Die Boko-Haram-Unruhen und die Wiederbelebung des Islam in Nigeria

From the 1980 Maitatsine uprising to the 2009 Boko Haram uprising, Nigeria was bedevilled by ethno-religious conflicts with devastating human and material losses. But the Boko Haram uprising of July 2009 was significant in that it not only set a precedent, but also reinforced the attempts by Islamic conservative elements at imposing a variant of Islamic religious ideology on a secular state. Whereas the religious sensitivity of Nigerians provided fertile ground for the breeding of the Boko Haram sect, the sect’s blossoming was also aided by the prevailing economic dislocation in Nigerian society, the advent of party politics (and the associated desperation of politicians for political power), and the ambivalence of some vocal Islamic leaders, who, though they did not actively embark on insurrection, either did nothing to stop it from fomenting, or only feebly condemned it. These internal factors coupled with growing Islamic fundamentalism around the world make a highly volatile Nigerian society prone to violence, as evidenced by the Boko Haram uprising. Given the approach of the Nigerian state to religious conflict, this violence may remain a recurring problem. This paper documents and analyses the Boko Haram uprising, as well as its links with the promotion of Islamic revivalism and the challenges it poses to the secularity of the Nigerian state.Vom Maitatsine-Aufstand 1980 bis zu den Boko-Haram-Unruhen 2009 hat die nigerianische Bevölkerung unter den verheerenden menschlichen und materiellen Kosten ethnisch-religiöser Konflikte gelitten. Die Boko-Haram-Unruhen (Juli 2009) markierten allerdings eine qualitative Veränderung, denn sie stellten einen Präzedenzfall dar und verstärkten Versuche konservativer Anhänger des Islam, im säkularen nigerianischen Staat Elemente islamischer Ideologie einzuführen. Angesichts der Empfänglichkeit der Nigerianer für religiöses Denken konnte sich die Boko-Haram-Sekte schnell ausbreiten, erleichtert durch die nach wie vor bestehende ökonomische Polarisierung der nigerianischen Gesellschaft, die erneut heftig aufgebrochene Konkurrenz der Parteien um die politische Macht und die Ambivalenz einiger lautstarker islamischer Führer, die zwar nicht explizit zum Aufstand aufriefen, aber auch nichts zur Beendigung der Hetze beitrugen und diese nur vorsichtig verurteilten. Diese internen Faktoren und der gleichzeitige weltweite Aufschwung des islamischen Fundamentalismus führten in der hoch volatilen nigerianischen Gesellschaft zu den gewaltsam ausgetragenen Boko-Haram-Unruhen. Die im nigerianischen Staat strukturell angelegte Gefahr religiöser Auseinandersetzungen legt nahe, dass solche Gewaltausbrüche ein immer wiederkehrendes Problem bleiben könnten. Der vorliegende Beitrag dokumentiert und analysiert die Boko-Haram-Unruhen und skizziert ihre Bedeutung für die Wiederbelebung des politischen Islam und die damit verbundenen Herausforderungen für den säkularen nigerianischen Staat

DETERMINANTS OF CONSTRUCTION FIRMS' COMPLIANCE WITH HEALTH AND SAFETY REGULATIONS IN SOUTH AFRICA

The management of health and safety issues is very significant in the construction industry in South Africa in terms of accident rates and cost to contractors. The costs arise from both the cost of compliance with regulations and the cost of accidents and injuries. In spite of the fact that available evidence shows that construction-related accidents and injuries are on the increase in South Africa, many designers and contractors regard the cost of complying with regulations as unnecessary additional financial burdens. It is against this background that this study investigated the statutory regulations relating to health and safety in construction in South Africa and the level of compliance with the regulations and motivation for compliance by contractors. Data obtained from contractors in a questionnaire survey the Western Cape Province of South Africa were analysed using percentage scores and mean score analysis with the aid of the SPSS software. Although the validity of the findings is limited by sample size used in the survey, it is hoped that the findings will provide empirical basis for a more inclusive survey of H&S in the construction industry in South Africa. Keywords: health and safety, regulations, enforcement & compliance, construction industry, South Africa

