopted descriptive research design. Three hundred and ninety-one copies of questionnaire were administered on GSM users spread over the Southeastern parts of Nigeria to make possible the testing of three hypotheses formulated. Using SPSS, multiple regression was run to ascertain the effect of each of the independent variables: network quality, tariff level and complaint management on the dependent variable, customer brand preference level. Findings revealed that the three variables had significant relationships with customer brand preference. However, network quality made the highest contribution to Customer Preference Level, followed by tariff level and finally, complaint management, which made the least contribution. Since Network Quality made the greatest contribution to customer preference level, the researchers recommended that GSM service providers in Nigeria should creatively and innovatively apply the model developed by this work to enhance the quality of their service delivery.

Exposition of Reality in Igbo Ontological Framework

The most prominent essence of this work is centred on the need for a more documented idea on the concept of reality in Igbo Ontology and by all means, helps to bring about profound knowledge and, therefore, contribute to scholarship. Admittedly, by philosophically analysing the past and the present practical contact with and observations of facts or events which leave serious impressions on the Igbo man in his universe, which is the main standpoint within which reality is analyzed in this project, one hopefully geared toward achieving to some extent the conclusions for the emergent African philosophy that goes over and above the Igbo tribal milieu. To this end, any student who wishes to carry out more studies on the concept of the reality in Igbo Ontology will invariably find this research work very expedient. It will serve as a valuable starting point or reference point. If this goal of provoking and inspiring further thoughts and studies on this subject matter is achieved, then the research endeavours would not be in vain. A qualitative research design was adopted for this study. We made use of data gotten from available literatures, unpublished essays, doctoral theses, journal articles and magazines. This thesis adopted the evaluative, analytic, historical and critical research approaches as means to achieve the objectives of the study.

Politics of Marginalisation of Igbo Nation in Nigerian Public Administration and Insecurity: A Blessing or a Curse?

The Igbo nation is an important constituent part in the Nigerian political constituency. Yet they remain politically marginalized and enslaved and consequently treated as a second class citizen in the Nigerian project. According to the nature of this research, a desk research with great reliance on the secondary method of data collection and observation was used in: assessing the extent of the marginalisation of Igbo nation; establishing the relationship between marginalisation and insecurity in Nigeria; and examining whether the marginalisation is a blessing or curse. The paper discovered that the current tide of marginalisation is a blessing to the marginalised and a curse to the unity and sustainable development of Nigeria as a sovereign state. It is herein recommended that the principle of inclusivism should be manifestly practiced. In this regard, the Igbo man should not be merely tolerated in his own home. He must be allowed to be a stakeholder in matters that concern him as a part of the general system. It concluded that, for public administration to serve the need of the people, it must be devoid of marginalisation and allied factors such as: divide and rule, corruption, nepotism, tribal sentiments and other associated ills that make public administration unworkable. The implication of the study for practice is that if we continue to approach marginalisation separately from the issue of insecurity in which indices like human right abuses, inequality, unemployment and social exclusion on the basis of tribal and religious classifications are not tackled with utmost seriousness, insecurity will remain a nagging challenge in Nigeria. Therefore, there is a correlation between marginalisation and insecurity.

Female genital mutilation: Nigerian Igbo men’s low acceptance of the practice

Female genital mutilation: Nigerian Igbo men’s low acceptance of the practice

The Centre of Igbo Ontological order through the Philosophical Analysis of the Past and Present Experiences of the Igbo Man in his Universe

The notion of man is at the center of all human problems. Obviously, every philosophy, every religion, every culture, has to take up some position here because, all has a notion particular to them with regards to the notion of man. Thus, we shall in this work, bring out the Igbo notion of the human person—the most paradoxical of all realties. The foremost significance of this work is to respond to the need of a more documented idea on the concept of man as the centre of Igbo Ontological order through the philosophical analysis of the past and present experiences of the Igbo man in his universe; and by all means contribute to knowledge and scholarship by provoking more serious thought on this subject and serving as a meaningful point of reference for anyone who wishes to carry out further researches on the subject. Using the evaluative, analytic, historical and critical research methods, this research work advances the thesis that in Igbo world-view man is conceived as the centre of Igbo Ontological order.

