Metrics details High pathogenicity avian influenza (HPAI) poses a significant threat to both domestic and wild birds globally known for environmental contamination and subsequent oral infection in birds necessitates careful consideration of alternative introduction routes during HPAI outbreaks This study focuses on blowflies (genus Calliphora) which migrate to lowland areas of Japan from northern or mountainous regions in early winter Our investigation aims to delineate the role of blowflies as HPAI vectors by conducting a virus prevalence survey in a wild bird HPAI-enzootic area Influenza virus RT-PCR testing identified 14 virus-positive samples (2.2% prevalence) with the highest occurrence observed near the crane colony (14.9%) Subtyping revealed the presence of H5N1 and HxN1 in some samples Subsequent collections in December 2023 identified one HPAI virus-positive specimen from 608 collected flies in total underscoring the potential involvement of blowflies in HPAI transmission nigribarbis may acquire the HPAI virus from deceased wild birds directly or from fecal materials from infected birds highlighting the need to add blowflies as a target of HPAI vector control It is crucial to identify the pathways of infection for effective prevention careful attention is given to the introduction of contaminated materials Measures such as disinfection of footwear and vehicles as well as prevention of entry by small animals In cases where HPAI occurs despite these precautions it is necessary to consider the possibility of alternative introduction routes nigribarbis uptakes viruses from dead poultry or their excrements suggesting that once a fly ingests the virus it can propagate infectious viruses within a range of approximately 2 km We investigated the potential role of blowflies as a vector of HPAI by conducting a survey on the virus prevalence in blowflies in a wild bird HPAI-endemic area Influenza virus detection and RT-PCR analysis. RT-PCR analysis targeting the HA (H5) and NA (N1) genes of influenza virus in blowflies collected in 2022, which tested positive for the M gene. Samples indicated by yellow arrowheads were considered positive. Sample labels correspond to the site names in Fig. 1 The comparison of the isolated virus sequence with other HPAI viruses found in infected cranes revealed that the HA and NA gene sequences of the blowfly-derived HPAI virus were identical to those found in cranes collected two days before and 10 days after the blowfly collection It is worth noting that the distance between the blowfly sampling location and the site where an HPAI-infected crane was found two days earlier is 800 m When considered alongside surveillance conducted around poultry farms nigribarbis may acquire HPAI viruses from deceased wild birds but rarely from poultry likely due to the swift culling of infected poultry Blowflies represent a potential vector of HPAI The effectiveness of virus detection from flies relies heavily on the prevalence of infected and deceased wild birds nigribarbis is widespread in human-populated areas across Japan including semi-rural regions with poultry farms nigribarbis intermittently disperses its feces nigribarbis because it was the dominant blowfly species in our study field and the season but we could not exclude the contribution of other necrophagous blowflies in HPAI propagation due to the lack of comparable data on virus prevalence in each vector and their invasion rates into poultry farms we could not determine which vector poses a higher risk for HPAI transmission on poultry farms which often originate within poultry houses and are visibly active nigribarbis does not exhibit such behavior they can be readily captured in winter using baits or traps Considering the possible involvement of blowflies in HPAI transmission it would be advisable to implement fly control measures in poultry settings Blowflies were collected using the sweeping net method with decaying meat (horse or wild boar) or fish as bait The collected flies were temporarily stored on ice for transportation (1–3 days) and then preserved at − 80 °C until further use careful measures were taken to avoid freezing/thawing of the collected flies in 2023 Fly species were identified using morphological keys Crops and intestines were excised from blowflies and then crushed in a shaker with zirconia beads (3000 rpm The samples were subsequently centrifuged (9000 rpm and the supernatants (homogenates) were harvested for further analysis The homogenated samples from flies were mixed with an equal amount of denaturing solution (20% Tween 20 and 0.04% SDS) and then incubated at 70 °C for 5 min The denatured samples served as the template for real-time RT-PCR We utilized the MP-29-57For and MP-183-153Rev primer set and MP-96-75ProbeAs as the probe The reactions were prepared using PrimeScript One Step RT-PCR kit ver.2 (Takara) and analyzed in StepOnePlus real-time PCR system (Thermo Fisher Scientific) The homogenates with an MP gene positive result were passed through the filter to remove debris The RT-PCR was carried out with primer sets targeting H5 subtype (5′-GAARCCTCTGATTTTRRAGGATTGTAG-3′ & 5′-TYTTGATAAGCCAYACCACATTTCTGA-3′) and N1 subtype (5′-TGGGCWRTAYACAGTAAGGACAA-3′ & 5′-ATWGTCAACCAACTGRTGCCATC-3′) The influenza virus-positive specimen from December 2023 underwent further analysis at the National Institute of Animal Health National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (Pathological Appraisal) the homogenate was inoculated into embryonated chicken eggs to confirm viral infectivity and the sequence of HA and NA genes was determined The resulting virus was designated as Influenza A virus (A/blow fly/Kagoshima/23a738D/2023 Sequence data of HPAI virus in cranes (2023–2024 winter season Kagoshima) were obtained from GISAID (EPI_ISL_18770565 and EPI_ISL_18651568) and used for sequence alignment and comparison Original data is provided within supplementary information files The episodic resurgence of highly pathogenic avian influenza H5 virus Avian influenza spread and seabird movements between colonies Detection and isolation of highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza A viruses from blow flies collected in the vicinity of an infected poultry farm in Kyoto Migration of blow fiies from low land to high land in Chubu Sangaku National Park confirmed by mark-release and recapture method Aldrichina grahami (Aldrich) and Calliphora nigribarbis Vollenhoven obserbed by a mark and recapture method on Hachijo Island The life history of Calliphora nigribarbis Vollenhoven in Mt Witnessing hundreds of Calliphora nigribarbis in migratory flight and landing in Nagasaki Seasonal prevalence of blowflies and flesh flies in Osaka City Survival of Avian H5N1 Influenza A Viruses in Calliphora nigribarbis (Diptera: Calliphoridae) in relation to the dissemination of highly pathogenic avian influenza virus Different infectivity and transmissibility of H5N8 and H5N1 High pathogenicity avian influenza viruses isolated from chickens in Japan in the 2021/2022 season Avian influenza: Strategies to manage an outbreak One-step real-time reverse transcription-PCR assays for detecting and subtyping pandemic influenza A/H1N1 2009 Download references We express our sincere appreciation for the invaluable suggestions and advice from Dr and their colleague at the National Institute of Animal Health National Agriculture and Food Research Organization for their assistance in Pathological Appraisal We also express an appreciation for Kagoshima Prefectural Office and Izumi City Office to support our surveillance This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers 22K05679 and participated in all experiments (Corresponding author) participated in discussions related to manuscript writing The authors declare no competing interests Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations Download citation DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-61026-1 Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content: a shareable link is not currently available for this article Sign up for the Nature Briefing: Microbiology newsletter — what matters in microbiology research The Tsugaru Strait divides the Japanese islands of Honshu and Hokkaido posing logistical challenges for companies who need products that cannot be carried through an undersea rail tunnel TOKYO -- At first glance, an undersea rail tunnel connecting Japan's main island of Honshu to its northern neighbor of Hokkaido would seem like a logistical blessing for chipmaker Rapidus and its plans to produce cutting-edge semiconductors near the top of the country But trains are banned from carrying potentially dangerous substances such as high-pressure gas or inflammable liquids through the 54-kilometer Seikan Tunnel which opened in 1988 and includes a 23-km section under the Tsugaru Strait A 130-year-old sake brewery in northeastern Japan devoted to manual labor has gained a unique reputation for putting aside any thought of protecting its normally closely-guarded trade secrets to train staff of rival producers The acceptance by Dewazakura Sake Brewery Co many of whom are the heirs to famous breweries is rare in an industry in which processes are kept confidential and even facility tours are often not offered But for Dewazakura President Masumi Nakano sharing his knowledge with other brewers is more important than protecting his intellectual property stimulated by the growth of each brewery," he said at Dewazakura's brewery in the city of Yamagata a trainee and the person who is set to inherit Kitaya Co appeared perplexed when trying to determine the correct temperature setting as she peered into a large brewing barrel "Raise it one degree by tomorrow morning," Nakano instructed Kinoshita was learning a special brewing method that uses highly polished rice Dewazakura's production method has remained more or less unchanged for 100 years trainees learn the whole production process Manual labor is involved at almost every step "As the overnight work here of producing koji is rare these days I have learned what should be left to machinery and what shouldn't," said Heiki Isawa who joined the training course last autumn Dewazakura has accepted more than 20 trainees starting with one from Urazato Syuzo in Tsukuba Trainees find out about the course via recommendations from acquaintances of the Nakano family and by word of mouth Other breweries that have sent trainees also include Yoshida Sake Brewery Co trainees also work at the Yamagata Research Institute of Technology operated by the prefectural government and a center of local sake production While Japan has many regional sake brand products known for high quality and natural characteristics of the production areas Yamagata Prefecture's sake is protected as intellectual property under the government's geographical identification Yamagata is the first of the nation's 47 prefectures to have received the GI designation in the "refined sake" category reflecting prefecture-wide efforts to promote its sake breweries conduct an active information exchange in the prefecture They can establish a network with local brewers and learn management know-how a former trainee and now president of Asama Shuzo Co "The prefecture-wide efforts in Yamagata have been amazing." Kinoshita said the program influenced her as the next generation of her family's business "If I'd learned business practices at home I'd be seen as "future president in any case." But I am not treated that way here I understand now what it is to play a supporting role," she said "I now think about how a leader should act." Answering the oft-asked question of whether other breweries are simply stealing Dewazakura's trade secrets "Comparable technology emerges sooner or later even if you hide yours," adding that conversely new information comes to those whose production methods are open This leads to a variety of good regional sake "The way to enjoy sake is to compare regional tastes offered by each brewery I want to educate as many young entrepreneurs as possible," he said FEATURE: "Miso drops" developer on mission to save local Japan miso brewers To have the latest news and stories delivered to your inbox Simply enter your email address below and an email will be sent through which to complete your subscription Please check your inbox for a confirmation email Thank you for reaching out to us.We will get back to you as soon as possible You are using an outdated browser. Please upgrade your browser to improve your experience one of Africa's most known icons in the field of concept minting is one of our elders in the field of Political Science He obtained his B.Sc in Political Science in 1971 from the Ahmadu Bello University USA for his MA and Ph.D in Political Science He crossed over to the University of Jos in 1979 as a Senior Lecturer to establish the Department of Political Science in the University Elaigwu was pronounced a full Professor at the University of Jos in 1983 and stayed around for about a decade thereafter before he voluntarily retired ahead of the mandatory age/year of retirement He is involved in most aspects of Political Science judging by his diverse engagement but he has made much of his impact in the area of Comparative Politics His often-cited books: The Politics of Federalism in Nigeria (2007) The Shadow of Religion on Nigerian Federalism (1993) One unique thing about him is that he dramatises his teaching of the discipline with some gesticulations and measured movements around the hall when the circumstances permit In terms of the school of thought he belongs to in scholarship he is a rigorous liberal scholar with a belief in power realism often make him a much sought-after scholar of politics in Nigeria He can make obviously serious issues to appear lighter by cracking relevant jokes which are backed up with gesticulations and laughter for effect Elaigwu’s friend and fellow icon in words minting I recall an encounter I had with him at the then National War College Abuja in 1998 when I was invited for an interview Elaigwu was a member of the Panel that interviewed me One of them came from the Director I was to work under if appointed As soon I entered the room for the interview I had observed that you bagged your first degree about 11 years ago how then did you have a long list of publications?’’ The question was a bit embarrassing to me but I managed to answer it The second red flag came from the Chairman of the Panel it would be better for you to stay at UNILORIN and be decorated as a Professor.’’ The late Major General Charles Ndiomu who was the Provost of the Centre asked a follow up question: “Why did you want to cross to the War College He continued: “The highest rank we could give to you here is a Senior Research Fellow It would be better for you to stay at Ilorin as advised by the Chairman of this interview Panel.’’ A soothing balm Elaigwu who turned to the Chairman of the Panel and asked him a question: “ Prof you were the doyen of academics in Nigeria could you recall the time you had a long list of on-going and completed research works during your growing up years like this young man.’’ The Chairman answered in the negative I did not get to know what transpired afterwards but the letter of appointment never came to me after the interview notwithstanding being told that I did very well at the interview The latest from Elaigwu at the moment but who knows what Elaigwu might be up to as far as another book soon is concerned The celebrant of today is a big fish whose course of history cannot be captured in one piece because he is a man of many parts He is not a local champion (pardon the common Nigerian phrase) as he has had course to avail his services to the global scene Board of Trustees of United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) He is a man who is full of ideas that suit any environment he finds himself I was invited by DFID to Abuja to participate in a programme Among other participants at the event were Profs lightened up the hall with his usual jokes and banters that he threw at Prof coupled with relevant examples he cited on the job at hand he has acquired a significant level of experience in the practical art of governance He was virtually everywhere helping the administration in carrying out one assignment or the other witness to a delegation he led to Ankpa Local Government Area which was then part of Benue State on assessment of the activities of DFRRI established by the Babangida regime to accelerate the level of development in rural Nigeria He was later appointed by the same regime as the pioneer Director-General of the defunct National Council on Inter-governmental Relations in Abuja from 1992-1996 he was a member of the Presidential Advisory Committee in Nigeria from 1986-1992 he is generally referred to as one of the Babangida boys who provided the intellectual support to his regime Elaigwu is a known face at the National Assembly especially under the Speakership of Aminu Tambuwal he was at NASS for public assessment of the performance of the House of Representatives specifically on its Legislative Agenda After his usual displays characterized by a lot of drama he gave the session a B grade for the level of implementing its Legislative Agenda contested by some other persons based on what the arm of the legislative house had left undone in strengthening democratic governance in the country Elaigwu got the session apprehensive as his award of score/grade was preceded by plenty of drama and knocks for the House on certain developments that made the members to start thinking that he would give the Legislative Agenda a failed score the case as the assessment eventually ended in the grade awarded that drew applause from members He is a mentor who has raised a number of Political Scientists who have become highly resourceful in their own right This author was once a beneficiary of his mentorship when he invited me in 2001 to Calabar to attend a programme that was organised by his Institute of Governance and Social Research he has shown a preference for democracy by urging the military to stay in their natural habitat the barracks and allow the civilians to handle the task of political governance he came out with a book titled: Between Ballot Box and Barracks in Africa: Prospects of Enduring Democracy in Nigeria where he elegantly voted for democracy and generally considered military rulers as bad physicians who have worsened the Nigerian conditions not minding his location in the corridors of power under successive military regimes in Nigeria and the fumbling nature of the country’s democracy has his worries about Nigeria’s democracy but he is optimistic that the country will soon get it right and become an exemplar in democracy He is equally a notable voice speaking against the kind of federalism being practiced in the country that has created a stunted growth for the nation one development needed to change the landscape of Nigeria’s underdevelopment is to return the country to the path federalism from pseudo-federalism that is well-entrenched in the country I congratulate one of our ancestors for adding yet another year to his age who has made valuable contributions to the development of our discipline who is known to have introduced a unique style in his engagement with the discipline of Political Science and above all a man with a considerable level of experience in the mix of theory with praxis of politics informed by his long stay in the corridors of power both at official and unofficial levels this consideration made former President Muhammadu Buhari to send him a birthday message when he clocked 74 in 2022 The author presides over the Nigerian Political Science Association (NPSA) and website in this browser for the next time I comment Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value" This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email Your browser does not support JavaScript, or it is disabled．Please check the site policy for more information Yamanashi Prefecture--For those who never tire of the chance of panoramic views of Mount Fuji a new observation deck is now operating in the scenic Shindo-toge pass in the city's Ashigawacho-Kamiashigawa district located at about 1,600 meters above sea level on the west face of 1,793-meter Mount Kurodake The pass is renowned among climbers and photographers as a viewing spot over Lake Kawaguchiko against the backdrop of Japan's tallest peak the city government spent about 165 million yen ($1.5 million) to construct and install an observation deck in two locations and a 250-meter walking trail "My hope is that it will serve as a new sightseeing spot connecting Lake Kawaguchiko and the Isawa onsen hot spring resort and attract hordes of tourists," said Mayor Masaki Yamashita The pass has remained closed to traffic this season although a free bus shuttle service operates at one-hour intervals on weekdays except Tuesday and at 30-minute intervals on weekends and holidays The buses make several stops until it reaches its destination For more information, visit the city's website at (https://www.city.fuefuki.yamanashi.jp/kanko/sangyo/spot/fujiyamatwinterrace.html) lighthouses still sign of home for those at sea Coca-Cola offers cheaper vending machine drinks to subscribers Families honor torrential rain disaster victims at memorials Izumo recruits flight attendants to help local tourism lift off Stunning vista at Fukutsu beaches recalls Bolivia’s Uyuni Salt Flats Shanghai Disney Resort says investigating travel platform over Uighur refusal Information on the latest cherry blossom conditions Please right click to use your browser’s translation function.) A series based on diplomatic documents declassified by Japan’s Foreign Ministry Here is a collection of first-hand accounts by “hibakusha” atomic bomb survivors chefs and others involved in the field of food introduce their special recipes intertwined with their paths in life A series about Japanese-Americans and their memories of World War II In-house News and Messages No reproduction or republication without written permission Metrics details have recently been applied for treatment of pediatric patients with bone diseases though details regarding their effects in growing children have yet to be fully elucidated we administered these anti-resorptive drugs to mice from the age of 1 week and continued once-weekly injections for a total of 7 times Mice that received the anti-RANKL antibody displayed normal growth and tooth eruption though osteopetrotic bone volume gain in long and alveolar bones was noted while there were nearly no osteoclasts and a normal of number osteoblasts observed with increased osteoclast and decreased osteoblast numbers These findings suggest regulation of tooth eruption via osteoblast differentiation by some types of anti-resorptive drugs Due to their inhibitory effects towards osteoclasts anti-resorptive drugs such as denosumab and bisphosphonates are used to treat patients with osteoclastic bone disease though it remains unclear whether the pathogenesis of abnormal growth in affected children is due to anti-resorptive drug administration or the bone disease itself we hypothesized that osteoclast suppression by anti-resorptive drugs inhibits both bone growth and tooth eruption in developing children To elucidate the effects and toxicity of anti-resorptive drugs when used for long-term treatment in growing child patients we continuously administered an anti-mouse-RANKL antibody or a bisphosphonate ZOL to young mice throughout the entire growth phase to investigate the influence on adults treated during childhood a single administration was given to infant mice and analysis performed Effects of long-term administrations of anti-RANKL antibody or ZOL on mouse growth (B) Survival rates after once-weekly administration of saline (control anti-RANKL antibody (Ab) at 2.5 mg/kg (n = 5) RfD (reference dose)-ZOL at 0.08 mg/kg (n = 6) or CD (cumulative dose)-ZOL at 3.0 mg/kg (n = 6) for 7 weeks the survival rates of mice in those groups were 100% (C) Growth appearance and (D) naso-anal length of 8-week-old mice after once-weekly administration of saline (E) Weight curves of mice administered saline or 5 in the CD-ZOL group for experiments shown in (D and E) Statistical differences were assessed by one-way ANOVA with Tukey-Kramer’s test Statistically significant different from compared to *all the other groups Effects of long-term administrations of anti-RANKL antibody or ZOL on femur and tibia (B) Micro-computed tomography (μCT) findings of distal femurs in 8-week-old mice administered saline (C) Findings following toluidine blue staining (upper) and TRAP staining (middle and lower) of proximal tibiae growth plate obtained from 8-week-old mice after weekly administrations of each drug for 7 weeks Higher magnification images of black-boxed regions in middle panels are shown in lower panels (E) Bone volume/tissue volume (BV/TV) ratios were determined by μCT (saline (F) Number of osteoclasts (N.Oc) was determined in proximal tibiae following TRAP staining †Statistically significant different from compared to indicated groups thus we were unable to perform dynamic histometric analysis Effects of long-term administration of anti-RANKL antibody or ZOL on cranial bone and tooth development Micro-computed tomography (μCT) findings of (A) sagittal facial bone and (C) coronal section in 8-week-old mice administered saline (B) Higher magnification of white-boxed regions in (A) Representative findings are shown in (A–C) (D) Illustration of first molar measurement positions (E) Crown length (between first mesial-buccal crown tip point and cement-enamel junction) (F) root length (between cement-enamel junction and lowest root tip point of mesial-buccal root) were measured and (G) crown-to-root ratio and (H) interradicular septum (IRS) length (between buccal furcation area and lowest root tip point of mesial-buccal root) of the lower first molar were determined in 8-week-old mice administered saline (n = 6) *Statistically significant different from compared to all the other groups Effects of long-term administrations of anti-RANKL antibody or zoledronic acid on mandibular alveolar bone (A) Villanueva staining of mandibular alveolar bone of 8-week-old mice administered saline Higher magnification images of black-boxed regions in upper panels are shown in lower panels Green arrows indicate osteoblasts and red arrows osteoclasts (B–E) Mandibular alveolar bone static parameters were determined using bone morphometric analysis including (B) number of multinucleated osteoclasts (N.Mu.Oc/BS) number of mononuclear osteoclasts (N.Mo.Oc/BS) and eroded surface area (ES/BS) on the bone surface osteoid surface area (OS/BS) on bone surface and osteoid volume per bone volume (OV/BV) (D) bone volume of interradicular septum (BV.IRS) is thought to be caused by delayed bone growth and high bone mineral density though requires further investigation from a perspective other than examination of osteoblasts and osteoclasts we consider that ZOL might crucially affect alveolar bone formation during the period of lower first molar development while ZOL administration likely decreases the number of cementoblasts and periodontal ligament cells The present ZOL-treated group showed both maxilla and mandible tooth eruption failure with bone formation and bone resorption enhanced by osteoblast/osteoclast coupling ZOL treatment suppressed osteoclast function though bone resorptive activity was partially retained Activated resorption in growing alveolar bone without adequate formation might have ostensibly increased the ES/BS ratio in the ZOL-treated group as compared to the control bone disease is accompanied by tooth or jaw bone abnormalities such as osteogenesis imperfecta accompanied by dentinogenesis imperfecta Additional research is needed to clarify the effects of anti-resorptive drugs on teeth of pediatric patients affected by bone disease administration of anti-resorptive drugs resulted in increased bone volume in developing mice the bisphosphonate ZOL induced growth retardation while the anti-RANKL antibody showed no developmental side-effects Inhibition of osteogenesis in the dental follicle by ZOL led to delayed tooth eruption in contrast to inhibition of osteoclastogenesis by the anti-RANKL antibody These results are important in regard to determination of appropriate treatment protocols for affected child patients When an anti-resorptive drug is given for treatment of pediatric disease both the concentration and administration period must be carefully determined A rat anti-mouse RANKL antibody (clone OYC1; Oriental Yeast and rat IgG (Medical & Biological Laboratories Japan) were obtained from their respective commercial sources then fed with powdered chow for 1 week and normally thereafter The experiments were started with 1-week-old healthy male mice with weights ranging from 3.0–5.6 g (average 4.3 g) The animals were housed under standard laboratory conditions and euthanized at 8 weeks of age All experiments were performed in full compliance with the Guidelines for Animal Experiments of Showa University Showa University Animal Care and Use Committee after receiving approval from the committee (certificate numbers 17050 and 18073) Thirty-three 1-week-old male mice were randomly assigned to 5 different groups Drugs were subcutaneously administrated to the 1-week-old mice with a single injection using a 27G and 1 in the CD-ZOL-treated groups died during the experimental period Twenty-eight 1-week-old male mice were randomly assigned to 5 different groups The first administration of each drug was at the age of 1 week and then continued once a week for a total of 7 injections as 1 in the CD-ZOL-treated group died during the experimental period measured from the nasal tip to anus (naso-anal length) while body weight was determined weekly until 8 weeks and percentage spleen weight was calculated using spleen weight/body weight at 8 weeks of age and sectioned in a sagittal