Training for Evangelism Among the Yorubas of Nigeria

Problem. When the Seventh-day Adventist church came to Nigeria in 1914, the Yorubas were the first people exposed to the church\u27s message; today, Yorubas are the least receptive to Adventism when compared to the growth of Adventism in other parts of the country. Urban development in Yorubaland today presents the greatest challenge to the church; Yorubas forming one-fifth of the 100 million people in Nigeria. Most converts among Yorubas are from other denominations, for traditional religionists seldom attend Adventist crusades and are never converted to the Adventist faith. Since evangelistic campaigns lack efficient coordination within the whole church, the responsibility of evangelism is usually left to the pastoral staff with laity as spectators. This project was designed to train ministers and laity in effective ways to evangelize Yorubas. Method. The project uses descriptive analytical method to examine Yoruba religion and beliefs. This presents the world view of Yorubas and offers an explanation why Yorubas have not been attracted into the Adventist church. It also indicated why laity, including some pastors, are not enthusiastic about sharing their faith within their communities. Results. Our study revealed that on the conference-level leadership has nos failed to encourage local churches to conduct public crusades— especially when funds are needed for evangelism. Also, many Yoruba religious beliefs have striking parallels with certain Christian concepts. Yoruba cosmology has two orders: (1) Orun, or heaven, the highest order, is the abode of the Supreme Being, Olorun Olodumare, who is less concerned with the day-to-day affairs of men but responds to the call of man in desperate situations, also is the abode of Orisas and the ancestral spirits; (2) while the second order, Aye, the world of human beings: is where mankind has to contend with evil forces and seek external powers to defend them from these evil forces. Conclusions. Ministers must be trained to know how to present Jesus Christ to the Yorubas. The church must make use of N.T. methods. Evangelizing to make disciples for Christ is an urgent matter for all church members. To reach Yorubas, one must start with what they know before expanding to the unknown

Conflict, National Integration and the Boko Haram Insurgency in Nigeria: An Overview

National integration and nation building is a complex process in a multi-ethnic nation like Nigeria. The problem of insecurity facing Nigeria, most especially the North-eastern region at this point in time, orchestrated by Boko Haram insurgency draws the attention of well-meaning individual who cares to the need to find rapid solution to this menace. History has demonstrated the difficulty and complexity it entails to unite a people under a government and to create among them a stable cultural, economic, political, and social community. The process has been especially cumbersome where the people to be united have large groups distinguished by their own customs, language, religion and separate identity. The unfortunate security challenges currently faced by the country, with its new ethnic and religious dimension, have once again brought to the fore, the internal contradictions of the Nigerian system. The emergence of the militant sect Boko Haram insurgency and all it represents started like any other protest, but it seems to have come to stay. The battle has been taken to the door step of the government to command attention that breaks across borders. Hence, the objective of this study is to examine the effects of Boko Haram insurgency on national integration in Nigeria. The paper discusses Conflict, National Integration and Boko Haram Insurgency in Nigeria. The researchers employ secondary sources of data collection to generate the required data mainly from books, journals, articles, dissertations, and internet materials. The study adopts a qualitative approach to data analysis to assess the effects of Boko Haram Insurgency and findings indicate that the activities of the Boko Haram Insurgents have extreme effects on national integration and nation building in Nigeria. The paper recommended that Poverty should be address across the country through employment generation by governments at all levels, collaboration between government and the private sector, revamping ailing firms and empowering youths and women through skills acquisition programmes and agricultural practices

Fault Diagnosis Algorithm and Protection of Electric Power Systems in an Alternative Distribution System

In any power systems, protective devices will detect fault conditions and operate circuit breakers in order to disconnect the load from the fault current and limit loss of service due to failure. This fault may involve one or more phases and the ground, or may occur between two or more phases in a three-phase systems. In ground, fault’ or ‘earth fault, current flows into the earth. In a poly-phase system, a fault may affect each of the three phases equally which is a symmetrical fault. If only some phases are affected, the resulting ‘asymmetrical fault’ becomes more complicated to analyze due to the simplifying assumption of equal current magnitude in all the phases being no longer applicable. Therefore, the prospective short circuit current of the fault can be calculated for power systems analysis procedures. This will assist in the choice of protective devices like circuit breakers, current transformers and relays. This research work evaluated and analyzed the occurrence of faults in a distribution system. Fault currents were obtained and the maximum tripping time required for the protective devices to operate were determined. Hence, it was possible to select appropriate relay and circuit breaker for effective operation of a distributio

