Browsing by Author "Adjei, M."
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Item ‘Back-to-Africa’, ‘Double Consciousness’ and the African Diaspora: Confronting the Myth and the Reality in Ghanaian Fiction(Legon Journal of the Humanities, University of Ghana, 2012) Adjei, M.One of the most persistent debates about Black consciousness and Pan-Africanism has been on the attitudes of diasporans to Africa and of Africans to (returning) diasporans. This article critically examines the issue of the eternal connections between the continent of Africa and people of African descent in three Ghanaian works of fiction—Kofi Awoonor’s Comes the Voyager at Last, David Oddoye’s The Return and Ayi Kwei Armah’s Osiris Rising—and comes to the conclusion that the (re)connection between continental Africa and the African Diaspora is beset and mediated by formidable geo-political, cultural and historical barriers and, therefore, still in a state of flux.Item Corruption and the Body Politic in Post-Colonial Ghana: A Re-reading of Amu Djoleto’s Money Galore in the era of ‘Zero tolerance for Corruption’ in Ghana(Legon Journal of the Humanities, University of Ghana, 2009) Adjei, M.Corruption has been an important subject of analysis by social scientists for many years (Bayley 1966; Huntington 1968, 1990; Gould 1980, 1989; Ali 1985; Crowder 1987; Kimenyi 1987; Alam 1989; Mbaku 1991; Couch et. al. 1992 etc.). In the 1960s, however, two major events rekindled interest in the study of corruption, especially in developing countries. First, Samuel Huntington and others developed theories of modernisation and political development. Second, the economies and markets of the newly developed countries of Africa and Asia were overwhelmed by corruption, bureaucratic inefficiency and incompetence. Apart from social scientists, creative writers have also exposed and dramatised the massive spectre of corruption in Africa. Like other urban political novels, Amu Djoleto’s Money Galore (1975) vividly captures the manifestations, scope, function, psychology, power and cultural imperatives of corruption in post-independence Ghana.Item Cutting a Long Story Short: A Semiotic and Postmodern Reading of Veronique Tadjo’sas the Crow Flies(2013-12-09) Adjei, M.As the Crow Flies,written by Ivorian female writer VéronqueTadjo, deals with several stories in everyday life. Tadjo is a writer, artist, academic and author of books for young people. In As the crow flies, she ushers us into a wonderful world full of images, rhythm, colours, feelings, people, musicality, reflections about life in order to open the reader's mind and eyes. The work provokes pertinent questions in our daily lives through characters who are both nameless and faceless. This stylistic choice allows the reader to identify himself with these nondescript characters. The text is revolutionary in its construction and shuffles between the Short Story, Novella and Novel. Over all, it is a stylistic choice driven by postmodernism in its bold attempt to subvert existing conventional novelistic forms and makes meaning only when it is consciously located within such a framework. I, therefore, posit that, to critically engage with the text by way of content and form, one needs to approach it from semiotic and postmodernist perspectives.Item Impact of offshore petroleum extraction and “ocean grabbing” on small-scale fisheries and coastal livelihoods in Ghana(Maritime Studies, 2023) Owusu, V.; Lawer, E.T.; Adjei, M.; Ogbe, M.In recent years, there has been increasing scholarly attention to the relationship between offshore oil extraction and the well-being of communities along the coast whose livelihoods directly depend on the ocean. In this paper, we show how offshore petroleum extraction activities, associated ocean space regulations, and fishery conservation discourses lead to “ocean grabbing” in Ghana. Based on interviews with fisherfolk, government officials, environmental NGOs, and officials from the petroleum industry in Ghana, we address the above issues using Harvey’s framework of “accumulation by dispossession.” The offshore petroleum industry and fisheries utilize different resources. Fishers catch fish from the waters, whereas petroleum companies extract petroleum products from the seabed. Hence, the claim of dispossession often made by fishers is largely contested by petroleum corporations and state institutions. However, due to their spatial coexistence, user rights claims, tensions, and conflicts over facts, opposing interests, and values persist. In these contestations, there exists clear power inequity between fisherfolk and oil companies, with isolated cases of violence and punishment of fishers for flouting marine regulations. This paper calls for institutional strengthening to resolve the impending tensions and address the growing imbalance in the power relations among the different marine resource usersItem Molecular Informatics Studies of the Iron-Dependent Regulator (ideR) Reveal Potential Novel Anti-Mycobacterium ulcerans Natural Product-Derived Compounds(Molecules, 2019-06-21) Kwofie, S.K.; Enninful, K.S.; Yussif, J.A.; Asante, L.A.; Adjei, M.; Kan-Dapaah, K.; Tiburu, E.K.; Mensah, W.A.; Miller, W.A.III.; Mosi, L.; Wilson, M.D.Buruli ulcer is a neglected tropical disease caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium ulcerans. Its virulence is attributed to the dermo-necrotic polyketide toxin mycolactone, whose synthesis is regressed when its iron acquisition system regulated by the iron-dependent regulator (ideR) is deactivated. Interfering with the activation mechanism of ideR to inhibit the toxin’s synthesis could serve as a possible cure for Buruli ulcer. The three-dimensional structure of the ideR for Mycobacterium ulcerans was generated using homology modeling. A library