manner into 5-μm slices using a microtome Osteoclast counts were performed by an experienced researcher using polarization microscopy Static parameters for bone formation and resorption were determined in an area 1.0 mm longitudinal and 0.75 cm horizontal from the interradicular septum by direct tracing using a Histometry RT digitizer (System Supply then computed using specialized software (CSS-840 cancellous bone morphometry version; System Supply) while for structural parameters osteoclast surface (Oc.S/BS) osteoid surface area (OS/BS) on the bone surface and bone volume of the interradicular septum (BV.IRS) were determined Results were analyzed using Student’s-t test or one-way ANOVA with Tukey-Kramer’s test All values are expressed as the mean ± SEM A P value < 0.05 was considered to indicate a significant difference Bone tissue remodeling and development: focus on matrix metalloproteinase functions A new member of tumor necrosis factor ligand family regulates osteoclast differentiation and function Localization of RANKL (receptor activator of NF kappa B ligand) mRNA and protein in skeletal and extraskeletal tissues Receptor activator of nuclear factor kappaB ligand and osteoprotegerin regulation of bone remodeling in health and disease Novel insights into actions of bisphosphonates on bone: differences in interactions with hydroxyapatite Protein geranylgeranylation is required for osteoclast formation and survival: inhibition by bisphosphonates and GGTI-298 double-blind study of denosumab versus zoledronic acid in the treatment of bone metastases in patients with advanced cancer (excluding breast and prostate cancer) or multiple myeloma Contemporary management of metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer and cost of zoledronic acid and denosumab in the treatment of osteoporosis Zoledronic acid treatment in children with osteogenesis imperfecta Safety and efficacy of denosumab in children with osteogenesis imperfect–a first prospective trial Denosumab treatment of metastatic giant-cell tumor of bone in a 10-year-old girl Bisphosphonate therapy for unresectable symptomatic benign bone tumors: a long-term prospective study of tolerance and efficacy Clinical review: Bisphosphonate use in childhood osteoporosis Intravenous zoledronic acid given every 6 months in childhood osteoporosis The use of zoledronic acid in pediatric cancer patients Use of bisphosphonates in children—proceed with caution Severe hypercalcemia following denosumab treatment in a juvenile patient The cutting-edge of mammalian development; how the embryo makes teeth OPGL is a key regulator of osteoclastogenesis lymphocyte development and lymph-node organogenesis Preclinical evidence of potential craniofacial adverse effect of zoledronic acid in pediatric patients with bone malignancies Skeletal consequences of RANKL-blocking antibody (IK22-5) injections during growth: mouse strain disparities and synergic effect with zoledronic acid Increased bone mass in mice after single injection of anti-receptor activator of nuclear factor-kappaB ligand-neutralizing antibody: evidence for bone anabolic effect of parathyroid hormone in mice with few osteoclasts Minimodeling reduces the rate of cortical bone loss in patients with secondary hyperparathyroidism A versatile new mineralized bone stain for simultaneous assessment of tetracycline and osteoid seams Giant cell tumor of bone in childhood: clinical aspects and novel therapeutic targets Zoledronate in combination with chemotherapy and surgery to treat osteosarcoma (OS2006): a randomised Effects of denosumab treatment and discontinuation on bone mineral density and bone turnover markers in postmenopausal women with low bone mass and changes in bone metabolism associated with zoledronic acid treatment in Japanese patients with primary osteoporosis increases mineralisation of human bone-derived cells in vitro Impact of oncopediatric dosing regimen of zoledronic acid on bone growth: Preclinical studies and case report of an osteosarcoma pediatric patient Application of metabonomics in a comparative profiling study reveals N-acetylfelinine excretion as a biomarker for inhibition of the farnesyl pathway by bisphosphonates Hepatotoxicity induced by zoledronic acid in an aged woman with primary osteoporosis Continuous RANKL inhibition in osteoprotegerin transgenic mice and rats suppresses bone resorption without impairing lymphorganogenesis or functional immune responses Biochemical and molecular mechanisms of action of bisphosphonates Bone-site-specific responses to zoledronic acid Transient disturbance in physeal morphology is associated with long-term effects of nitrogen-containing bisphosphonates in growing rabbits Experimental study in the dog of the non-active role of the tooth in the eruptive process Ultrastructural features of the dental follicle associated with formation of the tooth eruption pathway in the dog Osteoclastogenesis during mouse tooth germ development is mediated by receptor activator of NF kappa-B ligand (RANKL) Regional differences of expression of bone morphogenetic protein-2 and RANKL in the rat dental follicle Mechanisms of tooth eruption and orthodontic tooth movement Osteoprotegerin and osteoclast differentiation factor in tooth eruption Effects of bisphosphonates on tooth eruption in children with osteogenesis imperfecta Use of new targeted cancer therapies in children: effects on dental development and risk of jaw osteonecrosis: a review Tooth eruption: axial movement of teeth with limited growth Cellular and molecular basis of tooth eruption Autocrine regulation of mesenchymal progenitor cell fates orchestrates tooth eruption Tooth-bone morphogenesis during postnatal stages of mouse first molar development Mandibular growth in subjects with infraoccluded deciduous molars: A superimposition study Maf promotes osteoblast differentiation in mice by mediating the age-related switch in mesenchymal cell differentiation Interleukin-1 and tumor necrosis factor activities partially account for calvarial bone resorption induced by local injection of lipopolysaccharide Stat1 functions as a cytoplasmic attenuator of Runx2 in the transcriptional program of osteoblast differentiation Bone formation by minimodeling is more active than remodeling after parathyroidectomy Download references We thank all the members of our laboratory for their insightful comments and suggestions This work was supported in part by the Private University Research Branding Project of the Ministry of Education Science and Technology of Japan (MEXT) to Showa University and the Industry to Support Private Universities Building up Their Foundations of Strategic Research of MEXT (No as well as grants-in-aid for Scientific Research (B) to M.T for Challenging Exploratory Research to T.N.-K for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas to M.C for Challenging Exploratory Research to M.C 18H06332) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Grants-in-aid were also received from The Science Research Promotion Fund and a Showa University Research Grant for Young Researchers was received by A.K Grants from the Uehara Memorial Foundation and the Takeda Science Foundation were given to T.N.-K These authors contributed equally: Motoki Isawa and Akiko Karakawa Takako Negishi-Koga & Masamichi Takami Department of Special Needs Dentistry for Persons with Disabilities International Research and Development for Mucosal Vaccines All authors have approved the final version of the manuscript and agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work including questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of this work Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations Download citation DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-56151-1 Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science ex-University of Jos Political Scientist and eminent Nigerian scholar of federalism and civil-military relations has overcome his grief and emotions about two friends he lost recently he combined the confidence of a great academic with the humility of the commoner This was why he joined the People’s Redemption Party (PRP) Government of Muhammad Abubakar Rimi in Kano in the Second Republic which lasted from 1979- 1983 He served as an Adviser to Atiku Abubakar who was Vice-President to Chief Olusegun Obasanjo he served in Babangida’s Presidential Advisory Committee he was the Head of the Dept of Political Science  at ABU  and later the Director-General of the Administrative College of Nigeria (ASCON) later became the Executive Secretary of the African Association of Public Administration He was an epitome of an educated man who exhibited the values of humility gentle and kind soul rest in peace with the good LORD who created him and called him yonder I followed your later development through the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies the African Development Bank down to the Central Bank of Nigeria The last surprise was finding you at the Inaugural Annual Lecture of the J You even attended the family dinner that evening You came to visit me after my surgery and we had long chat while your wife waited I attest to your patriotism as a committed Nigerian I attest to your urbanity and civilized ethics I also attest to your stubbornness when it came to matters of principle your strong convictions became manifest and your commitments were beyond doubts You believed in a Nigeria in which all citizens are treated equally: a Nigeria in which accommodation You believed in the sanctity of human life with the monopoly of the instruments of violence You spoke your mind with constructive bravado you achieved and left your footprints in the graveyard of history For you the ALMIGHTY’s bell tolled and you had to answer As you transit through the dark phase of life called death may the Angels guide you gently to the land of eternal light as you rest with the LORD The fight you engaged shall continue after you is converging later this morning at the 1st Professor Jonah Isawa Elaigwu Annual Lecture taking place at the Faculty of Arts Main Lecture Hall in ‘the Garden of Eden in decay’ the Executive Secretary of the Public Complaints Commission and a former student of the professor will be speaking on ‘Fiscal Federalism and the Question of Return of Looted Assets and Proceeds of Crime’  to a diverse audience of academics The occasion to be chaired by Prof G G Ejikeme Administration of the University of Jos will have in attendance the Vice-Chancellor as the Special Guest of Honour While the hosts are Prof Alanana Chris Abimiku the Dean of the Faculty of Social Science as well as Dr the Head of the Department of Political Science The list shows it is going to be a full house in recognition of one person is Prof Jonah Isawa Elaigwu to be a relevant one It is not too difficult to place Prof Elaigwu What is difficult is where to start from as to capture his place in the most complete manner Most of his students and admirers would argue that he was an academic dismissing the fact that he was also in government and was involved in his own way in cultural nationalism He took this up both at the communal level and at the continental level Along with his life-long friend and the legend they probed into the African identity in Global History beginning perhaps from Mazrui’s “On the Concept ‘We Are All Africans” published in 1963 Mazrui was the one who took this most seriously much earlier than Samuel Huntington who smartly carted away the prize by publishing The Clash of Civilisations at a time there was a gap for that sort of scholarship Mazrui had engaged this question at the African level by asserting ‘The Triple Heritage’ line of argument For reasons that are difficult to decipher immediately Huntington refused to benefit from what Mazrui provided the American political scientist went ahead to categorise Africa as no more than a candidate civilisation because the continent lacks one religion which is the variable he used for his listing of the civilisations he could foresee clashing in the post Cold War What is important in this point is how that generation of African scholars took and gave meaning to things that were not the hottest issues then but have come round to dominate scholarship and politics from the local to national and global politics There is a lesser known example of this in Prof Shamsudeen Amali’s Onugbo MlOko which provides a most sustained illustration of how jealousy bitterness and anger could lead a person to cross the red line of the moral code Prof Elaigwu is in the same generation of the Ali Mazruis and Shamsudeen Amalis a generation marked by their acquisition of quality education in some of the most reputable universities in the Western world and becoming powerful by virtue of being providers of the terms by which the post colonial processes could be understood Theirs is the case of the knowledge and power nexus not power in terms of political office occupied but power to provide the frame of reference for complex processes unfolding before the Africans after all the nasty experiences of colonialism he captured two key domains in Political Science to do this – federalism and civil-military relations It would be surprising if it could have been otherwise All the African countries that gained independence shortly before or shortly after independence in 1960 were made up of several nations cobbled together by their respective colonial overlords This was completely different from the idea of the nation state in Europe itself the question has remained that of how this sort of nation states were to be managed The Americans had managed to find a way around it through federalism federalism became and remains a key domain and the inevitable area of specialization for students of African politics except those who took to International Relations to go and worry about what national interest might mean Together with federalism was/is civil-military relations the African militaries discarded the idea of aloofness from politics and shoved aside or were mostly pushed to shove aside the politicians and to plant themselves in power It became important to master this dynamics and many African political scientists did so or had to do so One of his most recent books if not the most recent He has published so much in those two areas No one appears to have asked him which of his numerous books in these two domains he is likely to be caught reading again and again we don’t have an answer similar to what Chinua Achebe said when asked that question It is only this reporter’s mischief that the book by Elaigwu which Elaigwu is likely to be caught reading again and again is Gowon It is not because of Gowon the General and former Head of State but because of the philosophical methodological and empirical complexities of biographies Beyond publishing in his area of specialization It is certain that majority of the audience today would be his students In those days when the universities were national in composition