global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 24 assessment of employees’ satisfaction with human resource management practices in selected public universities in southeast nigeria by chukwujekwu charles onwuka, tochukwu emmanuel madu & george igboanugo nweke abstract human resource practices remain cardinal factor towards the productivity of employees, as well as the overall performance of organisations. yet, the feeling of employees in many public organisations remains unclear due to scanty empirical researches in that regard. this study was therefore positioned to assess employees’ satisfaction with human resource management practices (hrmps) in selected public universities within the southeast nigeria. the study adopted the descriptive cross-sectional survey research design. the sample size for the study was 205 non-academic employees comprising of 83 males and 122 females, who were selected for the study through self-sampling technique. data for the study were collected through questionnaire administration which measured seven dimensions of human resource management practices. data collected were processed using the statistical package for social sciences (spss) software package version 26. data analysis was performed using descriptive statistics including frequency count and simple percentage, and data analysed were presented using tables and charts. findings of the study showed that in the overall, majority employees in the two selected public universities were dissatisfied with hrmps in their organisations. however, in specific dimensions, it was found that the respondents expressed dissatisfaction in the hrmps of: providing security to employees, hiring employees, managing effective teams, and training of employees in relevant skills; while they only expressed fair level of satisfaction on fair and performance-based compensation, creation of a flat and egalitarian organisation and making information easily accessible to employees. the study therefore recommended, among other things, the need for the establishment of regulatory framework that would guide human resource management practices in the public tertiary institutions. keywords: employees, satisfaction, human resource, practices global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 25 introduction human resource management practices remain cardinal factor towards the productivity of employees, as well as the overall performance of organisations. this is considering the view that human resource management takes into account all aspects of the working relationships that could influence the satisfaction and overall welfare of employees, and enhance their commitment to organisational goals. human resource management practices connote the process of attracting, motivating, and retaining employees to ensure the survival of the organization (chong, ngolob & palaoang, 2020). such practices may include: provision of security to employees, hiring the right employees, management of effective teams, fair and performance-based compensation, training in relevant skills, creating a flat and egalitarian organisation and making information easily accessible to those who need it (vulpen, n.d). an important thing to highlight is the fact that employees’ level of satisfaction with human resource management practices within organisations could either promote their job satisfaction which would invariable increase their motivation and job morale, or constrain these aspects. this fact has been recognised by different organisations across the globe; consequently, various organisations are prioritising the human resource unit of their organisations, so as to influence positive job satisfaction level among their employees. in human resource management, there are two schools of thought that recognise how employees should be managed. the first school of thought is ‘best fit’ while the second school is ‘best practices’. for the former, human resource policies of any organisation should align with the business strategy of the organisation, while the later assumes that there is a set of universal human resource management practices that lead to optimal organisational performance (van-vulpen, n.d). human resource management practices literature has appeared severally within the extant management literature and quite a number of scholars have highlighted that a relationship exists between human resource management practices and other employees’ work behaviour such as employees’ performance (lim & ahmad, 2021; shaukat, ashraf & ghafoor, 2015), employees’ engagement (ferdian, azis, prasetio & darmawan, 2020), job satisfaction (cherif, 2020), sustainable organisational performance (rasool, samma, wang, zhao & zhang, 2019), organisational commitment (al-aali, 2021), among other important variables. however, there appears to be scanty empirical literature on employees’ satisfaction with human relations practices, particularly within the context of public universities in southeast nigeria. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 26 this gap in empirical research could becloud the understanding about the activities of the human resource departments and the working conditions of employees in the public tertiary institutions in nigeria, particularly within the southeast zone of the nation. consequently, this present study aims to fill this gap in empirical research on the theme of this present study. research question 1. what is the employees’ satisfaction with human resource management practices in the selected public tertiary institutions within the southeast nigeria? methods participants this study was conducted among 205 non-academic staff (males = 83, females = 122) in two selected public universities within the southeast zone of nigeria, who aged between a minimum age of 24 years to a maximum age of 59 years, with a mean age of 35.9 years. all the respondents completed the secondary school level of education which is an indication that all respondent could read and write basically. the respondents included in this study included non-academic staff from three different cadres: junior, intermediate and senior level staff. the respondents were selected through self-selection sampling technique in which respondents participated in the survey on their own accord. specifically, the respondents were invited to participate in the study through google form data collection tool (a web-based data collection tool). materials in this study, an online survey questionnaire was developed based on existing literature on the study variables. the questionnaire was titled ‘employee satisfaction with human resource management practices (eswhmrp)’ which was used to measure the satisfaction of nonacademic staff regarding the human relation practices in public universities within southeast nigeria. it consisted of two parts – the first part dealing with the socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents, while the second part contained seven items which were designed to obtain data on the employees’ satisfaction with human resource management practices. items for the socio-demographic variables were designed on multiple response formats, while items for the substantive issues were designed on 5-point response options ranging global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 27 from ‘1’ – completely dissatisfied to ‘5’ – very satisfied. an example of the question is ‘how satisfied are you with human resource management practices of your organisation in terms of providing security to employees?’ with response option of 5 – very satisfied, 4 – somewhat satisfied, 3 – neither satisfied nor dissatisfied, 2 – dissatisfied, and 1 – completely dissatisfied. to ensure validity of the instrument, the questionnaire was subjected to content and face validity, in which a draft of the questionnaire was submitted to two experts who vetted the instruments to ensure that its contents actually measured the intended purpose, as well as made necessary corrections in terms of wordings and overall fit of the instruments before the final copy was uploaded on the web. procedure the instrument was administered to the respondents through different social media groups for the non-academic staff of the selected universities, through the help of the groups’ administrators. while conducting the research, the researcher had to inquire from few nonacademic staffs regarding their social media groups and how to connect to the groups’ administrators. after the information was obtained, the research got acquainted with the groups’ administrators and expressed the research intention as well as seeking their help in uploading the survey link to their various groups. in all, three different social media groups including whatsapp, telegram and facebook were identified and used for data collection. through the help of the groups’ administrators, as well as the letter contained in the introductory part of the onlinequestionnaire, the respondents were made to understand that the research was purely for academic purpose, confidentiality of their responses were guaranteed and that the response time for the questionnaire was approximately five minutes. considering the fact that the research was online-based, the questionnaire was customised in such a way that could not allow multiple entry, which means that each respondent was allowed to complete the survey only once. a timeline of two weeks was set for the data collection process, after which any other entry was discarded. thus, only data entries or responses obtained within the set timeline were used for data analysis. at the end of data timeline, only 205 data entries were obtained and used for data analysis. data obtained from the study were initially contained in excel document format; however the researcher applied data transformation in which the data contained in the original excel format were transformed to the statistical package for social science (spss) software package version 26, which was used in processing all the relevant data for the study. