Financial Intermediation In Agriculture In Nigeria: Emerging Role Of Non- Governmental Organizations (Ngos)

The study compared the credit operations of Farmers Development Union (FADU) - an NGO, with the Nigerian Agricultural Cooperative and Rural Development Bank (NACRDB) - a public sector finance agency in agricultural financing with a view to determining the emerging roles of NGOs in Nigeria's agricultural landscape. To achieve this, the socio-economic characteristics of farmers who use credit, and the performance of the selected credit institutions on the basis of credit delivery and loan repayment were identified and analysed using descriptive, t-test statistic and regression analyses. The results of the study revealed that theoperational flexibility of the NGO was its major appeal to farmers. The use of groups as social assets for collateral instead of physical assets increased the vibrancy of the NGO compared to the public finance agency and provided a level playing field for both male and female farmers inthe credit market. Patrons of the NGO made a mean savings of N22,284 whereas those of the public finance agency saved only N13,472. While the NGO disbursed more credit to its clients compared to the public finance agency, it also recovered 68.5% of its loans compared with 49.3% recovery made by the public finance agency. If formal banks will be able to impact on small farmers as the NGO, they will need to provide non-collaterized loans and to groups rather than individuals.Keywords: agricultural financing, farm capitalization, credit disbursement and loan recovery

Is population an asset or a liability to Nigeria’s economic growth? Evidence from FM-OLS and ARDL approach to cointegration

The controversial debate on whether high population translates to weak or better economic growth has been a topical discussion in the area of development economics. This study therefore uses the data of the Nigerian economy to investigate the links among population growth, growth in output and income per capita growth for the periods of 1981–2018. The study employs both ARDL bound testing approach to cointegration and fully modified least square methods to evaluate the parameter estimates. We found that there exists a long-run relationship between population growth and economic growth in Nigeria. Further, the study found that the statistical and significant effect of population growth is more on long-run income growth than long-run income per capita growth. Meanwhile, in the short-run, an adverse effect is reported from population growth to economic growth, implying that the former has a detrimental effect on the latter. The reason for the adverse effects of population growth in the short-run results from the high number of dependents, whereas, in the long-run, there is a chance of demographic dividend that makes the young people becomes productive in their adulthood. Our findings, therefore, support the league of many studies that population growth is an asset to the long-run economic growth of Nigeria. In contrast, it has a poor impact on economic performance in the short-run. Thus, there is a need for proper and adequate utilization of the country’s rising population in appropriate areas of the economy where their efforts would be fully utilized towards improving the overall growth of Nigeria

Dark Energy as a Born-Infeld Gauge Interaction Violating the Equivalence Principle

We investigate the possibility that dark energy does not couple to gravitation in the same way than ordinary matter, yielding a violation of the weak and strong equivalence principles on cosmological scales. We build a transient mechanism in which gravitation is pushed away from general relativity by a Born-Infeld gauge interaction acting as an "Abnormally Weighting" (dark) Energy. This mechanism accounts for the Hubble diagram of far-away supernovae by cosmic acceleration and time variation of the gravitational constant while accounting naturally for the present tests on general relativity.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, sequel of Phys. Rev. D 73 023520 (2006), to appear in Physical Review Letter

Computation of Time in Election Litigation in Nigeria – Emerging Trend and Implication for Litigants’ Rights

Most steps in the course of civil litigation, including election litigation, are required to be taken within particular time frame with failure to comply attracting serious consequences. Until recently, the rules regulating computation of time in Nigeria seemed to have been fairly settled. These rules apply across the board to all legal transactions including litigations, election or otherwise. Most basic of these rules is that the day of occurrence of an event is not to be included in computing number of days from such event. Of recent, however, there appears to be an attempt to formulate different rules for computation of time in election litigation.  It is proposed in this work to examine the possible legal justification for this departure and the implication for the rights of parties in election litigation in Nigeria. Keywords:            computation of time, election litigation in Nigeria, emerging trend

The Nigerian Law of Evidence and the Emerging Rules of Civil Procedure: Ignoring Validity on the Alter of Expediency?

Nigeria, as a commonwealth country operates an adversarial system of justice, a system that requires judges to remain unbiased umpires with minimum or no interference in the conduct of cases by the parties, especially in civil litigation. All the rules of civil procedure in Nigeria have always been premised on the strict adversarial philosophy but this had only succeeded in creating room for unnecessary delay and congestion in civil litigation in the country. A set of new civil procedure rules aimed at giving the judges firmer control over proceedings before them were therefore recently enacted. However, these rules, in a bid to promote speedy trial, seem to have ignored the issue of validity in respect of some of their provisions which appear to challenge the existing law of evidence in the country. Evidence is one of the maters under the Exclusive Legislative List of the country’s Constitution[1] with the result that only the federal legislature can make law on the subject. On the other hand, all the new rules, with the exception of that of the Federal Capital Territory, were made by the states. Therefore, any provision in the rules which touches on evidence may constitute an encroachment on the federal legislative power and as such may not be valid. The object of this paper is to examine those provisions in the new rules which appear to deal with evidence and to evaluate the extent of the validity such provisions. Keywords: Nigerian law of evidence, new rules of civil procedure, validity. [1] Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999

