The Theatre of the Indigenous Tradition in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart

There are basically three theories that explain the origin of the Nigerian theatre. Each of these theories represents a theatre tradition, and all these three theatre traditions exist side by side in Contemporary Nigerian society. One of these theories is the ritual and festival origin theory which states that Nigerian theatre developed from the rituals and festivals of the people. This theory stands for the ritual traditional theatre tradition. This is what is referred to as theatre of the indigenous tradition in this study.This paper examines the theatre of the indigenous tradition in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. It focuses on the peculiarities of this theatre which characterize the work of art under study. It identifies and analyses the three different categories in which this indigenous theatre is found within the context of this work of art. It, then, concludes that there are certain activities in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart that are either purely theatrical or have elements of theatre.  

Influence of Psycho-Demographic Variables on Psychological Well-Being of Undergraduates of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State

The study investigated the influence of emotional intelligence on psychological well being of undergraduates as well as determined influence of demographic variables on psychological well being of undergraduates. The study adopted a descriptive survey design. The sample consisted of 480 undergraduates selected from six selected faculties out of the thirteen Faculties in Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, using convenience sampling technique. Two adapted instruments titled “Ryff’s Scale of Psychological Well-Being (RSP)” and “Questionnaire on Students’ Emotional Intelligence (QSEI)” were used to collect information from the students. The reliability tests of the instruments used were Spearman Brown Coefficients and Spearman Brown Split-half reliability tests for RSP yielded results of 0.81 and 0.90 while that, of QSEI had 0.85 and 0.80. Descriptive statistics and chi-square statistics were employed to analyse the data. The results showed that 95% of the undergraduates had high level of psychological well being. There was a significant influence of levels of emotional intelligence on psychological well being of undergraduates (χ2 = 0. 577 at p < 0.05). Furthermore, the results showed a significant influence of each of sex (χ2 = 0. 786; p < 0.05) and place of residence (χ2 = 0.624 at p = < 0.05) on psychological well being of undergraduates. However, there was no significant influence of age range on psychological well being of undergraduates (χ2 = 0. 365; p > 0.05). It was concluded that most undergraduates possessed high level of emotional intelligence and that had predisposed to high psychological well being

Public Interest Litigation (PIL) as Strategic Legal Mechanism on Women’s Socio-Economic Rights in Nigeria: Making a Case for Girl Child Education

The percentage of girl child illiteracy is higher in girls than boys in Africa. This is particularly so in Nigeria. It is trite that Girl-child issues are generally confined within women’sright in Nigeria. As important as education isto life and humanity, it however falls under socio economic rights in Nigeria, which by virtue of the interpretation of constitutional provisions are argued as non-justiciable. Hence, accessing education for the girl child as a justice system or mechanism has been a challenge in the country. In recent times, some countries have directed public Interest litigation into fighting some socio-economic issues. This is a development which has not been practiced earlier and success is being recorded. It can be said that Public Interest litigation has been able to deal particularly with the challenge of locus standi which hasto do with the opportunity of accessing justice on some rights issues. Focusing on girl-child education in Nigeria, as a socio-economic rights issue to which access to justice is a challenge and to which legal strategic mechanism can bring a change is a positive one. The paper looks at the impact of African girl child illiteracy at this time in the global environment for sustainable development, the legal impediments to accessing justice on socio economic rights; recent legal mechanisms as best practices of getting socioeconomic rights enforced in some developed countries; innovative and emerging ways of its realization and enforcement in Nigeria. It proffers suggestions on legal and strategic litigation introduction or enhancement mechanism, the challenges if any and the gains more importantly of the public litigation procedure. The paper attempts a desktop and library-based approach in a comparative analysis of legal framework, policies on education, literature review of existing scholarship, case study on strategic litigation in some jurisdictions on socio economic rights and applies it to suggest Public Interest Litigation PIL for girl child education in Nigeria. The paper is germane for women’s right advancement, law and or policy reform and citizen empowerment in Nigeria and Africa at large

Closure in Surface Flux Estimation by Energy Balance Model: Comparison of Priestly-Taylor and Penman-Monteith Computations for a Tropical Site in Ibadan