at both the levels of staff and students the identity distribution of Prof Elaigwu’s students must be as diverse as can be imagined his teaching exertions covered the military academies the Foreign Language Academy run by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS) and the Administrative Staff College of Nigeria Then his years in government as a member of the intellectual crew that serviced the governmentality needs of the Babangida regime the regime raided the campuses and there were very few of the established scholars who didn’t join The regime had so much for intellectuals to do from MAMSER to the coordination of the SAP debate and later There was also the Presidential Advisory Council (PAC) where Babangida would go himself and listen to the theoretical cross-fire on the political economy of SAP Elaigwu was here in addition to the Council on Inter-Governmental Relations he headed The jury is still out there regarding what these assorted intellectuals or academics collectively accomplished in that regime To what extent did they moderate the regime or complicated matters Might things have been worse if they were not there or otherwise The only thing we know as yet is that they did not all make a hell of money by being in that government From Bolaji Akinyemi to Egite Oyovbaire to Isawa Elaigwu Where is the money if they stole as we imagined Could they have exhausted it without reproducing themselves economically or is the reporter being naïve Jonah Isawa Elaigwu is an interesting student of power almost all the Idoma elite gathered in Otukpo It was a session aimed at clarifying themselves on their place in Nigerian politics Elaigwu gave the keynote address where he brought up the ‘CNNisation’ and ‘Coca-colanisation’ of the world in question or words to that effect What was and is more striking was how he illustrated every claim he made by calling a witness And he did this by calling virtually all of them by their first name It was the degree of his familiarity with all of them and/or their familiarity with him from those he grew up together in good old Otukpo or met at some point somewhere in Zaria or Lagos and so on Talking about coinages such as ‘CNNisation’ or ‘Coca-colanisation’ He might not have originally coined every of them but he has a way of adding words together It is unique to him and Ali Mazrui among African scholars “The Garden of Eden in decay’ is Mazrui’s if we must cite one all that one needs to do is leaf through his latest book Even the title is a study in words formulation: Between the Ballot Box and the Barracks in Africa He diagnosed Obasanjo as suffering from ‘residual militarism and messianic complex’ it is a case of ‘righteous indignation and political reality’ Civil – military relations is one of his two main domains He knows most of the senior military officers by name because he has taught them at one point or another But it doesn’t stop him from descending on them with phrases that can be considered unsparing including his ultimate verdict that “The military came in as political physicians but ended up as political patients requiring even greater dosages of the medicinal prescription they had come in to serve to politicians” Long live the student of power who is himself powerful A320 series planes are the top sellers for Airbus Germany -- Mitsubishi Heavy Industries has signed a contract with Airbus to supply parts for small passenger airplanes part of the Japanese company's efforts to cut its dependence on troubled U.S Mitsubishi Heavy will supply emergency doors for Airbus's A321neo The parts will be manufactured at subsidiary MHI Aerospace Vietnam with mass production expected to begin around August Fanuc CEO Yoshiharu Inaba speaks at the Nikkei Global Management Forum in November 2018 TOKYO -- Japanese robot maker Fanuc's CEO will leave his post Monday as head of the world's biggest supplier of factory automation equipment The 70-year-old Inaba passes the baton to Yamaguchi who is 20 years younger and also serves as chief operating officer and representative director it is a hefty book but a pleasurable text to consume it is written in simple English and at a bold enough typeface No one can predict now which set of potential readers will patronise it more – the ordinary or general interest readers such as journalists politicians and the business elite on the one hand and the experts such as students and researchers of Nigerian Government and Politics Political Realism and Political Sociology on the other hand While the synthesis of the flow of politics of power makes it a compact reference book for everyone the two key issues under focus are each inviting in themselves the puzzle of enduring democracy in Africa but this is seen from the lens of civil-military relations there is a question around which the book revolves: what is it that explains why the military has contested the democratic space with professional politicians across Africa contrary to the construction of military rule as a critique of the norm The mindset of the author appears to be that this is the time to reflect on the poser when direct military intervention in Africa has receded in Africa in spite of what the Zimbabwean military did at the close of 2017 in relation to the subject of enduring democracy Prof Elaigwu swaggers intellectually into the arena with a broad sweep of each and every administration in the postcolonial history of Nigeria interrogating and decentering many sacred cows established truths and commonsense conclusions The heartland of the book might be located in the author’s take-off point in the Preface with Africa being caught in another global frenzy – the democratic fever in the post Cold War a process the West is leading even as its expectation of planting democracy in Africa in the aftermath of the ‘wind of change’ collapsed giving way to the rise of the lumpen militariat Ali Mazrui’s concept for the first generation of military rulers who signified contestation of state power with the civilians across Africa the West clapped hands for them but only for the military to also fail the test of transforming Africa What exactly is democracy in the first case Is a civilianized polity as has happened across West Africa – Ghana Have the African elite learnt from the past what are the arrangements to make them learn Locating the tension between civilian and military elite in the re-arrangement of state processes with the transformation from what Ali Mazrui calls the Warfare State to the Welfare State in human history Elaigwu argues that the African peculiarity of that tension is a crisis of institutional transfer like the other modern political institutions – political parties the Judiciary – was exported to Africa during the terminal point of colonial rule sans the values underwriting it the military as an apolitical space had not been internalised by its African elite just as the politicians had not internalised the logic of political parties the legislature or the spirit of politics as a game the political elite turned it into a battle The poor domestication of the logic of the military profession after the era of state consolidation through conquest (the Warfare State) which is the subordination to civilian control once the state transformed into a welfare machine across the world explains direct intervention in the African context The author sees a dark cloud over democracy unless and until this domestication is sorted out This is the argument he deploys data to substantiate in the African context even as the military intervenes in politics everywhere else Section one of the book treats that aspect in three chapters drawing out the different kind of ways by which the military pulls itself up in the politics of power Elaigwu’s handling of it is a beautiful rendition on civil-military relations a theme dear to traditional political science is where he focuses on Nigeria as his African case study on the subject matter It means a sweeping stroll from the First Republic through the Ironsi Abacha and Abdulsalami regimes between 1960 and 1999 A defining feature of the repertoire is the military dominance in power Although it is not an issue treated in the book in its own right the quick reference to it questions the assumption that Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa had no mind of his when the Sardauna was involved Field Marshal Idi Amin Dada then of Uganda One major rupture in section two is the reason given hitherto for the choice of federalism by Nigeria’s founding fathers Contrary to the notion that they did so because they understood federalism as the best mechanism for managing diversity this book says it was the intense ethno-regional rivalries between them or what Elaigwu calls “parochialism based on awareness of others in the competitive setting” that made them do it Linked to that is the argument that “A federal structure in which the Northern Region accounted for 79% of the total geographic area and 56% of the population made groups from the Southern regions to feel seriously disadvantaged” the book tells us the bases for today’s calls for restructuring at the expense of a national business model even when the constitution has offered one in its Chapter Two Ironsi whose was the first military regime declared the discomfort of regime with running what he called five governments He was referring to the four regional governments and the centre signposting the military’s centralising impulse One other interesting item in the sweep is how common to both Ironsi and Gowon the idea of tenure specification Did it suggest that the military could rarely estimate the enormity of the problems at each intervention One poser in the narrativisation of Ironsi is why he opted for the Unification Decree when neither the Francis Nwokedi Commission on the harmonisation of the civil service nor the Rotimi Williams Committee on constitutional review had submitted a report The author brings out an element of the tension between the military and the civilian elite under General Gowon on pages 102-3 in the sort of analysis that “while the ordinary people did not care who ruled them as Mallam Aminu Kano was quoted to have said in 1974 “If your economic planning is not influenced by your political thinking It all takes us to the military’s fixation with announcing transition time table always as an element of the politics of power Chapter six is a comprehensive treatment of the key issues in Nigerian federalism in the Second Republic from the pen of the only scholar of federalism to run a Federal Government think tank on federalism There is an interesting portrait of General Muhammadu Buhari as military Head of State It says “Buhari was a military ruler who emphasised law and order The assertion was drawn from Buhari’s long jail sentences for politicians his reaction to freedom and democracy and his never announcing a political programme There is a rather comprehensive recap of the Babangida junta of which the author was part of the intellectual crew in addition to Professors Jerry Gana He described Babangida’s transition as a long programme but “with all kinds of ingenious attempts to create local democratic institutions and processes” Is it possible that is what the scholars around power thought they were doing A lot of readers would pay attention to page 229 to see if they could deconstruct the quotation from Omo Omoruyi as to whether Babangida and Abacha sealed a deal to succeed each other It is a powerful quote on the relationship between IBB and Abacha but for whom IBB and his family would have been wiped out during the Orkar coup but without Abacha taking over from the man he called by his name Prof Elaigwu refreshes our memories of the roll call of callers on Abacha to succeed himself calling Segun Adeniyi’s compilation of a fuller list an interesting reading he also refreshes our memory of those on the barricades protesting any such attempt including his own lecture in Lagos eight days before Abacha’s demise and in which he told the General that none of the plausible models would work But even more interesting is his recall of those who were inviting Abacha to overthrow Shonekan in the assumption that Abacha would rule briefly and handover to Abiola And here is this: Did Shonekan trigger the coup that removed him by moving from Aguda House to the Presidential Villa This is not a theme treated in its own right but came by way of supplementary information Part two of this review will take section three of the book which looks at 1999 to date in relation to enduring democracy in Africa Two controversies that might arise are these One is Prof Elaigwu’s conception of democracy as no more than public authority popularly obtained; the institutionalisation of the rule of law; the legitimacy of rulers; choices and accountability the late British political economist called the business democrats who control Wall Street in favour of ‘Business Democracy’ be able to abide by this definition The second question some readers might confront the author is if there isn’t a contradiction between his declaration that democracy is universal but that its tenet have to be domesticated in Africa the few typos noted in spite of the excellent production work the most prominent being the appearance of PDP in the result sheet of the General Elections in 1979 124) and the use of ‘elect’ rather than election on p Tsukishima launched the novel series on the Shōsetsuka ni Narō ("Let's Be Novelists") website in March 2018. SB Creative published the novel's first volume with illustrations by Matsuryū in December 2018 The novel's second volume released in August 2019 while chasing an onigiri he accidentally dropped Many strange things await him on the other side.. Square Enix published the manga's first compiled book volume in December 2019 Source: Amazon Elaigwu and her world of hair and hair styling With a Bachelors Degree in Business Administration from the European University in Cyprus and a Masters in Corporate Communication from the well regarded Leeds University in the UK she came back to Nigeria with the mindset to be an events planner But there was nobody to hire her in spite of her Diploma in Events Management from Institute of Commercial Management also in the UK Then she considered being hired by a Public Relations firm she got employment in the public relations section of a government owned company but where “I wasn’t mentally challenged there for sure and after two years she left the job even when she was not quite sure of what next With encouragement from the family and the creative seizure going on in her head the die was cast for a hair styling career she is stepping out with Hairstravaganza on December 16th Elaipu says the show is to create an avenue for hair stylists to show their talents and to push themselves beyond the confines of the beauty parlour It is still a different entry point in the hair business clime in Nigeria although there is no evidence right now how profitable it would be Her business intelligence