Modern African Society Research Articles

Older black South African women’s perceptions and attitudes of long-term care: An Ubuntu-centric cultural perspective

Older black people in South Africa stay a part of an extended family structure well into old age, irrespective of the family’s ability to provide the necessary care. South Africa’s (SA) underdeveloped infrastructure creates an increasing cause for concern as the size of the country’s older population is growing. The result is a persistent and wide-reaching disparity in access to sufficient geriatric care for older people, especially across racial lines, due to the former Apartheid regime and change in traditional African family contexts. The affiliated study formed part of a larger research project. A qualitative descriptive design was employed to describe the experiences, perceptions and attitudes of older black women regarding long-term care (LTC). Data were collected through two focus-group discussions and analysed thematically. Against the historical background of South Africa, an Ubuntu worldview, and a shift to a more modern African society, it became evident that formal LTC is inaccessible, and that informal LTC can no longer be provided by the younger generation and other extended family members. Among the participants, these two factors create significant ambivalence in having their future needs met.

Limited Communitarianism and the Merit of Afro-communitarian Rejectionism

Limited communitarianism is presented as an alternative to classical communitarianism in African philosophy. Bernard Matolino, the proponent of this view, argues that personhood can be attained with the constitutive features of the self leading the process, as against the historical, classical communitarian view that prioritises the sociality of the self. He posits that it is a personhood conceived through such view as limited communitarianism that can guarantee individual rights and prioritises the claims of the individual in African philosophy. Matolino’s claim is grounded on the view that Afro-communitarianism, as presented in the classical account such as the radical and moderate communitarianism of Menkiti and Gyekye, respectively, emphasises community essence in African philosophy and hinders the expression of rights. The claim of the classical view informs the nudge to question the relevance and compatibility of Afro- communitarianism with the complex, multicultural modern African societies. As a result, limited communitarianism rejects the mechanism of Afrocommunitarianism – essentialism. While limited communitarianism appears a rejection of what is known as Afro- communitarianism, which has earned it noncommunitarian labels such as being liberal and individualist, I argue that it is simply a well- argued form of moderate communitarianism that avoids the conundrum of community.

Inter-Faith Marriages: Engaging Nigerian Religious Identity in the film North East

Inter-faith marriage, as a challenge to religious identity is commonplace in many religious societies. In pre-colonial Nigerian society the institution of marriage was hedged with strict ethnic modalities which became weakened by western influences through colonisation. Thus, inter-faith marriage, one of the features of modern Nigeria is beset with challenges deeply reflected in the differences in religious beliefs. The prevalence of this challenge made it open to redress from different social instruments, and specifically film. In the narrative of the film North East, there appears to be a negotiation of religious identity instead of the promotion and preservation of it as a sub-set of culture. This study examined this negotiation of religious identity in relation to marriage with the aim of ascertaining the acceptability in the modern African society, and in particular, Nigeria. It employed a qualitative survey as research design, and the data collection instrument was focus group discussion (FGD). The study found that love rather than religious identity should be the foundation of marriage. In addition, the study revealed that the film industry can encourage inter-faith marriages in multi-religious societies despite the challenges as presented in the North East. Therefore, the study concluded that since inter-faith marriage is fraught with challenges, film producers, should endeavour to run a follow-up story line that may present a clear picture of aftermath challenges of inter-faith marriage and its management.

Cultural Riddles and Performance in Modern African Societies

Several forms of performance arts are underutilized for in the past few decades and the Urhobo riddles are not left out. This paper therefore examines various methods of preservation and transfer of riddles in traditional society. This study adopted the survey-descriptive approach as the data and information were collected from natural environment and analysed. It is underpinned by Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory that focuses on the unconscious mind of people as the storehouse of latent materials which can be activated and brought to the conscious awareness. The information were collected with sound recordings which were afterward deciphered and deciphered from the Urhobo dialect into the English adaptation. In-depth interviews were also conducted to obtained first-hand information from respondents. The respondents were purposively selected and interviewed. The data collected in the field were qualitatively analyzed using descriptive and analytical methods. Findings reveal that riddles perform utilitarian functions like entertainment, education, knowledge transfer, coping and distractive strategies and so on. These linguistic resources should be preserved and documented due to their cultural values. Though there are problems hindering the growth of the riddles in contemporary societies, orators have devised the use of popular music as new way of preservation and transferring of oral traditions like the riddles from going into extinction.

