Antecedente y actualidad

As earlier mentioned, FCT-Abuja is a very large area and it is home to all three major ethnic groups as well as many other minority groups in Nigeria. Embarking on this kind of research to capture the opinion of people looking at different cultural, religious and socio-economic backgrounds and mindful of the constraints of time and finance there was a need for assistance with logistics. I decided to employ the services of two research assistants who

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were part-time lecturers at the University of Nasarawa State, Nigeria (this being close to the research location and where the research assistants dwell). I also based my choice of research assistant on those who had knowledge about the research location and might understand the major languages being spoken by the people.

The research assistants played a vital role, especially during the mobilization and awareness campaign. They also helped in the listing and mapping out all the areas that the research covered and offered suggestions concerning some of the areas that were likely to be dangerous during the period of the

fieldwork. During recruitment, they helped by organizing the groups and making sure that each prospective participant included his/her name in the attendance register provided. The assistants made it possible for me to organise focus groups across a dispersed area, but they did not contribute to study design or data transcription or analysis.

The preliminary stage of the research started early with mapping and

selecting suitable towns and areas for this research. After the identification of all the towns (urban and rural towns), I obtained permission from the administrators of the area councils for the mobilization of their members for group discussions and interviews. We also sought the consent of some of the leaders for participation in the interviews – these were granted. We decided to have a list of all urban and rural towns within FCT-Abuja - this was made possible through the help of research assistants. All the area councils in FCT- Abuja were grouped by using two basic factors - density and homogeneity of the population. This influenced our choice of participants required for each area council.

During the familiarization and identification tour, we mapped out all of the possible sites. In the recruitment of participants, we selected four urban towns for interviews and five major rural areas for group discussions (see Figure 1 shows a map of FCT-Abuja with the council area and major rural towns marked). The council areas where I conducted the interviews were Amac-Garki, Abaji, Gwagwalada and Kuje area councils which formed the

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headquarters of each council area. I decided to categorise interviews in urban areas into two, this is because residential areas were distinctly different, hence felt that their views be examined differently given the fact that one of the research questions is to examine perceptions pattern among sub-groups.

At the edge of each area, councils are located in the rural towns where I conducted focus group discussions. These towns are Abaji, Rubochi, Zuba, Nyanyan and Karu (see figure 1). In all the selected council areas, we selected one rural area except Abuja/Amac where we selected two. The reason being that the area is the largest with more rural town surrounding it, besides, it is the seat of the government with more concentration of police activities and commercial activities which also attracted many Nigerians who stay in its rural towns. The aim of selecting from these dissimilar towns was to have a broad representation of all the categories of citizens that resided within the FCT-Abuja during the research period.

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In the map, all Areas “Area1” marked in red are designated for areas where the elite members live, and areas designated as “Area 2” also marked with red are zones where the non-elite reside. All the areas in blue colours, located at the outskirt of each council area headquarter are the rural areas where focus groups took place.

The process of mobilization of prospective participants was made possible through the use of paid mobilizer. In rural towns, the process involved the distribution of handbills in public places such as motor parks, hotels and marketplaces. More awareness, the mobilizers went around and inviting people by use of “public address system” (microphones and speakers). This was not the case with members of urban towns because most of them were either civil servants in government offices or private organizations or owners of their business in different parts of the council areas. The only option available to us, in that case, was to distribute handbills in offices,

neighbourhood shops — we identified some shops and gave them the fliers and register for anyone willing to be interviewed to indicate names and addresses within the five communities selected. After three days we went around the selected offices and shops to collect the lists of those who were interested in taking part in interviews and group discussions.

Before the interviews, we distributed the plain language statement (PLS). Prior to the date of the interviews, I had contacted the potential participants individually and had more discussions concerning the research and what would be required of them. We also agreed on days that were suitable for the interviews. During this process, I kept in touch constantly through the phone before the scheduled days. Similarly, before the group discussion, we

distributed the plain language forms, read and interpreted them to the group members and explained why the research was taking place and the

importance of their opinions and what taking part would require from them (see appendices.1, 2, 3 and 4).

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