ANALYSIS OF THE COST OF GOVERNANCE AND OPTIONS FOR ITS REDUCTION IN NIGERIA

Government at any given level and over a defined territory can be treated as a typical example of a natural monopoly in the sense that only one can exist at any particular time. Thus, the traditional theories of costs and monopoly can be very useful in the analysis of the cost structure of government. Like any other unchecked private monopoly, government and by extension governance, can produce sub-optimal units of public good in which it has comparative advantage. Depending on the resources at its disposal and the tax-elasticity of public goods, massive deadweight costs, among others, often result from a high cost governance structure. This paper explores the effects of destructive political competition. It suggests constitutional provisions that will guarantee true separation of powers, restructure the mechanism of governance to, among other measures, limit the size of the cabinet to reduce the high cost of governance in Nigeria

The Socio-Economic Dimensions of Human Capital Investment in Nigeria

This study evaluates the contemporary socio-economic effects of 1976 large-scale construction of over 21,000 new primary schools by the federal government of Nigeria and the considerable investments in human capital by early Christian missionaries between 1843 and 1925. Both OLS and Instrumental Variable (IV) methods were adopted as identification strategies in combination with research design methods such as Differences-in-Differences (DID) and Regression Discontinuity Design (RDD) techniques. Exposure to UPE programme raised schooling attainment by 0.94 year or by 16.7 percent. Furthermore, study established the UPE had considerable impact on individual and social wellbeing. OLS results show that a year of education increases well-being by 5.5 per cent. On the average, IV results show that a year of schooling increases wellbeing by 30 percent, which is nearly six times the magnitude of OLS estimate. OLS externality results show LGA average year of schooling generate 7.75 percent and LGA average year of primary schooling generates 18.14 percent. It is 16.95 percent for LGA average year of secondary schooling and 20.58 percent for LGA year of tertiary education. Econometric test of selection on both observed and unobserved variables indicate that OLS results are not driven by omitted variable bias. Our IV results reveal the UPE programme has significant labour market consequences. OLS and IV results indicate that UPE had significant social benefits. Our estimates are robust to a number of tests such as specification test, exogeneity or over-identification test, falsification tests, addition of a number of control variables, state fixed effects and cohort fixed effects. Inter-personal interactions and the availability of public goods are important sources of schooling externalities. In the third part of this work, we explore the empirical relationship between contemporary housing quality and long term indicator of missionary human capital investment. Though the study will encourage massive public sector investment in education to enhance private and social benefits, complementary policies that foster investments in physical infrastructure and social harmony will be maximise public sector social returns to schooling investment

Comparative assessment of different poultry manures and inorganic fertilizer on soil properties and nutrient uptake of maize (Zea mays L.)

This study investigated soil physicochemical properties and nutrient uptake of a drought-tolerant maize variety (DT-SR-WC2) in a derived savanna zone of Southwestern Nigeria when different composted poultry manures (CPM) and inorganic fertilizer (IF) were applied. This was with a view to determining the essential trace elements and nutritional quality of the test crop. The experiment was a randomized complete block design with six treatments [cockerel manure (CM), broiler manure (BM), layers manure (LM), equal proportions of cockerel + broiler + layers manures (CBLM), IF)] and zero manure/fertilizer application served as control. Each treatment was replicated three times. Three months after sowing, the maize ears were manually harvested and threshed for analyses. The results show that addition of CPM increased the soil properties, but only significantly (p < 0.05) with the soil organic carbon and cation exchangeable capacity when BM was applied. There were no significant (p > 0.05) differences among the treatments considered in the proximate compositions of the harvested maize grains. The concentrations of mineral and trace elements in the harvested maize were generally higher during the wet than dry seasons, but with only Cu showing significant (p < 0.05) difference among the elements. It was concluded that BM was the best choice among the CPM considered for enhanced soil health and nutrient uptake of maize.Keywords: Maize, cockerel manure, broiler manure, layers manure, quality maize, soil healt

