Traditional Crafts and Tourism Development and Promotion in Etim Ekpo Local Government of Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria.

Many Nigerian communities are richly blessed with their own indigenous crafts and industries, which could help them to grapple with their environment and progressively enhance their living. This paper seeks to identify and document some traditional crafts in Etim Ekpo, with a view to finding out how traditional crafts affects other aspects of the peoples' culture. The paper further examines how best to harness these traditional crafts/industries for tourism development in the area. Our interest on the study area arose due the fact that these traditional crafts/industries are fast being abandoned. It is our contention here that if these traditional crafts are not studied and documented, they will only be remembered in stories and myths as is obtainable in some African countries. Therefore, harnessing the potentials of Etim Ekpo traditional craft for tourism development will stimulate the growth of rural economy, serve as a vehicle for rural community development, create awareness of people's cultural heritage as well as generates employment. Key words:Tourism, Development, Promotion, Crafts, Carving

Protecting indigenous knowledge in international law: solidarity beyond the nation-state

As aspects of decolonisation, indigenous and other colonised peoples’ historical claims for cultural survival, and for distinct identity, remain unresolved issues in modern international law. Following the salt-water doctrine1 which resulted in the loss of solidarity between the indigenous peoples in the enclave colonies and their counterparts in the third world, these claims have been pursued, for the most part, by the former within a narrow political rubric of human rights and self-determination. This contribution examines the complicity of the colonial nation-state, both as a concept, and an actor in marginalising the indigenous peoples of the enclave territories, and in empowering their counterparts in far-flung places. It notes that since the mid-20th century, however, the United Nations has provided a platform for indigenous peoples to challenge the circumscribing stranglehold of the nation-state as the ultimate arbiter of their claims. The protection of traditional knowledge of both the indigenous peoples in enclave territories and their non-Western counterparts elsewhere provides a rallying point in this endeavour

Sustainable Development Plans for Caves in Southeast Nigeria for Tourism

Tourists are most of the times motivated to visit natural attractions to appreciate wonders of nature. Developing these natural attractions for tourism and other socio-economic purposes has become an issue in some parts of Nigeria. The nation has abundant natural attractions of which many are either unharnessed or not harnessed sustainably. There are so many caves in Nigeria and most of them are abandoned with their tourism potentials neglected. Some of these caves in most cases are seen as a mere trip of sand with less relevance to the socio-economic aspect of a people. With emphasis on Ajalli cave, this paper looked briefly at the origin of caves with emphasis on myths and science; give a clear picture of the Ajalli cave by studying its features, problems and prospects. The paper equally unveils various sustainable developmental strategies for Ajalli cave which are applicable to similar caves in Southeast Nigeria. Keywords: Sustainable development, Tourism, Natural attractions, Cave, Socio-economic development, Strategies

Forced Vibration of Overhead Transmission Line: Analytical and Experimental Investigation

An analytical model of a single line transmission line carrying a Stockbridge damper is developed based on the Euler-Bernoulli beam theory. The conductor is modeled as an axially loaded beam and the messenger is represented as a beam with a tip mass at each end. Experiments are conducted to validate the proposed model. An explicit expression is presented for the damping ratio of the conductor. Numerical examples show that the proposed model is more accurate than the models found in the literature. Parametric studies indicate that the response of the conductor significantly depends on the excitation frequency, the location of the damper, and the damper parameters