Recreating Social Capital through nurturing Ubuntu in Community Health Clubs for disease prevention

Whilst the concept of Social Capital is well known in Western literature as a measure of a functional community, the indigenous African ethical code known as Ubuntu is seldom referred to in community development programmes. We undertook exploratory research to better understand the extent to which values of Ubuntu are still recognised today and if such values could be co-opted into Community Health Club programmes to address the many common diseases that could be prevented by group action. Method: A questionnaire was developed to identify key aspects of Ubuntu as lived experience in modern day Zimbabwe and how this ethic may manifest in the ordinary lives of Zimbabweans. The survey consisted of 40 questions with a mixture of quantifiable multiple-choice questions using a Lickert scale and qualitative open-ended questions. 100+ respondents were purposely selected representing a proportionate distribution of demographics. The quantitative data was cleaned and analysed in Excel with frequencies and percentages. The qualitative data was analysed using ‘Applied Thematic Analysis’. A Focus Group Discussion with Shona and Ndebele community development officers was held to ensure a deeper cultural interpretation of findings. Results: The ethical code of Ubuntu was understood by 95% of the 102 final respondents, who reported they had been brought up with such values. However, socialisation of children in norms and values of Ubuntu had dropped to 75% in the current generation of parents. Social networks in both rural and urban areas were high with all but 11% belonging to a regular group, and 45% having 21 or more friends within walking distance. For the rural areas 64% of respondents considered ‘Ubuntu’ to be high, 68% thought ‘honesty’ is high; ‘child safety’ in rural areas is considered moderate by 50% and high by 48% but only 9% would leave the door unlocked when going out. Only 4% could cite examples of non-Ubuntu behaviour in rural areas which included disrespect to elders, child disobedience, alcohol abuse, witchcraft and gender-based violence. In urban areas, the inverse was found: only 16% thought there was any Ubuntu at all, and 81% thought there was a high level of non-Ubuntu behaviour, with a low level of ‘honesty’, no ‘personal security’ and low ‘child safety’. 81% cited examples of erosion of Ubuntu values, such as lack of trust and reciprocity, substance abuse, little social support and immorality in sexual behaviour. People who are guided by values of Ubuntu invest highly in community which may generate high social networks and reciprocity, although levels of trust still remain low. Unlike Ubuntu, ‘Social Capital’ is not an ethical code but is the ‘common good’ that may be the outcome if Ubuntu is practiced sufficiently by a large enough group. Conclusion: Ubuntu is a living and valuable attribute of traditional Zimbabwean culture and could be resuscitated particularly in areas, where society is in transition from rural to urban lifestyle, to provide a secular code of ethics to promote gender equity and equality, through consensus building and preventing disease within Community Health Clubs, thereby addressing many ills of modern African society.

“The end of ubuntu”: An extension of Matolino’s scepticism

In a joint article1 with Wenceslaus Kwindingwi, Bernard Matolino declared an end to ubuntu. The declaration, they argue, is a result of the failure of ubuntu in practice and theory in modern African societies. This declaration triggered strong reactions, and an analysis of these responses suggests the need for continuous interrogations of African ideals and beliefs and their relevance to modern African thought. In this article, I argue that Kwindingwi and Matolino’s argument is in line with Matolino’s broader scepticism about Afro-communitarianism in general. In other works, he insists that attempts to theoretically and practically ground postcolonial African philosophy in ideas of Afro-communitarianism exaggerate its functionality. I aim to show that Matolino’s Socratic process and the outcomes, as demonstrated in the “The end of ubuntu”, aim to produce quality understanding and reasoned defence of the traditional ideas aimed to guide modern African thought. The rejectionist approach should be seen as a nudge to make the advocacy for African ideals and beliefs, such as ubuntu, match up with the knowledge of them and how they operate in reality.

Expressive métaphorisants in the poetic writing of Pierre Ntsemou

This study on expressive metaphorizers in Pierre Ntsemou's poetic writing analyzes one of the aesthetic peculiarities of the nominal metaphor. It is based on the pragmatic method, which offers us six criteria among others: presupposition, expectation and implication, recipient speaker interaction. The study of occurrences from the corpus provides us with data organized in four parts. The first, the metaphorizer of the family, is perceived as an entity of social integration between continents. The second addresses paradoxical values of women in modern African society. The third, brings emotional happiness to man through his body and his functions in marriage, work and sexuality. Finally, the metaphorizer of the fog informs us about the regulatory role of the climate in love. In short, this diversity of metaphorizers enriches the expressiveness of Pierre Ntsemou's poetic writing. Keywords: Metaphors; Aesthetics; Analogy; Metaphorical and Metaphorized.