Increasing demand to further understand complexity in surface energy flux partitioning necessitates the adaptation of numerous estimation methods to fit the site of observation. This is useful for reducing the uncertainty in physically measurable parameters especially those in tropical regions with high human interference in the atmospheric boundary layer. In this study, we used computations from two methods - the Priestley-Taylor (PT) and the Penman-Monteith (PM), based on the Energy Balance model to ascertain closure performance in the surface flux estimations. The study was carried out at the Nigerian Meteorological Experiment III site (7.38oN and 3.93oE, 224.2m) located in Ibadan, Southwest Nigeria. Thirty days of a year (2006) dataset were examined using the Bowen ratio (BR) energy balance model to validate the PT and PM methods. The systems were examined across daily and diurnal cycles to better understand the differences in energy partitioning. Results showed that both systems generally favored latent heat flux compared to sensible heat flux perhaps due to above-normal rainfall during the period. The PM method performed better than the PT method with a period average for the sensible heat and latent heat fluxes as 32.05 Wm-2 and 67.66 Wm-2 respectively, accounting for 29.22% and 61.39% of the total net radiation. The PT method underestimates the sensible heat flux by as much as 19.70 Wm-2 compared to the PM method, with a period average of 12.36 Wm-2 representing 11.26% of total net radiation. The PM method also gives a period average Bowen ratio estimate of 0.55, consistent with the standard range for grasslands. The study suggests that the performance of the PM method is related to its response to heat and water vapor transfer over humid regions and would contribute to further research on land-surface interactions over the tropics. Finally, we propose that the measurement of available energy, net radiation, and ground heat flux should be separated for different collocated systems in order to reduce the forcing of closure and aid in proper partitioning of the fluxes. Keywords: surface energy flux, energy balance model, Priestly-Taylor, Penman-Monteith, West Africa, latent heat, sensible heat, NIMEX_3 DOI: 10.7176/JEES/11-5-05 Publication date:May 31st 202

Traditional/Alternative Medicine: An Investigation into Identification, Knowledge and Consumption Practices of Herbal Medicine among Students with Hearing Impairment in Ibadan, South-Western Nigeria

The use of traditional medicine as alternative or complimentary therapy is gaining prominence in primary health care worldwide. This is because of the efficacy in the management of mild, chronic seemingly incurable ailments/diseases. Though the publicity is on the increase from country to country in the world, however, one cannot conclude that the information has reached all classes of people. This study therefore investigated identification, knowledge and consumption practice of herbal medicine among the hearing-impaired. The study adopted survey research design. A total of 50 students with hearing impairment were selected from different locations in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. Traditional medicinal inventory was used to collect data with reliabilities of 0.72, 0.80 and 0.67 respectively based on perception, knowledge and consumption practices. Two research questions were answered and two hypotheses tested. Result revealed wrong perception and low knowledge of traditional/alternative therapy. Also, there was no significant difference in the identification and consumption practice and no significant influence of religion on consumption practice among the respondents. Based on the results, it is recommended that proper education should be given to students with hearing impairment about traditional medicine. Keywords: Alternative medicine, Students, Hearing-impaired, Cultural belief, Nigeri

Foreign Direct Investment, Economic Growth and Financial Sector Development in Small Open Developing Economies

The present paper examines the causal linkage between foreign direct investment(FDI) and economic growth - in Cote’ d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Nigeria and Sierra Leone – with financial development accounted for over the period 1970-2005 within a trivariate framework which applies Granger causality tests in a vector error correction(VEC) setting. Three alternative measures of financial sector development - total liquid liabilities, total banking sector credit and credit to the private sector – were employed to capture different ramifications of financial intermediation. Our results support the view that the extent of financial sophistication matters for the benefits of foreign direct investment to register on economic growth in Ghana, Gambia and Sierra Leone depending on the financial indicator used. Nigeria, on the other hand, displays no evidence of any short- or long-run causal flow from FDI to growth with financial deepening accompanying. In sum, therefore, what should be of utmost urgency is concerted efforts in most of these countries, which have typically been in the throes of economic reforms, to upgrade their financial structure to better position them to reap the desirable growth promoting effects of FDI flows.Financial development; Foreign direct investment; Vector error correction; Economic growth; Economic reforms

Trend Analysis of Teenage Pregnancy in Nigeria (1961-2013): How Effective is the Contraceptive Use Campaign