INCESSANT POWER SUPPLY IN NIGERIA AND THE NEED FOR THE DESIGN AND PRODUCTION OF 100,000MW POWER PLANT

This work entails study the causes, nature and effects of faults on the distribution network; evaluate the occurrence of faults and outages on feeders and distribution networks, and determine the reliability of the network.The present unreliable and erratic power supply is a pointer to the fact that there is a great need for fault evaluation and reliability studies of electric power system in Nigeria. The recent blackout in the country has grounded many activities and has destroyed many industrial processes. Also, the power industries face a lot of problems. Some of the highest priority issues being generation of sufficient power, urgent clearance of faults, adequate protection and increase reliability of the system, that is, bringing a steady uninterrupted power supply to the consumers. The Nigerian power problem resulted to incessant planned, forced and unplanned outages. In addition, it has resulted to erratic and unreliable supply of electricity in the country. It has reduced productivity and has increased unemployment rate in the country to over 40million (this figure is over 70% of Nigerian youths. It has led many of the youths in the country to crime. It has led many of the deaths of many innocent people in the country. Hence, an analytical method is developed to assess the dynamic- reliability of the distribution system, as well as optimizes the occurrence of faults along each of the individual consumer point in a feeder in order to improve the performance of the system. This research publication therefore evaluates the occurrence of faults which is about 856 occurrences during a period of 8 years and outages which range between 1118 to 3785 hours per annum along the distribution lines, also the failure rates of each of the feeders were analyzed in order to improve on the supply of electricity in the distribution network. The reliability of the system which ranges between 8.57*10-12 to 9.548*10-5 were analyzed; and fault clearing techniques were carried out. Efforts were made to adequately assess the failure rates of the feeders which range between 0.003 and 0.001 and reliability of the distribution system. Efforts were also made to improve the performance of the system. As a result, it was possible to establish improvement techniques which ensure adequate and constant supply of electricity to all the consumers for industrial growth and employment: a basic solution to increasing crime rate in the country

INCESSANT POWER SUPPLY IN NIGERIA AND THE NEED FOR THE DESIGN AND PRODUCTION OF 100,000MW POWER PLANT

The present unreliable and erratic power supply is a pointer to the fact that there is a great need for fault evaluation and reliability studies of electric power system in Nigeria. The recent blackout in the country has grounded many activities and has destroyed many industrial processes. Also, the power industries face a lot of problems. Some of the highest priority issues being generation of sufficient power, urgent clearance of faults, adequate protection and increase reliability of the system, that is, bringing a steady uninterrupted power supply to the consumers. The Nigerian power problem resulted to incessant planned, forced and unplanned outages. In addition, it has resulted to erratic and unreliable supply of electricity in the country. It has reduced productivity and has increased unemployment rate in the country to over 40million (this figure is over 70% of Nigerian youths. It has led many of the youths in the country to crime. It has led many of the deaths of many innocent people in the country. Hence, an analytical method is developed to assess the dynamic- reliability of the distribution system, as well as optimizes the occurrence of faults along each of the individual consumer point in a feeder in order to improve the performance of the system. This research publication therefore evaluates the occurrence of faults which is about 856 occurrences during a period of 8 years and outages which range between 1118 to 3785 hours per annum along the distribution lines, also the failure rates of each of the feeders were analyzed in order to improve on the supply of electricity in the distribution network. The reliability of the system which ranges between 8.57*10-12 to 9.548*10-5 were analyzed; and fault clearing techniques were carried out. Efforts were made to adequately assess the failure rates of the feeders which range between 0.003 and 0.001 and reliability of the distribution system. Efforts were also made to improve the performance of the system. As a result, it was possible to establish improvement techniques which ensure adequate and constant supply of electricity to all the consumers for industrial growth and employment: a basic solution to increasing crime rate in the country

Should journalism curriculae include trauma resilience training? An evaluation of the evidence from a scoping literature review and findings from a pilot study

We investigated the claim in literature that exposure to work related traumatic events affects the wellbeing of journalists. We did this through a scoping review of studies on practising journalists; studies on journalism curriculae and reflections on findings of a questionnaire pilot study of journalism students’ experiences of exposure to traumatic events through teaching materials. We found evidence to suggest that practising journalists who are regularly exposed to traumatic events are susceptible to a range of adverse psychological reactions including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD); and that the teaching of resilience is not widely included in journalism curriculae. The pilot study indicates that teaching materials did not evoke adverse psychological reactions with damaging effect to students’ wellbeing. Nevertheless, we recommend the inclusion of resilience training in journalism curriculae to be taught by an interdisciplinary team of scholars in order to build resilience among journalism students and equip them to cope with the increasing risk of journalism practice in the twenty first century

Development of a Model for the Establishment of a Hydro Electric Power Generating Plant

