Determination of Heavy Metals and Biological Contaminants Present in Locally Processed Tomato, Pepper and Onion Puree Samples from Maiduguri Metropolis, Borno State, Nigeria

Contamination of food by heavy metals and microorganisms often occurs right from the farmlands and during processing. This endangers health by predisposition to diseases and factors that can initiate carcinogenesis. The levels of heavy metals and microbial contaminants in tomato, pepper and onion puree processed in some commercial milling points in Maiduguri metropolis was assessed. Twenty samples were obtained by random selection and analyzed for heavy metals by atomic absorption spectroscopy. Samples were cultured on nutrient, blood, MacConkey and mannitol salt agar media for 72 hours using streak plate method. The concentrations of heavy metals were within the range: mercury (0.158 ± 0.10 to 0.321 ± 0.27 mg/L), lead (0.167 ± 0.08 to 0.317 ± 0.25 mg/L), nickel (0.222 ± 0.11 to 0.574 ± 0.23 mg/L) and copper (0.032 ± 0.03 to 0.057 ± 0.03 mg/L) while cadmium was not detected in all the samples analyzed. Three pathogenic gram-negative (Escherichia coli Klebsiella species and Proteus mirabilis) and two less pathogenic gram-positive bacteria (Bacillus subtilis, Coryne bacterium specie) were isolated from the samples. The detection of very low concentrations of heavy metals was within WHO safety limits, while the presence of pathogenic bacteria rises concern over the health status of the general public. There is need to create awareness about good hygiene practices to operators of commercial milling machines within the study area

Hearing evaluation of nigerian prison inmates: a cross-sectional survey

Background: Prisoners, due to confinement are isolated from contact with the society and access to many of the facilities, including medical care. This study aimed to evaluate the hearing threshold of inmates of Kaduna convict prison. Method: It was a cross-sectional study of prison inmates at the Kaduna convict prison between April 2017 and February 2019. Ethical approvals were obtained from relevant bodies and all consented inmates aged 18 – 55years in the Kaduna convict prison were enrolled. Equal number of control matched for age and gender were enrolled from the communities in Kaduna North Local Government Area. Data were collated using a structured questionnaire. A diagnostic Pure Tone Audiometry was performed to assess their hearing threshold. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20.0 was used for analysis. Results: Four hundred and thirty inmates and equal number of control group were enrolled. The mean age for the inmates and controls were 30.2±7.5 and 30.4±8.02 years respectively. There were 383 males and 47 females in both groups. Among the 860 ears of the inmates, 238(27.7%) ears had hearing loss while in the control group, 95/ (11.1%) ears had impaired hearing. Conductive hearing loss was the commonest among the inmates 111(46.6%) while sensorineural was commoner among the controls 57(60.0%). The mean pure tone average among the inmates was 25.6±11.3dBHL and 26.1±11.2dBHL on the right and left ears respectively while in the control group, it was 18.4±7.8dBHL on the right and 17.9±7.9dBHL on the left. Conclusion: This study revealed that hearing loss was more prevalent among prison inmates than in the general population. In majority of the inmates, the hearing loss was mild, conductive and mostly affecting all the frequencies

Political Economy of Public Broadcasting in Nigeria: A Review on Influence of Deregulation and Commercialisation in Public Access and Participation

In Nigeria, the public broadcast media system was originally designed to be in the forefront of promoting human development, democracy, peaceful coexistence, transparency, rule of law and serving as mediators of the public sphere. However, the public broadcast media in the country have not been successful in playing these roles fully when compared to the print media, for example. Apart from being in predominantly urban areas, public broadcast media in Nigeria are largely elitist and heavily commercialised in their programming and content. Hence, factors such as deregulation, liberalisation and commercialisation of the broadcast media industry have impacted negatively on how public broadcast media are perceived by the audience and other players in the industry. This paper seeks to analyse the effect of deregulation and commercialisation of the broadcast media in Nigeria since 1992 on public broadcast media’s accessibility and public participation for a broad range of segments in society, the rich, the poor, marginalised groups and women. Using critical discourse analysis approach, extant literature was critically reviewed, and a theoretical framework was conceptualised for adoption in future research. Recommendation for future research is given at the end of the paper. Keywords: Commercialisation, Deregulation, Nigerian broadcast media, Political economy of communication, Political economy of public broadcasting DOI: 10.7176/NMMC/84-01 Publication date:October 31st 201

Understanding the Rudiments of Media Research Methodology: Content Analysis of Daily Trust, a Nigerian Daily Newspaper

Newspaper journalism is a vast area of research that has gained much attention from academics and media industry. Because of the immense contribution of media to social, economic, political and cultural development to societies, understanding the links and impacts of media and media content on audiences and the polity has been stressed. Democracy has been shown to be a means to an end, and public opinion and participation are invariably shown to affect and be affected by democracy and media content. By its unique characteristics (private ownership, less state influence, greater independence, ability to criticize the state, etc.) newspaper has been shown to influence government and public agenda and set agenda for broadcast and online media. One of the popular methodological approaches adopted in media agenda-setting research is content analysis. Based on the Agenda-Setting theory, this paper employed a quantitative content analysis approach to provide an understanding about the content of Daily Trust newspaper (a Nigerian national daily) in order to provide some guidance on the practical skills and theoretical knowledge about content analysis both as a methodology and theoretical framework for the benefits of postgraduate media content analysis students and researchers. The findings showed that pictures, headlines and news stories were the dominant units of analysis while politics (democracy, governance and party politics) religion and crisis (ethno-religious crises issues surrounding the herdsmen-farmers conflict) were the dominant content categories. Daily Trust newspaper should continue embracing development and peace journalism trend of journalism