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 28 data analysis data analysis in this study involved descriptive analysis of the responses gathered from the survey. first the socio-demographic variable was analysed using frequency count and simple percentage and presented in a composite table. thereafter, the research question was equally answered using descriptive analysis applied on each of the seven items that measured employees’ satisfaction with human resource management practices. results table 1. respondents’ socio-demographic characteristics socio-demographic variables frequency percent gender male 83 40.5 female 122 59.5 total 205 100.0 age distribution 24 29 years 35 17.1 30 35 years 38 18.5 36 41 years 71 34.6 42 47 years 27 13.2 48 53 years 25 12.2 54 59 years 9 4.4 total 205 100.0 marital status single 53 25.9 married 115 56.1 separated 7 3.4 divorced 12 5.9 widowed 18 8.8 total 205 100.0 level of educational attainment secondary school 36 17.6 tertiary (diploma) 98 47.8 tertiary (bachelors) 55 26.8 tertiary (post-graduate) 16 7.8 total 205 100.0 official rank junior staff 96 46.8 intermediate 79 38.5 senior 30 14.6 total 205 100.0 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 29 table 1 contains results of data analysis in relation to the respondents’ socio-demographic variables. from the gender dimension, result of the analysis showed that higher proportion (59.5%) of female non-academic employees participated in the study compared to lower proportion (48.0%) of male employees. the respondents aged between the minimum ages of 24 years to the maximum age of 59 years, with those aged between 36 – 41 years constituting the highest proportion (34.6%) of the respondents within the sample. this implies that the majority of the respondents individuals within their mid-adult ages. this could also explain why more than half proportion (56.1%) of the respondents were married, compared to about a quarter proportion (25.9%) of those who were single. data equally showed that all the respondents completed at least the secondary school level. however, nearly half proportion (47.8%) of them attained up to the tertiary (diploma) level of education. these data imply that the respondents were literate enough to understand the contents of the questionnaire and to respond effectively to the questions. with regards to the respondents’ ranks, the majority (46.8%) of them were within the junior level, another significant (38.5%) of them were within their intermediate level, while the least proportion (14.6%) of them were at the senior level. employees’ satisfaction with human resource management practices table 2. respondents’ satisfaction with provision of security to employees response options frequency percent completely dissatisfied 66 32.2 dissatisfied 46 22.4 neither satisfied nor dissatisfied 56 27.3 somewhat satisfied 24 11.7 very satisfied 13 6.3 total 205 100.0 table contained in table 2 showed that majority (32.2%) of the respondents expressed complete dissatisfaction with the hrmps regarding the provision of security to employees. however, about a quarter proportions (27.3%) of them were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied in this regard. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 30 figure 1. respondents’ satisfaction with hrmp of hiring employees data contained in figure 1 provide clear evidence that the largest proportion (25.6%) of the respondents were equally completely dissatisfied with the human resource management practices in terms of hiring employees. this could imply that the human resource management practices in terms of hiring employees in the public universities within the southeast nigeria is less optimal. figure 2. respondents’ satisfaction with hrmp practice of managing effective teams figure 2 clearly showed that more than half (53.2%) of the respondents were completely dissatisfied with the human resource management practice of managing effective teams for the employees. this was followed by approximately 21.0% of the respondents who ticked the global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 31 option ‘dissatisfied’. these suggest that the human resource management practice of managing effective employees’ teams in the selected public universities fall below average. table 3. respondents’ satisfaction with hrmp of fair and performance-based compensation response options frequency percent completely dissatisfied 32 15.6 dissatisfied 45 22.0 neither satisfied nor dissatisfied 48 23.4 somewhat satisfied 55 26.8 very satisfied 25 12.2 total 205 100.0 table 3 shows that the highest proportion (26.8%) of the respondents ticked the option ‘somewhat satisfied’. this implies that the respondents were fairly satisfied with the human resource management practices in terms of fair and performance-based compensation for the employees. table 4. respondents’ satisfaction with hrmp regarding training of employees in relevant skills response options frequency percent completely dissatisfied 141 68.8 dissatisfied 39 19.0 neither satisfied nor dissatisfied 10 4.9 somewhat satisfied 11 5.4 very satisfied 4 2.0 total 205 100.0 data contained in table 4 showed that a very large proportion (68.8%) of the respondents expressed complete dissatisfaction with the human resource management practices in terms of training employees in relevant skills. this implies that the human resource practices in the public universities in the southeast nigeria do not take appropriate steps to train their employees in relevant skills that facilitate their job performance. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 32 table 5. respondents’ satisfaction with hrmp regarding creation of a flat and egalitarian organisation response options frequency percent completely dissatisfied 12 5.9 dissatisfied 19 9.3 neither satisfied nor dissatisfied 58 28.3 somewhat satisfied 61 29.8 very satisfied 55 26.8 total 205 100.0 in table 5, it could be seen that the highest proportions (29.8%) of the respondents expressed a fair level of satisfaction regarding the human resource management practices of their organisation in terms of creating a flat and egalitarian organisation. this finding implies that the human resource units of public universities in the southeast nigeria are effective in the practice of creating a democratic atmosphere that enhances employees’ workability. table 6. respondents’ satisfaction with hrmp in terms of making information easily accessible response options frequency percent completely dissatisfied 18 8.8 dissatisfied 24 11.7 neither satisfied nor dissatisfied 54 26.3 somewhat satisfied 58 28.3 very satisfied 51 24.9 total 205 100.0 in table 6, it is also clear that the highest proportion (28.3%) of the respondents chose the response option ‘somewhat satisfied’, which implies that they were fairly satisfied with the human resource management practice in their organisations, in terms of making information easily accessible for the employees. this equally translates to the view that employees in public universities within the southeast nigeria do not find it difficult accessing information relevant to their workability because the human resource units of their organisations are effective in that regard. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 33 figure 3: respondents’ overall level of satisfaction with human resource management practices figure 3 shows that in the overall analysis, the largest proportion (36.1%) of the respondents were dissatisfied with the human resource management practices in their organisations. however, it is equally observed that another significant proportion (35.6%) of the respondents was neither satisfied nor dissatisfied with the human resource management practices. these findings translate to the view that the human resource management practices within the public universities in the southeast of nigeria are not quite impressive. conclusion/recommendations the importance of human resource management practices towards the productivity of employees, as well as the overall performance of organisations cannot be overemphasised. thus, this present study was positioned to investigate the satisfaction of non-academic staff of public universities in the southeast of nigeria, towards human resource management practices in their organisations. this study has succeeded in describing the satisfaction of employees towards human resources management practices within public universities particularly in the southeast of nigeria, which contributes to the extant empirical researches on organisational management and practices. conducting this study was considered important step in establishing what goes on in terms of human resource management in public universities, which is very crucial for the employee productivity and overall positive working conditions. judging global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 34 from the analysis conducted on the overall data on the measures of employees’ satisfaction with the human resource management practices, it is concluded that non-academic employees of public universities in the southeast of nigeria are dissatisfied with the human resource management practices within their organisations. this has serious implications for the sustainability of productive working environment particularly within the academic environment; as such dissatisfaction could produce negative work behaviours that could jeopardise the overall productivity in the university environment. with appropriate regulatory policy frameworks for the universities’ human resource management, the working conditions of employees particularly the non-academic staff of public universities would be improved, which would ultimately improve their workability, organisational commitment and overall productivity. without a policy directed human resource management within the public universities, it would be impossible to establish positive human resource management practices that could translate the working environment into a pleasant experience for the employees. consequently, the productivity of the employees would be marred and poor organisational productivity could be the long term effect of it. against this backdrop, the following are recommended for way forward: 1. there is need for the national universities commission to establish a regulatory framework that would guide human resource management practices in the public tertiary institutions. this would ensure that human resource managers become compliance with recommended practices, as well as consciously and actively involved in providing the atmosphere that could engender positive human resource management practices. 