Religious imperialism and African religion: In search of religious tolerance

The thrust of this paper is driven by the current reactions of Pentecostal Christians to the African religious (AR) material elements in some parts of Nigeria. There have been occasions of touching the AR artefacts and countermining of AR by these Pentecostal pastors. One of the most disrespected religions which receive discourteous treatments in Africa and by Africans of other faith is African religion. Africa religion (AR) stands out to be a prominent dimension that permeated the cosmological, metaphysical and epistemology comprehension of life by the ancient Africans. The religious experiences of this religion fashioned a spirituality of social relation, communal relationship, and opened-mindedness. Almost all descendants of African societies had a taste of this religion’s spirituality. However, colonialism cum religious imperialism staged a colossal presence with disregard to its gross to the African Religion. In effect, in modern African society, when most Africans pick-up a new religion (whether Islam or Christianity) in sprightliness they treat with contempt the material elements of AR, subvert its beliefs, divest its essence and, retard its progress. This paper will argue that religious imperialism is moral error which demands a moral virtue of religious tolerance. Before arriving at this conclusion, it looked into the nature of religious imperialism and African religion; analyses the Pentecostal attitudes towards AR; a brief overview of AR.

Global Christianity and the Black Atlantic: Tuskegee, Colonialism, and the Shaping of African Industrial Education by Andrew E. Barnes

Reviewed by: Global Christianity and the Black Atlantic: Tuskegee, Colonialism, and the Shaping of African Industrial Education by Andrew E. Barnes James E. Genova Global Christianity and the Black Atlantic: Tuskegee, Colonialism, and the Shaping of African Industrial Education. [Studies in World Christianity] By Andrew E. Barnes (Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2017. Pp. xiv, 205. $49.95 hard cover. ISBN 978 1481 3039.) Pioneered by scholars such as Paul Gilroy and building on the work of those focused on the trans-Atlantic slave trade, the examination of the Atlantic as a geographical space of cultural exchange, identity construction, and socio-political contestation has become one of the most significant loci of study across disciplines. Andrew E. Barnes’ monograph, Global Christianity and the Black Atlantic: Tuskegee, Colonialism, and the Shaping of African Industrial Education, participates in that conversation by analyzing the connections between Christian communities in primarily the U.S. with those of Africa and their debates over the appropriate strategies for the improvement of the lives of African Americans and Africans. Ethiopianist Christianity became an arena in which the idea of industrial education was adopted as a programmatic objective by which “racial uplift” would be achieved on both sides of the ocean. Moreover, Barnes argues, “The industrial education movement served as a leading edge of the African challenge to European conquest of Africa” (p. 6). Barnes draws upon newspapers published in the British colonies of Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Ghana (Gold Coast), and the sovereign country of South Africa as his evidentiary base. He argues that Booker T. Washington and his Tuskegee Institute became models (real and imagined) that would produce the kind of people leading to the recovery of African sovereignty and the development of fully modern African societies. As such, Washington’s example proved that Africans (including in the diaspora) not only could, but should lead the regeneration of African people. Barnes aptly demonstrates that for brief moments the Tuskegee model was much debated among European-educated Africans and efforts to transpose that institution onto African soil were made by leading figures among the colonized intelligentsia, nearly all of which failed to even get off the ground. Barnes also hints at a notable shift in the emergent nationalist consciousness [End Page 148] of Western-educated Africans as they became unmoored from Christianity as an intellectual and organizational framework for envisioning the future and contesting European power to one that was secular by the 1920s. However, Barnes ends his study at just that moment so the trajectory is not fully developed and we do not get insight into what happened to the Ethiopianist communities after that point. Did Ethiopianists fade from politics entirely and retreat into purely theological matters? Did they accommodate with the colonial state in opposition to the secular nationalist movements? Some of these questions are explored by other scholars such as James Patrick Daughton and Elizabeth Foster. Throughout the book’s six chapters Barnes seems to make the case for the need to focus on industrial or technical education as opposed to “humanist” or liberal arts instruction. While this was one of the threads of dispute within the Ethiopianist community of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the author attempts to recover Washington’s legacy and position him as a potential inspiration for anti-colonial resistance. I remain unconvinced based on the evidence presented and knowing what the colonial system actually did in Africa. The kind of technical training pushed by Washington and others was largely embraced by the imperial rulers to exploit the population and preclude the emergence of political challenges to their domination. This outcome was precisely what William Edward Burghardt Du Bois among others warned against and why they pushed for a well-rounded education wherein students developed critical thinking abilities, analytical skills, and intellectual flexibility that would provide them with the capacity to adapt to changing circumstances and understand the nature of the world in which they lived. Perhaps it is not so tragic that the Tuskegee model was not transposed into Africa as a means of resistance. It would only have widened the scope of complicity with imperial rule and undermined the fight for liberation. James E. Genova The Ohio...

