John is both a Cultural Archivist, and a Media/Communication Researcher on the DirtPol Project in Nigeria; an ERC funded project which he joined in February, 2014. His brief has been to interact with media producers and consumers with the intent of sampling data, through interviews, print media, social media, DVDs and other visuals, on the varying perceptions of ‘DIRT’ in Africa (Urban Lagos). His training in qualitative research by experts from NatCen Social Research Institute, at the University of Sussex has prepared him for the task of a cutting edge research. He has been applying research skills like scooping, probing, prompting and other in-depth interviewing skills in the collection of brilliant data relating to health, sexuality, religion, ethnicity, environment, politics, corruption and other categories denoting dirt. John has also archived a huge collection of DVDs in the DirtPol Library, sufficient for those who intend to do a PhD research on Nigerian home video (new media). The huge repertory of newspaper editorials (both hard and soft copies) relating to dirt in the DirtPol archive, no doubt, establishes John as a cultural archivist. This researcher, who has background knowledge in Nvivo, has also been transcribing, translating, interpreting data, and situating same within the context of usage and cultural background. Besides his present obsession with research, he has close to a decade’s experience in informal teaching, administration and civil engineering (construction).
John is a recipient of Delta State Scholarship Award for Post Graduate studies; and he holds a first (BA) and second (MA) degree in English (Literature) from Ambrose Alli University, and the University of Lagos respectively. He has been collecting PhD materials with which he intends to investigate theatrical mutations of the Nigerian Live stage. He is interested in literary theories, cultural studies, interdisciplinary studies, gender studies and comparative literature. With an adequate blend of scholarship and research, John has a number of published and unpublished scholarly essays, and an unpublished collection of poems. He also has published reviews of Akachi Ezeigbo’s Roses and Bullets, Dancing Mask, and Ifediora’s Cosmic Cycle. His paper titled: “Griotization and (Re) Structuring of The African Novel: Form, Technique and Style in Achebe’s Creative Oeuvres” is published in Okike No.52. Okike is the oldest scholarly journal in Nigeria.
John is an Urhobo by tribe, a Southern minority group in Nigeria, with a maternal Yoruba background. He speaks Yoruba, Pidgin and English fluently; and has been using these languages to conduct in-depth interviews. The refusal to be a boring academic researcher ensured that this DirtPol archivist is able to create time for football, swimming and snooker; and as a good social mixer, John is always ready to coast along, even when the tide is high. His love for community development cannot be described in any other way than with the State Honours Award for best passing-out corp members, which he won during his national youth service.
To John, DirtPol is more than a team; it is a family whose beauty lies in its strong cross-cultural and inter-continental collaborations. For same reason, John is willing to go into collaboration, with interested researchers around the world, on issues relating to his expertise and newer fields of research. He can be reached on: uwa.jmo@gmail.con