2. there is need for the management of public universities to ensure that officers appointed for the office of human resource manager are competent and qualified to discharge the expected responsibilities. references al-aali, l. (2021). the effect of human resource practices and organizational commitment on employee performance. annals of global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 35 contemporary developments in management & hr (acdmhr), 3(2), 11-27. cherif, f. (2020). the role of human resource management practices and employee job satisfaction in predicting organizational commitment in saudi arabian banking sector. international journal of sociology and social policy, 40(7/8), 529-541. chong, l., ngolob, r. a., & palaoang, t. d. (2020). human resource management (hrm) practices. journal of advanced management science, 8(4), 121-125. https://doi: 10.18178/joams.8.4.121-125 ferdian, a., azis, e., prasetio, a. p., & darmawan, m. i. (2020). human resource practice and employee engagement: the mediation of organizational support and employee satisfaction. european journal of molecular & clinical medicine, 7(10), 1576-1590. https://ejmcm.com/pdf_6765_17a2602f1c7b2ac80c62e112bb267c6 a.html lim, c. t., & ahmad, n. (2021). the relationship between human resource management practices and employee performance. research in management of technology and business, 2(1), 123-136. https://publisher.uthm.edu.my/periodicals/index.php/rmtb/ article/view/1986 rasool, s. f., samma, m., wang, m., zhao, y., & zhang, y. (2019). how human resource management practices translate into sustainable organizational performance: the mediating role of product, process and knowledge innovation. psychology research and behavior management, 1009-1025. https:doi:10.2147/prbm. s204662 shaukat, h., ashraf, n., & ghafoor, s. (2015). impact of human resource management practices on employees’ performance. middle-east journal of scientific research, 23(2), 329-338. https:// doi:10.5829/idosi.mejsr.2015.23.02.22117 van-vulpen, e. (n.d). 7 human resource best practices (a mini-guide to hrm). https://www.aihr.com/blog/human-resource-best-practices/ global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 36 author information: dr chukwujekwu charles onwuka is a lecturer in the department of sociology, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, anambra state, nigeria. email: cc.onwuka@coou.edu.ng. dr tochukwu emmanuel madu is a lecturer in the department of criminology and security studies, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, anambra state, nigeria. email: emmanuel.madu@gmail.com george igboanugo nweke is affiliated to the department of criminology and security studies, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, anambra state, nigeria. email: gi.nweke@coou.edu.ng \ global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 26 implementation and comparative analysis of amgt method in maple 24: convergence performance in optimization problems mark laisin & rosemary u. adigwe abstract this study investigates the utilization of the accelerated modified gradient technique (amgt) in maple 24 for optimization problem-solving. the research focuses on enhancing and evaluating the convergence speed of amgt in comparison to the gradient descent (gd) and conjugate gradient (cg) methods. the analysis covers a range of function types, such as convex functions (e.g., production cost, energy consumption, and transportation cost functions) and a nonconvex function. findings showcase the effectiveness and versatility of amgt, shedding light on its utility for addressing practical optimization challenges. keywords: amgt method, maple 24, convergence performance, optimization problems, comparative analysis 1. introduction optimization techniques are crucial for solving complex problems in various fields, such as engineering, economics, machine learning, and operations research. they are essential for decision-making processes, from designing efficient systems to finding optimal financial strategies (boyd & vandenberghe, 2004). gradient-based methods like gradient descent (gd) and conjugate gradient (cg) are widely used due to their computational efficiency and well-understood theoretical properties (nocedal & wright, 2006). these methods iteratively improve solutions by using gradients to guide the search for the optimal solution, making them effective for continuous optimization problems. however, in some cases, basic gradient-based methods face limitations in terms of convergence speed and stability, especially in large or complex global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 27 problem spaces. as optimization problems become high-dimensional or nonconvex, traditional methods like gd and cg may struggle, leading to slower convergence rates and potential failure to escape local minima (bertsekas, 1999). accelerated gradient methods, including the accelerated modified gradient technique (amgt), have been proposed to address these challenges and offer improvements in convergence speed and stability (nesterov, 1983). the amgt combines the theoretical robustness of traditional gradient methods with acceleration strategies that optimize the search for a minimum. it adapts the gradient direction dynamically to enhance the rate of convergence, a feature that can be critical when dealing with large-scale optimization tasks or when high precision is required (dauphin et al., 2015). despite its potential, there is a limited comparative analysis of amgt concerning traditional methods such as gd and cg in contemporary optimization applications, particularly in symbolic and numerical computation environments. this paper investigates the implementation of amgt in maple 24, a versatile software for mathematical modeling, simulation, and optimization (maplesoft, 2023). the objective is to compare the convergence performance of amgt with gd and cg across various optimization problems, including convex and non-convex scenarios, to assess their relative effectiveness in different contexts. ii. methods and materials problem formulation optimization problems are expressed as minimizing a cost function. the study considers the following types of functions:  production cost function 𝐶(𝑥, 𝑦) = 𝑎𝑥2 + 𝑏𝑦2 + 𝑐𝑥𝑦 + 𝑑 where 𝐶(𝑥, 𝑦) is the cost of producing x units of labour and y units of capital, and a, b, c, and d are constants.  energy consumptionfunction 𝐸(𝑇, 𝐻) = 𝛼𝑇2 + 𝛽𝐻2 + 𝛾𝑇𝐻 + 𝜔 where 𝐸(𝑇, 𝐻) is energy consumption as a function of temperature and humidity while 𝛼, 𝛽, 𝛾 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝜔 are constants.  transportation cost function 𝑇(𝑄, 𝐷) = 𝛼𝑄2 + 𝛽𝐷2 + 𝛾𝑄𝐷 + 𝜔 where 𝑇(𝑄, 𝐷) is the transportation cost as a function of quantity (q) of goods to be transported and distance to be covered in transportation (d). 𝛼, 𝛽, 𝛾 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝜔 are constants. non-convex function: a non-convex function in mathematics refers to a function where the line segment joining any two points on the graph of the global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 28 function is not entirely above or on the graph. more formally, a function f(x) is non-convex if, for some 𝑥1, 𝑥2 ∈ 𝑅𝑛 and for some 𝜆 ∈ [0,1], we have: 𝑓(𝜆𝑥1 + (1 − 𝜆)𝑥2) > 𝜆𝑓(𝑥1) + (1 − 𝜆)𝑓(𝑥2) which means that the epigraph (the set of points above the graph) is not convex. a convex function satisfies the reverse inequality: 𝑓(𝜆𝑥1 + (1 − 𝜆)𝑥2) ≤ 𝜆𝑓(𝑥1) + (1 − 𝜆)𝑓(𝑥2) a non-convex function is simply one that does not satisfy this condition in general. e.g. the convex function 𝑓(𝑥, 𝑦) = 2𝑥𝑦 + 𝑦 − 𝑥2 − 2𝑦2. with the three methods using 𝑥0 = 2 and 𝑦0 = 2, while amgt uses 𝑚0(𝑥, 𝑦) = (1000,1000), 𝛼 = 50, 𝛽 = 0.13, 𝛾 = 0.1, is a non-convex function. algorithms  gradient descent (gd): iterative optimization algorithm using the gradient to update parameters.  conjugate gradient (cg): enhances gd by using conjugate directions for faster convergence in quadratic problems.  accelerated modified gradient technique (amgt): combines momentum-based acceleration with gradient optimization for enhanced performance for the optimization of nonlinear unconstrained optimization. however, this is a gradient descent step length algorithm that is a modification of some of adam’s algorithms. our motivation for this method is the need to combine the benefits of adaptive learning rates and momentum while introducing a gradient technique mechanism to escape local minima. update rules for the proposed amgt: a. define the convex function to be optimized b. initialize 𝑥0, 𝛼0, τ, β , γ, 𝑚0, tolerance and number of iterations c. compute the gradient of the given convex function to be optimized: ∇𝑓(𝑥𝑘) = ∂f ∂𝑥𝑘 d. next compute the adaptive learning rate: 𝛼𝑘 = 𝛼𝑘−1/(1 + γ/𝜏) e. compute the momentum: 𝑚𝑘 = β ∗ 𝑚𝑘−1 + (1 − 𝛽) ∗ ∇𝑓(𝑥𝑘) global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 29 f. apply gradient technique on the momentum: �̂�𝑘 = 𝑚𝑘 ∗ (1 − γ ∗ |∇𝑓(𝑥𝑘)| |𝑚𝑘| ) g. update parameters or variable values of the convex function: 𝑥𝑘 = 𝑥𝑘−1 − 𝛼𝑘 ∗ �̂�𝑘 h. continue steps b to g till the specified number of iterations. convergence criteria: amgt converges when the following conditions are met:  parameter convergence: the updates to the parameters (𝑥𝑘) become negligible, i.e., |𝑥𝑘 − 𝑥𝑘−1| < tolerance.  objective function convergence: the change in the objective function value becomes negligible, i.e., |𝑓(𝑥𝑘) − 𝑓(𝑥𝑘−1)|<tolerance.  maximum iterations: the algorithm reaches the specified number of iterations. inputs or initial parameters:  𝛼0this is the initial learning rate  τ: this is the learning rate decay rate  β: this is the momentum coefficient  γ: this is the gradient technique coefficient rational behind each of the input parameters: o the adaptive learning rate (𝛼𝑘) helps the method to converge faster. o the momentum (𝑚𝑘) helps to escape local minima. o while the gradient technique (𝛾) prevents overshooting. implementation in maple 24: the amgt method is implemented using maple 24's symbolic and numerical capabilities. scripts for gd and cg are also developed for comparison. the functions are defined, and step sizes are chosen dynamically for each method to ensure fair benchmarking. performance metrics:  convergence rate: number of iterations required to reach a predefined tolerance. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 30  computation time: time taken to converge.  accuracy: proximity of the solution to the true minimum. mathematical properties of non-convex functions  local minima and maxima: a non-convex function can have multiple local minima and maxima, unlike convex functions, which have at most one global minimum.  