Micro Financing and Entrepreneurial Development in Nigeria; The Mediating Role of Marketing

Micro finance bank that is popularly known as bank for the poor is basically established to alleviate poverty and also to serve as a platform for promoting entrepreneurial development. The question is; to what extent has it been able to fulfil its basic functions in Nigeria? The primary objective of this study is to ascertain the extent to which micro financing has contributed to entrepreneurial development and also to find out the extent to which marketing techniques have be employed for effective and efficient delivery of their services. Copies of questionnaire were distributed purposively to only those that applied for or came to access credit facilities that were physically found in the banking hall in that particular week of study. The study is limited to the customers of ten micro finance banks located in Ojo LGA of lagos state, Nigeria. Three hypotheses were developed and were subjected to descriptive, correlation and regression analysis. It was discovered that micro finance bank has been able to contribute significantly to the entrepreneurial development in Nigeria. Descriptive statistics show that some marketing techniques have not been fully employed by micro finance banks. The study makes useful policy recommendations which these banks will find beneficial if faithfully implemente

Globalization and the imperatives of French in Nigeria

Globalization is considered to be synonymous with modernization, liberalization, liberalized economy, free trade, foreign investments, technological spread, integration, exchange, competitiveness, opportunities, interconnectivity, cosmopolitanism, democracy, migration, etc. It has turned the world into what is commonly referred to as a Global Village characterized by .borderless economies, unhindered commercial exchanges and transactions as well as technological connections and interactions among societies. In the evolving scenario, language plays an important role in facilitating a smooth communication. This paper discusses the relevance of foreign language in the contemporary globalized world with particular focus on the imperatives of French language in Nigeria in this era of globalization

Resilience in groundwater supply systems: integrating resource based approaches with agency, behaviour and choice

Access to safe and reliable water supplies is a key goal for households and governments across most of Africa. Groundwater reserves can play a critical role in achieving this, yet risks of contamination and over-abstraction threaten to undermine the resilience of this supply. A rapidly rising trend for privately-developed wells and boreholes raises additional concerns about the vulnerability of water supplies to natural or man-made environmental shocks. The potential scale of the situation is particularly marked in Nigeria where the use of boreholes has increased exponentially since 1999 (from 10% of the population to 38% in 2015), with most other forms of water supply, notably piped tap water, falling. Developing effective groundwater management approaches that build the resilience of communities is challenging, not least given the range of different actors involved, their competing interests and demands, and variations in the hydrogeological environment. Insights from resilience studies in social science emphasise how the resilience of ecological resources to shocks and change is critically linked to the adaptive capacity of social systems and their agents. Choices made now have long-lasting effects, yet these choices are little understood. Understanding the choices made by consumers, drillers and policy actors requires a strong interdisciplinary dimension and argues for new perspectives as to how the resilience of communities and societies might be built. The project brings together a unique interdisciplinary collaboration between academics from the UK and Nigeria working in the fields of economic geography, psychology, hydrogeology and journalism studies

Balance Performance of Professional Footballers with Long-term Lower Limb Musculoskeletal Injury

Lower limb musculoskeletal injury (LLMI) is a common occurrence in athletes. Balance impairments have been implicated as contributory to poor balance performance following LLMI. It is usually expected that once the initial rehabilitation period is over, subsequent recovery should continue until the pre-injury state is reached. Some studies on certain physically-active individuals and amateur athletes have reported that this is usually not the case. This study therefore investigated balance performance (BPf) in professional footballers with longterm LLMI, the effect of limb dominance on BPf and comparison of BPf in injured footballers with their uninjured counterparts. A sample of 115 professional footballers – 104 males and 11 females, participated in the study and they consisted of two groups - injured group of participants (IGP) and uninjured group of participants (UGP). Balance performance (BPf) was assessed using the Stork balance stand test. The time in seconds for which the participant is able to stand on the ball of the foot of one leg is indicative of the BPf for that lower limb. The results indicated that poor balance performance was observed in the injured limb compared to the uninjured limb in IGP (P=0.000). BPf was poorer in the dominant limb of IGP compared with the dominant limb of UGP (P= 0.000). Time lapse since injury did not have any effect on BPf (P=0.868). It was concluded that balance problems persist in professional footballers with LLMI irrespective of time lapse since injury. Keywords: footballers, lower limb, injuries, balance, dominanc

On The Comparative Analysis Of Beta And Kumaraswamy Priors Using Stigmatized Attributes

Hussain et al 2011 compared bayes estimator of population proportion of a stigmatized attribute with the Maximum Likelihood Estimator (MLE) but this paper compares two priors: beta and kumaraswamy in the Bayesian analysis using various values of n, x, p1 and p2 and it was observed that across the sample sizes considered over different values of  x’s, p1 and p2 using R package software for simulation, the mean square error and bias of the Kumaraswamy prior are smaller than that of Beta prior when the proportion of stigmatized attribute increases from 0.1 to 0.4 Keyword: Prior, Beta, kumaraswamy, Stigmatized, Attribut

