Judicial review of ouster clause provisions in the 1999 Constitution: lessons for Nigeria

Ouster clause provisions rob the courts of jurisdiction, and ouster in Nigeria is observed under the classification of human right into the Fundamental Objective and Directive Principles of State Policy and the Fundamental Human Rights. The provisions of section 6(6) (c) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 as such ousts the jurisdiction of the law courts in the enforcement of Directive Principles. The paper considers whether the unification approach adopted in the Preamble to the African Charter, the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa and that of India, is not a better option for Nigeria in the enforcement of matters under the Directive Principles. It investigates whether the ouster of jurisdiction of the courts on pre-election matters and impeachment of the executive do constitute an absolute bar on the courts’ jurisdiction. The paper recommends that the courts should adopt judicial activism as they review ouster of their jurisdiction, with a view of protecting human right and forestalling arbitrariness in governance. A court should then hesitate to unduly deny itself of jurisdiction on the provision that restriction should be strictly for the promotion of the interest of the state.Keywords: Judicial review, ouster clause, rule of law, unification, judicial activis

Facilities Management Approach For Achieving Sustainability in Commercial Buildings in Nigeria

The purpose of this research is to determine the extent of sustainable facilities management (FM) practice in the management of commercial buildings in Nigeria and identify barriers to it, in order to develop a solution model that will proffer ways of overcoming these barriers and ultimately determine sustainable methods by which facility managers in Nigeria can effectively manage commercial properties. This study is a work in progress and it presents a theoretical review on the extent of sustainable FM in developed countries, especially the United Kingdom (UK), and comparing it with the development of sustainable FM in developing countries and Nigeria in particular. Nigeria has a history of unsustainable building practices, mismanagement of buildings and poor maintenance culture with no consideration for its impact on the environment. Findings reveal the three main barriers to sustainable FM practice in corporate organisations in Nigeria, as lack of training and tools, lack of relevant laws and regulation, and lack of knowledge and awareness. Nevertheless, there remains the urgent need to investigate barriers of sustainable FM practice in the management of commercial buildings in Nigeria

Development of Occupational Health Measures for the National Health Security Preparedness Index

[First paragraph] The 2001 World Trade Center and 2005 Hurricane disasters, and the 2014 Ebola outbreak were major events that tasked the United States’ public health emergency preparedness and response apparatus. The health and economic cost of these events is huge including over 4000 deaths and damages to infrastructure worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Unfortunately, the U.S. labor force was disproportionately affected (1–4). Similar public health impact of other disasters on workers has also been reported. In the immediate aftermath of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, for instance, approximately 75% of those who developed acute health effects and sought medical care were clean-up workers (5)

Policies to prevent corruption in Nigeria: Enforcement of the right to education

This paper investigates how well Nigeria conforms to international best practices on the right to education. The quality of education that is available to Nigerians is affected by inadequate budgetary allocation, which is compounded by mismanagement of scarce resources and generally by corrupt practices. Education at the level of the primary, secondary and tertiary levels suffers on account of corruption, despite government propaganda that the state provides adequate educational opportunities at the three tiers of education. Attempts to prosecute and punish acts of corruption have failed consistently. Nigeria is a signatory to international and regional instruments which have influenced it to enact national anti-corruption legislation

Development of a facilities management framework for sustainable building practices in Nigeria

There is need for sustainable building practice in Nigeria as buildings generally show signs of poor design for ventilation, natural lighting, energy management, water management, waste management and other building services. These buildings under perform in relation to the purpose for which they have been built. Building users often complain that the buildings do not provide the required services such as functioning air-conditioning systems, effective water and energy management systems and waste management. Facilities management (FM) professionals in Nigeria have recognised the role that they can play in the practice of sustainable building as a way to proffering a solution to the above mentioned problems. Six objectives were set for the study: to identify the constituents of sustainable building with reference to literature and internationally recognised standards; to evaluate the role of FM in relation to the sustainable building at the design, the construction and operations stages of the building life-cycle; to develop a conceptual framework that shows the facilities manager’s role in sustainable buildings; to evaluate the perception of facilities managers in relation to their competence in achieving sustainable buildings; to investigate the drivers and barriers to the facilities manager’s role in achieving sustainable buildings; and finally to develop and validate a framework for sustainable building practice for FM in Nigeria. The methodology adopted for this research included a combination of extensive literature review, content analysis of relevant literature and documents, 20 interviews and a questionnaire survey of 139 members of IFMA Nigeria in order to identify sustainable building constituents and the facilities manager’s role in sustainable buildings. The findings of the research helped in developing a framework for the achievement of sustainable buildings through the facilities manager’s role at the design, construction and operations stages of the building’s life-cycle

Achieving Sustainability in Commercial Buildings in Nigeria: The FM Approach

People around the world are beginning to aspire to live and work in sustainable buildings (SBs), that is, buildings that are comfortable, healthy and have low impact on the environment. However, many buildings in Nigeria, particularly commercial buildings, are far from being comfortable and healthy. Many are in a state of deterioration due to poor design, unsustainable construction practices and mismanagement. Nigeria has a history of unsustainable building practices, mismanagement of buildings and poor maintenance culture with no consideration for its impact on the environment. FM is viewed as a practice, process and profession that can promote sustainability in Nigerian buildings. The purpose of this study is to determine the extent of sustainable facilities management (FM) practice in the management of commercial buildings in Nigeria and identify barriers to it, in order to develop a solution model that will proffer ways of overcoming these barriers and ultimately determine sustainable methods by which facility managers in Nigeria can effectively manage commercial properties. The study reviews FM functions in relation to BREEAM-NC UK, LEED-NC US, ISO Sustainability in Building Construction and BS Building Regulation PD 6501: Part 3: 1985 in order to identify sustainable FM functions in buildings. There is a need to investigate sustainable FM practice in the management of commercial buildings in Nigeria as commercial buildings are the economic powerhouse of the nation, serving the whole of the country in respect of imports and locally manufactured goods; and contributing more than 70% of the national economic output. This study is a work in progress and it presents a theoretical review on the extent of sustainable FM in developed countries, especially the United Kingdom (UK), and comparing it with the development of sustainable FM in developing countries and Nigeria in particular. The findings so far, identify commitment of senior management personnel, as a major driver to the course of sustainable FM and the three main barriers to sustainable FM practice in corporate organisations, as lack of training and tools, lack of relevant laws and regulation, and lack of knowledge and awareness. Nevertheless, there remains the urgent need to investigate barriers of sustainable FM practice in the management of commercial buildings in Nigeria