indicates to her that it would be profitable She is keeping the details of that as her business secrets for now It is interesting that she taught herself everything she knows about hair and hair styling She can say that she has reached a level where she would want others to join in pushing themselves further so that they can create something uniquely Nigerian she is referring to all stakeholders in the beauty industry – hair stylists the chief story teller of the 21st century “the idea is to create a community of hair stylists and beauty specialists to support as well as challenge each other outside their comfort zone they will also be able to acknowledge achievement and reward talent” “it is a good time to get people to come out and watch something memorable to end the year with” she and her planners took the holiday season into consideration they are still doing that in terms of the audience that day and in terms of core participants All she knows is that this is success guaranteed already It is difficult to engage Elaipu on this project without concluding that this is not another shallow show anchored on no philosophy the conceptual signifier for Ela’s Weave Emporium’s sophistication Ela’s Weave Emporium being the name of her saloon Miss Elaipu Isawa Elaigwu is generally a pleasure to listen to in discussing her line of business It can hardly be otherwise for someone who confesses to being easily bored with the regular and predictable indicating how her education must have triggered her own share of the creative impulse in a world of images dealing such a blow on the distinction between the original and the duplicate From bio-medicine to geo-engineering to biopolitics to geopolitics A scene in the imagining and re-imagining of the human body into the glory of the woman as in hair styling Bio-politics is the concept for how this constructivist praxis works out in the social world and by which is meant the process by which governments control or coordinate (if you prefer that) free human beings (unlike slaves) by reading the human person as a text which could be written and re-written With the exception of Africa due to the legacy of colonialism the subsequent crudity of the postcolonial state and cultural distortion arising therefrom across the continent that is what all governments exist to do through what is known as governmentality Perhaps there is no accepted term yet for when it is operationalised by creative artists but it is they who are producing the models great movies and inspirational speakers now exercising tremendous powers all over the world even though no one elected them Nigeria today is rampaging through Africa and other parts of the world not as much due to her formal diplomacy as much as due to recent cultural innovations in music the home video industry and newer television channels Still substantially hooked to formal geopolitics of military hardware Nigeria is yet to take advantage of this cultural explosion at home in any systematic manner While Nigeria waits to learn the strategy of geo-power the message here is that there can be no fiddling with an Elaipu Isawa Elaigwu Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Office Address: Suite 4, Abuja Shopping Complex, Area 3, Garki-Abuja Jonah Isawa Elaigwu was a professor of Political Science with the University of Jos (Unijos) for more than 45 years because of his specialisation in federalism he worked severally outside the field of Political Science He was a member of the Presidential Advisory Council (PAC) in the regime of General Ibrahim Babangida and later became the Director General (DG) of the National Council for Inter-Governmental Relations He wrote a biography of General Yakubu Gowon and now lives in Jos where he runs a research institute I know you went to Katsina-Ala Secondary School in Benue State which was then one of the elite schools in your part of Nigeria I started school at the Methodist Primary School I went to Katsina-Ala for secondary school In the old North we had provincial secondary schools which replaced middle schools The one in Katsina-Ala was Benue Provincial Secondary School We had such schools in different parts of the North The good thing about the Benue Provincial Secondary School was that it was pan-religious transcultural and it provided the basis for interacting with many people at that early age By the 1980s people were fighting over uniforms There was nothing like that then as the government provided uniforms for us: class wear If they slaughtered a cow like they used to do during the holidays you wouldn’t find people quarrelling about religion and all that many Christians studied the subject Islam Religious Studies Some of them wrote it in the West African School Certificate (WASC) Many Muslims also took Christian Religious Studies (CRS) And there were schools in other parts of the North that did the same thing Atiku in Kogi, promises to revive Ajaokuta, river port Safal-Cornell Kiswahili Prize for African Literature 2022 shortlist announced the good thing about the environment was the fact that it didn’t matter what religion you practiced what ethnic group you belonged to and what geopolitical area you came from The important point was that you were a student of the same college and the loyalty to the college came first Even many years after you leave you will maintain the relationship with classmates and others if anybody from our set dies we task ourselves for the burial Why did you move from Katsina-Ala to Kings College from Katsina-Ala and the other provincial secondary schools in the North when you wrote mock exams the Northern government would choose 15 science and 10 arts students and send them to King’s College some of us were sent to Keffi for Higher School Certificate (HSC) my rural perspective had been tampered with urban and semi-urban sojourns in these places and therefore I didn’t find myself weird in the Lagos setting They would initiate you into the King’s College culture to “drive out the old school traits” in you so that you become urban and no longer “a bush school man” We were very proud of the King’s College song and up till today when we meet we say There was this sense of togetherness built by the colonial authority Who were your classmates at King’s College Given the link of the college with Britain many who graduated from there tended to go abroad for their first degrees but you went to Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) I wanted to study law and I applied to the University of Ibadan (UI) and the University of Lagos (Unilag) ABU admitted me into the Department of Government which had just started I was with people like Senator George Nkwob late David Attah and a few others in that class We were the second set of those who studied for a BSc in social science with specialisation in government By the time we graduated we had interviews all done and knew whether we were going to Lever Brothers After the interview he called me back to the panel and he said you want to go for Foreign Service but we can’t send all the best people into Foreign Service We need people in the domestic service to create the basis for development I would recommend that you stay in the domestic service.” I didn’t like it but he was very persuasive like a father and explained the advantages I was recruited into the Federal Civil Service I had a second class upper degree and the Vice Chancellor of ABU was trying to develop the staff of the university while in the civil service Prof O’connell recommended me to Prof Ishaya Audu ABU had sent Andrew Kasai and one other person to Wisconsin my masters and my PhD programmes were together In 1973 I left for my field research which brought me back to Nigeria and of course I went to Ethiopia in 1974 for the fun of it Ali Mazrui and his wife invited me to a diplomatic gathering President Jomo Kenyatta came and I saw him live It was a combination of federalism with a tinch of civil/military relations particularly thematic issues like civil/military relations and of course federalism and international relations I was in Uganda the week Field Marshal Idi Amin’s wife was butchered and put in a doctor’s car booth My friends at Makerere University told me nobody cared about me I but I told them I was going to ministries universities and other places and asking questions and somebody could pick me up Was your choice of federalism as a speciality based on your background as a minority within another minority from Benue State At that point one wasn’t politically cognitive one wasn’t politically aware to the level of thinking in a sophisticated way you are putting it I was interested in federalism particularly after the civil war I saw that the federal system in the First Republic had a loose centre and very strong regions It was even said: “Regional tails were wagging the federal dog.” what would happen if you do not shift from the federal model but provide different kinds of relationship between the centre and the peripheral Federalism is meant to manage conflicts through sharing of power so that legally each unit will operate within its own sphere Kenya inherited a quasi-federal system and by 1964 replaced it with the Majibo Constitution saying quasi-federalism was expensive and disintegrating “We are going unitary because federalism is a ploy to disunite us.” Buganda had a federal relationship with the centre but Bunyoro had a unitary relationship with the centre What will you say given the structural experiences we have gone through from the First Republic and what do you think is the ideal structure There is nothing in human nature and in polity you can say is ideal because the best also changes from time to time The people wanted the centre to be stronger It was the same thing under Murtala and others followed the same Nigerians were saying the centre is too strong let us amend the legislative list in such a way that we will bring down some powers from the centre to the states; which the General Sani Abacha conference tried to do But basically we must always remember that the reasons why you adopted federalism is not because of finesse it means that the centre’s power will be limited the federal pendulum would go in favour of the periphery it will be part of what we call centripetal poll to the centre where the centre has more The federal pendulum gets adjusted from time to time depending on the exigencies of the political arena It is ideal because it solves the problem and the problem you solve in time A is not the same problem you will solve in time B Is our current structure dealing with our problems We had the problem of many minorities out of the circle of the political arena The 12 states were to create new centres which generated their own forms of developmental processes; with development going to some states where nobody even thought about them because they were local government headquarters The creation of states had advantages because it made the centre stronger it dealt with the fact that none of the states could succeed on their own it provided new avenues for distribution of resources to a wider space it provided a new framework for distribution of resources Over time we moved from 12 to 19 to 21 to 30 and to 36 But one of the problems with the creation of states is that it has political consequences because if you create a state native police and even the judiciary which they had you have new states with less powers financially and politically You have new states with less area to deal with but also the resource bases for most of them have actually dried up Gen Gowon was overthrown as I was finishing my PhD thesis in 1975 and I read in some newspapers about “Gowon’s nine years of failure” Many journalists didn’t see anything good about him at all and to say nine years of failure; I found that very annoying It was not analytically correct that for nine years you were there and there was total failure because you are going to areas that are fairly subjective All the airports in Nigeria that were developed later I remember in 1964 I was going to Jos from Makurdi and we spent three days there because it was during the rainy season The road was all laterite and we had to wait until after the rains And what were the vehicles we were boarding A friend recently told me that he used to take his son to school in his car and that once he told the son to trek to school because it was a couple of blocks away from their house but that he refused Granted that Gowon built roads and airports What else would he have done with the money rather than do those things But isn’t that presumptuous that there was money and therefore you had to use it for development purposes Education is another area he also invested money in The man could have decided to “chop” the money like they are doing The amount of incorrigible level of insensitivity to the poor Nigerians that Nigerian leaders have displayed after Gowon; you would be shocked Is there any evidence that Gowon didn’t “chop” money For the first time in 1978 I met him in London when he drove to High Banet Station to pick me up with a Volkswagen Passat One Mr Oti gave him a two-bedroom house in London where he could stay helped him to get another house at Broadgate When I went to his house he couldn’t even pay his children’s fees at his 70th birthday he wrote to Buhari to request for that He told me that what annoyed him most was that with all he had done the British government wrote to him that he didn’t have enough money to cover his schooling It was after there was a protest that the British government He told me that if he had taken money would he be asking for all that nonsense and going through all that he came in the tube (train) to the hotel where I was to pick me; very humble and all that You are no longer dealing with his achievements Gowon stayed for nine years under military rule; that is a long time In military regimes you have to have a turnover otherwise the same people who came in with you turn against you there were intra-military issues that many of those who had fought the civil war thought that since Gowon had promised after FESTAC he was going to change those people then he shifted it to after the Queen came and all that that those who had been in governance for long had overstayed outside the barracks; that they should go back and others should go into government the issue of 1976 as a date for return to civil rule and reneging on that made politicians who were waiting on the wings to coalesce with people in the military to overthrow him You served on the Presidential Advisory Council during the government of Gen Babangida; what was that job about You must give Babangida three credits for courage He asked me to get him people in economics He told us that as a military regime they didn’t have structures for feeling the pulse of the people he said they didn’t know the processes of government and international nuances That we in the council would put brains together They did that because ministries brought