Development of Manually Operated Orange Peeling Device for Domestic Use

Orange a very rich source of vitamin C is a perishable fruit that can only be stored unpreserved for few days before its biological degeneration. When processed to juice, the chemical preservatives that are usually added coupled with the contaminations by its back skin fluid instantly change its natural flavor. This has made many consumers to still prefer freshly peeled fruit to its processed juice. As a solution to laborious hand peeling process that is highly prone to injury due to the sharp tools used several devices have been developed for its peeling. Each of these has its own technical, economic and other shortcomings. This work designed and fabricated a manual orange peeling device with a capability of processing oranges for a domestic family household. The device incorporated a rotary handle through which power was introduced into the system, power screw, spur gear train mounted on a base and cutting blade that performed the peeling function. The fabricated device was operated and assessed to have a peeling efficiency of 97%, generated 2.6% over peeled and damaged oranges and a capacity to peel about 140 oranges per hour as compared to hand peeling that can produce 32 peeled oranges per hour. It is robust, simple to operate and maintain, had good aesthetics and light weight of 619g due to transparent light but strong plastics used to construct the frame and base. Keywords: Orange, peeling, device, household, juice

School Spread and Principals’ Administrative Competence of Secondary Schools in Edo and Kwara States, Nigeria

This paper examined the spread of public secondary schools and investigated the significance difference between principals’ administrative competence in Edo and Kwara States. Descriptive research design was adopted for the study. The population comprised 417 and 305 principals of public secondary schools in Edo and Kwara States  respectively. A sample of 100 schools were selected from Edo State and 60 Schools in Kwara State. Stratified random sampling technique was adopted for selecting the sample. The stratification was based on three senatorial districts in the two states. 350 respondents were selected using simple random sampling method. This comprised of 200 and 150 respondents from Edo and Kwara States respectively. Two instruments taggedâ€Principals Administrative Questionnaire (PAQ)†and profoma titled “School Spread Profoma (SSP)†were used to collect relevant data. The PAQ was validated by four experts from Department of Educational Management. The reliability co-efficient of 0.70 was obtained through test re-test method using Pearson product moment correlation statistic. The findings of the study revealed that spread of schools in Edo and Kwara States were not based on population of the community. The principals administrative competence in the two states were moderate. Also, there was no significant different between Principals administrative competence in Edo and Kwara States owned secondary schools. The paper recommends even spread of schools in the states based on students and community population. Also, there is need for improvement on principals’ administrative performance through workshop, conference so as to enhance students’ academic performance

Anticipated Change in the Nigerian Capital Market and Its Implication on Economic Growth

This paper examines the Anticipated Change in the Nigerian Capital Market and its implications on Economic Growth. Data were collected through secondary source and analyzed using multiple regression and descriptive method of statistical analysis. The study reveals that market capitalization, value of stocks and interest rate has significant impact on the GDP. The paper recommends that government should step up investor’s confidence and activities in the capital markets so that it could contribute significantly to economic growth hence, national development. Keywords: Market Capitalization, Economic Growth, Capital Market, Nigerian Stock Exchange, Structural Adjustment Programme, Gross Domestic Produc

Multisite spectroscopic seismic study of the beta Cep star V2052 Oph: inhibition of mixing by its magnetic field

We used extensive ground-based multisite and archival spectroscopy to derive observational constraints for a seismic modelling of the magnetic beta Cep star V2052 Ophiuchi. The line-profile variability is dominated by a radial mode (f_1=7.14846 d^{-1}) and by rotational modulation (P_rot=3.638833 d). Two non-radial low-amplitude modes (f_2=7.75603 d^{-1} and f_3=6.82308 d^{-1}) are also detected. The four periodicities that we found are the same as the ones discovered from a companion multisite photometric campaign (Handler et al. 2012) and known in the literature. Using the photometric constraints on the degrees l of the pulsation modes, we show that both f_2 and f_3 are prograde modes with (l,m)=(4,2) or (4,3). These results allowed us to deduce ranges for the mass (M \in [8.2,9.6] M_o) and central hydrogen abundance (X_c \in [0.25,0.32]) of V2052 Oph, to identify the radial orders n_1=1, n_2=-3 and n_3=-2, and to derive an equatorial rotation velocity v_eq \in [71,75] km s^{-1}. The model parameters are in full agreement with the effective temperature and surface gravity deduced from spectroscopy. Only models with no or mild core overshooting (alpha_ov \in [0,0.15] local pressure scale heights) can account for the observed properties. Such a low overshooting is opposite to our previous modelling results for the non-magnetic beta Cep star theta Oph having very similar parameters, except for a slower surface rotation rate. We discuss whether this result can be explained by the presence of a magnetic field in V2052 Oph that inhibits mixing in its interior.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures and 5 tables; accepted for publication in MNRAS on 2012 August 1