Genderized Implications of Bride Pricing Culture in Igbo Land

The study aims at ascertaining the actual implication of bride pricing system in traditional marriages in Igbo land. A total of fifty respondents (thirty women and twenty men) from the five states that make up the southeast zone in Nigeria were selected for the study. Being a qualitative research, the study adopted the ethnographic research design and employed a purposive non-probability sampling method in selecting the respondents. The study made use of focused group discussions, unstructured interview and participants’ observation method as instruments of data collection. The collection of data lasted for a period of six months from June 2020 to November 2020. The research is anchored on Radical and Snail sense Feminism theories and data for the study were analysed using descriptive thematic method. Findings from the study reveal that payment of bride price does not reduce women to mere commodities in Igbo land. It also reveals that it gives undue privileges to men in Igbo land among other findings. Finally, it was shown that Igbo men and women still regard bride price payment as an important aspect of their culture which should not be abolished.

Women development in agriculture as agency for fostering innovative agricultural financing in Nigeria

The significant contribution of women in agricultural development cannot be over-emphasised. Women farmers are commonly side-lined and their efforts under-valued in conventional agricultural and economic evaluations despite the substantial impact they have made in the sector. Globally, women’s contributions to the agricultural sector have been appraised as the world’s major producers and organisers of food crops where half of the world’s foods have been grown by them. In Africa, Nigeria included, women dominate and play major roles in producing subsistence crops and livestock. Their contribution to agriculture is estimated to be 65% in Nigeria. However, their contributions are undermined largely because women are often economically marginalised. Though women are food producers for most of the households in rural areas, their marginalisation has been historical. Factors hindering women from accessing agricultural financing include patriarchy, an unfavourable land tenure system that deprives women of access to collateral security in accessing bank loans and the vagueness of women’s limited self-agency. Anchored in patriarchal and liberal feminism theories, this study examines how Nigerian women are marginalised in selected spheres of agrarian livelihoods in the south-eastern parts of Nigeria. South-East Nigerian women farmers participate fully in all key stages of farming activities such as production, processing and marketing of food crops. The Igbo men cultivate mainly cash crops. Similarly, in the Northern parts of Nigeria, women are only allowed to participate in certain stages of cash crop growing but they are fully allowed to engage in subsistence farming as they are relegated to home front activities. Patriarchy limits women's access and control over land resources in all forms. Patriarchal and liberal feminism denoted that the actions and ideas of male farmers dominant over those of women has prevented female farmers the autonomy and freedom to become rational beings. This paper recommends mainstreaming of gender in the design, implementation and monitoring of agricultural policies and programmes for inclusive financing for food security and sustainable development.