their budgets through us we went through them and questioned them before they went to the Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC) The interesting thing was that there were many crises which the PAC helped to defuse; some even religious If you remember the International Monetary Fund (IMF) thing and so on; we tried working with the government to defuse them; even when it came to the political crisis and registration of political parties Were you involved in creating the two party structure; a little to the left It is not for fun; it was a situation in which creating those two parties saved the country from violence because many politicians were waiting; that their political parties would be registered some of them had thrown parties in Lagos and were waiting for it to be announced Yet if you saw the report from the National Electoral Commission (NEC) how could we create a basis for unity among Nigerians and avoid the obvious disaster that would come from violence under a military regime The move was a mechanism for dealing with the looming crisis how come his transition programme ended up in failure There was a committee after the report written by a group Jerry Gana and others were in that committee I was a member of the white paper panel and we recommended the exit of the military in 1992 a number of factors were responsible: the military over time had factionalised by 1993 were partly responsible for the failure of that transition programme ambitious politicians working with the military exacerbated the problems on the table for Babangida who actually were on the wings complicated the setting the Nigerian factor; once you are doing anything we would want to skew the system to suit us; that also adulterated the process Don’t you think Babangida didn’t really want to go until he was forced out by his colleagues When I was talking of ambitious people and all that But the main issue wouldn’t be that Babangida was trying to prolong his stay but how would he go safely and neatly without the barracks erupting in a volcano How would he go without the political environment which was politically toxic degenerate into violence but I am trying to be careful to limit myself to what I know We have another toxic political environment as we are about to transition to another government this 2023 Are you optimistic that we will navigate the period seamlessly used to tease me that I am an indestructible optimist and I would tell him if the matter concerns the country I miss my pounded yam and egusi soup or something I miss the company of my people; I relate warmly with my friends we are determined to prove ourselves as Nigerians even outside the country Forget the crooks; they are not as many as those who you know and hear about that are contributing wonderful things to the world note that we have three political groups: the group of politicians who know how to acquire power and use it for the ends of the state That group is getting extinct; talking about Aminu Kano They knew how to use power and didn’t see it as an investment for their private lives The second group are political contractors who are 80 per cent in the political arena who see politics as an investment from which they must harvest with huge profits there are many of them all over the country The third group are thugs; these are the hirelings of the political contractors They hire them to dispense maximum violence to those who don’t tow their lines So I think part of the problem that we have currently is the fact that the political contractors are dominant Most politicians are dominant in vices rather than virtues At 75 you are retired from the university and now run an NGO; aside the NGO how do you occupy yourself Institute of Governance and Social Research (IGSR) is a research institute because of the kind of peace building activities that we do but I still go there to work as a senior fellow I still do my research; I still do all kinds of things My doctor has told me I can’t do anything beyond walking So I walk during the day and in the evening I watch TV UPDATE NEWS: Nigerians can now earn US Dollars through domain flipping buy domain names for cheap and have it resold to earn up to $15,000 Join Daily Trust WhatsApp Community For Quick Access To News and Happenings Around You In Otani Shohei's hometown of Oshu City preparations were being made to congratulate him on his third MVP award on November 22 The words congratulating Otani Shohei on his MVP award were written above the banner of the Dodgers' World Series championship S/ Reporter: This is a timeline reflecting Ohtani Shohei’s journey so far and today marks another historic milestone The city’s Isawa Library is holding the third Ohtani chronology project The paper which had already been posted at the end was removed to reveal that Ohtani has won the MVP award.  Books realted to Ohtani are also placed so that not only children but also adults can enjoy the exhibition banners were also hung outside the Oshu City Hall This is the fourth banner related to Otani City officials wore their original cheering T-shirts and other items as they went about their work Oshu Mayor: It has been one year since he moved to the National League.  It is easy to forget that he was also rehabilitated I think he has worked harder than we can imagine About Nippon Television Even though mostly born and bred in the US as some if not all the dancers here they are still digging Israel Ekere’s 'Gwumolo L’Owoicho' track which has metamorphosed into the Idoma national anthem 15 years after it was warned of the CNNising and Coca-colanising impacts of globalisation the Idoma intelligentsia has tasked itself with a programme of writing Idoma they are more than convinced that a nationality or language group is a textual entity which can be read or understood depending on what is documented about it Writing Idoma is thus not about the Idoma alphabeths but the unfolding or embrace of constructivism in Idomaland as a response to the dynamics of globalisation This is one of the main conclusions from the three day National Conference of the ethnic nationality held last October As one of the mini-language groups around central Nigeria the Idoma nationality has been worried against that warning by one of its intellectual giants It is no longer news that the Idoma intelligentsia took time off from their campuses religious and bureaucratic engagements to gather for collective reflection at Otukpo the commercial headquarters from October 27th to 30th The theme of the communal reflective exercise was Idoma: Changing Times and Cultures It has all been silence thereafter in terms of the outcome of the Idoma National Conference 2021 until now when the Communiqué surfaced it is published verbatim below in other not to offend the ancestors through any interpretive intervention A three-day Idoma National Conference with the theme: Idoma Changing Times and Cultures was held at Otukpo from 27th – 30th October The conference was attended by 250 participants within Nigeria and the diaspora with some linking up to the conference via zoom Zaria (a chapter of Ochetoha K’Idoma) is concerned with the longstanding involvement and commitment to the well-being development and progress of the Idoma as a people and the Idoma as a geographical entity in contemporary Nigeria The key objectives of the conference are as follows: verve and empathy demonstrated at the conference were that of frustration of the reality of the changing times and cultures in Idoma land and the ambience was more of immediate action rather than rhetoric lead paper and paper presentations that followed justified and clearly addressed the overriding theme of the conference The obvious issues facing the Idoma are the absence of a clear sense of unity and purpose unemployment leading to incidents of insecurity and low optimal utilization of government infrastructures Consequently the conference came up with the following resolutions: THE TOYOTA C-HR SUV will sit between the Corolla and RAV4 and give Toyota some firepower in the compact SUV playground. The C-HR for the Australian market will be powered by a new 1.2-litre turbocharged petrol engine that produces 85kW and 185Nm of torque. It will be available in front-drive and all-wheel drive configurations with the choice of either a six-speed manual or CVT. Toyota isn’t well-known for its interiors, but it’s claiming the interior of its new C-HR “delivers a modern and sensual style that stands out in the Toyota range and sets a new direction for its segment”. We’ll see. Chief designer Kazuhiko Isawa said the C-HR will give Toyota a powerful new presence in the growing small SUV segment, creating a new frontier with a vehicle that is full of originality. “That newness comes from SUV robustness and strength. But we’re not trying to make an SUV that’s dynamic; rather, a dynamic vehicle with SUV-like properties,” Mr Isawa said.  Toyota claims the spartan looking dash creates “an airy, expansive cabin” which is obviously intended to make the tiddler SUV feel bigger on the inside. The design of the dashboard and layering of the controls looks pretty good in pictures, but it will all come down to the quality of the plastics Toyota uses. It’s not famous for choosing good quality or soft-touch plastics. Australian models will feature a 6.1-inch touch-screen that dominates the dashboard and juts up from it, similar to that of Mazda or even Audi. “Designers focused painstakingly on component quality and the consistency of grain, texture, shape, colour and illumination in every element, even the stitch groove radii of the seats,” Toyota said. The blue highlights across the dash and door trims for European models will be replaced by cool-grey inserts for Australia, but that could be a mistake… the blue looks good and grey might make it look too stark… Local models will feature advanced safety features including a pre-collision system with autonomous braking, adaptive cruise control, lane departure alert with steering control, automatic high beam and a reversing camera. Other available features include heated seats, a smart entry and start system, privacy glass, 18-inch alloy wheels and bi-tone metallic paintwork. Pricing still hasn’t been released, but given where the C-HR will sit in the line-up you could probably hazard a guess at pricing. Not sure about the exterior. Way too many lines Let’s phrase it like that – if you have some of the worst dashboards (hello, RAV4 and Fortuner?) in the industry it’s easy to make progress. 😉 Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked * Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. To provide you with real-world car reviews, car news, and car buying advice to help make buying a car easier. How do you go about immortalizing a man whose works already immortalized him while he was alive That was precisely what Twaweza Communications of Kenya and Binghamton University of New York sought to do  when they organized a symposium entitled ‘Critical Perspectives on Culture and Globalization: The Intellectual Legacy of Ali A Mazrui.’ The symposium attracted nearly 100 Africanists from all over the world.  Those who honoured the invitation included Prof Horace Campbell Kimani Njogu and Seifudein Adem  (who were among the conveners of the symposium) Hamdy A Chris Wanjala,  Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o N’Dri Thérèse Assié-Lumumba Nairobi).  It was gratifying that among the invitees to the symposium were three Nigerians – eminent Nigerian political scientist J Isawa Elaigwu who chaired a session and also gave the concluding remarks ‘Who Killed Pax Africana?’ and my humble self who also presented a paper on Reflections on Mazrui’s notion of the African’ he studied at the University of Manchester United Kingdom and graduated with Distinction in 1960 He subsequently obtained an MA in 1961 from Columbia University He began his academic life at the University of Makerere where he quickly rose to become a professor He left Makerere after Idi Amin’s military coup and was in 1974 hired as a professor of political science by the University of Michigan he accepted the Albert Schweitzer professorship at the State University of New York Binghamton where he became the founding director of the Institute for Global Cultural Studies Mazrui has about 35 books and numerous academic articles to his name He was also a renowned essayist and polemicist Mazrui was equally famous for producing the TV documentary Mwalimu Mazrui transited to the Hereafter on October 12 1914 Who is an African?: On face value the above will seem like a stupid question Certainly all of us know who the African is the answer to this apparently stupid or elementary question becomes less obvious once other probing qualifiers are added to the question How is the African identity constructed in the face of the mosaic of identities that people of African ancestry or people who live within the geographic space called Africa bear How does African identity interface with other identities that people of African ancestry or those who live within the geographic space called Africa bear?  For instance is Barack Obama who had a Kenyan father but a white American mother the former military ruler and former President of Ghana whose father was Scottish and his mother a Black Ghanaian Walter Rodney,  Mahmood Mamdani  and even Ali Mazrui who have done perhaps more than most scholars in articulating African perspectives in global discourses Are all who proclaim themselves Africans accepted as such And by the way who allots this ‘Africanness’ and why The above are some of the questions one inevitably encounters when one tries to academically delineate who is an African and who is not How did Mazrui try to grapple with these questions My Interest in Mazrui’s notion of the African: As a young undergraduate at the University of Nigeria we were exposed to the works of Ali Mazrui was a lecturer at the University of Dar es Salaam at the time Mazrui was teaching at Makerere Professor Nnoli would tell us stories about the epic debate between Mazrui and the late Guyanese historian Walter Rodney and how Rodney thoroughly “messed Mazrui up” we admired Professor Mazrui for his firm grasp of the English language and for the fact that it was impossible to read any of his works without coming out with several quotable quotes One of my fond quotes from him in those days was his definition of an ‘intellectual’ as someone who was fascinated by abstract ideas and had acquired some capacity for handling such ideas.  He also defined an ‘ex intellectual’ as an intellectual who has ceased to be fascinated by abstract ideas or has lost the capacity for handling such ideas We would often label academics who went into government and began talking in sound bites like professional politicians as ‘ex intellectuals’ many of our lecturers were very critical of his works.  