Teenage pregnancy (TP) is a recurrent global and public health problem. It poses both social and health challenges. Considering the massive campaign on the use of modern contraceptives to prevent TP in recent decades, we assessed trends in TP in Nigeria between 1961 and 2013. Pregnancy and contraception history of 70,811 women who were at least 20 years old when the Nigerian DHS was conducted in 1990, 2003, 2008, and 2013 respectively were used for the study, and descriptive statistics, time analysis techniques and multiple logistic regression were used to analyze the data at 5% significance level. The overall prevalence of TP between 1961 and 2013 was 49.5% which fluctuated insignificantly during the studied period. The TP prevalence among women who entered adulthood in 1961 was 39.2%; it peaked in 1978 at 58.9% before its unsteady decline to 39.6% in 2012, and then rose sharply to 55.6% in 2013. We predicted TP prevalence as 49.0%, 49.9% and 51.0% in 2014, 2015 and 2016 respectively. The odds of TP were over 4 times higher in the North East and 5 times higher in the North West than in the South West. Teenagers with no education had higher odds of TP and it was higher among teenagers from the poorest households (OR=5.64, 95% CI: 5.36-5.94). Rather than reducing with the worldwide acknowledged increase in contraceptive campaigns, TP increased over the years studied. As far as TP is concerned in Nigeria, the impact of the campaign on MC use is far from being effective. To achieve the objective of fewer TPs, fewer resources should be spent on access to contraception and instead diverted to areas more likely to achieve results such as improvements in educational achievement amongst girls

Innovation in Nigerian SMEs: types and impact

This paper seeks to explore the types of innovation that are predominant in SMEs in developing countries and to investigate the impact of these innovations on different dimensions of firm performance based on an industry-wide innovation survey carried out in Nigeria in 2007. Although innovation is important for superior firm performance, our result found that the type of innovation that SMEs pursue is not a critical consideration in their performance. While there was no difference found in the focus of SMEs on either of product or process innovations, evidence showed that SMEs would focus more on incremental product and process innovations. Incremental innovation was found to be very important for Nigerian SMEs and a significant predictor of product quality and not of revenue. The authors conclude that SMEs chooses to pursue such innovations that most fit their strategies and available resources. Such level of innovation affords Nigerian SMEs to more extensively exploit the domestic market but cannot support extensive new product development required to enter export markets.innovation; small and medium enterprises; Nigeria; impact

INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION, DEMOGRAPHIC VARIABLES AND RELATIONAL MAINTENANCE AMONG UNMARRIED POSTGRADUATE STUDENTS OF OBAFEMI AWOLOWO UNIVERSITY, ILE-IFE, NIGERIA

The study ascertained the level of relational maintenance among unmarried postgraduate students of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife and as well as the relationship between interpersonal communication and relational maintenance among the postgraduate students of Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife. Finally, it also examined the relationship between demographic variables and relational maintenance among the postgraduate students. These were with a view to providing useful information on relational maintenance among the unmarried postgraduate students. The study adopted survey design. The sample size comprised 600 postgraduate students selected from six selected faculties out of the thirteen Faculties in Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, using multistage sampling technique. Thereafter, a total of 100 students were selected in each faculty using purposive sampling technique for those that were into dating relationship. One adapted and one self-constructed instruments were used to elicit information from the respondents. The adapted instrument was Relational Maintenance Scale (RMS) while Interpersonal Communication Inventory (ICI) was self-constructed. Percentages, frequency counts Pearson correlation and Chi-square were employed to analyze the data. The results showed that 24.8%, 52.5% and 22.7% of postgraduate students of Obafemi Awolowo Universities Ile-Ife demonstrated low, moderate and high levels of relational maintenance respectively. The study also indicated that there was a significant positive relationship between interpersonal communication and relational maintenance (r = 0.676, p > 0.05). Furthermore, the results showed significant relationship between sex of the students and relational maintenance (x2 =24.271; df = 564, p > 0.05). Finally, the results showed significant relationship between age of the students and relational maintenance (x2 = 47.837a; df = 564, p > 0.05). It was concluded that irrespective of the age of the students, most unmarried postgraduate students in the study area had moderate level of relational maintenance