A Pragma-Stylo-Semantic Analysis of Proverbs 26, Verses 4 and 5

Although, the majority view of scholars supports the position that the Proverbs of Solomon are influenced by the Instructions of Amenemope of ancient Egypt, the book of Proverbs is believed by Christians to be one of the poetic books of the Bible known for words of wisdom. The first twelve verses of chapter twenty-six are devoted to the fool. With the possibility of being drawn into conversation with the fool, verses four and five become instructive to the wise. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that a pragma-stylo-semantic interpretation of these verses cancels out the overt contradiction. The semantic and pragmatic presuppositions, as well as the stylistic features of the verses are unravelled to arrive at the underlying connections that unify their interpretations. Also, time-lapse or gap is considered fundamental and analysed using the concept of “appropriateness” in terms of possible compliance with the instructions in the two verses by a single agent. The paper proposes a schematic diagram supportive of the concept of "appropriateness”. The various levels of linguistic, situational, psychological, sociological and cosmological contexts of the text have been examined with the illocutionary forces of the text investigated. These are done with the purpose of arriving at a "global" or "total" meaning. At the end, the analysis indicates a non-contradictory, context-determined phenomenon

The Study of Reduplication and Retriplication in the Yoruba Language

The Yoruba language, a regional lingua franca in Nigeria, which belongs to the Kwa sub-family of Kordofanian phylum of the larger African language family, is spoken in Nigeria, Togo, Ghana, Liberia, Brazil, Cuba, etc. The language attests a very productive feature of reduplication which has attracted the attention of many scholars. But its extended form, tagged, “retriplication” in this paper, remains largely unexplored. This study examines the form and functions of reduplication and retriplication which are two morphological processes where the former serves as a pedestal to the latter. While applying the participant observation method to elicit data from main Yoruba cities in Nigeria, the Pulleyblank (2009) model, as well as the descriptive and context usage approaches are employed to analyse and discuss the data. The study reveals that while reduplication process actualises intensification, nominalisation, emphasis and comparative qualifying, retriplication serves for more intensification, wider nominalisation, more emphasis and superlative qualifying. The research further reveals that, while all cases of verb and adjective reduplicates can be retriplicated without generating unacceptable utterances in Yoruba, the gerundive reduplicates cannot culminate in retriplication. However, kinship reduplicate allows retriplication when stretched to the third generation.  The paper concludes by calling for more study on retriplication in other languages of the world, particularly, African and Asian languages that massively exhibit the two phenomena

Network layer access control for context-aware IPv6 applications

As part of the Lancaster GUIDE II project, we have developed a novel wireless access point protocol designed to support the development of next generation mobile context-aware applications in our local environs. Once deployed, this architecture will allow ordinary citizens secure, accountable and convenient access to a set of tailored applications including location, multimedia and context based services, and the public Internet. Our architecture utilises packet marking and network level packet filtering techniques within a modified Mobile IPv6 protocol stack to perform access control over a range of wireless network technologies. In this paper, we describe the rationale for, and components of, our architecture and contrast our approach with other state-of-the- art systems. The paper also contains details of our current implementation work, including preliminary performance measurements

Enhancing frontline health workers\u27 abilities to improve MNCH services in Bauchi State through task shifting/sharing

Frontline health workers (FLHWs), including nurses, midwives, community health extension workers, and community health officers, are healthcare providers with the greatest access to clients and patients, and provide initial care to persons in need of health services. In 2014, Nigeria’s 57th National Council on Health approved a task-shifting and sharing (TSS) policy for essential healthcare services as a promising strategy for improving access and efficiency in Nigeria’s health system. Subsequently, FLHWs in Nigeria have been trained for new roles and functions traditionally reserved for mid- or high-level cadres, to optimize available providers and their capacities. This brief reviews the strategy undertaken in Nigeria’s Bauchi state and concludes that optimizing the roles of FLHWs through TSS is a good solution for improving maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH) services and for addressing health system challenges. Other opportunities include widespread support for improving MNCH care and addressing the unmet need for care and uneven distribution of health professionals

Water quality assessment of Nwangele river in Imo State, Nigeria

Water quality assessment of Nwangele river was undertaken using standard methods. Water samples were drawn from upstream, midstream and downstream of the river and assessed for quality. Results obtained for physicochemical characteristics showed pH (4.83±.0.01-5.00±0.31), total solid (200.00±2.40-613.19±1.10 mg/L), and total suspended solid (49.98±0.11-399.04±2.09 mg/L). Heavy metals found in the river water were iron (0.132±0.01- 0.144±0.02 mg/L), zinc (0.034±0.02- 0.044±0.02 mg/L), mercury (0.004±0.001- 0.011±0.00 mg/L), lead (0.008±0.00- 0.016±0.00 mg/L) and cadmium (0.03±0.01- 0.011±0.00 mg/L). Microbiological studies on the river revealed the presence of Klebsieilla sp., Vibro sp., Pseudomonas sp., Proteus sp., Escherichia sp., Staphylococcus sp., Shigella sp., Bacillus sp., Serratia sp., Citrobacter sp., and Enterobacter sp as bacterial isolates with high total heterotrophic bacteria count (THBC), total coliform count (TCC), Salmonella-shigella count (SSC), and total viable count (TVC). Nwangele River water is acidic, with high total suspended solid, phosphate and microbial loads. It is therefore advisable to purify water from the river before consumption. This study has assessed the water quality of Nwangele river in Imo State, Nigeri