They criticized his weaknesses in theory construction and his apparent inability to remain focused on a research theme to mature with the conversations in the field Other critics accused him of being excessively defensive of the Arabs including their role in the trans-Saharan slave trade Several African academics questioned his Africanness Mazrui had Arab ancestry.  I later found that while non-academics and non-political scientists were fascinated by Mazrui’s works several political scientists and Africanists were dismissive of him as at best an aloof polemicist with questionable commitment to Africa no one denied that Mazrui had a big voice in global affairs You may disagree with him but it will be difficult to ignore him My interest in Mazrui’s notion of the African: I had the first direct contact with Ali Mazrui in 2005 I had founded the publishing company Adonis & Abbey publishers (www.adonis-abbey.com) in London in 2003 Our maiden edition was on ‘Afro-Arab Relations: Co-operation or Conflict’ We had assembled an array of Africanists – Gamal Nkrumah (Nkrumah’s son) The Ethiopian scholar Mammo Muchie gave me Professor Mazrui’s number and suggested he might be interested in the sort of intellectual engagements we were pursuing I wasn’t exactly full of confidence that an obscure scholar like me who had set up a nondescript publishing company and an unknown journal would get much of his attention Surprisingly when I called expecting that he would be so busy that he wouldn’t give me more than a few seconds I told him of his books I had read and proudly recited some of the quotes I memorized from some of those books However rather irreverently I told him that I didn’t like his allegorical work – The Trial of Christopher Okigbo (1972) I told him that I threw it away in disgust after reading it.  Mazrui was silent for a while and then asked me if I thought I was old enough to understand the message of the book since I said I read it as an undergraduate when I was still a teenager I argued that it was wrong for Okigbo to be found guilty in the Hereafter apparently for subordinating his art as a poet to his community (Biafra) I argued that a writer’s community preceded his art and that a writer who subordinates his art to his community is only celebrating art for art’s sake There was a long silence through which my pounding heart told me I had blown the opportunity it was to give me his home telephone number and ask me to call at my convenience This was quintessential Mazrui – humble and tolerant of criticisms in a way his critics never were  Mazrui later became the Editorial Adviser to African Renaissance also became one of his European publishers Additionally Mazrui introduced me to his former student eminent Nigerian political scientist J Isawa Elaigwu when I finally relocated to Nigeria in 2011 found a University teaching job for me.  In 2009 Professor Mazrui contributed three chapters to a book I edited entitled: Who is an African Citizenshp and the Making of the Africa-Nation Next week I will interrogate Mazrui’s notion of the African based on those three contributions I will also raise the question of whether Mazrui should really be called an African A Giant Tree Has Fallen: Tributes to Ali A Mazrui –   a collection of the tributes paid to Mazrui globally from Presidents public intellectuals and family members to academics and journalists –   will be published by African Perspectives Publishers (Johannesburg Abdul Karim Bangura and Abdul Samed Bemath   A mere four years after emerging from a civil war Nigeria was at the beginning of an oil boom the country was in the middle of a debate about fiscal federalism and revenue allocation there were significant differences: the country was under military rule and the men leading the debate were all soldiers the structure of this debate and the geo-political symmetries that define it have evolved only a little The immediate spark for the debate fifty years ago was the publication of the statutory allocations to the twelve states of the federation then for the fiscal year 1974-75 Mid-West State received 139.9 million Naira or 23.7% of the allocation Isawa Elaigwu the army general who was Nigeria’s military head of state at the time observed about this that “while both Rivers and Midwestern States comprising 7.3% (4 million) of the country’s total population shared between themselves 40.83% (N241.00 million) of the total allocation to the states the ten other states which accounted for 92.7% (51.6 million) of the country’s population shared among themselves 59.17% (349.2m) of the statutory allocation.” the Commissioner of Police who governed the North-Western State was unhappy with the dissension over the sharing of the allocation because all of them in the Supreme Military Council then agreed it another Commissioner of Police and then military governor of Gowon’s own Benue-Plateau State; and Jacob Esuene who governed the South-Eastern State called for a more objective system of revenue allocation If they knew what such a system looked like David Bamigboye as well as General Abba Kyari of the North-East went on record to call for a review of the allocation formula military governors respectively of the Western and Lagos States advocated for “a revenue allocation formula that would guarantee responsible and stable government for Nigeria.” Nigeria’s search for a workable federalism in many ways can be reduced to the search for precisely such a formula. It has proved elusive. If anything, it may have got even more so. In the 36 years between 1946 and 1980, spanning the colonial and post-colonial periods and including  military as well as elected civilian regimes, the country burnt through the reports of at least eight blue ribbon panels on the question of fiscal federalism On the eve of independence in 1958, the report of Raisman Commission recommended the creation of a Distributable Pool Account (DPA) into which was to be paid 30% of revenue from mineral rents and royalties and from import duties The regions retained 50% of the revenue from mineral rents and royalties from their region while the central government took 20% 70% of the revenue from import duties went to the central government Six years later and four years after independence the Binns Fiscal Commission increased the DPA share of the income from import duties from 30 to 35% at the expense of the share of the central government the report set its face against the principle of derivation replacing it with that it called the principle of “financial comparability.” On this basis it recommended the sharing of the DPA receipts as follows: Northern Region 42%; Eastern Region 30%; Western Region 20%; and Mid-Western Region 8% the fiscal balance largely favoured the regions who contributed resources to the central government Nigeria’s post-colonial crisis of state legitimacy had already exploded into a year-old civil war Under pressure from both the economic costs of the war as well as its structural antecedents the war-time Supreme Commander (as he was then known) a former history lecturer at the University College Ibadan to lead what the regime called an Interim Revenue Allocation Review Committee The legacy of the Dina Committee recommendations was very far reaching and suited the regimental mood of the military The Committee addressed frontally the issue of taxation and public goods It recommended a centralization of taxation as well as the harmonization of the produce marketing boards which were until then mostly regional The Dina Committee also recommended a centralization of the funding of higher education and the replacement of the DPA with what it called a State Joint Account the committee recommended that states should retain 100% of rent from onshore extractive operations on the basis of derivation and also receive another 10% of royalties revenue as derivation Even in the midst of an existential conflict at the time the fuss that followed in the wake of the Dina Committee report was deafening the Federal Military Government rejected the Dina Committee Report Isawa Elaigwu recalls that “….Gowon did not raise dust over the issue but quietly implemented most aspect of this report through the back door at the appropriate time.” The result is that the Dina Committee Report has been quite influential in shaping Nigeria’s version of federalism Gowon enjoyed three advantages at the time in his handling of the unitarising tendencies that underpinned the recommendations of the Dina Committee the civil war was an extenuating circumstance the regimental traditions of military government limited the degree of elite dissension he ultimately did not have to suffer any institutional constraints similar to those imposed by a parliament or its equivalent under elected civil rule For the current incumbent fifty years later a civilian seeking to accomplish what would be the most far-reaching restructuring of Nigeria’s fiscal fundamentals in 110 years none of these advantages exists and he suffers many more debilitations besides By some coincidence, in the year that Gowon constituted the Dina Committee, the celebrated Kenya political scientist, Ali Mazrui explained the challenges of structural stability in post-colonial African states in terms of two underlying crises of state legitimacy and of regime legitimacy Fiscal reform on the ambition evinced by the proposals now under consideration in Nigeria assumes the existence of a capable state which enjoys affinity among citizens an overwhelming percentage of whom should be documented None of these can be taken for granted in Nigeria The evidence from across the fields of financial inclusion and taxation suggests that the proportion of documented Nigerians does not exceed 40% It will take more than a few convenient ebullitions to address this Any government will be challenged in addressing it An administration that suffers from manifest issues of legitimacy lacks the currency to trade with in this situation The crisis that afflicts the current proposals is that of a government unwilling to put in the work required to redress deficits of state and governmental legitimacy around the country To address what is evidently a political problem the government has chosen instead to escape into self-inflicted technocratic gobbledygook Fiscal governance and reform is not as complex as the administration and its mouthpieces would like to suggest Taxation is more than mechanical computation It is the centrepiece of the social compact between a state and its citizens the administration of Bola Ahmed Tinubu has done itself a world of good by inspiring these increasingly raucous debates about the state of that compact in Nigeria or the lack of it It will be best served by listening to the debate in humility while it learns A lawyer and a teacher, Odinkalu can be reached at [email protected]  It is probably not for nothing that one time US president once said that nobody can understand Nigeria he was expressing US bewilderment with General Sani Abacha In spite of deep divisions all over the country on issues of equity there are still whiffs of mini-scale Nigerianity going on here and there every day across the country that speaks to the incomprehensibility of Nigeria a Shuwa Arab from Borno State wrote an opinion piece on Federalism sends it for publication in Intervention edited (this week by someone from Benue State) but only for a Fulani from Taraba to protest that the illustration of Sarki’s article were incomplete because Prof Isawa Elaigwu was not been mentioned among the giants of scholars on the subject of federalism To the explanation that Prof Elaigwu could not have been deliberately refused mention but rather that it could be hellish sometimes getting the cover page graphics from web sources he promptly sent the cover with the argument that “In fact Elaigwu has published on federalism more than any scholar in Nigeria” and that the particular book whose cover he sent is particularly “a profound book by any standard” Although he is not in Political Science per se knowledge was not as hopelessly fragmented as today in their time as an academic Intervention is hereby updating part 2 of Ambassador Usman Sarki’s article on federalism which was published earlier today This particular whiff is part of that which especially to those within and outside the country who might not mean well for the country Usman Sarki’s two opinion pieces published in the past few days have been generating interesting reactions A very senior citizen who shall not be named inferred that the article calling for urgent re-reinstatement of History teaching in Nigeria rated the Ibadan School of History to be inferior to the Zaria School of History Nowhere in the article was anything of that nature suggested None of the two schools of History was inferior or superior to the other They were different but not superior or inferior It would take an unimaginable quack to to ever say that one particular school of History is superior to another The article on federalism has generated even more reactions Intervention‘s reaction is to refer readers angry over any article to Chinua Achebe’s wisdom in all such circumstances Achebe would say: write your own if you find a particular account not good enough There is enough space to publish rejoinders It is not surprising that Ambassador Usman Sarki’s standpoint in the article on federalism will generate angry reactions His quasi-Socialist position will not sit well with citizens too angry about too many things to maintain critical distance between themselves and what they read Writing anything in Nigeria today is actually a risk The lens from which most people see a text today can be frightening The provocation for this irregular series mapping what each of the dominant cultural identities has brought to the diversity-crisis nexus in Nigeria has already been located in Chido Onumah’s claim in his latest book that We Are All Biafrans We Are All Biafrans is his own way of saying that every other group is claiming and protesting marginalisation and that it behoves looking at the claims before it is too late That makes all of us Biafrans in terms of a rejectionist discourse of the Nigerian State and the implication of that for state survival And it turned out that it was at the launching of that very book that Atiku Abubakar former Vice-President opened what came to be a Pandora’s Box on restructuring We have been told that President Buhari might be the last president of Nigeria if there is no restructuring the late Sardauna of Sokoto and Premier of the defunct Norther Region Alhaji Shehu Shagari,President of Nigeria in the Second Republic Muhammadu Buhari,incumbent Nigerian President an effort to apply Onumah’s framework to selected identity groups was the piece titled “The Igbos: Why are they Still Biafrans?” In this piece I want to look at the recent upsurge of herdsmen violence whether it could be the Fulani model of being Biafrans or a false claim against a historically dominant minority A historically dominant minority is what Professor Peter Ekeh calls the Fulanis in Nigerian politics emeritus professor of comparative politics told