Effective Service Delivery of Nigeria’s Public Primary Education: The Role of Non-State Actors

The study examines and analyses the role of Non-State Actors (NSAs) in public provision of primary education in Nigeria using descriptive and econometric techniques. The analysis demonstrates that the major source of funding of public primary education in Nigeria flows from the Federal Government to the State government and finally to the Local Government Education Authority (LGEA). The study shows that NSAs’ activities are mainly the provision of school inputs with little or no role monitoring and management of public primary schools. It was found that the presence of private school inspectors has significant positive effect on pupils’ performance. Parents occupation and household qualities especially type of building were found to have positive impact on the pupils’ performance. Based on these findings, the study recommends the need for adequate involvement of NSAs in the management of public primary schools and improved inspection of schools as ways of improving the quality of primary education in Nigeria

HIERARCHICAL CLASSIFICATION OF MORPHOLOGICAL FEATURES OF TILAPIA CABREA

This article proposes an effective data visualization of multidimensional data. These displays are useful to represent the existence or absence of relationships among objects corresponding to hierarchical classifications, bifurcation or evolutionary structure. The display in this article used some morphological features of Tilapia Cabrea, as represented in the dendrogram or cluster tree which illustrates the successive fusions of objects into groups or divisions made at each successive stage of the analysis. Effectively, this clustering reduces the dimensionality and makes interpretations easier.Â

Student Web Self-Service Portal for a Tertiary Institution

The optimum condition for students to study is in an environment where they can access virtually all they need to know about courses, lecturers, locate places (for fresh and prospective students), validate staff identity, access past examination questions easily, identify vacant student hostels within and outside the school premises. Some of the reasons for students’ failure can be attributed to finding accommodation within or outside the school premises. Also, fresh students find it difficult to locate specific places in the university environment and some students find it very difficult to interact with staff. This paper presents a student self-service portal to address some of these challenges. Unified Modeling Language (UML) was used to model the system. The model was implemented using Microsoft C#, Microsoft ASP.net, Microsoft SQL Server, and Google Map. The proposed system was tested and the result obtained during the execution shows that the system is capable of addressing some of the challenges confronted by students.Keywords: Web Self-Service, Portal, Students, SQL, Unified Modeling Language (UML)

Right ventricular systolic function in Nigerians with heart failure secondary to hypertensive heart disease

Background: Right ventricular (RV) dysfunction has been shown to be a major contributor to the adverse outcomes in subjects with heart failure. Few studies evaluating the right ventricle in heart failure subjectshave been carried out in Sub-Saharan Africa. This study was therefore designed to evaluate the right ventricular systolic function in subjects with heart failure secondary to hypertensive heart disease presenting to the University College Hospital, Ibadan Nigeria.Methodology: Seventy-six subjects with heart failure secondary to hypertension and 92 normal controls underwent clinical, electrocardiographic and echocardiographic evaluation. Indices of right ventricular systolic function that were measured include tricuspid annular plane systolic excursion (TAPSE), tissue Doppler derived tricuspid peak systolic lateral annulus velocity(S') and right ventricular fractional areachange(RVFAC).Results: Sixty-two (81.6%) heart failure subjects had right ventricular systolic dysfunction, 31(40.8%) had abnormal TAPSE, 42(55.5%) had abnormal S' while 49(64.5%) had abnormal RVFAC. Elevated pulmonary artery systolic pressure was found in 25(32.9%) of the subjects. There was no relationship between the indices of right ventricular systolic function and the estimated systolic pulmonary artery pressures. The independent predictor of right ventricular systolic dysfunction was the right atrial size.Conclusion: Right ventricular systolic function is impaired in patients with heart failure secondary to hypertensive heart disease. There is no relationship between the indices of right ventricular systolic function and systolic pulmonary artery pressure. Furtherstudies are needed to assess right ventricular systolic function in Nigerians.Keywords: Hypertension, Heart Failure, Right ventricular dysfunction, Nigeria, Sub- Saharan Africa