The Rejection of Men’s Exploitation by Fellow Men: A Literary Approach in Les Bouts De Bois De Dieu

The scramble for the partitioning of Africa during the Berlin Conference of 1884-85 in Germany created the ground for the colonialists to make Africans the victims of social alienation and mental dehumanization during that era of colonialism. Thus, African writers that flayed these social and economic vices armed themselves with different approaches both theoretically and stylistically, for the purpose of engagement littéraire. Reading the Senegalese Sembène Ousmane’s Les Bouts de Bois de Dieu (1960), published few days after the independence of most of the African countries, this paper extrapolates the writer as a Marxist, with the prevalence of Marxist tendencies in his literary creation. The paper seeks to establish the fact that women too could be relevant in the nation’s building as they play pivotal roles in the rejection of men’s exploitation by fellow men from the perspective of Marxist Theory. With the methodology of textual analysis, the paper gives the synopsis of the novel before the theoretical approach adopted, the Marxist Theory. This is followed by the Marxist deconstruction of the novel on the rejection of men’s exploitation by men which also sees the women complementarities of men in the modern African society. The paper concludes by recommending how the oppressed could gain a total freedom from the oppressors.

The Court Poet/Praise Singer in Wole Soyinka's Death and the King's Horseman and Ola Rotimi's Ovonramwen Nogbaisi: a Critical Appraisal


 
 
 Oral artists are a common sight in traditional African societies and were most prominent in old empires such as Oyo, Benin, Songhai and Mali. They also existed in the Zulu empire, northern Nigeria and among the Akan in Ghana. Their place is integral to the social and political well-being of these empires. In the Oyo empire, court poets are known as Olohun-Iyo. They are called griots in Senegal and Mali and among the Akan of Ghana, they are called Kwadwumfo. Modern Nigerian dramatists such as Wole Soyinka and Ola Rotimi have appropriated the image and roles of the court poet in Death and The King’s Horseman and Ovonramwen Nogbaisi respectively. This paper defines who a court poet is, his role as a maker and wordsmith, and the nature of his work and patronage. It examines the qualities he must possess and the content of his poetry. In examining the place of memory and remembering in the discharge of the poet ́s duties, the paper investigates the various mnemonic and retrieval systems used by the poet to recall past accounts and great deeds of the kings. The roles of traditional court poets will be compared with the roles played by Olohun-iyo and Uzazakpo in the selected plays. The paper will also discuss what has become of oral artists in modern African societies. How viable is the art-form in the modern world with the advent of technology? Has civilization and modernity eroded their importance in society? While affirming their traditional advisory, prophetic, warning, motivational roles and as repositories of customs and culture, this paper concludes by stating the poet employs linguistic, para- linguistic and “medicinal” strategies to recall events at a given performance.
 KEYWORDS: COURT-POET, PRAISE SINGER, TRADITIONAL AFRICAN POETRY, WOLE SOYINKA, OLA ROTIMI
 
 

The Court Poet/Praise Singer in Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman and Ola Rotimi’s Ovonramwen Nogbaisi: A Critical Appraisal

Oral artists are a common sight in traditional African societies and were most prominent in old empires such as Oyo, Benin, Songhai and Mali. They also existed in the Zulu empire, northern Nigeria and among the Akan in Ghana. Their place is integral to the social and political well-being of these empires. In the Oyo empire, court poets are known as Olohun-Iyo. They are called griots in Senegal and Mali and among the Akan of Ghana, they are called Kwadwumfo. Modern Nigerian dramatists such as Wole Soyinka and Ola Rotimi have appropriated the image and roles of the court poet in Death and The King’s Horseman and Ovonramwen Nogbaisi respectively. This paper defines who a court poet is, his role as a maker and wordsmith, and the nature of his work and patronage. It examines the qualities he must possess and the content of his poetry. In examining the place of memory and remembering in the discharge of the poet´s duties, the paper investigates the various mnemonic and retrieval systems used by the poet to recall past accounts and great deeds of the kings. The roles of traditional court poets will be compared with the roles played by Olohun-iyo and Uzazakpo in the selected plays. The paper will also discuss what has become of oral artists in modern African societies. How viable is the art-form in the modern world with the advent of technology? Has civilization and modernity eroded their importance in society? While affirming their traditional advisory, prophetic, warning, motivational roles and as repositories of customs and culture, this paper concludes by stating the poet employs linguistic, para-linguistic and “medicinal” strategies to recall events at a given performance.