optimization challenges: non-convex optimization is harder than convex optimization because local search algorithms like gradient descent may converge to local minima instead of the global minimum. (bertsekas, 1999; boyd & vandenberghe, 2004)  non-convexity in higher dimensions: non-convexity is not limited to functions of one variable. a function f(x) defined on a higherdimensional space 𝑅𝑛 can be non-convex if it does not satisfy the convexity condition for all pairs of points in its domain (bertsekas, 1999; boyd & vandenberghe, 2004). iii results theorems 3.1. convergence of amgt let 𝑓(𝑥, 𝑦) be a continuously differentiable function, and let (𝑥𝑘, 𝑦𝑘) be the sequence generated by the adaptive momentum gradient technique (agmt). assume that  𝑓(𝑥, 𝑦) convex  the learning rate 𝑎𝑘 satisfies ∑ 𝑎𝑘 = ∞∞ 𝑘=1 and ∑ 𝑎𝑘 2 < ∞∞ 𝑘=1 .  the momentum coefficient 𝛽 satisfies 0 < 𝛽 < 1  the gradient threshold coefficient 𝛾 satisfies 0 < 𝛾 < 1 then the sequence (𝑥𝑘, 𝑦𝑘) converges to a stationary point of 𝑓(𝑥, 𝑦) proof. using the convexity of 𝑓(𝑥, 𝑦) and the update rule of amgt, we can establish the above theorem. by the convexity 0f 𝑓(𝑥, 𝑦) we have the convex inequality: 𝑓(𝑥𝑘+1, 𝑦𝑘+1) ≤ 𝑓(𝑥𝑘, 𝑦𝑘) + 〈∇𝑓(𝑥𝑘, 𝑦𝑘), (𝑥𝑘+1 − 𝑥𝑘, 𝑦𝑘+1 − 𝑦𝑘)〉 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 31 the essence of the convex inequality is that the value of the function at the new point (𝑥𝑘+1, 𝑦𝑘+1) is always less than the value of the function at the current point (𝑥𝑘, 𝑦𝑘) plus a linear approximation based on the gradient. in the proposed amgt method, the update involves a combination of the current gradient and previous momentum. thus, we can express the parameters as 𝑥𝑘+1 = 𝑥𝑘 − 𝛼𝑘�̂�𝑘 and 𝑦𝑘+1 = 𝑦𝑘 − 𝛼𝑘�̂�𝑘 where �̂�𝑘 is the momentum term after gradient thresholding. applying the update of amgt on the convex inequality, we have; 𝑓(𝑥𝑘+1, 𝑦𝑘+1) ≤ 𝑓(𝑥𝑘, 𝑦𝑘) –𝑎𝑘〈∇𝑓(𝑥𝑘 , 𝑦𝑘), �̂�𝑘〉 + 𝑎𝑘 2‖∇𝑓(𝑥𝑘 , 𝑦𝑘)‖2 the second term in the above inequality 𝑎𝑘〈∇𝑓(𝑥𝑘, 𝑦𝑘), �̂�𝑘〉 is the gradient update using the momentum �̂�𝑘. if �̂�𝑘points in the same direction as ∇𝑓(𝑥𝑘, 𝑦𝑘), the term will be negative which helps reduce the function value (minimization). now since �̂�𝑘 is calculated using both the gradient and momentum, when we apply the gradient threshold, we have: �̂�𝑘 ≈ ∇𝑓(𝑥𝑘, 𝑦𝑘) (for large gradients) therefore, we can simplify the function update to: 𝑓(𝑥𝑘+1, 𝑦𝑘+1) ≤ 𝑓(𝑥𝑘, 𝑦𝑘)-𝑎𝑘‖∇𝑓(𝑥𝑘 , 𝑦𝑘)‖2 + 𝑎𝑘 2‖∇𝑓(𝑥𝑘, 𝑦𝑘)‖2 next, by using the assumptions of 𝑎𝑘 and 𝛽 we can simplify the right-hand side to obtain the: 𝑓(𝑥𝑘+1, 𝑦𝑘+1) ≤ 𝑓(𝑥𝑘, 𝑦𝑘)𝑎𝑘 2 ‖∇𝑓(𝑥𝑘 , 𝑦𝑘)‖2 to prove the convergence of the amgt, when we sum both sides of the inequality over all the iterations 𝑘 𝑓(𝑥𝑘+1, 𝑦𝑘+1) ≤ 𝑓(𝑥𝑘, 𝑦𝑘)𝑎𝑘 2 ‖∇𝑓(𝑥𝑘 , 𝑦𝑘)‖2 ∑ 𝑓(𝑥𝑘+1, 𝑦𝑘+1) 𝑚 𝑘=1 − 𝑓(𝑥𝑘, 𝑦𝑘) ≤ ∑ − 𝑎𝑘 2 ‖∇𝑓(𝑥𝑘, 𝑦𝑘)‖2 𝑚 𝑘=1 taking limit as k tend to infinity, the left-hand side is series will simplify to: 𝑓(𝑥∞, 𝑦∞) − 𝑓(𝑥0, 𝑦𝑜) where (𝑥0, 𝑦𝑜) is the point where the sequence converges. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 32 thus, we now have 𝑓(𝑥𝑚, 𝑦𝑚) − 𝑓(𝑥0, 𝑦𝑜) ≤ − 1 2 ∑ 𝑎𝑘‖∇𝑓(𝑥𝑘, 𝑦𝑘)‖2 𝑚 𝑘=1 ) therefore, since the sum 𝑎𝑘 is infinite, but the of 𝛼𝑘 2 is finite ∑ 𝛼𝑘 2𝑚 𝑘=1 < ∞, the implication of the above is that the gradient term ‖∇𝑓(𝑥𝑘, 𝑦𝑘)‖2must converges to 0 as 𝑘 approaches infinity, thereby proving the convergence to a stationary point. thus, the sequence (𝑥𝑘, 𝑦𝑘) generated by the proposed amgt converges to a stationary point of 𝑓(𝑥𝑘, 𝑦𝑘) proving that amgt is a convergent optimization method for a convex function. iv numerical application application 1: we shall now implement the amgt method in maple 24 and compare the convergence rate with that of the gradient descent method and the conjugate gradient method, using the convex function 𝑓(𝑥, 𝑦) = 𝑥2 − 2𝑥𝑦 + 2𝑦2 + 2𝑥 − 4𝑦 + 5 . with the three methods using 𝑥0 = 2 and 𝑦0 = 2, while amgt uses 𝑚0(𝑥, 𝑦) = (1000,1000), 𝜏 = 50, 𝛽 = 0.13, 𝛾 = 0.1, we have the following results; table 4.1: comparing the convergence of amgt, gd and cg methods gradient descent conjugate gradient amgt iteration f(x,y)at 𝛼 = 0.1 f(x,y)at 𝛼 = 0.1 f(x,y)at 𝛼0 = 0.1 f(x,y) at 𝛼0 = 0.2 f(x,y)at 𝛼0 = 0.3 f(x,y) at 𝛼0 = 0.4 1 4.627200 4.640000 3.734479 5.926594 11.576348 20.68373853 10 3.326152 3.161294 3.005368 3.059090 3.049195 14.79960452 20 3.056349 3.012675 3.001100 3.002134 3.000265 28.59793180 30 3.009737 3.000996 3.000224 3.000077 3.000001 58.61401015 40 3.001682 3.000078 3.000046 3.000003 3.000000 123.8269287 50 3.000291 3.000006 3.000009 3.000000 3.000000 265.508434 100 3.000000 3.000000 3.000000 3.000000 3.000000 12709.93742 the results show that the new amgt is convergent and converges faster with proper selection of the momentum coefficient, the gradient threshold, and the learning rate decay rate, which are absent in the gradient descent and conjugate gradient methods. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 33 fig 4.1: convergence chart of amgt, gradient descent, and conjugate gradient methods fig 4.2: chart for convergence at different learning rates fig 4.3: amgt optimization path fig 4.4: 3d plot of the convex function 0 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 convergence chart gradient descent conjugate gradient amgt 0 5 10 15 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 chart for convergence at different learning rates α=0.1 α=0.2 α=0.3 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 34 application 2: let us consider the production cost function 𝐶(𝑥, 𝑦) = 𝑎𝑥2 + 𝑏𝑦2 + 𝑐𝑥𝑦 + 𝑑 where 𝐶(𝑥, 𝑦) is the cost of producing x units of labour and y units of capital and a, b, c, and d are constants. this function is convex if a>0 and b>0. supposed a=2, b=4, c=5 and d=9 then; 𝐶(𝑥, 𝑦) = 2𝑥2 + 4𝑦2 + 5𝑥𝑦 + 9 and with the three methods using 𝑥0 = 2 and 𝑦0 = 2, while amgt uses 𝑚0(𝑥, 𝑦) = (1000,1000), 𝜏 = 50, 𝛽 = 0.13, 𝛾 = 0.1, we have the following results: table 4.2: production cost function methods gradient descent conjugate gradient amgt iteration c(x,y)at 𝛼 = 0.1 c(x,y)at 𝛼 = 0.1 c(x,y)at 𝛼0 = 0.1 c(x,y) at 𝛼0 = 0.2 c(x,y)at 𝛼0 = 0.3 1 9.740000 9.920000 35.214992 293.4537351 827.7162300 10 9.000489 9.013961 9.002196 10524.22355 3.893467833*10^9 20 9.000091 9.001823 9.000617 574721.6499 1.019715961*10^17 30 9.000017 9.000238 9.000174 31411103.41 2.670679931*10^24 40 9.000003 9.000031 9.000049 1716782917 6.994625548*10^31 50 9.000001 9.000004 9.000014 93831291380 1.831922500*10^39 100 9.000000 9.000000 9.000000 4.576244859*10^19 2.257460882*10^76 fig 4.5: convergence chart 0 10 20 30 40 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 convergence chart gradient descent conjugate gradient amgt global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 35 fig 4.6: amgt optimization path fig 4.7: objective function for production in 3d application 3: let us consider the energy consumption function 𝐸(𝑇, 𝐻) = 𝛼𝑇2 + 𝛽𝐻2 + 𝛾𝑇𝐻 + 𝜔 where 𝐸(𝑇, 𝐻) is energy consumption as a function of temperature and humidity while 𝛼, 𝛽, 𝛾 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝜔 are constants. this function is convex if 𝛼>0 and 𝛽>0. supposed𝛼 =5, 𝛽 =5, 𝛾 =7 and 𝜔 =10 then; 𝐸(𝑇, 𝐻) = 5𝑇2 + 5𝐻2 + 7𝑇𝐻 + 10 and with the three methods using 𝑥0 = 2 and 𝑦0 = 2, while amgt uses 𝑚0(𝑥, 𝑦) = (1000,1000), 𝜏 = 50, 𝛽 = 0.13, 𝛾 = 0.1, we have the following results: table 4.3: energy consumption function methods gradient descent conjugate gradient amgt iteration 𝐸(𝑇, 𝐻) at 𝛼 = 0.1 𝐸(𝑇, 𝐻) at 𝛼 = 0.1 𝐸(𝑇, 𝐻) at 𝛼0 = 0.1 𝐸(𝑇, 𝐻) at 𝛼0 = 0.2 1 14.998000 43.320000 129.59045 917.0755341 10 10.000013 10.000000 10.043577 3.831893089*10^9 20 10.000000 10.000000 10.000006 8.801297678*10^16 30 10.00000 10.00000 10.000000 2.021529286*10^24 40 10.000000 10.000000 10.000000 4.643156981*10^31 50 10.000000 10.000000 10.000000 6.817314683*10^75 fig 4.8: convergence chart for gd, cg and amgt 0 50 100 150 1 2 3 4 5 6 convergence chart gradient descent conjugate gradient amgt global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 36 fig 4.9: amgt optimization path for gd and cg fig 4.10: objective function for energy cost application 4: let us consider transportation cost function 𝑇(𝑄, 𝐷) = 𝛼𝑄2 + 𝛽𝐷2 + 𝛾𝑄𝐷 + 𝜔 where 𝑇(𝑄, 𝐷) is the transportation cost as function of quantity (q) of goods to be transported and distance to be covered in transportation (d). 𝛼, 𝛽, 𝛾 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝜔 are constants. this function is convex if 𝛼>0 and 𝛽>0 indicating that transportation cost increases at an increasing rate as either quantity or distance increases. supposed𝛼 =4, 𝛽 =1, 𝛾 =-1 and 𝜔 =0 then; 𝑇(𝑄, 𝐷) = 4𝑄2 + 𝐷2 − 2𝑄𝐷 and with the three methods using 𝑥0 = 2 and 𝑦0 = 2, while amgt uses 𝑚0(𝑥, 𝑦) = (1000,1000), 𝜏 = 50, 𝛽 = 0.13, 𝛾 = 0.1, we have the following results: table 4.4: transportation cost function methods gd at 𝛼 = 0.1 cg at 𝛼 = 0.1 amgt at 𝛼 = 0.1, 0.2, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 0.3 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑣𝑖𝑒𝑙𝑦 iteration 𝑇(𝑄, 𝐷) 𝑇(𝑄, 𝐷) 𝑇(𝑄, 𝐷) 𝑇(𝑄, 𝐷) 𝑇(𝑄, 𝐷) 1 2.841600 3.360000 2.100208 31.996444 101.6887051 10 0.135361 0.050166 0.011700 0.024588 185200.1144 20 0.005533 0.000429 0.000578 0.000012 8.452832713*10^8 30 0.000226 0.000004 0.000029 0.000000 3.858009564*10^12 40 0.000009 0.000000 0.000001 0.000000 1.760857964*10^16 50 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 8.036840592*10^19 100 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 1.591807268*10^38 fig 4.11: convergence path for transportation cost function global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 37 fig 4.12 amgt optimization path for gd and cg fig 4.13: objective function for transportation cost application 5: let's consider the convex function 𝑓(𝑥, 𝑦) = 2𝑥𝑦 + 𝑦 − 𝑥2 − 2𝑦2. with the three methods using 𝑥0 = 2 and 𝑦0 = 2, while amgt uses 𝑚0(𝑥, 𝑦) = (1000,1000), 𝜏 = 50, 𝛽 = 0.13, 𝛾 = 0.1, we have the following results; table 4.5: non convex methods gradient descent conjugate gradient amgt iteration f(x,y) at 𝛼 = 0.1 f(x,y) at 𝛼 = 0.1 f(x,y) at 𝛼0 = 0.1 1 -3.080000 -3.08 -0.084282334 10 -4263.708589 -603182.468126262 -490.5670125 20 -34952895.710000 -1110219359887.00 -2146227.90 fig 4.14: amgt optimization path for gd and cg fig 4.15: objective function: nonconvex function from the diagram above, this is a non-convex function; thus, it doesn’t have a minimum. instead, what it has is a maximum and therefore none of the global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 38 methods converges. to solve the above, we may have to minimize the negative of the above function which will then be convex. discussion the discussion emphasizes amgt's rapid convergence and stability, making it well-suited for a variety of optimization problems. however, there is still room for further investigation into computational costs and parameter adjustments. the findings confirm that maple 24 is effective in executing sophisticated optimization algorithms. conclusion this study underscores amgt's advantages in convergence rate and stability, making it a promising alternative to gd and cg. however, the convex functions showed the following results.  