Legal and Policy Responses to Climate Change-induced Migration and Conflict: Insights from Nigeria

Nigeria has witnessed dramatic climate change impacts in recent years resulting in droughts and desertification in several northern states with fast receding grassland vegetation. This has induced migration especially by pastoral farmers from the semi-arid agro-ecological zones down south towards the Benue trough in search of lush green vegetation for their herds. The result is frequent strife and conflict between these nomadic groups and the sedentary farming communities in the rich Benue River Basin trough, resulting in loss of lives and properties. In recent years, the conflicts have assumed diverse political, religious and socio-cultural dimensions. Using an in-depth desk review of extant literature and policy documents, this paper appraises the policy and regulatory responses to these crises juxtaposing it with climate change mitigation and adaptation measures in Nigeria. We posit that the major causes of conflicts revolve around land ownership for settlement, grazing and farming; that the conflict has assumed ethno-religious colorations with great impact on the socio-economic wellbeing of the inhabitants and migrants. We realize that migration is a form of local level adaptation measure and conflict a directional reaction to these adaptation manifestations which need to be addressed holistically, and therefore propose  a comprehensive, all-engaging approach to dealing with this problem by recognizing the cause and effect of this migration and conflict which is climate change. This will inform policy and strategic interventions to address the underlying causes (climate change), and not just the manifestations (migration and conflict). Keywords: Temperature changes, pastoralism, Farmers, Herdsmen, Desertification DOI: 10.7176/JLPG/99-01 Publication date:July 31st 202

Economic Based Approach to Environmental Regulation as a Panacea to Effective Environmental Management in Nigeria

Nigeria has an array of environmental protection legislation and regulations. However, their provisions have not resulted in environmentally cleaner behaviour, technologies or products, nor have they resulted in green development or an environment that is free from abuse and dislocation. It is therefore our belief that current legal mechanism have failed to provide adequate economic incentives to limit activities, which are environmentally damaging and therefore unable to achieve their environmental objectives. This paper advocates for a paradigm shift to economic based regulation as a means of achieving optimum environmental protection in Nigeria. It traces the inherent provisions in Nigerian Environmental Laws that have contributed to their failure to elicit the required environmental protection compliance and recommends the needed shift in environmental regulation to elicit appropriate environmental protection compliance from players and participants alike to avoid continued environmental spoliation. Keywords: economic approach, environment, environmental protection, legal regime, regulatio

A Context-Aware Activity Recommendation Smartphone Application to Mitigate Sedentary Lifestyles

A sedentary lifestyle involves irregular or no physical activity. In this kind of lifestyle, people’s activities do not increase their energy expenditure substantially above resting levels. Long periods of sitting, lying, watching television, playing video games, and using the computer are typical examples. Energy expenditures at 1.0-1.5 Metabolic Equivalent Units (METs) are considered sedentary behaviors. A recent study of sedentary lifestyles found that the length of sedentary times is associated with an increased risk of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cardiovascular and all-cause mortality. In this study, we developed a smartphone application called “On11”, which continuously tracks and informs the user about how much time they have spent performing various activities such as sitting, walking and running throughout their day. In contrast with traditional pedometers which passively counts steps and estimates burnt calories, On11 runs in the background of users’ smartphones and monitors the intensity, duration and types of physical activity performed 24/7. It detects sedentary patterns and promotes walking by recommending personalized detours off the users’ usual routes, e.g. home to workplace to encourage more activity. Both Moderate-to-Vigorous Physical Activities (MVPA) such as jogging and Light Physical Activities (LPA) such as sitting are recorded for identifying activity patterns. Our ultimate goal is to help people change unhealthy sedentary behaviors

Litigating Loss and Damage as a Panacea for Abatement of Climate Change

In this era of pursuit of sustainable development climate change has been recognized as a global threat as it transcends boundaries in its causes and effects. Much of the aggravated increases in global climate are attributable to human activities. It becomes imperative that change in human behaviour and consequently control of such aggravating factors can safely be achieved through law and legal regulation. Climate change litigation is, in large part, a multi-pronged attempt by individuals, groups, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and governments, to use the instrumentalities of the court to pressurize industrial greenhouse gas emitters and the government to reduce or regulate greenhouse gas emission. This paper advocates that the judiciary can be an appropriate forum for resolving issues surrounding the harm caused by global warming and climate change. It examines the rationale as well as the prospects of using the judiciary as a means of achieving a sustainable management of the climate system. It proffers strategies that will make litigation a viable option in abatement of climate change and in the resolution of disputes arising from the impact of global climate change. The concludes that  an effective climate change advocacy demands for legal practitioners, environmental consultants and regulatory personnel who are competent, sufficiently well-informed and motivated to drive both the spirit and letter of the policies and other legal instruments through the court system. Key words: litigation; loss and damage; abatement; judiciary; sustainable development; greenhouse gas emitters

Masking Kernel for Learning Energy-Efficient Representations for Speaker Recognition and Mobile Health

Modern smartphones possess hardware for audio acquisition and to perform speech processing tasks such as speaker recognition and health assessment. However, energy consumption remains a concern, especially for resource-intensive DNNs. Prior work has improved the DNN energy efficiency by utilizing a compact model or reducing the dimensions of speech features. Both approaches reduced energy consumption during DNN inference but not during speech acquisition. This paper proposes using a masking kernel integrated into gradient descent during DNN training to learn the most energy-efficient speech length and sampling rate for windowing, a common step for sample construction. To determine the most energy-optimal parameters, a masking function with non-zero derivatives was combined with a low-pass filter. The proposed approach minimizes the energy consumption of both data collection and inference by 57%, and is competitive with speaker recognition and traumatic brain injury detection baselines