The Public Role of Religion in Modern Ghanaian Society

Abstract This article lends its voice to the discussion on Charles Taylor’s Varieties of Religion Today: William James Revisited, which critiques William James’s view that the public dimensions of religion will be less real and less necessary and, therefore, will decrease in modern societies. The article uses Ghana as a case study to show that religion is still a public phenomenon in modern African societies. Religion has always been a crucial part of Ghanaian public life, including politics, although today it finds expression in the context of pentecostal Christianity. As the religious phenomenon with the strongest presence in contemporary Ghana, Pentecostalism informs the lives of many. Nowadays, during political elections, voters would consider whether or not a candidate exhibits pentecostal religious qualities in deciding to vote him or her into office. Likewise, politicians use religious communities and leaders for the purposes of mobilizing voters or organizing constituencies. Furthermore, religious language has come to dominate political discourse and debates with politicians casting their messages and visions in religious (mostly biblical) imagery and allusions to appeal to worshipping populations both imaginatively and emotionally. In demonstrating the increasing public quality of religion in modern societies, this article identifies some of the strategies Ghanaian politicians use to play on the pentecostal imaginations of the Ghanaian populace, all in a bid to secure political power. This article argues that while religion is a private experience in modern Western societies, it is public and mainstream and influences almost all facets of life in modern Africa, particularly Ghanaian politics.

Dissonance in customary and statutory water management institutions: issues of cultural diversity in the management of water resources in the Okavango Delta, Botswana

Customary institutions have existed in parallel with statutory institutions for many years in Africa. These traditional water management systems were employed to manage the use of water resources and resolve conflicts associated with them. Although national governments introduced conventional water management approaches, which operate more effectively in urban areas, customary institutions’ activities in water governance continue to exist in rural Africa. Long before the advent of colonialism, most rural communities which have now transformed into modern African societies had various rules, norms, taboos and values governing the use of water. Although not legally recognised in the wake of colonialism, the concept of legal pluralism has continued to gain ground in colonial Africa. Rooted in the mass–elite theory and the cultural lag concept, the paper adopts a critical literature review approach to explain the dissonance in customary and statutory water management institutions in the Okavango Delta, Botswana. Analysis of existing water management documents revealed that the post-independence statutory water institutions continue to weaken the customary approach to water use and management. Findings indicate that statutory institutions emphasise on the economic conception of water despite the fact that the resource has also a social value. This absolute conceptualisation of water as an economic commodity creates the dissonance in water management, especially in rural areas and most especially in the Okavango Delta where water is still perceived to have cultural values.

SOCIOLOGICAL OBSERVATION OF AFRICAN CULTURAL VALUES IN THE LIGHT OF MODERNITY: THE EXPERIENCE OF YORUBA IN NIGERIA

Traditional Africans are grossly endowed with rich and unprecedented cultural values with which harmony, solidarity, orderliness, sanctity and sanity are ensured within their community. Despite the fact that there were no trained and armed security officers in the olden days as we have today, yet their communities were void of chaos. In view of this, this paper is set to examine some of these African cultural values and how the force of modernity has influenced its observance with a particular reference to the Yoruba of Nigeria. An attempt also will be made to discuss the concept of modernity and equally on how African cultural values were enforced in the traditional societies. In conclusion, recommendations will be made on the need to revive the African cultural values as a panacea to the high level of moral decadence in the modern African societies. Keywords: Sociological, Observation, Cultural, Values, Modernity

Changing the Feminine Face of Poverty: Reading 1 Timothy 2:15 from a Socio-Economic Perspective

