Opening ParagraphThe purpose of this paper is to analyse the slogans which are so prominent and ubiquitous on motor vehicles as expressions of social stratification among the Yoruba of southwestern Nigeria. I interpret the slogans in the context of the taxi owners' and drivers' social interactions, not just as disembodied expressions of a total Yoruba world view. In studying the slogans I pay particular attention to processes of accumulation of wealth, status mobility and the way these are affected by cultural values. It is argued that the vehicle owners make different claims at different stages of their careers. Their fears and hopes at each stage must be understood in the light of the contemporary Christian and traditional mix of beliefs about destiny, the world and God.
Akiwowo (1986b) and Makinde (1988) raise several issues on the possibility of an African sociological tradition. They argue that sociology can be done in African idioms and they supply us with some concepts, principally those of `asuwada', `ajobi', `ajogbe' and ` ifogbontayese', with which we can begin to work out indigenous sociological theories. In this paper, we accept that it is possible to do sociology in African idioms. But we must specify the concepts to be used, clarify their meaning, suggest their interrelationships in thought and practice and show their applicability to social phenomena. Neither Akiwowo nor Makinde have sufficiently clarified their concepts for doing sociology in Yoruba (their African idiom of choice). We direct attention to some neglected possibilities inhering in the conceptual discoveries made by Akiwowo, especially those regarding the importance of language, philosophy and sociological theory to the development of indigenous explanatory paradigms. We conclude with some general comments on Akiwowo's affirmation of an African sociology of knowledge.
This paper rests on the belief that various forms of advertisement of self such as the obituary and congratulation publications in the Nigerian daily newspapers exhibit a number of common themes in the imagery with which they handle the fact of achievement. Further, it argues that these themes may be a mix of modern and traditional criteria of success and represent an attempt by the elite to restate their superior attributes. The data were collected from Nigerian Daily Times and Daily Sketch, from interviews conducted with the business managers of the Daily Sketch and the Broadcasting Corporation of Oyo State, with Guardian and Daily Times correspondents, and with newspaper vendors and advertisement agents based in Ile-Ife. A survey of attitudes to the publications and their implicit criteria of success was also investigated. In all, the consensus of opinion is that the publications do raise the revenue base of the print and the audio-visual media, that attitudes to the publications vary across ethnic, religious and class groups, and that the construction of selfhood within each of the advertisement formats is but an aspect of social relationships, mediated in this case through the forms of economic or political development in Nigeria.
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