Surviving Biafra: A Nigerwife’s Story, Elizabeth S. Bird and Rosina Umelo

Reviewed by: Surviving Biafra: A Nigerwife's Story by Elizabeth S. Bird, and Rosina Umelo Hope Eze BOOK REVIEW of Bird, Elizabeth S., and Rosina Umelo. 2018. Surviving Biafra: A Nigerwife's Story. London: Hurst. 256 pp. $29.95 (hardcover). The Nigerian-Biafran war,1 fought between 1967 and 1970, has received insufficient critical attention, largely as a result of political bias and humanitarian concern. Among existing works on it, "more than two-thirds of those who recorded their experiences … are male" (5), making it a politics-centered discourse, with a resulting focus on the "spectacular violence" (Nixon 2011, 4) of the fighting, while the "slow violence" (2011, 4) of disintegrating home fronts and women's roles in them have not enjoyed as much attention. Surviving Biafra: A Nigerwife's Story, by Elizabeth S. Bird and Rosina Umelo, underlining the complexities of wartime motherhood and family life, is a vital female contribution to discourse on the war. The book is an eyewitness account of the war from a Biafran perspective. Umelo, shortly after she left London for Nigeria with her young family, found herself in the middle of the war. Narrated by Bird, but mostly from the perspective of Umelo, the book offers details of everyday life in an Igbo (Biafran) village during the war. It is divided into three parts, which depict life in Nigeria/Biafra before, during, and immediately after the war, with an opening containing background information about colonial Nigeria, the country's early days of independence, and the events that led to the war. The catalyst for the war has been a gray area in historical accounts, and introducing the book with background information about Nigeria's colonial history, especially the role of the British government, gives context to the events that follow. Although written by white women about a Black African nation, Surviving Biafra is in effect an objective account, without a hint of the white savior complex. It is the story of an Englishwoman who takes root in an Igbo community by marriage and goes from being an outsider to an insider. Her perspective thus becomes an advantage, as the book is enriched with mundane details that would easily have been missed or underappreciated by people who have been Igbo all their lives. Deviating from dominant stories about Biafra—which are mostly gruesome and terrifying—Bird and Umelo tell a story of family, community, resilience, and even love, presenting Biafra in a light different from that of stereotypical stories of starvation and victim-hood. However, this does not necessarily imply that Surviving Biafra is a story of laughter. While it is not all horrifying, it describes the heartrending living conditions in Biafra during the war, especially the hardships of sick [End Page 95] and starving children, who had neither medication nor food. But the narrative is not centered on these alone. The moments of love and laughter are captured as well, just as in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun (2006). Also important are glimpses of the frustrations of an interracial marriage between an Englishwoman and a patriarchal Igbo man, as well as the dynamics of being an English Nigerwife. A major strength of Surviving Biafra is that, although a historical account, the book will readily appeal to lovers of fiction and poetry because of Bird's and Umelo's storytelling prowess and the thoughtful poetry with powerful imagery distributed across chapters, drawing readers into Igbo folklore and the world of an Igbo village. Additionally, the use of simple language suits perfectly the simplicity of the story of ordinary people during extraordinary times. The book, although predominantly about Biafra, will appeal equally to international readers. For instance, one of the issues it addresses is the question of applying a humanitarian solution to a political problem, one continuing to elicit arguments as a global concern. There is hardly anything not to like about this book, but the lack of a definite critical standpoint about the politics of the events, and the lack of engagement with the Nigerian side of the story, might leave readers wondering what was going on in Nigeria at the time. However, this seeming one-sidedness can be justified...

Ozo title institution in Igbo land in relation to politics in Nigeria: A comparative analysis

Politics, they said is a dirty game. One tends to disagree with this assertion because man is a political being and everything man does is all about politics. It depends on the intention, and how each plays his or her own. Ozo title is one of the political institutions in Igbo land. It will be worthy to mention that the Ozo title meant in this paper is the primordial or original Ozo title in Igbo land and not the adulterated Ozo title today. It is one of the institutions that helps in governance, controls different sectors of the Igbo man’s life and equally checkmates the excesses in the land. This work tries to look at the politics in the Nigerian setting and that of the Igbo land as being championed by Ozo title men. It x-rays their day-to-day activities and compares them. The work equally will be able to evaluate the two. During the evaluation, it was discovered that politics is not dirty, it was also discovered that since the Ozo title men play this politics and play it very well, it now boils down on the makeup of the individual and the intentions of the people in it. It however suggests that the Nigerian leaders or politicians should look at the Ozo title institution and what it is for the Igbo man and borrow a leaf from them. The paper uses socio-cultural approach in the work. The paper finally warns that the Ozo title as used in this study is the primodial one and not the adulterated one. Thus, if the politicians in Nigerian today borrow from the Ozo title men in Igbo land, politics in Nigeria will be a better and an interesting one.
 Key words: Ozo title, Igbo land, Leadership, Politics, Nigeria

Magic for Medical Healing in Igbo Society:

In Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo’s daughter Ezinma falls sick and is treated according to the local religious belief of the Igbo that relies on magical power. Ezinma’s treatment presents dual magical acts performed by a regular medicine man and the medicine man or agadi-muayi or Chielo, the high priestess of the Cave of Oracles that houses Agbala, the unseen deity. This magical power provided by the gods and goddesses supposedly brought into light by the priests and priestesses and the medicine men puts the Igbo men and women in awe and makes them respect their deities. The presumed magical power of the deities not only heals the illness but it can also cause good or bad harvest. The way the high priestess of Agbala and a local medicine man treat Ezinma who has been a sickly child since birth shows that it is the fear of magic that works as the main factor of healing, not the magic’s actual manifestation, as there is no concrete indication of any magical event in the text other than some remote references to magical occurrences, which cannot be substantiated. Therefore, the magical power of gods and goddesses is mainly a presumed or anticipated power. It is, in fact, the Igbo people’s faith in magical power that has founded the basic religious constructs in Igbo society while the practitioners of magic or the presumed magical power attributed on them treat the sickly and explain the bodily-hitch behind illnesses or the reason for premature death. This paper focuses on the performance of this alleged magical healing and the very faith in it that has been a part of the Igbo tradition to project that the fear of magical power is the main facilitator, not its actual manifestation. This paper examines Okonkwo’s daughter Ezinma’s birth and sickness and demonstrates the treatment she gets by the different medicine men in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. This paper also explores the underlying issues of Ezinma’s treatment as to whether it is a “magical practice” or the “fear of magic” that actually works.