Network congestion management using Call Admission Control

Abstract: Call Admission Control schemes have been used extensively in improving mobile network quality. Signal quality degradation, interference and network congestion has been a real issue for Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) as the number of mobile users increased rapidly. It has been an issue in providing a decent Quality of Service (QoS) to the network users especially during the period of high network traffic. It is essential to maintain a certain level of quality in handling mobile network congestion. Fortunately, Call Admission Control is a strategy that can provide credible QoS by limiting the number of connections into the cellular network thereby reducing network congestions, dropping of calls, interference and other QoS problems. In this paper, we discuss issues around mobile network congestion, overview of congestion management schemes, attributes and benefits of Call Admission Control (CAC). We also highlight different handoff schemes. We simulated a typical CAC scheme comparing the new call blocking probability and handoff call probability

The Effect of Federal Government Size on Economic Growth in Nigeria, 1961-2011

This study investigates whether there is statistical evidence for a causal relationship between federal government expenditures and growth in real per-capita GDP in the Nigeria, using long and up to date available time series data (1961-2011). After studying the time-series properties of these variables for stationarity and cointegration, we adopted Toda and Yamamoto’s (1995) Granger non-causality tests and investigate Granger causality in detail in the context of a Vector Autoregressive Model. The Empirical results from cointegration test indicate that there exists no long-run relationship between government expenditure and economic growth in Nigeria. The Toda and Yamamoto’s causality test results show that Wagner’s Law does not hold over the period being tested. However, using VAR Granger causality test we found a weak empirical support in the proposition by Keynes that public expenditure is an exogenous factor and a policy instrument for increasing national income in the short run. Keywords: Federal government size, Wagner’s Law, Cointegration, Granger causality, Vector Autoregressio

Carbon stock in topsoil, standing floor litter and above ground biomass in Tectona grandis plantation 10-years after establishment in Ile-Ife, Southwestern Nigeria

This paper provides information on carbon stock at the habitat level in the above ground biomass (ABG), standing floor litter and soils in a 10 year-old Tectona grandis plantation following restoration of a degraded secondary forest at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife Nigeria. Four sample plots 25 m x 25 m, two in Tectona grandis plantation and two in a nearby degraded secondary forest were studied. Soil samples were randomly collected at 0-20 cm and bulk density determined. Standing floor litter was randomly collected at five points every three months for one year, sorted into different litter components. Soil and standing floor litters carbon concentration and C stock were determined. Above ground biomass (ABG) and carbon stock were significantly (p=0.003 and p=0.0001) higher in the plantation, the order is ABG > soil > standing floor leaf litter > standing floor wood litter. Soil C stock varies from 10.47 t ha-1 in the plantation to 10.58 t ha-1 C in the forest. Above ground biomass, standing leaf and wood litter were estimated as 18.26-5.81, 0.49-0.36, 0.06-0.08 t ha-1 C, respectively (plantation to secondary forest). Reforestation after 10 years has increased C stocks by 45% in ABG in the plantations.Keywords: Carbon stock, degraded forest, plantation, reforestation, standing litter

The Effect of Federal Government Size on Economic Growth in Nigeria, 1961-2011

This study investigates whether there is statistical evidence for a causal relationship between federal government expenditures and growth in real per-capita GDP in the Nigeria, using long and up to date available time series data (1961-2011). After studying the time-series properties of these variables for stationarity and cointegration, we adopted Toda and Yamamoto’s (1995) Granger non-causality tests and investigate Granger causality in detail in the context of a Vector Autoregressive Model. The Empirical results from cointegration test indicate that there exists no long-run relationship between government expenditure and economic growth in Nigeria. The Toda and Yamamoto’s causality test results show that Wagner’s Law does not hold over the period being tested. However, using VAR Granger causality test we found a weak empirical support in the proposition by Keynes that public expenditure is an exogenous factor and a policy instrument for increasing national income in the short run. Keywords: Federal government size, Wagner’s Law, Cointegration, Granger causality, Vector Autoregressio

Numerical Solutions for Linear Fredholm Integro-Differential Difference Equations with Variable Coefficients by Collocation Methods

We employed an efficient numerical collocation approximation methods to obtain an approximate solution of linear Fredholm integro-differential difference equation with variable coefficients. An assumed approximate solutions for both collocation approximation methods are substituted into the problem considered. After simplifications and collocations, resulted into system of linear algebraic equations which are then solved using MAPLE 18 modules to obtain the unknown constants involved in the assumed solution. The known constants are then substituted back into the assumed approximate solution. Numerical examples were solved to illustrate the reliability, accuracy and efficiency of these methods on problems considered by comparing the numerical solutions obtained with the exact solution and also with some other existing methods. We observed from the results obtained that the methods are reliable, accurate, fast, simple to apply and less computational which makes the valid for the classes of problems considered.   Keywords: Approximate solution, Collocation, Fredholm, Integro-differential difference and linear algebraic equation