Physicochemical and microbiological examination of hand-dug wells, boreholes and public water sources in selected areas of Ibadan, Nigeria

This study examined some physicochemical and microbiological characteristics of some water sources and evaluates their health implications in selected areas of Ibadan, Nigeria. Forty (40) water samples were collected into 1-litre plastic kegs from hand-dug wells, boreholes and public water points between June 12 and July 11, 2014. Samples were analysed for physical, chemical and microbial parameters using standard procedures. Well-structured questionnaires were used to elicit information on sanitation conditions in the areas. Electrical conductivity in many of the sampled water were higher than the recommended limit, while TDS were within the desirable limit of 200 mg/l except for the borehole at Ita-Baale Borehole (IB) and hand dug well at Oke-Aare (OAH). Microbial assessment of water samples in most areas confirmed the presence of vibrio species due to faecal pollution. Bacterial isolates identified in some of the water samples were Enterobacter cloaca, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella oxytoca, Pseudomaonas fluorescens and Salmonella spp. The study revealed that sanitary facilities including toilets and improved latrines are lacking in many areas. Hand dug wells had the highest frequency of occurrence pollutants and bacteria due to their close proximity to pit latrines. The study concluded that residents in the study area are exposed to polluted water sources, which pose serious threat their health. This study added to the existing data on the inadequacy of sanitation in urban centres in the country hence the need for increased effort in the provision of more cleaner and well protected water sources such boreholes and piped-borne water.Keywords: Hygiene, microbial contamination, sanitation, urban slums, water quality, healt

Towards Enhancing Keyframe Extraction Strategy for Summarizing Surveillance Video: An Implementation Study

The large amounts of surveillance video data are recorded, containing many redundant video frames, which makes video browsing and retrieval difficult, thus increasing bandwidth utilization, storage capacity, and time consumed. To ensure the reduction in bandwidth utilization and storage capacity to the barest minimum, keyframe extraction strategies have been developed. These strategies are implemented to extract unique keyframes whilst removing redundancies. Despite the achieved improvement in keyframe extraction processes, there still exist a significant number of redundant frames in summarized videos. With a view to addressing this issue, the current paper proposes an enhanced keyframe extraction strategy using k-means clustering and a statistical approach. Surveillance footage, movie clips, advertisements, and sports videos from a benchmark database as well as Compeng IP surveillance videos were used to evaluate the performance of the proposed method. In terms of compression ratio, the results showed that the proposed scheme outperformed existing schemes by 2.82%. This implies that the proposed scheme further removed redundant frames whiles retaining video quality. In terms of video playtime, there was an average reduction of 27.32%, thus making video content retrieval less cumbersome when compared with existing schemes. Implementation was done using MATLAB R2020b

Towards Enhancing Keyframe Extraction Strategy for Summarizing Surveillance Video: An Implementation Study

The large amounts of surveillance video data are recorded, containing many redundant video frames, which makes video browsing and retrieval difficult, thus increasing bandwidth utilization, storage capacity, and time consumed. To ensure the reduction in bandwidth utilization and storage capacity to the barest minimum, keyframe extraction strategies have been developed. These strategies are implemented to extract unique keyframes whilst removing redundancies. Despite the achieved improvement in keyframe extraction processes, there still exist a significant number of redundant frames in summarized videos. With a view to addressing this issue, the current paper proposes an enhanced keyframe extraction strategy using k-means clustering and a statistical approach. Surveillance footage, movie clips, advertisements, and sports videos from a benchmark database as well as Compeng IP surveillance videos were used to evaluate the performance of the proposed method. In terms of compression ratio, the results showed that the proposed scheme outperformed existing schemes by 2.82%. This implies that the proposed scheme further removed redundant frames whiles retaining video quality. In terms of video playtime, there was an average reduction of 27.32%, thus making video content retrieval less cumbersome when compared with existing schemes. Implementation was done using MATLAB R2020b

Toxic Environmental Risk Factors for Alzheimer\u27s Disease: A Systematic Review

There is growing evidence of a possible association between toxic environmental factors and Alzheimer’s disease (AD), a disabling neurodegenerative condition with no known cause. Previous reviews of toxic environmental factors for AD either focused on occupational exposures or used a non-systematic methodology. The objective of this systematic review is to assess the evidence on the link between AD and exposure to a variety of toxic environmental risk factors beyond the work environment. Structured database search was used to identify relevant studies. Twenty-nine eligible studies examining the effect of various toxic environmental agents including electromagnetic fields, solvents, pesticides, toxic metals, and air pollutants were identified. Six out of 11 cohort studies and only two out of 18 case-control studies were considered high quality. Eight out of 12 studies found electromagnetic fields exposure to be a significant risk factor for AD. Significant evidence was also found for pesticide, aluminum, and solvent exposures. Evidence is now emerging of a possible association between air pollution and AD. However, more research is needed to substantiate this evidence. Key methodological issues especially those relating to the assessment of exposure(s) need to be addressed in future studies to facilitate interpretation and synthesis of study result