Nigeria as a nation has suffered a lot when it comes to the availability of electricity. A clear comparison between this nation’s electric power supply and other countries revealed the present incessant electric power supply in the country. The average power per capital (watts per person) in the United States is 1,377 Watts. In Canada, it is as high as 1,704 Watts per person and in South Africa; it is 445 Watts per person. The average power per capital in Australia is 1,112 Watts and in New Zealand it is 1,020 W per person. Whereas, the average power per capital (watts per person) in Nigeria is 14 W person. The power system structure is characterized with a lot of faults and outages. These electric power problem has destroyed the industrial processes in the country. As a result, unemployment has increased in the country. As at February, 2020, according to the Federal Government of Nigeria, the number of unemployed youths in the country is 23 million. Data from the International Transparency in the United State stated that there are 40 million unemployed youths in the country. This has increased crime rates among the youths. The country experience a high level of hardship, insecurity and socio-economic disorder as results. Therefore, there is an urgent need to solve this incessant supply of electric power in the country. Hence, a detail study of Akure132/33kV substation Network of the Benin Electricity Distribution Company under which there are 84,264 customers was carried out.&nbsp

Comparative Studies on the Antioxidant Potential of Three Medicinal Plants Commonly Used in the Treatment of Haemorrhoids

The present study sought to evaluate the antioxidant properties of stem bark of Anogeiessus leiocarpus, Axonopus compressus and Senna fistula that has been previously reported to be effective in the treatment of haemorrhoids. The amount of antioxidant agents such as phenols and flavonoids were determined in the methanolic extracts of their stem barks. In addition, the possible antioxidant mechanisms of the extracts were assessed by measuring their reducing property, iron (II) chelating ability, hydroxyl radical scavenging ability, ABTS radical scavenging ability and their ability to scavenge 2, 2-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl hydrate (DPPH) radicals. The results show that extracts of Anogeiessus leiocarpus have a total phenolic content of (11.525±0.061µg/mg), Axonopus compressus (12.080±0.041µg/mg) and Senna fistula (12.813±0.054µg/mg). The highest level of total flavonoids were obtained in the extracts of Anogeiessus leiocarpus (1.321±0.034 µg/mg) followed by Senna fistula (1.127±0.034µg/mg) and Axonopus compressus (0.681±0.034µg/mg). The highest DPPH radical scavenging activity was found in Anogeiessus leiocarpus while the least value was recorded for Senna fistula. In addition, extracts of Anogeiessus leiocarpus was recorded to have the highest hydroxyl scavenging activity. Furthermore, ABTS radical scavenging activities of the three plants revealed that extracts of Axonopus compressus had the least scavenging activity. Taken together, we conclude that since extracts of stem bark of the three plants exhibited potent antioxidant potentials and haemorrhoids is intrinsically linked with oxidative stress, then Anogeiessus leiocarpus, Axonopus compressus and Senna fistula possibly exerts their antihaemorrhoidal action using a combination of mechanisms and their antioxidant potency possibly plays a major role in ameliorating secondary complications resulting from oxidative damage in haemorrhoids. Keywords – Antioxidant, Haemorrhoids, Medicinal plants, Oxidative stress, Treatmen

Pitx2 expression induces cell cycle exit and p21 expression in neural stem cells

Cortical development is a complex process that involves many events including proliferation, cell cycle exit, and differentiation that need to be appropriately synchronized.. Neural stem cells (NSCs) isolated from embryonic cortex are characterized by their ability of self-renewal under continued maintenance of multipotency. The G1 phase of the cell cycle is mostly associated with cell cycle arrest and cell differentiation. Cell cycle progression and exit during development is regulated by numerous factors, including cyclins, cyclin dependent kinases and their inhibitors. In this study, we exogenously expressed the homeodomain transcription factor Pitx2, usually expressed in postmitotic neurons of the embryonic cortex, in NSCs with low expression of endogenous Pitx2, and found that Pitx2 expression induced a rapid decrease in proliferation associated with an accumulation of NSCs in G1 phase. A search for potential cell cycle inhibitors responsible for such cell cycle exit of NSCs revealed that Pitx2 expression caused a rapid and dramatic (≈20-fold) increase in expression of the cell cycle inhibitor p21Cip. In addition, Pitx2 bound directly to the p21Cip promoter as assessed by chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) in NSCs. Surprisingly, Pitx2 expression was not associated with an increase in differentiation markers, but instead the expression of nestin, associated with undifferentiated NSCs, was maintained. Our results suggest that Pitx2 directly regulates p21Cip expression and induces cell cycle exit in neural progenitors.Keywords: Neocortex, p27Kip2, Chromatin immunoprecipitation, Chromatin, p21Cip1, Transcription, Neural progenitors, p57Kip2, Pitx, Telencephalo