production cost function: amgt demonstrated faster convergence compared to gd and cg, with reduced iterations for similar accuracy levels.  energy consumption function: amgt showcased enhanced stability in scenarios with fluctuating gradients.  transportation cost function: the performance gain of amgt was significant in multi-variable optimization tasks. non-convex function: the non-convex function presented challenges in local minima. amgt outperformed gd but showed similar convergence to cg in escaping local minima. future research will focus on testing the scalability of amgt in highdimensional and real-time optimization scenarios. references bertsekas, d. p. (1999). nonlinear programming (2nd ed.). athena scientific. boyd, s., & vandenberghe, l. (2004). convex optimization. cambridge university press. dauphin, y. n., pascanu, r., gulcehre, c., cho, k., ganguli, s., & bengio, y. (2015). identifying and attacking the saddle point problem in highdimensional non-convex optimization. in proceedings of the 34th international conference on machine learning (vol. 37, pp. 2967global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 39 2975). diederikm, p. k and jimmy, l. b. (2015). adam: a method for stochastic optimization. published as a conference paper at iclr, 2015. kingma, d. p., & ba, j. (2015). "adam: a method for stochastic optimization." arxiv preprint arxiv:1412.6980. maplesoft. (2023). maple 24 documentation. [online]. available: https://www.maplesoft.com/documentation. nesterov, y. (1983). a method of solving a convex programming problem with convergence rate o(1/k^2). dokladyakademiinauk sssr, 269(3), 543–547. nesterov, y. (2004). introductory lectures on convex optimization: a basic course. springer. nocedal, j., & wright, s. j. (2006). numerical optimization (2nd ed.). springer. noel j. (2023). nesterovs method for convex optimization. society for industrial and applied mathematics. vol. 65, no. 2, pp. 539–562. polyak, b. t. (1964). "some methods of speeding up the convergence of iteration methods." ussr computational mathematics and mathematical physics, 4(5), 1-17. rahul, a. (2023). complete guide to the adam optimization algorithm. https://builtin.com/machine-learning/adam-optimization. (retrieved november 11, 2024) satyam, t (2024)/adagrad optimizer explained: how it works, implementation, & comparisons | datacamp www.gabormelli.com/rkb/root_mean_square_propagation_algorithm_(r msprop) (retrieved november 11, 2024). author information: mark laisin is a professor of applied mathematics at chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, uli, anambra state, nigeria. email: laisinmark@gmail.com rosemary u. adigwe is of the department of mathematics, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, uli, anambra state, nigeria. email: global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 40 rosemaryadigwe14@gmail.com apa laisin, m. & adigwe, r. u. (2025). implementation and comparative analysis of amgt method in maple 24: convergence performance in optimization problems. global online journal of academic research (gojar), 4(2), 26-40. https://klamidas.com /gojar-v4n1-2025-02/. mla laisin, mark and adigwe, rosemary u. “implementation and comparative analysis of amgt method in maple 24: convergence performance in optimization problems”. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1, 2025, pp. 26-40. https://klamidas.com /gojar-v4n1-2025-02/. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 66 sustaining human spirituality through culture: example of olili onwa isaa in eziagulu-aguleri by francis chuks madukasi abstract this paper emanated from a research conducted by the author on the significance of olili onwa isaa of eziagulu-aguleri, a traditional community in anambra state, nigeria. the festival, which is one of the annual events in the town by which human spirituality is sustained through culture, is centred around ritualizing the ikenga (“place of strength”), a two-horned male deity kept by the traditional igbo man as a personal god, an embodiment of his ancestors, and the symbol of his power to acquire wealth and achieve great things. this is why there is an annual ikenga festival in most igbo communities. this paper is an academic study of the olili onwa isaa festival of eziagulu-aguleri as witnessed by this researcher who was a participant-observer at the event. keywords: aguleri, human spirituality, ikenga, olili onwa isaa, festival introduction the ritual festival of olili onwa isaa (september) in eziagulu-aguleri is a commemoration of ikenga, a spirit-force solely kept by the traditional igbo man as a personal deity, as an embodiment of his ancestors and the symbol of his power to acquire wealth and achieve greatness. this festival devoted to the ritualized worship of ikenga is known as iloikenga in aguleri cosmology. the ikenga deity itself is a personified force found in nature; it can be very useful if properly controlled and very dangerous if mishandled. it is like electric wire. here, the sacred carved wooden symbol of the ikenga as a symbolic instrument is very often associated with spirituality in connection with powerful global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 67 confraternities. the ikenga deity in some contexts refers not only to the spirit-force, but also to the “icons” used for its worship. in a nut shell, ikenga deity is basically the “symbol of manly achievement in igbo belief system”. in this festival, the deities are believed to return from travel (inata mbia) and wrestling matches are organized on stipulated dates for public entertainment. two or three months before the match, the young men are fattened at great expense. they are cultured and trained to abstain from doing any kind of farm work during the period and are made to eat only corn food, yam food and other nourishing food about eight times a day. they even rise in the night to eat. on the appointed day for wrestling match, the young men come out to the public square already thronged by spectators from the town and the neighbouring towns. the wrestlers look very corpulent and are adorned with black dye and fowl feathers which have symbolic meanings. if any wrestler is thrown down his family members would go on sorrowing, but if he pulls another down there will be wild enjoyment in the family (idigo, 1990). regrettably, idigo (1990) comments that wrestling matches are not staged now as before for because some young men recourse to charms; besides that, it is alleged that witches have attacked some wrestlers in the fattening rooms, thereby reducing the number of young men who want to take part in the competition. apart from these, young men now pursue education and productive work outside their home towns. this festival, however, continues to act as a spiritual conduit by which the members of the community renew contact with their ancestral home, garner spiritual support via participation in religious rituals, and strengthen their cultural security and communal brotherhood. this festival is usually an occasion for jocundity and thanksgiving; people appear in their best and give of their best. the offerings are mostly thankofferings, and the meals are made to become opportunities of communion between the ancestral deity and his “children”. every indigene of eziagulu-aguleri village is expected to pay homage to this deity either directly or by proxy. this paper will discuss how this renewal of covenant relationship is done to renew the intimate brotherhood among eziagulu-aguleri people. it will also show how the aguleri community uses this festival through the mediation of its rituals to reassert her leadership over other communities as the head of the igbo race in diaspora reawakening the culture and sustenance of human spirituality in african traditional religion through commemoration of ilo-ikenga in aguleri cosmology. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 68 origin and migration etymologically, the words olili onwa isaa emanates from the month of september which is the ninth month of the lunar calendar year among the igbo where the god(s) are worshipped and it is called ilo-ikenga feast in aguleri cosmology. according to nzewi (2000:25) the olili onwa isaa festival in which “it figures originated in aguleri – a farming/fishing igbo community on omambala river basin of south-eastern nigeria”. isichei (1980:2) argues that “it is possible to visit aguleri, and go away seeing almost nothing of the town at all. most of the houses are set back from the road, and cover a wide area, in the classic igbo pattern. and one may know the town well and never guesses its immense antiquity, for there is nothing visible to suggest it. yet aguleri, perhaps more than any other place, was the cradle of igbo civilization. a long history, encapsulated in mythology, recalls a man called eri, sent from god, who lived there”. it is very important to note that eziagulu is a quarter/village in aguleri town. ancestral worship according to idigo (1990:60) “aguleri people have strong belief in the existence of one god, the creator of all things whom they call chi-ukwu, the supreme being, under whose control is the spirits both good and bad. ancestor worship is also practiced and the people offer sacrifices to their dead fathers, where the king is believed to serve as an earthly representative between god and people, and this demonstrated convincingly that the concept of god was indigenous to the igbo religious traditions (metuh, 1981:7), which promises concrete blessings and protection (isichei, 1980:4). uchendu (1965:101) affirms that “the number of igbo deities, spirits, and oracles is enormous and their anthropomorphous character is well recognized”. he argues that “igbo attitude towards the gods is not of fear but of friendship, a friendship that lasts as long as the reciprocal obligations are kept” (uchendu, 1965:101). besides, idigo (1990:60) affirms that these deities owned in common but there are individual deities whom each person keeps and worships through the carved wooden images or idols. significance of the festival olili-onwa isaa is the ritual commemoration of ancestor worship in eziagulu-aguleri. it is very significant to reiterate here that the festival has common link to the ilo-ikenga feast which is usually commemorated in september. no wonder then, peters (2002:23) asserts that such sacred global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 69 feasts are believed to be done where “many deities were understood to meet a variety of human needs and when some needs are met, the status quo is maintained; when other needs are met, there is transformation of individuals and societies to new states of being”. brown (2004:164) posits that such feasts are where traditional religious ties tend to compensate the communities like those ones that make up the eri kingdom “through the mediation for the loss of their contact with their ancestral home and with the built/support in religious rituals and cultural security of their extended brotherhood”. this means that there is synergy between the seen and unseen worlds making aguleri to be the cosmic epicenter of spiritual and cultural home of the igbo people through the sacred ordination of eri the progenitor of the igbo in diaspora. it is on this position that macdonald (2004:317) argues that 90 per cent of the indigenes like that of aguleri “identify themselves as christians, but at the same time they continue to assert the tradition and hegemony of their ancestors”. in this position, kaplan (2000:122) observes that such rituals are still observed and maintained today by the traditionalists in the community and “even among most members who have converted to dominations of christianity”. such occasion “serve as a catalyst in cementing people’s solidarity’’ (dube, 1996:110). in other words the community “are dancing on the shoulders of their ancestors’’ (glocke & jackson, 2011:6), through the mediation of “ordered hierarchy from deity to man” (rowe, 2008:32). llesanmi (1996:2) argues that it cannot be denied that the entire community, including the 82% who are said to be catholics, under the symbolic shadow of ancestorship hold great ancestor like eri in high esteem probably not as a deity, but purely as an ancestor of the community, a great grandfather of high dignity whose influence is still currently felt in the town politically, socially and religiously. most importantly is the fact that the cosmogonic myth about eri and the commemoration of olili onwa isaa through ilo-ikenga feast in eziaguluaguleri “provided an ideological inclusive arena for communal ritual, blending and uniting the various communities at a crucial juncture” (levine, 1997:196). buttressing this point, ejizu (2002:126) comments that “the annual liturgical calendar continues to be strictly lived out from cycle to cycle, with a good number that had joined christianity participating in certain instances”. no wonder leith-ross (1965:293) made an observation that “an igbo attends communion at the same time as he believes in the potency of traditional magic; he ties up in the same handkerchief the rosary and the traditional talisman and plants side by side in the garden around his new cement and pan-roofed house the hibiscus of civilization and the ogirisi tree of pagan family rites”. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 70 here, one can see clearly struggle in the area of sacred space; urban anthropologist, historians and religious scholars have theorized that the intersection of religiosity and urban space is through mediating on religious practices of sacralization of the city or city space (parish, 1994). in this wise, chidester & linenthal (1995) conclude that sacred space is inevitably a contested space. from this assertion, one can say tersely that aguleri as an uncontaminated indigenous community in igbo land embraced christianity centuries ago but has never alienated herself from traditional religion. in that wise, through the mediating rituals that are involved in the commemoration of olili onwa isaa festival in aguleri as the ancestral head of the igbo, it is evident to validate romantically the return of the god(s) through the ritual festival of olili onwa isaa in igbo land. this is why ejizu (2002:116 & 126) affirms that in igbo land, special religious activities, like the festival of olili onwa isaa — iloikenga in eziagulu-aguleri, the commemoration of the return of the deities is “accorded the more renowned deities in various areas” while “regular sacrifices and festivals continue to be offered and held in honour of these deities, besides other private acts of worship”. the ritual festival called olili onwa isaa was designed as a unifying force for the aguleri people both at home and elsewhere. it features religious ceremonies, agricultural trade fairs, dancing and musical entertainments and of course wrestling to name but a few. all these serve to strengthen and demonstrate the bond of union that kept aguleri together. thus, olili onwa isaa festival was initiated by eri himself in a form of a miniature, yearly ritual celebration to thank the gods for his somewhat spiritually activities over the humans. it is a one week ritual activity that is held every september annually. it is very significant to note that when people travel to their places of origin for the festivals, especially the traditional ones, some of them return to their places of work with some sacred materials obtained from the priests in-charge of the community shrine. on this ritual celebration of olili onwa isaa, margaret mead (1972:231) comments that it is on this month of september that “every theatrical performance which is also an offering to the gods that those who wish to make a thanks offering…sheer heaven for the anthropologist”. in fact, the scenario of this event is better experienced than explained. it is on this position that llesanmi (1996:9) affirms that “it is a symbolic approach which ecumenism has not succeeded in achieving’’, and “they cannot be refuted by anything that has come down to us, in lyric, liturgy, or mode of worship from these primordial forces that the concerted might of islam and christianity have failed to crush” (soyinka, 1999). global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 71 salamone & mbabuike (1994:211) argue that it is through this method that “the african traditionalist is committed morally, physically, and spiritually to native rituals and ceremonies that never entirely die no matter which foreign missionary religion is adapted, christianity or islam”. this invariably becomes a significant success in the maze of cultural ecology in igbo traditional religion where christendom poses a great threat for its survival. nonetheless, it is very significant to say here that the kind of food eaten and offered in this type of festival by the members of eziagulu-aguleri community during the yearly thanksgiving celebration for commemoration of their god(s) is basically pounded yam. this is because traditionally cultivation of yam is associated with anambra – aguleri people (onwuejeogwu, 1981:22 & isichei, 1983:24). aguleri as a community is classified as a “yam zone” (coursey & coursey, 1971:447) and in igbo land as a whole, it is believed that yam is the king of all the food crops (achebe, 1958:26-32). this is why basden (1966:389-390) describes it as “igbo staff of life”. however, this festival is also symbolic because it shows the strength, position and leadership of the king among his subordinates and entire community due to the fact in the communal mode theory according to mcadams (1988:81) this kind of relationship are understood as egalitarian. in fact, during this festival of olili onwa isaa — ilo-ikenga, there is this kind of concept of communal ideology that brings together every eziagulu-aguleri person—man and woman, old and young, titled and non-titled, working together for the common goal, betterment and progress of the festival and aguleri community as a whole. uchendu (1965:103) affirms that “there is a great emphasis on communal cooperation and achievement. the communal character of the igbo must be traced to the formative influence of their traditional social patterns, the influence of their nucleated residence pattern, and the ideological urge to get up”. he argues that “the ideal of cooperation, illustrated in work groups, credit associations, and title-making societies, pervades all aspects of igbo culture” (uchendu, 1965:103). no wonder, hobart et al (1996:239) describes this concept as “mutual-aid activities to the advantage of the village or [sic] community’’, in which the festival is sometimes the affair of a whole town. buttressing this affirmation further, eiseman (1990b:72) explains that such remarkable moment requires collective participation in almost every aspect of political, social, economic, and religious life, where the community members are bound together, and that it is very imperative for community like the eziagulu-aguleri to engage in such group global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 72 projects for the welfare of their community. it is during this period that the entire ‘agulerians’ especially eziagulu quarter who are native-born and those who are foreign show what nnamah (2002:8) describes as the “spirit of ogbagidigidi”— by this i mean the spirit of strong solidarity among themselves and in support of aguleri. figure 1: this is the picture of the ikenga sited inside the ritual arena during the olili onwa isaa festival. at this festival, a well-fed man, appointed through oracular divination after certain rigorous ritualistic endeavours, carries the carved wooden symbol of the ikenga deity on his head while displaying the ritualistic strength of the god(s). it is in this form that the ritual symbolism of the auspicious body of the deity and realm still persist in native belief which has power and influence on the believers. in celebration, the youths dance around the entire village with rhythm and music that emanate from ogene anuka – the bell orchestra that stir the crowd into frenzy mood. the drums beat and the flutes sound and