Sovereign wealth fund on sustainable economic growth in Nigeria

The Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) nations understood that having enough money in easily accessible foreign accounts would be beneficial to the government in times of fiscal crisis, currency devaluation, natural economic calamity, and even political upheaval to help cushion sustainable economic growth. Between Q1 2005 and Q4 2020, the study looked at the impact of Nigeria's sovereign wealth fund on the country's ability to sustain economic development. In order to conduct the empirical analysis, the study used the ARDL technique of analysis. In order to prevent erroneous regression results, unit root tests were performed on each of the variables. The co-integration test revealed that there is a long-term (or equilibrium) relationship between Nigeria's sovereign wealth fund and the sustainability of its economic growth. It was revealed that Nigeria's gross domestic product was significantly impacted by the Nigerian Infrastructural Fund. Last but not least, it was revealed that the stability Fund has a considerable impact on GDP in Nigeria. Future Generation Fund was also found to have a big impact. On the whole, SWF impact significantly on sustainable economic growth in Nigeria. If government wishes to maintain economic growth and improve the lives of Nigerians, it should demand and pursue effective control and monitoring of the infrastructure, future and stabilization funds

Foreign exchange fluctuations on the performance of agricultural export in Nigeria

The study examines the effect of foreign exchange fluctuation on the performance of agricultural export in Nigeria. Despite the emphasis place on foreign exchange, the agricultural export in Nigeria is still not performing well. Time frame was from 1986 to 2021 and the adopted research design was ex post facto, in which the tool of analysis employed was the ARDL, ECM method, co-integration and unit root test as finding revealed that foreign exchange fluctuation on the performance of agricultural volume and value added has negative and insignificant effect in Nigeria. While foreign exchange fluctuation on the performance of agricultural capacity utilization has a positive and significant impact. Giving this finding, recommendations are that Nigerian government should moderate and regulate the rate of exchange activities in order to make certain that it brings about better performance in the agricultural sector. Also, she should strongly attempt to make better the stand of the economy internationally with other nations of the world in order to expand the market for Nigerian agricultural exports. Finally, the government should change the focus of its policy in direction to the external agricultural sector and making sure that it adds in the most favourably way to output performance. As an intentional policy, the government should give support to rural area agriculture by which investors in distinct communities and commodities should be encourage to set up agricultural industries, which will be solely on local raw materials comprising equipment and machines

Taxation and the Growth of Small and Medium Enterprises in Nigeria

This study examines the impact of taxation on the growth of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Nigeria from 2007 to 2019. Data was gathered from the Central Bank of Nigeria Statistical Bulletin and Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN). The study adopted the co-integration and error correction modelling as its technique of analysis. While Company Income Tax (CIT) and Value Added Tax (VAT) were found to have significant impact on the growth of SMEs in Nigeria, Custom and Excise Duty (CEDT) was found to have insignificant impact on their growth. As expected however, the three variables, CIT, VAT and CEDT were found to be inversely related with SMEs growth. The study therefore recommends among others, that for taxation to grow the SMEs, tax policies especially those relating to CIT and VAT should be properly formulated and carefully administered in such a way that such policies directly promote the growth of SMEs. In particular, the government should consider a downward review of the current VAT rate of 7.5%. In addition to reducing tax rates for the SMEs, other incentives, reliefs and allowances such as loss reliefs, pioneer status, tax holidays, capital allowance etc. should be specially packaged for SMEs to enhance their productivity and growth

Source Identification and Health Risks Assessment of Toxic Metals in Rainwater and Groundwater in Eket and Esit Eket, Nigeria