Conflict, National Integration and the Boko Haram Insurgency in Nigeria: An Overview

National integration and nation building is a complex process in a multi-ethnic nation like Nigeria. The problem of insecurity facing Nigeria, most especially the North-eastern region at this point in time, orchestrated by Boko Haram insurgency draws the attention of well-meaning individual who cares to the need to find rapid solution to this menace. History has demonstrated the difficulty and complexity it entails to unite a people under a government and to create among them a stable cultural, economic, political, and social community. The process has been especially cumbersome where the people to be united have large groups distinguished by their own customs, language, religion and separate identity. The unfortunate security challenges currently faced by the country, with its new ethnic and religious dimension, have once again brought to the fore, the internal contradictions of the Nigerian system. The emergence of the militant sect Boko Haram insurgency and all it represents started like any other protest, but it seems to have come to stay. The battle has been taken to the door step of the government to command attention that breaks across borders. Hence, the objective of this study is to examine the effects of Boko Haram insurgency on national integration in Nigeria. The paper discusses Conflict, National Integration and Boko Haram Insurgency in Nigeria. The researchers employ secondary sources of data collection to generate the required data mainly from books, journals, articles, dissertations, and internet materials. The study adopts a qualitative approach to data analysis to assess the effects of Boko Haram Insurgency and findings indicate that the activities of the Boko Haram Insurgents have extreme effects on national integration and nation building in Nigeria. The paper recommended that Poverty should be address across the country through employment generation by governments at all levels, collaboration between government and the private sector, revamping ailing firms and empowering youths and women through skills acquisition programmes and agricultural practices

Rethinking terrorism financing and democracy in Africa: The Nigeria case

Terrorism financing has become a threat to humanity and democracy in Africa. Most terrorist organizations in Africa need money to carry out their massacre activities, which threatens African democracy, political stability, and economic development. The wave of terrorism activities and terrorism financing in Africa have remained a major cause for concern. The pervasive widespread of terrorist attacks seem to have defile all situations. Apparently, in Nigeria, terrorist attack reports have become a daily menu. The lethal killings by Boko Haram in Nigeria can be likened to the era of the Nigerian Civil war. This paper therefore, compares and contrasts the terrorism financing vis-à-vis the nascent democracy in Africa with a focus on Nigerian cases of Boko Haram. Terrorism financing misrepresents democratic growth and economic development in Africa, which brought about a rise in terrorist widespread and negative financial growth and progress in Nigeria and Africa. The multi-dimensional of terrorist financing has brought difficulties to trace terrorist funds due to legitimize illegal sourcing of funds to terrorist accounts. The paper finds that the current wave of terrorism financing have made African democracy unstable and pathetically feeble. Keywords: Terrorism, financing, security, democrac

Outcome of the US presidential elections: Reforming the agenda for reproductive health and women’s rights

No Abstract

Analysis of the quality of educational resources and effective instructional service delivery in Nigerian Universities

This study evaluated the quality of educational resources vis-à-vis effective instructional service delivery in Nigerian universities. Particularly, the study was carried out in university of Calabar, using five hundred and nineteen (519) students selected through the simple random sampling technique from the fifteen faculties of the University of Calabar. To achieve the purpose of the study, two hypotheses were formulated. A questionnaire titled quality of educational resources and effectiveness of instructional service delivery questionnaire (QEREISDQ) was developed by the researchers, this was subjected to face and content validity by three experts in measurement and evaluation and Administration of Higher education all in Faculty of Education University of Calabar. A pilot test was carried out using forty students from University of Uyo in Akwa Ibom state to establish the reliability of the instrument. Using the Cronbach’s alpha reliability method, the instrument had a reliability coefficient of α=.79-.85. The instrument was administered to the respondents and retrieved with Zero attrition rate. The data collected was analyzed through means, standard deviation, Pearson product moment correlation and multiple regression analysis. It was revealed among other things that; the quality of educational resources has a significant relationship with effective of instructional service delivery, with the quality of lecturers being the strongest predictor of effective instructional delivery. However, it was also revealed that the quality of library was significantly low and influenced effective instructional delivery negatively. It was therefore, recommended that government and corporate organizations should provide adequate educational resources and promote viral development programmes for lecturers to enhance effective instructional delivery in Nigerian universities