Fast Tracking Business Transactions through a Cashless Economy in Nigeria: Benefits and Challenges

It is estimated that over 70 per cent of cash in cir in the Nigerian economy exist outside the formal banking system. This has cost implications for the economy. Physical cash has life span, it get destroyed easily. This means that government spend a lot replacing cash with new ones. If cash is not in the formal system,it cannot be used for lending, but if you know the aggregate, that is how much money is available to kick start the economy, it makes lending and production easier. In the light of the above, there is a gap in the existing cash management by the CBN. This issues addressed in this paper pertain to benefits and challenges of a cash less economy in Nigeria The methodology is content analysis. The paper concludes that, amongst other the success of the new cashless policy hinges on a strong legal framework, the state of infrastructure, availability of real data, investment in technology, adequate security and effective judicial process

Brine Shrimp Cytotoxic and Lemna minor Phytotoxic Evaluations of the Methanol Extracts of the Leaves, Stem and Root Barks of Sacrocephalus latifolius

This work was aimed at evaluating the probable toxicity of the methanol extract of the leaf, stem bark and root of Sacrocephalus latifolius on Artemia nauplii and fronds of Lemna minor. The powder samples of the three morphological parts were independently extracted with soxhlet extractor apparatus using 95% methanol and were dried with aid of ritory evaporator at 40ºC. The extracts were subjected to biological activities involving brine shrimp cytotoxicity and Lemna minor test for phytotoxicity at 10-100 μg /mL respectively. The experiment was done in replicates of three. Concentration-dependent cytotoxic and phytotoxic activities were recorded for the extracts. The results revealed that extract of the leaves demonstrated significant cytotoxic and phytotoxic activities over the other parts of the plant. At 10μg/mL, the three extracts recorded little or no cytotoxic activity. However, at the maximum concentration of 1000 μg /mL, cytotoxicities of 66.67 and 3.33% were recorded for extracts of the leaf and root bark respectively, while the extract of the stem bark showed no activity. However, the LC50 of the leaf was 467.74μg /mL, and that of the other extracts were observed to be ˃1000μg /mL. The results for phytotoxicity followed a similar trend with the extracts of the leaf and root bark recording 52.96 and 23.33 % phytotoxicities respectively at 1000 μg /mL. Having shown a higher activity over the other extracts, the leaf extract of S. latifolius could serves as a natural alternative pesticide and weedicide. Keywords: Sacrocephalus latifolius, phytotoxicity, cytotoxicity, fronds, Artemia nauplii, Lemna mino

Evaluation of Potential Antimicrobial Activity of Stem Barks Extract of Persea americana (Mill) and its Solvent Fractions against Randomly Selected Pathogenic Bacteria and Fungi

Persea americana stem barks are used locally in parts of Nigeria in treating bacterial infections. This study aims to determine the antimicrobial potential of the methanol extract and fractions against S. aureus, B. substilis, E. coli, P. aeruginosa, C. albicans and Aspergilus species. The plant material was extracted with 80% methanol and partitioned into chloroform and aqueous phases which were evaluated for antimicrobial activities using agar well diffusion method. The methanol extract inhibited the growth of the test organisms; P. aeruginosa showed the most activity at 100mg/mL. The CHCl3 fraction of the plant extract was ineffective against gram negative bacteria (E. coli and P. aeruginosa) at low concentrations. The CHCl3 fraction was most effective against S. aureus at 50mg/mL but ineffective against gram-negative organisms at lower concentrations. The extract's H2O fraction had the most antimicrobial activity. The H2O fraction inhibited B. substilis at 50mg/mL (8.50±1.08mm).Alkaloids, saponins, tannins, steroids, among others were observed in the extract and fractions. Owing to the higher antimicrobial activity in the H2O fraction, the active antimicrobial compounds could be polar in nature. The higher inhibitory activity recorded by the H2O fraction supports the folkloric use of P. Americana

Securinega virosa leaf and root bark extracts: a comparative anti-cancer study against human breast (MCF-7) and lung (NCI-H460) cancer cell lines

Securinega virosa (Roxb. ex.Willd.) is a medicinal plant with folkloric use in the treatment of cancer and other diseases and has earlier shown significant cytotoxic and growth-inhibitory prospect in our past work. The methanol extracts of the leaves and root barks obtained by cold maceration were screened for anti-cancer properties on breast (MCF-7) and lung (NCI-H460) cancer cells at 1-250 μg/mL adopting the SRB assay. The active leaf extract was partitioned into aqueous and chloroform fractions which were further tested at 1-100 μg/mL on the cell lines. The leaf and root bark extracts exhibited higher sensitivities on MCF-7 than NCI-H460 cell lines. At 100 μg/mL the leaf extract showed cytotoxicity and growth-inhibitory activities of –1.09 and +61.35 % on MCF-7 and NCI-H460 cell lines which later increased to –18.67 and +77.13 %, respectively at 250 μg/mL with GI 50 and TGI of 42 and 63 μg/mL on MCF-7 as well and 98.01 and 132.50 μg/mL on both cells. At the maximum concentration, the root bark extract recorded cytotoxicity of –2.60 % on MCF-7, and a growth-inhibitory activity of +57.9 % on NCI-H460 cell lines. Fractionation of the leaf extract improved its activity at GI50, TGI of 28.11, 34.22 μg/mL on MCF-7 and 42 and 52.69 μg/ mL against NCI-H460 cells, respectively. The traditional use of this plant in the treatment of tumor ailment has further been justified by these results

