JOAPS VOL. 24, No 1, 2018
Abstracts
Disclosure of Positive Serostatus among People
Living with HIV in Tema, Ghana: Decisions and Outcomes
Ethel O. Sakitey,* Ami R. Moore*, and Foster K. Amey*
Disclosure of a positive HIV serostatus is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon. This study uses a mixed methods approach to examine disclosure and outcome related issues among a randomly selected group of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLH) in Tema, Ghana. Overall, disclosure was relatively high among the PLH. The qualitative data showed that PLH first assessed people in their lives to whom they could potentially disclose and only disclose to those they believed would accept them, provide them support, and/or keep disclosure secret. However, some PLH inaccurately predicted the reactions of people to whom they disclosed their serostatus. Also, an important proportion of the PLH did not disclose their serostatus because of fear of stigmatization, discrimination, divorce, and being accused of promiscuity. These fears were somewhat justified because among PLH who disclosed, 42 percent experienced some negative reactions. Also, stigma was an important inhibiting factor to disclosure regardless of the social and demographic characteristics of PLH. Stigma was the only statistically significant factor that predicted disclosure among our study participants. This study shows that there should be a range of different programs and policy approaches in order to achieve the UNAIDS 2011-2015 strategy of getting to zero new infections (UNAIDS, 2010). These programs should have a holistic approach whereby they work with PLH who have been rejected and the people who have rejected them as well, especially family and friends of the PLH. 1
* Ethel O. Sakitey, is with the University of Ghana, Legon.
*Ami R. Moore, is with the Department of Sociology, University of North Texas Denton, TX.
*Foster K. Amey, is in the Department of Sociology & Anthropology, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, TN.
This paper benefitted from helpful comments by Dr. Darkwah and Dr. Edith Tetteh, both of the University of Ghana, Legon.
Agrarian Reforms for Sustainable Food Security and Development: Lessons for Developing countries from the Fast Track Land Reform in Zimbabwe
By
Percyslage Chigora* and Tobias Guzura*
Developing countries across the world have been in one-way or the other been experiencing a rather stagnating condition in terms of general agricultural development and specifically food security. Differing policies have been implemented so as to deal with these problems and subsequently led to food security. Zimbabwe is one such country which at the turn of the new millennium embarked on a massive land reform program. The justifications have been, among others, the need to increase participates in the agricultural sector and enable the majority who have been marginalized with no or little land for agricultural purpose to benefit through accessing productive land. The expectation from such a policy is that it is supposed to contribute towards food security and subsequent development of the agricultural sector. It is the purpose of the paper to examine the extent to which the reform has contributed towards food security and overall development of the agricultural sector. The findings provide a basis through which such a policy is/is not of importance in transforming the agricultural sector at the backdrop of increases participation of the once marginalized. The paper would seek to offer a number of recommendations if such a policy is ever to be followed in developing countries for the benefit of not only the marginalized but entire economic development of a country.2
* Percyslage Chigora Percyslage Chigora is a lecturer of Political Science, International Relations and Development in the Department of History and Development Studies, Midlands State University, Private Bag 9055,Gweru, Zimbabwe.
* Tobias Guzura is a Lecturer of Demography, Land and Agrarian Studies at the Midlands State University, Gweru, Zimbabwe. He can be contacted at Midlands State University, Private Bag 9055, Gweru, Zimbabwe.
Nigeria’s Federalism and the Threat of Secession: The Case of the IPOB
By Emmanuel Oladipo Ojo (Ph.D)∗ and Osadola Oluwaseun Samuel∗
Since 2015, there has been renewed agitation for the creation of the Republic of Biafra. This article focuses on one of the two organizations involved in that struggle: The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB, the second being the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB). The Federation of Nigeria, inaugurated on 1 October 1954 under the Lyttelton Constitution which became operational on that date, has been assailed by a plethora of centrifugal pulls and secession threats since 1950. While many of these threats were resolved politically and at round tables; a few had involved armed confrontation the most famous being the 7 July 1967 to 15 January 1970 Civil War which caused pervasive dislocations and inter-generational trauma. In this article, we argue that four and a half decades after the failure of the attempt to establish a Republic of Biafra, the IPOB is whipping the corpse of Biafra back to life. The paper examines some of the peculiar features of Nigeria’s federalism that had made it unusually secession-prone and afflicted by centrifugal pulls. We conclude that while the lack of elitist support and ‘federal might’ might quash the IPOB and avert an immediate assault on the country’s unity; without a well entrenched policy of inclusiveness and belongingness of the country’s diverse ethnic nationalities, Nigeria might have to fight ‘wars of unity’ cyclically and indefinitely.3
*Emmanuel Oladipo Ojo is an Associate Professor in the Department of History & International Studies, Ekiti State University, Ado Ekiti, Nigeria and in (2018) was a visiting scholar at the Department of General History, Institute of Humanities, Siberian Federal University, Krasnoyarsk, Russia.