the spectators hold their breath. the music style is a factor that basically adds an embellishment to the flora, fun, enthusiasm and fantasy. the pomp goes on, the unconscious emotion, nodding of heads and waving of hands, a sight which can be better felt than described. this is because its powerful effects defy analysis. thus, it is easy for the onlookers during such display to assess the devotees taking part in the real ritual drama rehearsing their exploit. the idea is that the entire indigenes of eziagulu-aguleri especially the able bodied men will collectively run round the whole village in solidarity making great ululation, dancing and chanting aguleri enyi mba to showcase their absolute support for the global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 73 town and shout the glory of the deity and aguleri at the top of their voices. figure 2: this is the picture of a well built man carrying the ikenga during the olili onwa isaa festival. this kind of tense atmosphere has been described “as periods of relaxation to moments of peak activity’’ (wilson, 1992:337). also, it is in this kind of festival that bright (1981:166) asserts that “the tribesmen would gather on stated occasions to seek the presence of [sic] and renew their allegiance to him, and also to adjust matters of controversy and mutual interest among the tribes”. this is also a restatement and a reaffirmation of oneness of aguleri and a moment of expression of their love for aguleri their fatherland. interpretatively, such occasion “serve as a catalyst in cementing people’s solidarity” (dube, 1996:110), and in other words the community “are dancing on the shoulders of their ancestors” (glocke & jackson, 2011:6). through the mediation of such ritualistic relationship in the cosmology of aguleri paradigm there is an “ordered hierarchy from deity to man” (rowe, 2008:32). conclusion through the annual festival of the deities said to return from travel (inata mbia), an ancestor commemoration, and through the sacred ordination of aguleri as the first son of eri, aguleri has taken her rightful position as the true head of igbo race as it regards the tradition and culture of the igbo in diaspora. olili onwa isaa in eziagulu-aguleri is a ritual festival that reintegrates, reunites and reinforces the binding spiritual forces global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 74 which ecumenism has not succeeded in breaking its wall jericho wise in igbo land thereby buttressing the notion that the god(s) in african traditional religion have returned. reinforcing this notion, it is very significant to note that there is a struggle over sonic and sacred space in this kind of ritual festival between the adherents of african traditional religion and that of christianity. equally significant is the fact that the death of african traditional religion is not near because this kind of ritual festival where the notion of brotherhood is cemented among the igbo race which invariably depicts and sustains their quest for identity construction is contained and managed ritually. olili onwa isaa is an avenue to showcase a nation’s culture, norms and lifestyles to the outside world which in turn brings about socio-religious and socio-political integration among the stakeholders. the more the celebrations of traditional festivals like that of olili onwa isaa, the more tourists, foreigners and visitors are likely to watch or participate in this search for true brotherhood and quest for human spirituality. references basden, g. t. 1966. niger ibos: a description of the primitive life, customs and animistic beliefs, etc, of the igbo people of nigeria. london: frank cass & co. ltd. brown, m. k. 2004. vodou in the tenth department: new york’s haitian community cited in beyond primitivism: indigenous religious traditions and modernity (ed) by jacob k. olupona (2004), new york: routledge. 164-171. bright, j. 1981. a history of israel. london: scm press ltd. coursey, d. g & coursey, c. k. 1971. the new yam festivals of west africa. anthropos. bd. 66, h. 3./4 (1971), 444-484. available from: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40457684. accessed: 22 july 2014. dube, c. 1996. the changing context of african music performance in zimbabwe. zambezia, xxxiii (11). 99-120. available from: archive.lib.msu.edu/dmc/africanjournals/pdfs/journal of the university of zimbabwe/vol23n2/juz023002002.pdf. accessed: 30 january 2013. ejizu, c. i. 2002. continuity and discontinuity in igbo traditional religion cited in the gods in retreat: continuity and change in global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 75 african religion (ed) by emefie ikenga metuh (2002), enugu: fourth dimension publishers.111-131. eiseman, f. 1990b. bali-sekala and niskala: volume 2, essays on society, tradition and craft. hong kong: periplus. glocke, a. & jackson, l. m. 2011. dancin’ on the shoulders of our ancestors: an introduction. the journal of pan african studies, vol.4, no.6, september 2011. 1-6. available from: www.jpanafrican.com/docs /vol4.no6/4.6-1dancin.pd accessed 7 december 2013. isichei, e. 1980 entirely for god: the life of michael iwene tansi. ibadan: macmillan nigeria publishers ltd. __________1983. the history of nigeria. london: longman group limited. idigo, m. c. m.1990. aguleri history and culture. lagos: bantam press ltd. ilesanmi, t. m.1996. the ingenuity of yoruba women in the worship of orinlase in ilawe-ekiti. orita ibadan journal of religious studies, vol. xxviii/1-2 (june & december, 1996), 1-10. kaplan, f. e. s. 2000. some thoughts on ideology, beliefs, and sacred kingship among the edo (benin) people of nigeria cited in african spirituality: forms, meanings and expressions (ed) by jacob k. olupona (2000), new york: the crossroad publishing company. 114-151. levine, v. l. 1997. ‘music, myth, and medicine in the choctaw indian ballgame’ cited in enchanting powers: music in the world’s religions (ed) by lawrence e. sullivan (1997), cambridge: harvard university press. 189-218. leith-ross, s. 1965. african women. routledge and kegan paul. metuh, e. i. 1981. god and man in african religion. london: geoffrey chapman. macdonald, m. n. 2004. thinking and teaching with indigenous traditions of melanesia cited in beyond primitivism: indigenous religious traditions and modernity (ed) by jacob k. olupona (2004), new york: routledge. 314-324. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 76 mcadams, d. p. 1988. power, intimacy, and the life story: personological inquiries into identity. new york & london: the guilford press. mead, m. 1972. blackberry winter: my earlier years. london: angus & robertson. nnamah, p. a. 2002. a centenary of a dynasty and ovala celebrations from the cradle, cited in ovala aguleri 2002 udo na njiko aguleri celebrating 100 years of idigo dynasty (1900-2000), aguleri (ed) paul .a. nnamah, 2002, aguleri: okezie press.7-10. nzewi, o. 2000. the technology and music of the nigerian igbo ogene anuka bell orchestra in leonardo music journal, vol. 10, 25-31. available from: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/imj/summary /v010/10.inzewi.html. accessed: 10 december 2012. onwuejeogwu, m. a. 1981. an igbo civilization: nri kingdom and hegemony. london: ethnographica ltd. peters, k. e. 2002. dancing with the sacred: evolution, ecology, and god. harrisburg, pennsylvania: trinity press international. parish, s. m. 1994. moral knowing in a hindu sacred city: an exploration of mind, emotion, and self. new york, columbia university press. rowe, s. m. 2008. we dance for knowledge. dance research journal, vol. 40, no. 1 (summer 2008), 32-44. available from: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20527591. accessed: 18 july 2014. salamone, f. a & mbabuike, m. 1994. the plight of the indigenous catholic priest in africa: an igbo example. rivista trimestrale di studi e documentazione dell’istituto italiano per l’africa e l’oriente, anno 49, no. 2 (giugno 1994), 210-224. available from: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40760880. accessed: 17 april 2014. soyinka, w. 1999. the seven signposts of existence: knowledge, honor, justice and other virtues. ibadan: an imprint of bookcraft ltd. uchendu, c. c. 1965. the igbo of south east nigeria. chicago: holt, rinehart and winston, inc. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 77 wilson, o. 1992. the heterogeneous sound ideal in african american music cited in new perspectives on music: essays in honor of eileen southern (ed) by josephine wright & samuel floyd jr.warren, michigan: harmonie park press. 327-338. author information: dr francis chuks madukasi is a lecturer in the department of religion & human relations, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, igbariam, anambra state, nigeria. email: frankmakson@gmail.com. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 60 on boundedness and solution size in rational linear programming and polyhedral optimization mark laisin, collins edike & r. n. ujumadu abstract this paper delves into the theoretical and practical aspects of boundedness and structural properties in rational linear programming (lp) and polyhedral optimization. it provides a comprehensive analysis of conditions under which the optimization of linear functions over rational polyhedra remains bounded and establishes explicit constraints on solution size when optimal solutions exist. by exploring the interplay between polyhedral geometry, integer hulls, and rational lp systems, this study sheds light on fundamental principles that underlie modern optimization techniques. key findings include equivalence conditions for boundedness between rational polyhedra and their integer hulls, as well as precise bounds on the numerical representation of optimal solutions. these results not only enhance the theoretical understanding of lp and polyhedral optimization but also have significant implications for computational efficiency, algorithm design, and numerical stability in solving real-world optimization problems. the discussion is rooted in rigorous mathematical foundations and extends to practical applications in areas such as mixed-integer programming, computational geometry, and combinatorial optimization. keywords: rational linear programming, polyhedral optimization, boundedness conditions, integer hull, solution size bounds, rational coefficients, computational geometry, optimization algorithms, numerical