The fading phase of Igbo language and culture: path to its revitalisation

In recent times, some concerned linguists, lovers of the Igbo language and indeed, owners of the language have been asking questions about possible strategies to be adopted in resuscitating the Igbo language and culture which critics and observers have warned are depreciating in value and usage. The Igbo of South East Nigeria, as well as various governments in the Igbo region have in their own various ways jumped into action to revive and save the situation through the organisation of cultural activities and forums for the promotion of Igbo language and culture and legislations. Commendable as these attempts may be, the issue which does not yet appear properly addressed is the need to identify the factors responsible for the present state of Igbo language and culture and the possibilities of workable strategies to remedy the situation. This paper therefore, is an attempt to interrogate the receding utilization of Igbo language and culture using UNESCO’s 2002 and 2003 nine-point criteria of the Ad Hoc Expert Group on Endangered Languages as bases for our study and recommendations. The study has attempted to get at the root of what the author considers the crux of the matter through the study of the philosophy of the Igbo man towards himself, his environment and his personal effects, and has discovered that the bane of Igbo language and culture is the Igbo man’s attitude towards that which is his, and his easy enchantment with foreign cultures. The paper then recommends a total reorientation of the Igbo man’s core philosophy as a panacea to the problem, among others. The revelations of this paper will benefit linguists, the Igbo, and indeed scholars.

English-French Translation of Igbo Traditional Marriage Items: A Semiotic Approach

Culture is the people’s way of life including their beliefs and customs. Traditional marriage in Igbo land is symbolic because it reflects the Igbo man’s ideology and idiosyncrasies This could be seen in the different gift items brought by the bridegroom to the family of the bride before the bride‘s kindred officially and socially legalize the marriage The items differ slightly from one locality to another and from one Igbo community to another. These cultural items that must be presented on the day of one’s traditional marriage( otherwise called ‘igba nkwu nwanyi ’okuko onye uwa or igbu ewu nna ) by the groom are quiet elaborate and very significant. It is a must in Igbo land that any man who seeks the hand of an Igbo lady in marriage must concur to the provision of such items as they are listed. Alternatively, he could give the money equivalent of the items. The thrust of this paper is to translate the frequently listed items from English to French, analyze them and ex-ray their significance and meaning as they are given and received. The paper also investigates the various stages of traditional marriage in Igbo land precisely in Anambra State. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2016.v7n1s1p311

Genetic diversity between two Igbo men from Owerri senatorial province as determined by autosomal short tandem repeats, Y-chromosomal short tandem repeats and mitochondrial DNA typing methods

Background: Human identification has recently been optimized following the completion of human genome sequence, by using DNA markers that exhibit the highest possible variation. However, in developing countries such as Nigeria, the application of DNA typing for identification of human subjects either for forensic or medical purposes is inadequate due to the absence of national forensic DNA laboratories and lack of the legislative framework. Materials and Methods: In this study, two male subjects of Igbo origin provided their blood, hair and buccal samples for DNA analysis. DNA was extracted, purified, quantified with human quantifiler™ polymerase chain reaction reaction mix. Hyper-variable segment 1 of the D-loop mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA HVS-1) was amplified, purified and fragments sequenced and analyzed with ABI Genetic Analyzer. A multiplex AmpFlSTR Identifiler kit amplified 15 STR plus amelogenin loci of the nuclear DNA and 16 STR of the Y-chromosome. GeneMapper ID software version 3.2 was used for the analysis of autosomal and Y-chromosome AmpFlSTR. Results: Result show that the mtDNA lineage of UMBACK subject belongs to L3e2b while ELAMBIA is assigned to L3f1b1 haplogroup. Based on the allelic frequency database, both subjects displayed uniqueness in random match probability for the autosomal allelic short-tandem repeat (STR). Based upon a mutation rate of 0.003 for Y-DNA STR markers, the two individuals most likely shared a common paternal ancestor 96 generations ago. Both subjects were assigned to E1b1a haplogroup with a 100% probability, which is consistent with the haplogroup associated with Igbo people in Nigeria. Conclusion: As expected, well-established forensic genetic tools comprising of mtDNA, autosomal and Y-chromsomomal STR typing methods were all found to distinguish two selected Nigerian Igbo individuals with a very high power of discrimination.