this newspaper in a lengthy interview recently His easy to follow argument is that it makes other groups to resort to self help efforts The implication is that the state is challenged as far as monopoly of legitimate use of violence is concerned Enugu and parts of South-West were dead certain that the herdsmen behind the violence in their communities are of Fulani origin Leaders of some of such communities who gave testimonies at the Seventh Tajudeen Abdulraheem Memorial on May 25th 2016 provided the evidence to buttress their claims the Sultan of Sokoto and Professor Jubril Aminu have come out to challenge the Fulani identity of the violent herdsmen They emphasised the old conception of Fulani herdsmen as the ultimate Pan-Africanists: moving across Africa from Mali to Niger through Nigeria to Cameroon down to Central Africa subjecting themselves to the authority of all the powers on their way and committed to no homeland claims Fulanis of the ‘exotic culture’ this age old movement transforms into a situation that could be the signal for a civil war then the most plausible question in the light of the thesis of We Are All Biafrans must be whether the herdsmen are being Biafrans in their own way By the Igbo and Niger Delta models of being Biafrans the herdsmen violence would not qualify to be one This is in the sense that there is no categorical declaration of animosity against the state the theorists of We Are All Biafrans did not absolutise a categorical declaration of animosity as the definitive feature of Biafranist behaviour What is thereby suggested is that such a declaration is not absolutely necessary before an action can be considered being Biafran on the part of any cultural group in Nigeria Many other clues can provide the basis for the inference there has been a long history of grumbling that can be read in context The loud grumbling is that substantial number of the Fulanis do not benefit from the government They do not ask for any amenities such as hospital An attempt to take the benefits to them through the policy of nomadic education does not seem to have been any success They are not the only cultural groups to have suffered this consequence of ‘CNNisation’ of the universe and it is not the fault of the government that this has happened but they are most likely to feel the pain more than many others For an ethnic group which admits you only if you can speak the language has been rendered inoperable by their more culturally and demographically expansionist Hausa brothers the Nigerian press does not accept the possibility of Hausas and Fulanis as different ethnic identities they have come up with the concept of Hausa-Fulani What or whom does the concept refer to on the ground There is nobody who answers to Hausa-Fulani as such The sense invoked in its usage in the media in Nigeria is not the notion of people who have both Hausa and Fulani blood in them but people who are largely Muslims by religion The implication here is the exclusion and disempowerment of Hausa-Fulanis who are not Muslims Kanuri or Ebira are forced into membership of the Hausa-Fulani identity such persons as IBB or the current Etsu Nupe would be regarded as Hausa-Fulanis in the Nigerian press usage of the concept but not Professor Adamu Baike or the late Professor Ishaya Audu And Christian Hausa-Fulanis are there in places such as Gwarzo in Kano the case of the Bamagujes in Kano is well known The Hausa- Fulani discourse appear to be more about north – south power struggle than anything else a convenient but amorphous concept which disciplines the region by securitising a group that doesn’t quite exist the way it is imagined It doesn’t quite exist because the Muslim connotation about it distorts what it signifies or suggests: those with both Hausa and Fulani blood in them he is the life patron of the Hausa-Fulani oligarchy they face resistance from many other ethnic groups in the north for what Professor Moses Ochonu has conceptualised as ‘colonialism by proxy’ the historical process which privileged Fulani players in the prosecution of colonial warfare attracting for them residual hatred for the viciousness of that process both in Caliphate heartland such as Kano but particularly so in the Middle Belt they are perpetually under a kind of a blow back Even when one looks at the federal architecture of power today pulaco – the Fulani core of being which is about being courteous calm but wise is hardly a selling attitude in a republic of ethnically assertive groups who suspect the Fulani of love of power and a tendency to settle down and install an emir anywhere and everywhere the Fulani lack the critical mass to be talked of in terms of historically dominant minority anymore in the wake of democratic rule At the Seventh Tajudeen Abdulraheem Memorial earlier mentioned there was a specific elaboration of a specifically Fulani grudge Mallam Sale Momale of the Pastoralist Resolve articulated the argument that herdsmen violence is a last resort by them against repression by the system He specifically indicted a particular arm of the security agencies for ripping Fulani herdsmen off This is an angle that frustration-aggression theorists might love to pursue further the key question the whole herdsmen saga throws up must be why it is happening now What is it that makes it possible to be happening now herdsmen violence becomes almost the same thing as Boko Haram in the sense that there are just too many theories purporting to explain Boko Haram Some people say Boko Haram is Hausa-Fulani reification of the threat to make Nigeria ungovernable if Jonathan torpedoed the Rotation of Power pact Others put it to Goodluck Jonathan’s government’s strategy of self prolongation in power There are those who argue that it is the handwork of Modu Sherriff Some security experts see it as a secondary consequence of Cold War and post Cold War conflicts in Somalia insurgency and crime in other parts of Africa One of such categorically asserted that Boko Haram in north eastern Nigeria is a product of the movement of radical fighters and weapons into West Africa from Sudan It is equally believed in many quarters that Boko Haram is a CIA operation targeting Nigeria There are as many theories as there are theorists Almost all these claims apply to the case of herdsmen violence particularly the claim that it is Buhari’s strategy of power In the context of Buhari’s anti-corruption war amidst a rather clumsy economics it is not impossible that those he is pursuing have crafted this particular theory General Buhari appears ideologically lonely to connect to anything of this nature All theories must be thoroughly examined and accounted for that the whole idea of herdsmen violence is an Igbo orchestration by which they are responding to their being out of federal power for the first time since independence the Igbos were part of the government in the First Republic were the corner stone of the Jonathan regime but only to miscalculate in the case of Buhari and to find themselves as political outsiders of the regime the argument is that what is going on as Fulani herdsmen violence is an underground criminal movement that transcends one ethnic religious or geographical identity but a relay system which could sometimes encase different ethnic elements a Yoruba transporter and an Igbo trader acting out criminality in a chain What the multiplicity of claims and counter claims regarding herdsmen violence suggests is its complexity It is a complexity that requires more than a yes or no kind of analysis it is Nigeria’s wizardry in conflict management that is challenged in terms of what weight to assign to each of the claims those to then dismiss and those to examine more critically a categorical answer to the question of whether recent herdsmen violence in Nigeria is Fulani model of being Biafrans or a false allegation against them can only be a work in progress Any matter that can lead to any sort of war must be treated so Farouk Mustapha and that of All Progressives Congress (APC) Adamu Muhammad Bulkachuwa who was declared winner of Bauchi North Senatorial district test their facts during trial at the tribunal There are many cases ongoing at the election petitions tribunal in Bauchi in the aftermath of the gubernatorial national and state assembly elections; but only few of them are attracting a lot of attention considering the parties involved One of the cases involves Senator Bulkachuwa who has since taken his seat at the Red Chamber of the National Assembly; but is still battling to retain it at the tribunal He is the husband of the President of the Court of Appeal The senator has been passing through tumultuous moments right from the time he expressed interest in vying for the Senate seat up till this moment It would also be remembered that Farouk Mustapha of NNPP had approached the National Assembly election petitions tribunal on March 15 to declare and return him winner of the February 23 2019 senatorial election for Bauchi-North Senatorial district having scored the majority of lawful votes cast in the election Farouq Mustapha alleged that Senator Bulkachuwa “was rigged” to success by those who superintended the election and since then Though Senator Bulkachuwa had closed his defence against Mustapha it appears the legal tussle will take a new dimension in the coming days Mustapha and NNPP have since closed their case APC and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to justify the outcome of the election 6th and 7th of August to open and close their defence Bulkachuwa who is the first respondent called his campaign director Abdulqadir Isawa as his first witness in the matter Isawa who was obviously Bulkachuwa’s star witness was led by the leading respondents’ counsel to identify his witness statement on oath before the tribunal sitting in Bauchi and urged the learned judges to adopt same as his testimonies in the matter Bulkachuwa’s campaign director who identified his witness statement on oath and urged the tribunal to admit it in evidence pretended to be blind during daylight when being cross examined by counsel for the petitioners Joe Dappa Dappa grilled the first respondent’s witness Isawa during cross examination to the extent that the witness ended confirming earlier submissions of the petitioners before the tribunal This scenario upset the legal team of the respondents Before the defendants started their submissions Mustapha and NNPP had invited several witnesses and tendered 745 exhibits of more than 7000 pages which were all admitted in evidence by the tribunal The documents included results declared at all polling units in the seven LGAs of the constituency candidates’ list for Senate and voters’ registers as part of evidence that justified the alleged electoral fraud when the court resumed continuation of hearing of the first respondent’s defence informed the tribunal that following a review of their case the previous night they decided not to call any witness again to testify in the matter He added that they were satisfied with their earlier submissions during hearing of the petition and the arguments they had deposited in their written addresses counsel for the second and third respondents APC and INEC respectively on whether they could open their defence they unanimously said there was no need for them to call any witness since the first respondent declined to invite more witnesses presided by Justice Hafsa AbdulRahman adjourned the petition to August 21 for adoption of written addresses by the parties Mustapha said he was upbeat of winning the case saying the defendants had no choice but to close their defence because they could not defend the undefendable Mustapha reiterated his confidence in the Nigeria’s judiciary under the leadership of the current Chief Justice of Nigeria hence would not be intimidated or hypnotised by the personality and connection of the first respondent He added that he has unshakable confidence in the tribunal that it would do justice to his petition This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks The action you just performed triggered the security solution There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page Fahimta Women and Youth Development Initiative (FAWOYDI) in Bauchi has empowered 1,250 women with skills acquisition for self-reliance income generating tools between 2019 to 2023 in three Local Government Areas (LGAs) of State Women Voice and Leadership Nigeria Project (WVL-N) of the NGO,stated this in an interview with our correspondent on wednesday in Bauchi She said the empowerment was conducted under the Women Voice and Leadership Nigeria Project (WVL-N) with the support of Action Aid Nigeria funded by Global Affairs Canada “From 2019 to 2023 FAWOYDI empowered 1250 women in leadership processes and income-generating activities “The WVL-N project also addresses Gender-Based Violence enhancing women’s economic empowerment and fostering participation of women in leadership roles across the State “We covered 10 communities of Alkaleri,Chinkani Isawa,Yelwan Kagadama and Yashi spanning three LGAs of Bauchi Bani further said the project also establishes 15 Saving Loan Groups (SLG) in the 10 communities saving N18,246,000.00 from 2022 to date and shared among the group members that boost their businesses The Program Manager said the project also advocates posting of female health personnel as the permanent officer-in-charge of Chikani Primary Health Care Center for the first time “We also distribute writing materials worth N15,000.00 to Central Primary School in Gar by women peer groups and male advocates,” she said. She further revealed that 15 GBV cases were successfully referred to appropriate institutions Bani explained that the formation of Women peer education groups and the establishment of a women leadership forum were integral components of the initiative “Both were designed to break barriers and elevate women’s status from the grassroots to higher echelons She added that FAWOYDI played a vital role in facilitating and supporting the registration of the Alkaleri women peer group with the Local Government Cooperative and the Ministry of Women Affairs and Child Development Partners and ASHH Foundation who secured the grant for implementing the project among others Yet only good journalism can ensure the possibility of a good society For continued free access to the best investigative journalism in the country we ask you to consider making a modest support to this noble endeavour you are helping to sustain a journalism of relevance and ensuring it remains free and available to all Police arrest suspected kidnappers 24 hours after killing of 2 traditional rulers in Ekiti State Tunisia dismantles human trafficking network Leave A Reply Cancel Reply VMT News is a registered Nigerian online news platform devoted to bringing timely accurate and factual news to your fingertips Although our primary area of reportage is the Nigeria we are also involved with the coverage of the latest happenings on International scene