of 832 African natural products (AfroDB), as well as five known anti-mycobacterial compounds were docked against the metal binding site of the ideR. The area under the curve (AUC) values greater than 0.7 were obtained for the computed Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) curves, validating the docking protocol. The identified top hits were pharmacologically profiled using Absorption, Distribution, Metabolism, Elimination and Toxicity (ADMET) predictions and their binding mechanisms were characterized. Four compounds with ZINC IDs ZINC000018185774, ZINC000095485921, ZINC000014417338 and ZINC000005357841 emerged as leads with binding energies of −7.7 kcal/mol, −7.6 kcal/mol, −8.0 kcal/mol and −7.4 kcal/mol, respectively. Induced Fit Docking (IFD) was also performed to account for the protein’s flexibility upon ligand binding and to estimate the best plausible conformation of the complexes. Results obtained from the IFD were consistent with that of the molecular docking with the lead compounds forming interactions with known essential residues and some novel critical residues Thr14, Arg33 and Asp17. A hundred nanoseconds molecular dynamic simulations of the unbound ideR and its complexes with the respective lead compounds revealed changes in the ideR’s conformations induced by ZINC000018185774. Comparison of the lead compounds to reported potent inhibitors by docking them against the DNA-binding domain of the protein also showed the lead compounds to have very close binding affinities to those of the potent inhibitors. Interestingly, structurally similar compounds to ZINC000018185774 and ZINC000014417338, as well as analogues of ZINC000095485921, including quercetin are reported to possess anti-mycobacterial activity. Also, ZINC000005357841 was predicted to possess anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidative activities, which are relevant in Buruli ulcer and iron acquisition mechanisms, respectively. The leads are molecular templates which may serve as essential scaffolds for the design of future anti-mycobacterium ulcerans agents.Item The Role of Socioeconomic Factors, Psychological Motivations, and Social Networks in Women’s Participation in Community-Based Fishery Management in Ghana(Coastal Management, 2023) Adjei, M.; Owusu, V.; Essien, R.S.Women’s participation in community-based decision-making in managing natural resources such as fishery is considered crucial to the sustainability of the fishery industry. However, women experience the brunt of inequality in fishery tasks and decision-making despite their crucial contributions. Using survey data (N = 400) from an ethnographic study on Ghanaian female fisherfolk, we examine the factors affecting women’s participation in community-based fishery decision-making. Findings show that while women attended community meetings, only a few held positions in the fishery associations. Whilst education was not a significant factor in women’s community participation, the age of children, women’s ownership of fishery assets as well as psychological characteristics such as trust, interests and gender role attitudes were very crucial. Results further show that network variables such as women’s position in other associations were more important to their participation in community-based fishery decision-making than mere membership in such associations. This study highlights the need for fishery policies aimed at gender equality to move beyond gender structures and economic models toward examining the complexity of factors affecting different aspects of women’s participation in fishery decision-making.Item A Thematic and Stylistic Analysis of Christianised Traditional Anlo Songs: A Case Study of St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church, Hatorgodo.(University of Ghana, 2014-07) Agbezorlie, K. P.; Anyidoho, K.; Adjei, M.This thesis attempts a thematic and stylistic analysis of what I term ―Christianised Traditional Anlo Songs (CTAS)‖. These songs are traditional Anlo songs that have been adapted and are being used in Christian worship in recent times without discrimination. They were hitherto termed ‗evil‘ and ‗pagan‘ and were consequently banned in Churches prior to the formation of Pentecostal movements and churches in Ghana in the late 1970s. The question then is why are they being embraced now? The Christianised Traditional Anlo Songs (CTAS) were recorded, transcribed, translated and analysed against the backdrop of Anlo world views and Roman Catholic beliefs and practices. These songs have been thematically classified under four themes: (i) salvation (ii) futility of idol worship (iii) freedom in Christ and (iv) goodness /kindness of God. CTAS depict Christianity as the most ideal religion and are used to ridicule and attack African traditional religious practices such as afã divination and idol worship and their functionaries. In condemning these ―so called‖ pagan practices, the Catholic Church appears to open itself to criticisms as some of these practices are prominent in the CTAS and some doctrines of the church. I have investigated the use of imagery, symbolism, allusion, hyperbole, repetition and parallelism as tools for communication in the CTAS to their (Christians‘) prospective converts. In summary, it has been found that these stylistic techniques have Biblical leanings. Three levels of adaptation of CTAS have been identified as (i) lexical adaptation/substitution (ii) tune adaptation and (iii) drum adaptation. These levels of adaptation can be mapped onto the developmental stages 1, 2, and 3 of the CTAS. Most of the traditional Anlo songs (TAS) which are in the corpus whose equivalents are the CTAS have been found to be related to cults such as afã and social dances like kenka. In the CTAS, everyday language is used.