Isolated Meckel’s diverticulum perforation as a sequel to blunt abdominal trauma: a case report

IntroductionMeckel’s diverticulum is the commonest congenital abnormality of the gastrointestinal tract. Its infrequent occurrence is mirrored by the paucity of large series of data on it in the literature. Hemorrhage, obstruction and inflammation are the three main categories of complications resulting from Meckel’s diverticulum. Perforation of Meckel’s diverticulum following blunt abdominal injury is very rare indeed. We present what we believe to be the first case to be published from Africa.Case presentationA 29-year-old Nigerian Igbo man presented with progressively worsening abdominal pain following a road traffic accident. He was a front-seat passenger traveling without a seat belt. On physical examination his abdomen was distended with guarding and rigidity. A provisional diagnosis of peritonitis secondary to perforation of intestinal viscus was made. Our patient had an emergency laparotomy, where a perforated Meckel’s diverticulum was discovered. A segmental resection of his ileum and reanastomosis were done. He had postoperative surgical site infection, but was asymptomatic for three months of follow-up.ConclusionPerforation of Meckel’s diverticulum is rarely suspected as a cause of peritonitis following blunt abdominal injury. This case indicates the need to be aware of the possibility to limit morbidity associated with delayed management of such a perforation.

Re-Examination of Igbo Values System, and the Igbo Personality: A Kantian and African Comparative Perspective

The primordial Igbo personality is subsumed in a world view of metaphysical reality in which God, as the Supreme Being, plays a central role. The construction of the model Igbo personality starts with an adequate appreciation of the communal role of the individual in maintaining societal balance, peace, prosperity and moral transparency. It is impossible to think of the individual as different from the community. There is a pre-existing metaphysical and social bond that inextricably links one to the other. The interests of the individual are concomitant with that of community. His aspirations, dreams and hopes for a better future and a fulfilled life are dialectically tied to the communal apron strings of what is good for the community. Thus it is “alu”, “nso ani” and “ajoomume” (evil and evil conduct in the Igbo moral sphere) for the individual to even think or act against the metaphysical and cosmological position of his indigenous Igbo community. With this attunement between the individual and his community, it becomes easier to build personalities who see themselves as members of the community. Most importantly, these personalities do exhibit values and virtues which strengthen the spiritual, ethical, social and economic heritage and resources in the Igbo communities. The conception of the Igbo personality, primordially speaking, is a conception in which the individual radiates, as it were, communal values. These communal values are the structural principles and powers that define the identity, integrity and inner self of the Igbo person. When an Igbo man reflects a personal behavior pattern filled with these action-values he is seen to be on the path of a dignified existence. He becomes, as it were, the embodiment of the universal merited dignity of humanity as we say in Igbo lore—“Onyenkabummadu” (this person has human dignity and lives it in his conduct). We can then re-examine to what extent the Igbo communal values are in attunement with the Kantian concept of human dignity. This paper posits that the Igbo communal system has the best indigenous ethical and environmental structure for the restoration of man’s dignity as posited by Kant and, has, for ages before Kant, been at the forefront of this restoration, ethicalization and construction of values for human dignity.