Addressing operational complexities through re-inventing leadership style:A systemic leadership intervention

This research investigates leadership practice in private organisations in Nigeria. It focuses on learning about theapplication of leadership styles to address operational complexities in organisations. The research is based on acase study of a commercial livestock farm in Nigeria using systemic intervention as the methodology. Datacollection tools, such as a workshop, semi-structured interviews, boundary setting and participant observation,were applied. Key leadership issues identified in the case study were addressed via the creation of an effectiveapproach from different leadership underpinnings. Part of thefindings is the difficulty in sustaining the imple-mentation of a particular leadership style(s) due to unstructured nature of complexities involved in the deter-mination of suitable leadership style at different stages of the research. The research wrapped up with thesuggestion for further research on systemic leadership intervention to consider exploring the public sector, as wellas the need to further review on the use of CATWOE in the research process, to avoid the occurrence of mar-ginalisation in its apllication

Euphorbia Graminea Jacq. (Euphorbiaceae): A Comparative Antimicrobial Evaluations of Stem and Root Extracts

Antimicrobial resistance is a global issue. Euphorbia plants are used locally to treat microbial infections. This study examined the antimicrobial potential of Euphorbia graminea stem and root extracts. The stems and roots extracts of E .graminea were extracted using 80% methanol and tested for antimicrobial activity at concentrations between 4.69-300mg/mL against non-clinical isolates (S. aureus, E. coli, P. aeruginosa, C. albican, A. niger). The active roots extract was fractionated using vacuum liquid chromatographic fractionations (VLC) and the resulting fractions bulked and tested against the organisms at 6.25-100mg/mL.  The MIC of extracts and vlc bulked fractions were tested at 0.39-6.25 mg/mL.  The root extract recorded higher antimicrobial activities over the stem extract especially against S. aureus and E.coli, hence was fractionated. Among the vlc sub-fractions of the roots extract, fractions A (2) recorded no activity against the test organisms while fractions C (9-10) recorded 7.50 and 3.50 mm against S. aureus and E. coli only at the maximum concentration of 100mg/mL. However, fractions B (3-8) conspicuously gave zones of inhibitions far higher than the other fractions. This study has shown that the roots extract of E. graminea has higher antimicrobial activities more than the stems, further justifying the ethno-botanical potentials of the plant in treating skin infections

Bank Performance Based on Return on Equity: The Relationship with Enterprise Risk Management Indicators

In this study, the researchers provide a fresh examination on the nexus between return on equity and enterprise risk management indicators for a panel of Nigerian banks using pooled OLS, WG-VC and flexible GLS methods. The study aims to determine whether the relationship with ERM will improve the performance (return on equity) of the Deposit Money Banks. The findings show that the chief risk officer, members of the risk committee, and derivative instruments for hedging foreign exchange rate risk have a positive impact on return, while risk mapping and derivative instruments for hedging credit risk maintain a positive relationship with return on equity. Banks have continued to fail due to high levels of non-performing loans, poor corporate governance, negligent credit administration, and failure to meet liquidity and capital ratio prudential ratios. The result clearly showed that enterprise risk management is a positive driver of return on equity. The study concludes that return on equity increase with an increase in risk committee member and derivative instrument for hedging foreign exchange risk, while the other three ERM indicators and return on equity move in a different direction, that is a negative relationship is evident. Financial institutions should weigh the risk vs the potential rewards to decide whether the risk is worthwhile. They can benefit from risks that are worthwhile taking as a result both in the short and long term

Bank Performance: A Measure of the Relationship of ERM Indicators with Net Financing Per Share of Deposit Money Banks in Nigeria

This research aims to quantify the correlation between ERM indicators and net financing per share of Deposit Money Banks for a group of Nigerian banks through the use of pooled OLS, WG-VC, and flexible GLS techniques. Banks must manage a number of risks, including market, operational, interest rate, liquidity, and solvency (or capital) risks. These risks have reduced the benefits of managing the banking sector. One of the most noteworthy features of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) was the unique nature of the liquidity crisis it precipitated, which eventually materialised as a variety of crises prior to reaching a catastrophic threshold. The outcomes demonstrated a favourable and statistically significant relationship between the chief risk officer and risk committee member parameters. Expanding these variables will result in an increase in net financing per share because the two factors have a favourable impact on net financing. However, there is no statistically significant difference between the exchange rate, price, and credit risk hedging derivative instrument and the risk mapping parameter. It demonstrates that these factors and net financing per share do not positively correlate. Derivative tools for hedging foreign exchange rate risk, the chief risk officer, and risk committee members all have positive coefficient values. This evidence shows that these factors and net financing per share are positively correlated. There is typically no positive correlation seen between risk mapping and derivative instruments used to hedge credit risk and net financing per share. Our research leads us to the conclusion that, since more than two ERM indicators have a positive impact on net financing per share, the expected or theoretical sign of the relationship between enterprise risk management and net financing per share is maintained