An Examination of Socio-Religious Practices of Sufi Adherents in Bida, Niger State

Sufis were known to have contributed to spreading Islam across the world. This paper seeks to encapsulate the early religious belief of the Nupe people in Bida, Niger state, until the introduction of Islam by the Sufis. The emergence of Sufism was assessed rightly from the time of Qadiriyyah Sufi practice and some scholars that were known with it, like Sheikh Abdulrahman Muhammad bin Sharif and Sheikh Muhammad Wazir (1882-1945), called “Waziri Mamma” before the emergence of Tijjaniyyah Sufi order through a scholar Man-Haruna, alias “Man-yisa Naku” in Banwuya, during the reign of the 2nd Etsu Nupe Muhammadu Saba (1859-1873) known as “Ma’asaba”. The paper adopted a qualitative survey where Interviews were conducted with seasoned Sufi members. The researchers purposively selected participants for the study because they are Muslims and possess knowledge about the phenomenon investigated. The paper provides an overview of some socio-religious practices of Sufis in Bida, Niger State, with the way and manner they are practised in accordance with the teachings of Islam and also reveals the effects of training on adherents by the Sufis in Bida.Contribution: This study contributes to revealing the shift of the Nupe people from polytheism to Monotheism with the role of the Sufis.

Contribution of Sheikh Yusuf Abdullahi Al-Lokoji to the Development of Tijjaniyyah Sufi Order in Lokoja, North Central Nigeria

The paper aimed at discussing the contributions of Sheikh Yusuf Abdullahi Al-Lokoji to the development of Tijjaniyyah Sufi Order in Lokoja, North Central Nigeria. It traces the origin of Lokoja and the factor that led to the settlement of Lokoja town in 1860 during the colonialist as the first administration capital in Northern Nigeria. It sheds light on the introduction of Islam into Lokoja. The paper made use of primary and secondary sources. It discusses the development of Tijjaniyyah Sufi Order and its spread as well as chains of authority that existed earlier in Lokoja before the emergence of Sheikh Ibrahim Niass Kaolack. Finally, the paper provided biography of Sheikh Yusuf Abdullahi Al-Lokoji, his teachings as Sufi scholar in Lokoja and some of his literary works on Tijjaniyyah Sufi Order for the benefit of Muslims

DIMENSION OF SEXUAL COERCION AGAINST GIRL’S CHILD EDUCATION: ITS IMPLICATIONS ON TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS IN NIGERIA

The focus of this paper is the “dimension of sexual coercion against girl’s child education: its implications on tertiary Institutions in Nigeria”. In doing so, the paper employs the qualitative methodology for sourcing materials that are related to the topic were survey method adopted, and data were collected through in-depth interviews and complimented with literary materials. Sexual coercion practice is an illegal behavior that has been bedeviling genders more especially girls and women for long period of time silently in some communities without proper condemnation and publicity. It highlights the concept of sexual coercion, its nature, who is girl child, her education in the society including implications of sexual coercion or harassment in tertiary institutions in Nigeria. Finally, the paper concludes by proffering solutions for curbing the menace of this ugly practice for the realization of effective learning of girls and women in tertiary institutions in Nigeria. The study recommended that there was an urgent need for engagement of various stakeholders in Nigeria and beyond, to checkmate the issue of gender in relation to education of the girl child in the society

Static fatigue analysis on the load container of a low-cost vehicle for Nigerian rural farmers

Static fatigue analysis was done on the container of a model low cost vehicle for Nigerian rural farmers to determine how well the container has been designed and its resistance to notable deformation or damage, based on the load it was subjected to. The static analysis performed involved the fixing of the container in areas where it is made to rest on the chassis. Finite element analysis of the vehicle container was conducted in two loading conditions. The result from the analysis gave a factor of safety of 4.36 for the load container at a maximum displacement of 0.131 mm and a factor of safety of 4.65 for the load container and a maximum displacement of 0.136 respectively for the two loading conditions. These maximum displacements, which can be negligible shows that the load container is well designed as the maximum stresses are above the hand calculated maximum stresses.Keywords: load container, static analysis, fatigue analysis, factor of safety, transportation, low cost vehicl

Towards Boosting Vocational and Technical Education for Self-reliance; Issues and Panorama