Environmental Factors and Entrepreneurship Development in Nigeria

The interface between entrepreneurship and the entrepreneurial environment has been given attention in entrepreneurship literature. This paper starts by placing the issue of entrepreneurial environment in theoretical context, with particular reference to Nigeria. Two major theoretical perspectives were considered; however, the work dwelt extensively on the demand side perspective, which gives primacy to the compelling influence of environment on entrepreneurial practice. Using resources from academic publications, reports and publications of government agencies and other stakeholders in the field of entrepreneurship in Nigeria, some policy programmes of government were examined with a view to understanding their relevance and states in entrepreneurship development initiatives in the country. It was found that most of the programmes considered were moribund either due to discontinuation by succeeding governments or lack of adequate resources, both human and material, for their operations. In few cases where the programmes were in place, a skewed spread was observed,which was capable of hampering the success of these programmes. The paper recommends the following: an auditing of all the policy programmes to avoid duplication and clashes in spheres of operation; continuity in programme implementation; commitment from credit institutions to spread their activities beyond the “comfort zones” in which they currently operate;and sustained education and enlightenment programmes on the opportunities that abound in the environment amongst other

A BOUND TESTING ANALYSIS OF EXCHANGE RATE PASS- THROUGH TO AGGREGATE IMPORT PRICES IN NIGERIA: 1980-2006

This paper examines the extent of pass-through of exchange rate into import prices for Nigeria between 1980 and 2006 using the recently developed UECM-Bounds test proposed by Pesaran et al. (2001). Empirical evidence reveals that world export prices has a dominant effect compared to exchange rate in explaining changes in Nigeria¡¯s import prices in the short and long run. The major implication for our study therefore is that exogenous factors such as world export prices appeared to be more important determinants of domestic import prices than a country¡¯s exchange rate policies.Aggregate Import Price, World Export Price, Bound Testing, Nigeria

MACBenAbim: A Multi-platform Mobile Application for searching keyterms in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics

Computational biology and bioinformatics are gradually gaining grounds in Africa and other developing nations of the world. However, in these countries, some of the challenges of computational biology and bioinformatics education are inadequate infrastructures, and lack of readily-available complementary and motivational tools to support learning as well as research. This has lowered the morale of many promising undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers from aspiring to undertake future study in these fields. In this paper, we developed and described MACBenAbim (Multi-platform Mobile Application for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics), a flexible user-friendly tool to search for, define and describe the meanings of keyterms in computational biology and bioinformatics, thus expanding the frontiers of knowledge of the users. This tool also has the capability of achieving visualization of results on a mobile multi-platform context

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IN A SEMI-URBAN NEIGHBOURHOOD

There are no published studies on impact of neighbourhood on domestic violence in Sango-Ota. This is the first study to examine formal and informal control method and the influence of family structure and socio-economic status on the occurrence of domestic violence in Sango-Ota. A closed-ended questionnaire with two open –ended questions was administered to married couples and other consenting adults at three selected neighbourhoods in Sango-Ota. A research question and one hypothesis were tested. The study tried to find out whether formal and informal control methods are effective. The research hypothesis states that there is a significant combined contribution of socio-economic conditions, family structure and years of marriage to incidences/occurrences of domestic violence in Sango-Ota. Of the 84 participants that reported cases of domestic violence, about two-thirds (61%) reported to their family members while 17 (21%) reported to close family friends. Only 4 (5%) participants had the courage to report to the law enforcement agency, in this case, the police. Risk factors identified to precipitate domestic violence are years of marriage (β= -.205; t = -2.792; p< 0.05) and the prevailing socio-economic status of the family (β= .437; t = 6.052; p< .0005). The findings show a low level reportage of cases of domestic violence. Higher socioeconomic status was found to be protective against domestic violence. Our findings also highlight the potential role of broader contextual or community-level interventions in reducing domestic violence in settings such as Sango-Ota which is a semi-urban area. We found evidence that improvements in the socioeconomic status of the participants will lead to significant reductions in the incidence of domestic violence. Keywords: Domestic Violence, Sango-Ota, Neighbourhood, Socioeconomic status, Polic

TOWARDS THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN AUTOMATIC FEEDBACK SYSTEM FOR PROGRAMMING ASSIGNMENT

Programming problems and assignment are considered essential elements of software engineering and computer scienceeducation. We propose a framework with which student programming assignments can receive automatic feedback on thesemantics of their program codes. The proposed system increases the interest to study and understand the concept of theprogramming subjects. The objective is to assist teachers to promote programming as a subject and increase, increasestudent’s performance while improving the quality of content delivered in computer programing courses.Keywords: Programming, students, framework, feedback, understanding and assignments