Eket and Esit Eket in South-South Nigeria are oil producing local government areas. Oil exploration activities with the attendant gas flares and recurrent oil spillages have degraded the environment including water sources. To determine the safety of rainwater and groundwater potability, the levels of metals (Ni, Cd, Pb, Cu, Fe, Mn and Zn using atomic absorption spectrophometer), non-carcinogenic and lifetime carcinogenic health risks in adults through two pathways (ingestion and dermal absorption) based on USEPA model were evaluated. The levels of Ni, Cd, Pb, Fe, and Mn in rainwater and groundwater at all sites exceeded the Nigerian and WHO’s quality guidelines while Cu and Zn were below. Esit Urua and Mkpok in Eket showed highest levels of metals in rainwater and groundwater, respectively. Multivariate analysis (correlation, cluster analysis and principal component analysis) identified the source of pollution as mixed anthropogenic (mainly oil and gas related activities, incineration of domestic and municipal wastes) and natural (lithogenic and entrained dust). Non-carcinogenic health quotients (HQ) and the combined hazard index (HI) were higher in groundwater than in rainwater via ingestion. The relative abundance of metals (for HQ and HI) followed the order: Zn<Fe<Ni<Cu<Mn<Pb<Cd (rainwater) and Zn<Ni<Fe<Cu<Cd<Mn<Pb (groundwater). The results indicated potential health hazards of rainwater and groundwater through ingestion; and Ni, Cd and Pb the main contributors to potential lifetime carcinogenic risks. Lifetime carcinogenic risks of metals increased in the order: Mn< Ni<Cd<Pb (both rainwater and groundwater) with values higher in rainwater, and revealed that rainwater through ingestion may pose much more lifetime carcinogenic risks than groundwater. Non-carcinogenic and lifetime carcinogenic risks of metals were not associated with rainwater and groundwater through dermal contacts for individual metals, at all sites.This study is essential for alerting government on the danger posed by consumption of rainwater and groundwater in Eket and Esit Eket, and the need for establishing suitable remediation method for the water sources for potable use

THE ROLE OF RELIGION IN WOMEN’S RIGHTS TO PROPERTY AND INHERITANCE IN NIGERIA

The paper aims to assess the role of religion in the realization of women’s rights to property in Nigeria. It begins by establishing that rights to property are human rights. The promotion and protection of these rights in any society are determined by a number of factors such as the customs and traditions that are prevalent in the societies and the religious laws that control behavioural patterns. In discussing this within the Nigerian context, the paper explores the major religions in Nigeria namely, Christianity and Islam; and the body of laws that govern each religion with respect to women’s rights. The paper relies solely on secondary data derived from articles and institutional materials. The justification for the study is that even though Nigeria is a party to a number of international treaties and conventions that promote and protect women’s rights to property, in some socio-cultural settings, these women are either discriminated against or denied their access to tangible assets and in most cases viewed as assets to be owned or inherited. Among some ethnic groups in Nigeria, the woman is viewed as inferior to the man as male-children are generally celebrated, and have higher portions of property during property sharing. Sometimes, a widow receives nothing as inheritance and is not even allowed to purchase any asset. The paper reveals that, Islamic and Christian religion laws do not expressly disregard the woman or discriminate her in terms of property rights. These religious laws have in fact, to a reasonable extent made provisions for the protection of women’s rights to property and inheritance; and are only interpreted to suit prevailing traditions. In addition, it argues that, religion could be useful in re-orientating minds against existing discriminatory traditions against women. In conclusion, the paper argues and recommends that, providing legal frameworks for the protection of women from discrimination is not enough. International and national legislations should be strengthened and backed up with punitive justice for violators. It is also recommended that, barbaric customs and traditions that are gender-insensitive be abolished

SECURITY OF LAND TENURE FOR WOMEN: AN IMPERATIVE FOR FOOD SECURITY IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

This paper seeks to assess the impact of promoting security of land tenure for women and food security in developing countries. Food security, which is the ability to get constant access to food in order to enjoy a healthy life, has been a central issue in global discourse, particularly among developing nations. This is because, among other things, food security and access is not inconsequential to the standard of living for countries, households and individuals. Unhindered access to nutritious food is indeed a crucial indicator for assessing the quality of life due to the fact that it is intrinsically linked to health issues such as malnourishment and depletion of the body’s immune system. Nonetheless, the availability of food in any given country depends on a number of factors which include the state of the agricultural sector; natural disasters (such as floods, droughts and monsoons); famine and security of land tenure, especially for women. Women all over the world – either in rural or urban settings – make up a large percentage of the agricultural workforce in developing countries. Their agricultural activities (as seed-planters or harvesters of crops) at subsistence and commercial levels ensure that, they provide adequate and nutritionally balanced food for their households first, and subsequently for commercial purposes. However, there exists a gender gap in their overall access to land, particularly in rural agrarian economies of developing countries. The justification for this study is that, eighty per cent (80%) of foods produced in developing nations are grown by women who do not own parcels of land while farms managed by female-headed households are disproportionate in size compared to their male counterparts. Apart from being denied rights to purchase land, others are deprived of access as a result of forceful evictions perpetrated by male relatives, land-grabbers or community leaders. This paper argues that, the challenges women encounter in enjoying land rights deters them from participating effectively and efficiently in the fight against food insecurity. It is therefore recommended that national legislations and cultural practices that discriminate against women be reformed and abolished respectively. There should also be a greater inclusion of women in decision-making at different levels. The study relies solely on secondary data derived from extant literature and employs textual analysis in discussing the subject

