Nigeria: Battling the odds: Science communication in an African state
Bankole Adebayo Falade, Herbert E. Batta, Diran Onifade · ANU Press eBooks · 2020
Science and technology institutions, practices and policies abound in Nigeria but the phrase 'science communication' is not an entrenched one.At best, science communication practices can be described as fragmentary and incidental.A major issue is policy preferences, which do not elevate science communication to the same level as in Western societies.Closely related to this is education infrastructure and curriculum, which incorporates science communication as a subset of other disciplines.Nigeria's plurality of religions in a strongly contested democratic setting between the old North and South also poses constraints to the spread of scientific ideas, and quite often this has to be factored into campaign programs.The polio vaccine controversy in the North shows the strength of religious beliefs as an obstacle to the spread of scientific ideas.The reaction of the religious leaders in the south to the Ebola virus epidemic also shows that religion, as an obstacle, is independent of affiliation.Religion can however be double-edged in having both adverse and complementary effects.Also, prevalence rates for the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and alarmingly high annual death statistics from malaria tend to support the argument that more needs be done to encourage the citizenry to embrace modern scientific practices as premises for behaviour.