Economic Reforms, Living Conditions and Urban Violence: A Situation Analysis of Metropolitan Lagos

Urban poor have suffered significantly from structural adjustment through reduction in employment creation and downward pressure on real wages. The precarious effects of fluctuation in the formal and informal sectorson urban men and women are seldom noticed in the upsurge of urban violence and conflicts. The study specifically examined the impact of privatization and commercialisation on social conditions and livelihood ofurban people as the cause of gender differentials in urban violence. Metropolitan Lagos, the study area has been chosen for her level of urbanization and diverse characteristics. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used for data gathering. For quantitative data 252 questionnaires were administered and for qualitative, Focus Group Discussion (FGD) and In-depth interview were respectively used to enrich the study. The study revealed that more than two thirds of the respondents were affected by the economic reforms which have negative impact on their living conditions. It was also discovered that, there is strong relationship between incomes, education and ever participated in any forms of violence in the study area. The copping strategiesadopted in the study area include; involving children in street hawking, reduction in domestic consumptions, living in low-cost houses, entering big buses popularly know as “Molue” to reduce transportation cost within themetropolitan Lagos, sending children to public school or low-paying schools, and having sizable family size

Evaluation of some heavy metal contaminants in biscuits, fruit drinks, concentrates, candy, milk products and carbonated drinks sold in Ibadan, Nigeria

There is an increasing concern about the health effect in human due to continual consumption of food contaminated with heavy metals gotten from raw materials, manufacturing and packaging processes. It is therefore crucial to know the level of heavy metals in them because of its bio-accumulative property. A total of twelve (12) different brands of sweet and milk sweets, six different brands of biscuits, eleven different brands of fruit and flavoured concentrates and five different types of liquid drinks all of popular brands were collected. All the samples were cold digested using concentrated hydrochloric acid and nitric acid in ratio 1:1. The extracts were analysed for calcium, chromium, copper, iron, lead, and cadmium with Perkin Elmer (A Analyst 200) Flame Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer. Appropriate quality assurance procedures were followed to ensure accuracy of results. Results showed that calcium and iron were present in all the samples analysed while chromium, copper, lead and cadmium were not detected in some samples. Calcium had higher concentration than other heavy metals in all the samples. Concentrations of these metals in all the samples were found to be lower than their permissible limits, which implied non contamination hence no health threat to human, but continuous consumption may be hazardous to the health.Keywords: Hazardous, bio-accumulative, contamination