A Schematic Evaluation of the Impact of Heresies and Persecution in the Catholic Church: an Igbo Pragmatic Perspective

The history of Christianity and for that fact that of Catholic Church is long fraught with incidents of persecution and of emerging heretical doctrines. In many ways, the church has tried to contend with such afflictions to the security of life of her members and the integrity of her teaching authority and has found in each of them quite some rich resources for her continued existence and growth. While the blood of the martyrs is the seed of Christianity, the errors of heresy have at particular moments of the church’s life, called the attention of the church to the need to much formally define her doctrines and often times elevating some of such doctrines to the status of irreformable dogmas presented to the faithful and requiring obedience of faith. After a brief comparative description of the nature and effects of persecutions and heresies, this work looks at the differential degrees of anxiety afforded to the Church by the dual events of persecution and heresy. It finds that heresies being invidious in outwork are dangerous to the faith of the Church which is its direct victim. It further finds that in a typical Igbo Christian community under the strong influence of a pragmatic worldview, heresies are a welcome experiment as they provide yet other pragmatic possibilities for resolving life’s riddles and solving gnawing problems of human life through the religious pathway; persecution on the other hand, because it often visits with attack on life and physical integrity of Christians, is for the Igbo convert, detestable as it is ominous, life being the Igbo man’s greatest good. This essay employs the method of phenomenology, analysis and hermeneutics in its investigation and recommends for a new era of evangelization of the Igbo Christians so as to align their spiritual sensibilities with the ancestry of Christian faith long demonstrated from the apostolic times till now in the lives of the martyrs.

The cost of being a man: social and health consequences of Igbo masculinity

In the bid to explain reproductive health outcomes in most developing countries, men have often been seen as the cause of the problem. However, no systematic attempt has been made to examine men's perception of their own social and health needs, including how ideologies of masculinity impact men's social and physical health. This study examines the Igbo context and shows how men understand and interpret masculinity and the consequences of this for social and health behaviours. Data from adolescent and adult Igbo men aged 15–75 were collected using both quantitative survey interviews (n = 1372) and qualitative techniques such as focus-group discussion (n = 20), in-depth interviews (n = 10) and key informant interviews (n = 10) in selected areas of south-eastern Nigeria. We collected data on gender role ideologies and sexuality issues and practices. Our analysis shows that there are social and health costs associated with adherence to masculine ideologies and a strong association between masculine ideologies and men's health, risk-taking and health-seeking behaviours in the study population. We conclude that all sexual and reproductive health programmes should include services that address the specific needs of men and those negative aspects of masculinity that tend to expose men to adverse health outcomes.

Tortoise's Deception: The Use of Threat at the Market Place

Ventures are attempts of people with efforts to improve their situations.These ventures are made with the hope of achieving successes. But some time not everyone can make efforts. Some people are lazy and so cannot achieve their goals by the dint of handwork. Such people resort to violence. This does not only obtain in the human society, in the Igbo man's culture, which are the land of human beings; land of animals in the folktales, tortoise is the trickster. He is the protagonist of folktales. He is very little in comparison to elephant, lion, tiger, dog and other animals. He does not work for his living. He hopes to cheat. During a certain famine, he resorted to threats of violence that scared animals away from the market place. This made animals to leave their wares for him. He then carted everything into his house and so solved his problem of hunger and starvation. When it was about to leak, he cunningly dealt with the being that wanted to report him. This story uses tortoise to symbolise human beings that use threats of different sorts to snatch people's possessions from them. Such people abound in Igboland.

Diseases Of The Prostate Among Igbos Of Southeastern Nigeria.

Background Worldwide, prostate cancer ranks third in cancer incidence and sixth in cancer mortality among men. Blacks have been found to have the highest prevalence of prostate cancer, the earliest age of onset, and the greatest mortality rate from the disease. Nigeria has the highest concentration of black people of any country in the world and in Nigeria, the incidence of cancer of the prostate among Yoruba men has been documented but scanty data exist for Igbo men. Study design This is a retrospective study of all prostate specimens diagnosed histopathologically and analyzed with regard to tumour type and their biological behaviour. Results A total of 4400 surgical biopsy specimens were registered of which 282 (6.4%) were of the prostate gland. Seventy-four (26.2%) of the prostate specimens were malignant while 196 (69.5%) were benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). All the cancers seen were adenocarcinomas. The mean age of the patients with prostate cancer was 67+7.6years and those with BPH had a mean of 65+8years. Conclusion There is a steady increase in prostatic diseases from the 5th decade and reaching a peak in the 7th decade with neoplastic diseases accounting for 95.7%. Keywords : Cancer, hyperplasia, Igbo, Nigerian, Prostate. Ebonyi Medical Journal Vol. 7 (1&2) 2008: pp. 8-13