COMPARISON OF SELECTED IMAGE PROCESSING TECHNIQUES

Image as an important artifact faced with several constraints that may inhibit its usefulness. These constraints includes noise, Identification of objects in the image and extraction of features. In this paper, the denoising methods of Two Stages Image Denoising By Principal Component Analysis With Local Pixel Grouping(PCA - LPG) and Non Linear Filtering Algorithm For Underwater Images, the object identification methods of SCALE-INVARIANT FEATURE TRANSFORM (SIFT) and SPEEDED UP ROBUST FEATURES (SURF), the feature extraction methods of thresholding and subtraction and template matching are compared experimentally. The experimental evaluation of these algorithms made it possible to draw some conclusions. These conclusions are supported from the results of the implementations of each technique, hence the recommended technique for denoising is Local Pixel Grouping (PCA - LPG), the recommended technique for object identification is SPEEDED UP ROBUST FEATURES (SURF) and the recommended technique for feature extraction is tresholding and subtraction. The recommended techniques for each of the concept were implemented in C# programming language with the help of an open source computer vision library EmguCV

Effective Service Delivery of Nigeria’s Public Primary Education: The Role of Non-State Actors

The study examines and analyses the role of Non-State Actors (NSAs) in public provision of primary education in Nigeria using descriptive and econometric techniques. The analysis demonstrates that the major source of funding of public primary education in Nigeria flows from the Federal Government to the State government and finally to the Local Government Education Authority (LGEA). The study shows that NSAs’ activities are mainly the provision of school inputs with little or no role monitoring and management of public primary schools. It was found that the presence of private school inspectors has significant positive effect on pupils’ performance. Parents occupation and household qualities especially type of building were found to have positive impact on the pupils’ performance. Based on these findings, the study recommends the need for adequate involvement of NSAs in the management of public primary schools and improved inspection of schools as ways of improving the quality of primary education in Nigeri

GEOTECHNICAL PROPERTIES OF LATERITIC SOIL STABILIZED WITH YAM PEEL ASH FOR SUBGRADE CONSTRUCTION

Consequent upon problems encountered vis -a -vis the engineering properties of lateritic soil for the purpose of construction of road pavements in Africa, especially in - East and some part of South – West regions bearing capacity of some sub-grade soils have been found to be low considering the loads imposed on the surface which are transferred down to the sub-grade. The methods employed previously in the stabilization of soils is have been the use of cement, lime, bitumen and lean concrete which are very expensive and also cause environmental hazards and health problems especially to construction workers. In view of these setbacks, this research investigated the effect of stabilization with more economical and hazard free stabilizer such as yam peel ash on the geotechnical properties of lateritic soils. Soil sample was collected from a lateritic soil subgrade of chainage 1 + 500 to 2 + 000 along Ikirun to Osogbo Road, Osun State, Nigeria. It was collected at a depth of not less than 150mm below the ground surface using the disturbed sampling technique. The natural moisture content was determined and the other soil was air-dried to carry the laboratory tests such as (atterberg limits, compaction, sieve analysis, California Bearing Ratio (CBR.), and specific gravity. The Yam Peel Ash, YPA [dioscorea] was used as replacement by weight of dry soil at different percentages (0%, 3%, 6%, 9%, and 12%). The CBR values obtained from the results of untreated lateritic soil was 29% while the optimum CBR values obtained for the stabilized lateritic soil 40% at 6% YPA content. The effect of YPA stabilization on the geotechnical properties of lateritic soil brings considerable improvement on the physical Engineering characteristics of the lateritic soils as evidence by the results of the test carried out. The aim of this research work is to determine the effect of yam peel ash on geotechnic properties of lateritic soil as an alternative stabilizing agent for subgrade in road constructio