Women Academics From Nigeria

"The excitement you read in my style is a genuine expression of a reader’s love. African literature is beautiful stuff. As a blogger, I enjoy thinking up innovative ways of getting my readers to put aside all the assumptions and expectations they might have of African writing and simply encounter it from a place of love."

"Activism is probably too strong a word to use for it. But, I do have a politics regarding African writing in the sense that while I love British and Indian literature deeply, I also understand that African literature is the only literature I can really lay claims to or call my own."

"A whole new world of philosophical and literary texts were opened up to me. The more I immersed myself and delved deeper into these texts, I realized that I could not keep this utterly captivating universe of ideas to myself. It wasn’t enough to talk about these things in class with colleagues and Profs. I wanted more."

"...I don’t let the fear of getting into trouble decide what I write or don’t write."

"At the end of the day, Africans are the only ones who can really champion African literature. It is not enough to complain that the world misunderstands us and our work. We have to take the lead in showing the world what is awesome about African literature and how it should be read."

"As a blogger, you learn to deal with criticisms and insults."

"Give us the “digestible and quickly forgotten” stuff. I want more African writing with mass appeal. I want a Nollywood invasion of African literature. I want African writers to not take themselves too seriously for once and just write novels that Africans would find endlessly delightful and delicious."

"I want African writers to sell millions of copies, make good money, and live off their work. This is how publishing industries are nurtured—when they are able to tap into the pulse of mass culture."

"Improving Women's Participation in Higher Education."

"Naturally, MPs have seen what happened in Niger and elsewhere, but fear is tempered here because officers in Mali's forces have also given a great deal of thought to the effects of military dictatorship."

"Let me put it this way. The military dictatorship went through three different stages. During the first stage, just after the coup on November 19 1968, the junta chose Mao Tse Tung as a model, hammering home the idea that power could be won by force of arms-and it was carried away by the popular acclaim it initially received."

"We are critical on a number of fronts. Looking at it first from an institutional standpoint, when the Malian people rejected the old regime, they wanted the existing set-up to be changed into a democratic one."

"With pleasure. Before the 26 March revolution, there was a general consensus that, in the process of privatisation, the state sector should be managed in a way that benefited the Malian economy. But the reality is that privatisation methods have not changed."

"Through out my time in nursing school I could remember my friends and colleagues complaining about how lengthy nursing school classes are. This is what some of you guys getting into nursing school do not realize before getting into nursing school."

"Becoming a nurse is easier than you think"

"I want you to prepare your mind, spirit body and soul for lengthy classes."

"I want to quickly add that in spite of the duplicity and moral deficiency that is prevalent among us as a people, there are still some individuals, whose sterling character stand out as beacons of hope and who continue to inspire humanity that regeneration is possible and that life can be lived with dignity."

"I have had to argue again and again that the so-called leaders usually arise from among the people. Hence, if bad leaders arise from among us perennially, then there is something inherently bad in us all."

"The ritual killings in Urhobo communities had become something to worry about."

"A lot of people that struggle with their exam in nursing school are those who wait till the last minute."

"There was also a need for staff development, and for this reason seminars were organised to equip the staff with the appropriate knowledge needed to carry out their duties as expected."

"All I can say is that I worked hard and as I was working hard, the titles kept coming. I became the first female pharmacy professor in UI when I was the director of General Studies and that was a whole lot of responsibilities because I was in charge of all the students, both regular and distant learning."

"There are a lot of opportunities for women; the world is focusing on women. So, by now, I do not expect any woman or young girl to complain of not being given an opportunity because there are a lot of opportunities out there for all young girls and women in the world as we speak; all we need to do is to find opportunities and grab them."

"So, Pharm D will be a more encompassing programme that will make a pharmacist able to handle all of these and pharmacists of this generation. Of course many people will be helped and many ill-healths arising from drug will be averted."

"While in school, I was privileged to be among the best students and even got a Federal Government scholarship."

"Nigeria remains a nation sorely betrayed by its people"

"No one should be left behind when it comes to nursing and health education."

"therefore, adaptation is important as a necessary complement. mitigation, relative to adaptation, requires a lot of policies, not just simple “precautionary measures by individuals.”"

"In most of the studies, there were between 50 and 80 per cent reduction in the effectiveness of these antibiotics. This is something people, especially healthcare providers should be mindful of."

"Practice of combining antibiotic with anti-malarials is very common in Nigeria, are there possibilities of such a practice affecting the effectiveness of these drugs? From studies carried out many common antimalarials reduce the effectiveness of common antibiotics, thus promoting resistance in disease-causing germs to these antibiotics."

"Given that the drug–drug interaction occurs at the absorption level, such problem is ruled out when it is given in the injection form. Also, the time of their administration can be separated by between two to three hours to ensure the full benefits of the two drugs are assessed."

"Quinine is one of the oldest drugs in the pharmacopeia and during the time, chloroquine was failing, quinine came useful for the treatment of severe malaria until the ACT came on board. Being a drug that can be used to treat cerebral malaria, a life threatening form of malaria, only the quinine suppository would be useful in the rural areas where chances of giving it by intravenous injection may not be possible."