Recycling of some selected building materials in the construction industry: Prospect and challenges

The importance of recycling cannot be overemphasized, it decongests items in environment which tends to constitutes pollution nuisance while providing opportunity for reuse of such items, also items recycling returns environment to the state of its naturalness. It is against this background that the study attempt at studying recycling of some selected building materials within the context of their benefits, conceptualization, and awareness about concept of recycling and waste generated. Random sampling technique was used to select the respondents sample and research location. Lagos State, Nigeria, was chosen as research location construction companies and landfills within the state and sample procedure would be as stated above. Seventy (70) Structured questionnaire was used to harvest opinion of people on the subject matter. Also, field research was conducted, field research entails taking data from existing landfills in sites of established waste collection organizations, that is, existing organizations that run recycling operation. Mean Item Score and simple percentage were used to process harvested data. In summary It was discovered that the response to the economic effect of recycling where the purchase of product made from recycled material ranked 1st with a 0.862 index, the next was the participation in recycling for the creation of jobs which ranked 2nd with an index of 0.837, next was their opinion on the construction industries benefits from the recycling industry which ranked 3rd with an index of 0.81 and Participation in recycling for financial reward which was ranked 4th with an index of 0.735. Also discovered was the quantity of materials wasted on the various sites and even though the quantity was low in most of the cases, it still reiterated the need for recycling of construction and renovation waste. From the above stated finding it is important to state that the study was extremely important as it provides information on the method of recycling all the wasted materials instead of carting them away to landfills. Approach to recycling of waste has been presented in this study, it is a believe that this could serve as an awareness about concept of recycling household and environmental wast

The influence of religion and culture on women’s rights to property in Nigeria

The paper seeks to establish the role of religion and culture in the realization of women’s rights to property in Nigeria. It begins by affirming that protecting women’s rights to property in Nigeria is a fundamental step towards achieving the 5th Sustainable Development Goal of gender equality. The promotion and protection of these rights in any society are determined by several factors such as the customs, prevailing traditions, as well as the religious laws that control behavioral patterns in that society. In discussing this within the Nigerian context, the paper explores the tenets of Christianity and Islam that govern women’s rights to property. The study used secondary data derived from articles that were sourced from Google Scholar. A total of nine articles was reviewed. The paper reveals that, culturally, women are viewed as inferior to men, and a male-child is generally celebrated and allotted higher portions of properties. However, the tenets of both Islam and Christianity do not disregard the woman in terms of property rights. The authors suggest that the prevailing discrimination against women has no religion backing, but a misguided exploitation of the low educational status of women in Nigeria

Global burden of 288 causes of death and life expectancy decomposition in 204 countries and territories and 811 subnational locations, 1990–2021: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021