Effect of Corruption on Corporate Governance in Selected Area Offices of Deposit Money Banks in Enugu State, Nigeria

The study seeks to examine the effect of corruption on corporate governance in selected area offices of deposit money banks in Enugu State, Nigeria. The specific objectives were to; (i) determine the extent to which bribery affects the board of directors\u27 functions, (ii) ascertain the extent to which fraud affects the managers\u27 accountability, and (iii) identify the nature of the relationship existing between money laundering and shareholders\u27 investment in selected area offices of deposit money banks in Enugu State, Nigeria. The study adopted a descriptive survey design. The population of the study was 1197, which comprised the senior and junior staff members of the five selected banks (United Bank for Africa Plc, First Bank of Nigeria Plc, Access Bank Plc, Fidelity Bank Plc, and Skye Bank Plc.). The sample size of 316 was obtained from the population using Freud and William\u27s formula at 5% error tolerance and 95% level of confidence. Data collection was done via a questionnaire and an oral interview guide. Simple Linear Regression Analysis and Pearson Product Moment Correlation were used for data analysis

Community Policing in Nigeria

One result of the Black Lives Matter movement has been to focus attention on police brutality in all its forms around the globe. Nowhere is the situation more dire than in Nigeria where the now infamous SARS (Special Anti-Robbery Squads) have, for years, inflicted excessive abuses on Nigeria’s citizenry. In response, many young people have taken to the streets to demand an end to the brutality in the now historic #ENDSARS nationwide protest. Community Policing in Nigeria is a timely and much-needed intervention into the policing problems in Nigeria. Written collaboratively by four authors with deep knowledge of Nigerian policy and of criminal justice more broadly, the book examines models of community policing around the world and points out best practices and flawed practices that may serve as guides for Nigeria and the rest of Africa. Community Policing in Nigeria is published in the United States by Virginia Tech Publishing and in Nigeria by Fourth Dimension Publishing.illustrato

Learning Style Preference: Impact on Academic Performance of Preclinical Medical Students, a Nigerian Survey

Background: Understanding the differences in learning styles among medical students and their impact on the learning processes may enhance better learning and knowledge acquisition that is necessary for improving learning outcomes. This study aimed at the determination of the learning style preferences of the University of Nigeria preclinical medical students and the impact they have on their academic performance. Materials and Methods: The study involved 158 third-year medical students (102 males and 56 females). Each student completed the VARK questionnaire (Version 7) comprising 16 questions that identified four different learning style preferences, namely V – visual, A – aural, R – read–write, and K – kinesthetic. The academic performance of the students was obtained from the results of their second MBBS professional examination. Analysis of data was done using Statistical Package for the Social sciences (SPSS) version 21; the percentages and charts of distribution for each VARK component were determined. The presence/absence of significant interactions between academic performance and learning style preferences was determined using Chi-square test. Results: The results showed that 30.4% of the students were unimodal (V-2.5%, A-7%, R-17.1% and K-3.8%), while 69.6% were multimodal in learning. With respect to gender, the males (70.6%) and females (67.9%) preferred multimodal learning, and both genders showed similar patterns in their preferences (read–write, followed by aural, kinesthetic, and visual). Visual learners exhibited the highest scores among unimodal learners, followed by kinesthetic, aural, and read–write learners, although the mean performance of multimodal learners (65%) was higher than those of unimodal learners (54%) (P < 0.001). Conclusion: A blend of V‑A‑R‑K instructional techniques would benefit most students. Students who are strongly unimodal in learning need to be specifically targeted with their unique learning style. Keywords: Anatomy, Nigeria, learning style. academic performance, preclinical students, V-A-R-

INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION OF AFRICA’S AGRICULTURAL SECTOR A PARADIGM SHIFT TRANSFORMATION

Agriculture is still the dominant occupation of over 70% of the African rural farmers. Increasing the operations of Africa’s agriculture is thus very essential in attaining industrial revolution and shift resulting in Africa’s agriculture sector growth and obliteration of poverty in African countries. The sudden break-out of industrial agro-revolution experienced an overwhelming increase in in agricultural outputs and sector development. Improved methods of production involving the use of machines and mechatronics had drastically reduced the use of old methods of cultivation (animal and human labours) which deface agriculture making it a tedious enterprise. Furthermore, the invention and introduction of advanced emerging technologies in agriculture had overhaul the entire sector aligning and fortifying it into a profitable and viable enterprise thus driving agro-industrial revolution cum transformation. This has further increased the level of agricultural productivity in terms of yields, outputs, and overall economic gains. Conclusively, agricultural innovations, revolution and transformations are currently at the third stage of industrial revolution awaiting metamorphosis into the fourth industrial revolution where advanced technologies and its drifts such as the virtual reality (VR), agro-robotics (AR), Internet of Things (IT), and artificial intelligence (AI) are domiciled and seriously changing our work patterns and ways of life. Hence, African governments are to exploit the benefits of industrial revolution via the use of advanced technological tools and inclusive policy instruments to nurture economic growth, sector development and overall transformation of the African economy