"Olaudah Equiano: Representation and Reality": An International One-Day Conference

Reviewed by: "Olaudah Equiano: Representation and Reality": An International One-Day Conference Mark Stein (bio) "Olaudah Equiano: Representation and Reality": An International One-Day Conference. Kingston University, UK, 22 March 2003. Olaudah Equiano's Interesting Narrative (1789) was a bestseller his day and today his book is once again commercially successful. With a spate of recent editions, the narrative is now widely available to different readerships, and it is studied by general readers as well as by professionals from American Studies, Black Studies, Postcolonial Studies, English literature, history, and other disciplines. The international conference convened by Brycchan Carey with Karen Lipsedge (Kingston University, UK) attracted some 60 delegates as well as many distinguished speakers, who addressed the theme of "Representation and Reality." Despite the title's resonance with theoretical concerns, the focus of several presentations was quite literalist: Was Equiano born in Africa or in the Carolinas? How can his birthplace be ascertained and what is its relevance to Equiano studies [End Page 543] today? Which are the implications of even questioning Equiano's African birth? In 1982 S. E. Ogude (Benin, Nigeria) and in 1999 Vincent Carretta (Maryland) raised the question whether Equiano had indeed been born in West Africa as claimed in the first part of his autobiography, thereby taking up a suspicion that had already been voiced in hostile contemporary reviews of the book. This, in turn, implies reservations about Equiano's upbringing in Africa, his kidnapping, and perhaps most important about his personal experience of the Middle Passage. Both scholars delivered keynotes at the conference and whilst Ogude seems to have changed his view on this point, Carretta continued to raise questions by contrasting the Narrative with archival evidence such as the parish register of St. Margaret's church, Westminster, and the muster book of the "Racehorse," both of which suggest a birthplace in the Carolinas. Ogude acknowledged the lack of hard evidence but affirmed that Equiano was "truly an Igbo man" as his assertive character and business acumen allegedly bear out. Another line of reasoning to support his African nativity was suggested by Angelo Costanzo (Shippensburg, Pennsylvania), who observed that falsifying his birthplace would have endangered the Narrative's anti-slave trade rhetoric and impetus. As Equiano would not have put his political cause at risk, Costanzo argues, he cannot have misrepresented his birthplace. Not all contributions welcomed the candid analyses facilitated by the conference. Obiwu Iwuanyanwu (Central State,Wilberforce, Ohio) went as far as accusing those who examine Equiano's African birth of professing "anti-Equiano scholarship" with the potential to jeopardize the "enduring human truth" of Equiano's text. The ongoing debate about the authenticity of The Interesting Narrative can certainly have an impact on the status which Equiano sustains in Black Atlanticist discourse. Kenneth R. Curtis (California State, Long Beach) recounted how the inclusion of an excerpt from The Interesting Narrative in a history textbook met with some resistance by his publishers. Yet the very controversy about the text's accuracy can be instructive to students of history and allows the "explor[ation of] issues of textual criticism" in the classroom, Curtis suggested. Frank Kelleter (Goettingen, Germany) argued that the "rhetorical ethos and the rhetorical pathos" of The Interesting Narrative do not rely upon the author's African birthplace. He read the book as a public speech act on behalf of a variety of narrative voices and [End Page 544] still perceived a "unified purpose" (as claimed by one camp of Equiano scholars) despite the text's hybridity (as emphasized by another group of critics). This raises the question whether a text such as The Interesting Narrative cannot convey historical truths, such as the experience of the Middle Passage, irrespective of the veracity of such experience as autobiography. The conference also offered space for further new approaches to Equiano studies. Helena Woodard (Austin, Texas) inquired into Equiano's role in "The 'Cult' of Cultural Tourism" and interrogated his "presence" in sites commemorating slavery, such as Elmina Castle and Wilberforce House. Kerry Sinanan (NUI Galway, Ireland) suggested reading "Africanness" as a continuum, enabling critics to consider Equiano an African irrespective of his birthplace. She cautioned that the logic of slavery should be undermined...