"One thing that is important to note is that drugs are poisons; there is no drug that really does not have its side effect. That is why the drug regulatory body based on pharmacovigilant sometimes recall some drugs from the market if high levels of adverse drug reactions are reported."

"Work on quinine suppository has been on for so many years. Preliminary studies on the quinine suppository in rabbits indicated that it had antimalarial properties. However, the bioavailability is low. At the moment, one of our investigators is currently working in the USA on increasing its bioavailability to get an optimum product that will release the necessary level that they need. This will then be followed by more clinical trials."

"Pharm D means Doctor of Pharmacy. Pharm D programme globally is a curriculum that was developed to make the pharmacy profession more patient-oriented. All along, the pharmacy curriculum in Nigeria was more products-oriented. But there is more to the role of pharmacists than handing over medicines to patients."

"Also, one of my children also reacted to septrin syrup as a baby. At two years, when he was given Fansidar, an antimalarial drug that also contains Sulphur, he almost died. Because the tongue was red and the inside of the mouth was red, they suspected measles. Unfortunately, nobody suspected a reaction until much later that a consultant paediatrician doctor linked his condition with Stevens – Johnson syndrome. Based on this experience, I started a study on pharmaco-genetics, which entail looking at how gene can help predict a person’s reaction to a particular drug."

"Most allergic reactions occur within hours to two weeks after taking the medication and most people react to medications to which they have been exposed to in the past. This process is called “sensitisation.” However, rashes may develop up to six weeks after starting certain types of medications. Rarely, blisters and bleeding inside the skin or the inner surfaces of the intestines may occur. Unfortunately, if it is the life threatening anaphylaxis, it could be fatal. So, it is important to educate people about these possible reactions to drugs."

"The first study was on proguanil, a prophylactic antimalarial in healthy and sickle cell individuals. The study found that in persons with sickle cell, about one per cent of them breakdown the drug slowly while it was five per cent in healthy persons. This shows that there is genetic difference between the two groups of people."

"However, where the body’s ability to breakdown sulpha-containing drugs to safe compounds is slow, it ends up being changed into products that are not safe. This causes the adverse drug reaction that people experience."

"Almost any drug can cause an adverse reaction. Reactions range from irritating or mild side effects such as nausea and vomiting to life-threatening anaphylaxis. Common symptoms of a drug reaction include hives, itching of the skin or eyes, skin rash, swelling of the lips, tongue, or face and wheezing."

"The second study was on hypersensitivity of sulpha drugs in healthy people and people living with HIV. About 15 per cent from our survey reported various types of reaction to sulpha drugs. However, a breakdown of the data showed that hypersensitivity of sulpha drugs in people living with HIV was far higher."

"They should be able to clack the patient like a doctor to know medicines taken, how they are feeling, any need to change their medicine or dosage regime and so on. This is about individualised medicine. Nobody should die of drug reaction, if things work as they should. Handling over medicines, a pharmacy technician can do that. But information the patient needs about the drug should be provided by the pharmacist."

"You can't compare nursing profession abroad to Nigeria."

"You are quite correct about the reality of climate change threats in Africa (and the entire world) as well as the relatively low level of awareness of climate change issues by the African society. This apparent ignorance cuts across different facets of the society including private and public sectors, civil societies organizations, professionals, farmers etc."

"Some drugs are expected to be taken after food, some are to be taken on an empty stomach. For drugs that should be taken in an empty stomach, studies have shown that when taken with food, there is an interaction which may reduce their effectiveness. Rather such drugs can be taken about 30 minutes before food."

"This is called adverse drug reaction and it could occur with the intake of many drugs because no drug is 100 per cent safe. A particular one is the hypersensitivity to sulpha-containing drugs. It also occurs with drugs that contain amino compounds"

"Pharmacy is one of the best professions in the world and was rated by Forbes in January 2015 as the best health care profession in the USA."

"Sometimes when you go for research, people might be having manuscripts you need, but they would not release it to you because of lack of trust, as they don’t know what you are going to do with it. But Alhamdulillah, I was opportune to get close to them. Number one, I am a woman; two, because of my marital relationship with the Caliphate and three, the Hubbare, that is the tomb of Shehu, they accepted me so much and once the Hubbare accepts you, then you have few problems."

"As an academician, I had to continue presenting papers and my area of interest was on Shehu Usman, their contributions to poetry and I took Nana Asma’u who was also a renowned Islamic scholar. I wrote a paper on her and presented it at the university and a friend to late Waziri Junaidu the erudite scholar attended the seminar and said that the paper I presented on Nana Asma’u was great. Then I also presented another paper on her sister, because I realized that most of these women were well- versed and educated, but their contributions were not documented."

"Another challenge is funding, because I said I was not going to ask anybody to give me money. My idea was that it’s my interest, I want to do it and I will prove to people that I have done it. So, anybody who wants to support me now, can. You know now our society is so corrupt, you can go to somebody to support your project, but he may think you are not genuine. If you initiate a thing, then prove to people that you can do it and maybe when they see the quality of work, the significance and importance of the work, they might support you later. So, I had a challenge there. I spent millions doing the project and I had only the support of my family."