The Target date is 2015 when Education shall be for All (EFA).   This is one of the anticipated outcomes of educational reforms of the present administration.   Other aspects of the reforms that permeate the entire sectors of the economy include health, transport, housing and finance, just to mention a few, all of which are aimed at meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This            paper     identifies some of the implementation problems of And Technical Education which range from  inadequate  facilities,  curriculum  defect,  use  of incompetent  (non-professional)  teachers,   dearth   of  qualified   and Technical  education   teachers,   etc. Consequent upon this, the paper posited that, as an aspect of education, the And Technical Education  prcgrammes  should  be  re-strategized  through   Repositioning  and   re-engineering in the area of curriculum restructuring, engagement of professionally qualified and competent teachers, government release of adequate funds for equipment   procurements,   among   others,   towards   overcoming   the   inherent implementation problems.    This strategy would not only ensure the economic empowerment of Nigeria, but also facilitate rapid national economic development. Anything short of this shall make "Education for AH" become "Education for None". Keywords: Repositioning, Vocational, Technical, Education, Strategy and Developin

EFFECT OF SORTING AND SPACING ON THE GERMINATION OF COCONUT GROUND BED NURSERY

Cultivation of coconut is deterred by unavailability of improved planting material. Reducing the quantity of un-germinated seed nuts will optimize nursery space as well as increase seedling production per cycle. The experimental design was randomized complete block with two treatments at two levels each and four replicates. Four hundred seed nuts were randomly selected while the remaining Four hundred were selected by sorting. The seed nuts were arranged in the seed beds in two treatment pattern “spaced” and “cluster” sowing methods with spacing of 30 cm by 30 cm and 5 cm by 5 cm, respectively. There was no significant difference between the spacing methods tested. As much as spacing is between 5 and 30 cm, the germination rate will be similar in ground bed nursery. There were differences in the germination parameters between the sorted and unsorted seed nuts. Sorting had significant effect on seed nut emergence 59.38A and 42.38B; p<0.05 for the unsorted and sorted, respectively. The number of days to emergence and germination was significant at 10% (84.50A; 72.72B), 25% (101.25A; 90.63B), and 50% (126.50A; 110.38B) for the unsorted and sorted respectively. The significant negative correlation coefficient (–0.56, p<0.05) between 50 and maximum germination (MGP) percentage indicated that sorted seed nuts attained 50% germination earlier than the unsorted ones. This will be effective in determining the duration of MGP percentage in the seed lots. Sorting before sowing is essential to ensure early germination of seed nuts and to achieve high germination percentage. It will as well save resources

Effect of set-up heights on the performance of pot-in-pot cooling system for storing food and drugs at ambient temperature

The research aimed at evaluating the effect of set-up height on the performance of earthenware pot-in-pot cooling system. The pots were set up at different heights; H1 (0 m), H2 (0.5 m) and H3 (1 m) and observed for 59 days from 8:00am to 6:00pm daily. The inner temperatures obtained from the three different arrangements were determined using standard methods. The result showed that increasing the height from ground level (0 m) to 1 m increases the mean cooling effect by 8 %. Generally, it was observed that only the set-up height at 1 m proved to have maximum efficiency of the pot-in-pot system performance. Keywords— Cooler, Efficiency, Evaporative cooling, Set-up height, Pot-in-pot, Preservatio

Big data adoption and knowledge management sharing: an empirical investigation on their adoption and sustainability as a purpose of education

The aim of this paper to develop a model to measure sustainability for education and incorporate the literature big data adoption and knowledge management sharing in the educational environment. This paper hypothesizes that perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived risk, and behavioral intention to use big data should influence adoption of big data, while age diversity, cultural diversity, and motivators should impact knowledge management sharing. Therefore, knowledge management sharing influences behavior intention to use technologies and big data adoption would be positively associated with sustainability for education. This paper employed a version of TAM and motivation theory as the research framework and adopted quantitative data collection and analysis methods by surveying 214 university students who were chosen through stratified random sampling. Student's responses were sorted into the 11 study constructs and analyzed to explain their implication of sustainability on education. The data were then quantitatively analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). The results showed that perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived risk, and behavioral intention to use big data were significant determinants of big data adoption, while age diversity, cultural diversity, and motivators were significant determinants of knowledge management sharing. The knowledge management sharing, behavior intention to use technologies, and big data adoption succeeded in explaining 66.7% of sustainability on education. The findings and implications of this paper are provided