The distinctive feminine face of poverty in Africa is increasingly coming under the spotlight. Despite the existence of several initiatives to empower women and their place in Africa, there are still huge mountains to be moved in the process. These mountains are often not only the physical borders between people, countries and continents, but virtual divisions between traditional, modern and postmodern society, between fundamentalists and liberalists. This article will investigate the different forces that are playing in on the hermeneutical process of understanding and interpreting the role of women in modern African society. The focus will be on distinguishing the internal and lateral trichotomies within Africanisation, modernisation and the interpretation of biblical texts in this regard. The fundamentalist and modern interpretations and re-interpretations of the first letter to Timothy will be discussed, with special focus on the economic and societal role of women, ancient and modern, as well as the view on childbearing as synecdoche (1 Timothy 2:15). The article’s desired outcome is a contribution towards identifying focus areas in which attitudes and perceptions of societies (especially in Africa) can be addressed to facilitate improvement of the economic position of women in Africa.

Debuking patriarchal legacy in african traditional setting: A reading of Efo Kodjo Mawugbe’s In the Chest of a Woman

This article investigates the critical views of Efo Kodjo Mawugbe on some African traditional customs which deny identity and welfare to women and his literary endeavor to unravel the patriarchal legacy in his In the Chest of a Woman. It examines the dictates of patriarchy that militate against females’ emancipation and lay a foundation for their marginalization and oppression. It attempts to read Mawugbe’s call for gender balance and equal treatment for men and women in modern society. Two sexist practices are targeted: the denial of inheritance rights to female children and the capital punishment of those who go against tradition by becoming pregnant out of customary wedlock. The study asserts that if modern African society should experience a participatory socio-economic development it is urgent to end sexism and gender oppression in families and society, and to give men and women equal opportunities to emerge as fulfilled free beings.

Ghosts in the Academy: Historians and Historical Consciousness in the Making of Modern Uganda

AbstractThe public and professional significance of precolonial History as a discipline has declined markedly across much of sub-Saharan Africa over the last forty years: History has been both demonized—depicted as deeply dangerous and the source of savagery and instability—and portrayed as irrelevant when set alongside the needs for economic modernization and “development.” This paper explores this trend in the context of Uganda, with a particular focus on the kingdom of Buganda, chosen for its particularly rich oral and literary heritage and the thematic opportunities offered by its complex and troubled twentieth century. The paper aims to explore how “the past”—with a focus on the precolonial era—has been understood there in several distinct periods. These include the era of imperial partition and the formation of the Uganda Protectorate between the 1880s and the 1910s; competition for political space within colonial society to the 1950s; decolonization and the struggle to create new nationhood in the mid-twentieth century; and political crises and partial recovery since the 1970s. Ultimately, the paper seeks to assess the role of History in a modern African society vis-à-vis the developmental agendas and notions of economic growth against which African “progress” and prospects for “stability” are currently measured.

Environmental Challenges as Creative Muse: The Installation and Performance Art of Bright Ugochukwu Eke

Our modern African society is challenged by many environmental issues owing to industrialization and exploitation of natural resources and other activities that are coeval with western-oriented modernity. The Niger Delta of Nigeria is particularly challenged in ways not found in other parts of the country and elsewhere due to the unethical processes of oil extraction. In the Niger Delta region, water, air and land pollution are serious environmental challenges that affect the biodiversity and the ecosystem. These deplorable issues have become creative muse for writers and visual artists with the resultant genres known as the Niger Delta Literature (NDL) and the Niger Delta Visuals (NDV). This paper engages the conceptual and installation art of Bright Ugochukwu Eke, a young and innovative contemporary Nigerian artist now based in Los Angeles, USA. Eke’s uncommon exploration of water as a sculpture medium was sparked by an experience of acid rain he had in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria in 2005. Eke is widely exhibited with many international awards and residencies. DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2013.v2n3p63

Theoretical Analyses of the Relationship between Poverty and Insecurity in Africa

This paper examines the basis of the theoretical interrelationships between poverty and (violent) conflicts in the context of modern African societies that are characterized by weak institutions. The paper proposes a model in which interactions between poverty and weak institutions produce and sustain (violent) conflicts with declining welfare. The paper then examines the major sources of conflict within this model, and argues that permanent resolution of the conflict requires the simultaneous attainment of stronger and effective institutions and lower poverty levels. One implication of these results is that reducing poverty, or enacting new laws (that often only restrict political freedom without simultaneously strengthening the domestic institutions would exacerbate rather than resolve conflicts and is welfare-reducing. The paper therefore calls on governments to concentrate on strengthening the domestic institutions especially by reducing corruption and promoting transparency in law enforcement.