BACKGROUND Regular, detailed reporting on population health by underlying cause of death is fundamental for public health decision making. Cause-specific estimates of mortality and the subsequent effects on life expectancy worldwide are valuable metrics to gauge progress in reducing mortality rates. These estimates are particularly important following large-scale mortality spikes, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. When systematically analysed, mortality rates and life expectancy allow comparisons of the consequences of causes of death globally and over time, providing a nuanced understanding of the effect of these causes on global populations. METHODS The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2021 cause-of-death analysis estimated mortality and years of life lost (YLLs) from 288 causes of death by age-sex-location-year in 204 countries and territories and 811 subnational locations for each year from 1990 until 2021. The analysis used 56 604 data sources, including data from vital registration and verbal autopsy as well as surveys, censuses, surveillance systems, and cancer registries, among others. As with previous GBD rounds, cause-specific death rates for most causes were estimated using the Cause of Death Ensemble model-a modelling tool developed for GBD to assess the out-of-sample predictive validity of different statistical models and covariate permutations and combine those results to produce cause-specific mortality estimates-with alternative strategies adapted to model causes with insufficient data, substantial changes in reporting over the study period, or unusual epidemiology. YLLs were computed as the product of the number of deaths for each cause-age-sex-location-year and the standard life expectancy at each age. As part of the modelling process, uncertainty intervals (UIs) were generated using the 2·5th and 97·5th percentiles from a 1000-draw distribution for each metric. We decomposed life expectancy by cause of death, location, and year to show cause-specific effects on life expectancy from 1990 to 2021. We also used the coefficient of variation and the fraction of population affected by 90% of deaths to highlight concentrations of mortality. Findings are reported in counts and age-standardised rates. Methodological improvements for cause-of-death estimates in GBD 2021 include the expansion of under-5-years age group to include four new age groups, enhanced methods to account for stochastic variation of sparse data, and the inclusion of COVID-19 and other pandemic-related mortality-which includes excess mortality associated with the pandemic, excluding COVID-19, lower respiratory infections, measles, malaria, and pertussis. For this analysis, 199 new country-years of vital registration cause-of-death data, 5 country-years of surveillance data, 21 country-years of verbal autopsy data, and 94 country-years of other data types were added to those used in previous GBD rounds. FINDINGS The leading causes of age-standardised deaths globally were the same in 2019 as they were in 1990; in descending order, these were, ischaemic heart disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and lower respiratory infections. In 2021, however, COVID-19 replaced stroke as the second-leading age-standardised cause of death, with 94·0 deaths (95% UI 89·2-100·0) per 100 000 population. The COVID-19 pandemic shifted the rankings of the leading five causes, lowering stroke to the third-leading and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease to the fourth-leading position. In 2021, the highest age-standardised death rates from COVID-19 occurred in sub-Saharan Africa (271·0 deaths [250·1-290·7] per 100 000 population) and Latin America and the Caribbean (195·4 deaths [182·1-211·4] per 100 000 population). The lowest age-standardised death rates from COVID-19 were in the high-income super-region (48·1 deaths [47·4-48·8] per 100 000 population) and southeast Asia, east Asia, and Oceania (23·2 deaths [16·3-37·2] per 100 000 population). Globally, life expectancy steadily improved between 1990 and 2019 for 18 of the 22 investigated causes. Decomposition of global and regional life expectancy showed the positive effect that reductions in deaths from enteric infections, lower respiratory infections, stroke, and neonatal deaths, among others have contributed to improved survival over the study period. However, a net reduction of 1·6 years occurred in global life expectancy between 2019 and 2021, primarily due to increased death rates from COVID-19 and other pandemic-related mortality. Life expectancy was highly variable between super-regions over the study period, with southeast Asia, east Asia, and Oceania gaining 8·3 years (6·7-9·9) overall, while having the smallest reduction in life expectancy due to COVID-19 (0·4 years). The largest reduction in life expectancy due to COVID-19 occurred in Latin America and the Caribbean (3·6 years). Additionally, 53 of the 288 causes of death were highly concentrated in locations with less than 50% of the global population as of 2021, and these causes of death became progressively more concentrated since 1990, when only 44 causes showed this pattern. The concentration phenomenon is discussed heuristically with respect to enteric and lower respiratory infections, malaria, HIV/AIDS, neonatal disorders, tuberculosis, and measles. INTERPRETATION Long-standing gains in life expectancy and reductions in many of the leading causes of death have been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the adverse effects of which were spread unevenly among populations. Despite the pandemic, there has been continued progress in combatting several notable causes of death, leading to improved global life expectancy over the study period. Each of the seven GBD super-regions showed an overall improvement from 1990 and 2021, obscuring the negative effect in the years of the pandemic. Additionally, our findings regarding regional variation in causes of death driving increases in life expectancy hold clear policy utility. Analyses of shifting mortality trends reveal that several causes, once widespread globally, are now increasingly concentrated geographically. These changes in mortality concentration, alongside further investigation of changing risks, interventions, and relevant policy, present an important opportunity to deepen our understanding of mortality-reduction strategies. Examining patterns in mortality concentration might reveal areas where successful public health interventions have been implemented. Translating these successes to locations where certain causes of death remain entrenched can inform policies that work to improve life expectancy for people everywhere. FUNDING Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

The influence of religion and culture on women’s rights to property in Nigeria

The paper seeks to establish the role of religion and culture in the realization of women’s rights to property in Nigeria. It begins by affirming that protecting women’s rights to property in Nigeria is a fundamental step towards achieving the 5th Sustainable Development Goal of gender equality. The promotion and protection of these rights in any society are determined by several factors such as the customs, prevailing traditions, as well as the religious laws that control behavioral patterns in that society. In discussing this within the Nigerian context, the paper explores the tenets of Christianity and Islam that govern women’s rights to property. The study used secondary data derived from articles that were sourced from Google Scholar. A total of nine articles was reviewed. The paper reveals that, culturally, women are viewed as inferior to men, and a male-child is generally celebrated and allotted higher portions of properties. However, the tenets of both Islam and Christianity do not disregard the woman in terms of property rights. The authors suggest that the prevailing discrimination against women has no religion backing, but a misguided exploitation of the low educational status of women in Nigeria