stability. i. introduction linear programming (lp) has had a significant and enduring influence, deeply connected with the evolution of optimization theory and computational methodologies. scholars have extensively traced the origins of lp back to the 1930s, highlighting leonid kantorovich’s groundbreaking work in formulating optimization problems to address resource allocation challenges in economic planning (kantorovich, 1939). kantorovich’s pioneering contributions established the foundation of linear optimization and global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 61 were later recognized with the nobel prize in economics, underscoring the lasting impact of his work. the practical relevance of lp has surged during and after world war ii. researchers, notably george dantzig, have developed the simplex algorithm to optimize military logistics and supply chains, a milestone in the application of mathematical optimization (dantzig, 1947). the simplex algorithm has remained a cornerstone in solving lp problems, celebrated for its practical efficiency and ease of implementation, despite its potential exponential time complexity in the worst-case scenarios. the study of rational linear programming, characterized by constraints and objectives expressed using rational coefficients, has gained prominence with advancements in computational methodologies. researchers have extensively analyzed rational lp systems, focusing on their numerical properties, solution size, and computational feasibility. during the 1980s, karmarkar’s introduction of the polynomial-time interior-point method has revolutionized the field, providing an alternative to the simplex algorithm and emphasizing the significance of numerical stability in optimization (karmarkar, 1984). polyhedral optimization, a core area of mathematical optimization, has bridged critical concepts in combinatorics, geometry, and optimization. scholars have explored the geometric properties of feasible regions defined by linear inequalities, offering theoretical and practical insights for solving complex problems. the study of polyhedra has uncovered deep structural relationships essential for various optimization tasks, including vertex enumeration and facet identification. among the impactful concepts in polyhedral optimization is the integer hull, representing the convex hull of all integer solutions within a polyhedron. this concept has substantially advanced the theory and algorithms of integer programming and mixed-integer programming, as emphasized by nemhauser and wolsey (1999). by enabling the transition from an infinite search space to a finite and structured geometric framework, the integer hull has simplified the analysis of discrete variable problems. recent advancements in polyhedral optimization include the construction and analysis of rational polyhedra on boards. laisin et al. (2024) have demonstrated the practical effectiveness of polyhedral techniques in modeling and solving problems involving integral polyhedra, offering applications in combinatorial optimization and computational geometry. their work has exemplified how modern techniques can address both theoretical challenges and real-world applications. this paper examines two fundamental aspects of rational lp and polyhedral global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 62 optimization: i. conditions under which the optimization of a linear function over a rational polyhedron is bounded. ii. bounds on the size of optimal solutions. building on classical results from schrijver (1998) and others, the analysis provides refined bounds and structural insights critical for advancing both theoretical understanding and practical applications in optimization. ii. preliminaries and definitions definition 2.1: sub-determinant let 𝑨 be an integral matrix. a sub-determinant of 𝑨 is |𝑩| for some square sub-matrix 𝑩 of 𝑨 (defined by arbitrary row and column indices). we write𝚵(𝑨) for the maximum absolute value of the sub-determinants of 𝑨. definition 2.2: polyhedron linear programming deals with optimizing a linear objective function of finitely many variables subject to finitely many linear inequalities. so the set of feasible solutions is the intersection of finitely many half spaces. such a set is called a polyhedron. definition 2.3: polyhedron in ℝ𝒏 it is a set of type 𝑷 = {𝒙 ∈ ℝ𝒏: 𝑨𝒙 ≤ 𝒃} for some matrix 𝑨 ∈ ℝ𝒎×𝒏and some vector 𝒃 ∈ ℝ𝒎. if a and b are rational, then p is a rational polyhedron. a bounded polyhedron is also called a polytope. we denote the rank of a matrix a by 𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒌(𝑨). the dimension dim x of a nonempty set: 𝒙 ⊆ ℝ𝒏 is defined to be 𝒏 − 𝐦𝐚𝐱 𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒌(𝑨) {𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒌(𝑨): 𝑨 𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐧 𝒏 × 𝒏 − 𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐱 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝑨𝒙 = 𝑨𝒚 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝒙, 𝒚 ∈ 𝑿} a polyhedron 𝑷 ⊆ ℝ𝒏 is called full-dimensional if 𝐝𝐢𝐦 𝑷 = 𝒏 equivalently, a polyhedron is full-dimensional if and only if there exist a point 𝒙∗ in its interior. (genova and guliashki, 2011). global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 63 proposition 2.1: nonempty polyhedron: let 𝑃 = {𝑥 ∶ 𝐴𝑥 ≤ 𝑏} be a nonempty polyhedron. if c is a nonzero vector for which 𝜹 ∶= 𝐦𝐚𝐱 {𝒄𝒙 ∶ 𝒙 ∈ 𝑷} is finite, then {𝒄𝒙 ∶ 𝒙 = 𝜹} is called a supporting hyperplane of p. a face of p is p itself or the intersection of p with a supporting hyperplane of p. a point x for which {x} is a face is called a vertex of p, and also a basic solution of the system 𝑨𝒙 ≤ 𝒃 (genova and guliashki, 2011). proposition 2.2: let 𝑃 ∶= {𝑥 ∶ 𝐴𝑥 ≤ 𝑏} be a polyhedron and 𝑭 ⊆ 𝑷. then the following statements are equivalent: (a) f is a face of p. (b) there exists a vector c such that 𝜹 ∶= 𝐦𝐚𝐱 {𝒄𝒙 ∶ 𝒙 ∈ 𝑷} is finite and 𝑭 = {𝒄𝒙 = 𝜹 ∶ 𝒙 ∈ 𝑷} (c) 𝑭 ∶= {𝒙 ∈ 𝑷: 𝑨′𝒙 = 𝒃′} ≠ ∅; for some subsystem 𝑨′𝒙 ≤ 𝒃′ of 𝑨𝒙 ≤ 𝒃 (genova and guliashki, 2011). corollary 2.1: let 𝑃 be a polyhedron and 𝐹 a face of 𝑃. then 𝐹 is again a polyhedron. furthermore, a set 𝐹′ ⊆ 𝐹 is a face of 𝑃 if and only if it is a face of 𝐹 (genova and guliashki, 2011). proposition 2.3: let 𝑷 = {𝒙: 𝑨𝒙 ≤ 𝒃} be a polyhedron. a nonempty subset 𝑭 ⊆ 𝑷 is a minimal face of 𝑷 if and only if it is a face of; 𝑭 = {𝒙: 𝑨′𝒙 = 𝒃′} for some subsystem 𝑨′𝒙 ≤ 𝒃′ of 𝑨𝒙 ≤ 𝒃 (akif and cihan, 2008) proposition 2.4: for any rational square matrix a we have 𝑠𝑖𝑧𝑒 𝑑𝑒𝑡 𝐴 ≤ 2𝑠𝑖𝑧𝑒(𝐴) proposition 2.5: if 𝒙, 𝒚 ∈ ℚ𝒏 are rational vectors, then 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒙 + 𝒚) ≤ 𝟐(𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒙) + 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒚)) 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒙𝑻𝒚) ≤ 𝟐(𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒙) + 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒚))(𝐋𝐚𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐧 𝒆𝒕 𝒂𝒍. , 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟒). global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 64 definition 2.4: integer programming problem (ipp) the ipp is a special class of linear programming problem (lpp) where all or some of the variables in the optimal solution are restricted to assume nonnegative-integer values. thus the general ipp can be stated as follows: optimize the linear function 𝐎𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐳𝐞 𝒁 = ∑ 𝒄𝒊𝒙𝒊 𝒏 𝒊=𝟏 … (𝟏) subject to the constraints. ∑ 𝒂𝒊𝒋𝒙𝒊 𝒏 𝒊=𝟏 ≤ 𝒃𝒊, 𝒋 = 𝟏, 𝟐, … , 𝒎 … (𝟐) 𝒙𝒊 ≥ 𝟎 and some 𝒙𝒊 are integers. there are two types of the integer programming problems (elmuti, 2003; genova and guliashki, 2011). definition 2.5: all integer programming problem an ipp. is termed as all ipp or pure ipp if all the variables in the optimal solution are restricted to assume non-negative integer values. definition 2.6: mixed integer programming problem (mipp) an ipp is termed as mixed mipp if only some variables in the optimal solution are restricted to assume non-negative integer values while the remaining variables are free to take any non-negative values (gupta et al., 2014). importance of ipp quite often, in business and industry, we require the discrete nature or values of the variables involved in many decision making situations. for example, in a factory manufacturing trucks or cars etc. the quantity or number manufactured can be a whole discrete number only as a fraction of truck or car is not required. in assignment problems and travelling salesman problems etc. the variables involved can assume integer values only. in allocation of goods, a shipment must involve a discrete number of trucks etc. in sequencing and routing decisions we require the discrete values of variables. thus we come across many integer programming problems and hence need some systematic procedure for obtaining the exact optimal integer solution to such problems (elmuti, 2003; genova and guliashki, 2011). global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 65 iii. main results lemma: (boundedness equivalence) let 𝑷 = {𝒙: 𝑨𝒙 ≤ 𝒃} be some rational polyhedron whose integer hull is nonempty, and let 𝒄 be some vector (not necessarily rational). then 𝐦𝐚𝐱 {𝒄𝒙: 𝒙 ∈ 𝑷} is bounded if and only if 𝐦𝐚𝐱 {𝒄𝒙: 𝒙 ∈ 𝑷𝟏} is bounded. proof: suppose 𝐦𝐚𝐱 {𝒄𝒙: 𝒙 ∈ 𝑷}is unbounded. then corollary 3.2.8 says that the system 𝒚𝑨 = 𝒄. 𝒚 ≥ 𝟎 has no solution. by corollary 3.26 there is a vector 𝒛. with 𝒆𝒛 < 0 and 𝑨𝒛 ≥ 𝟎. then the 𝑳𝑷 𝐦𝐢𝐧 {𝒄𝒛: 𝑨𝒛 ≥ 𝟎, −∥≤ 𝒛 ≤∥} is feasible. let 𝒛∗ be an optimum basic solution of this 𝑳𝑷. 𝒛∗ is rational as it is a vertex of a rational polytope. multiply 𝒛∗ by a suitable natural number to obtain an integral vector 𝝎 with 𝑨𝝎 ≥ 𝟎 and 𝒄𝝎 < 0. let 𝒗 ∈ 𝑷𝟏 be some integer vector. then 𝒗 − 𝒌𝝎 ∈ 𝑷𝟏 for all 𝒌 ∈ ℕ, and thus 𝐦𝐚𝐱 {𝒄𝒙: 𝒙 ∈ 𝑷𝟏} is unbounded. the other direction is trivial. theorem (rational matrices and vertices of polytopes) consider the rational linear programming (lp) problem: 𝑳𝑷: 𝒎𝒂𝒙 {𝒄𝑻𝒙: 𝑨𝒙 ≤ 𝒃} where a and b are rational. suppose this lp has an optimum solution. then the following hold: (i) bounded size solution: there exists an optimum solution x such that: 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒙) ≤ 𝟒𝒏(𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝑨) + 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒃)) (ii) special case (unit vector b): if 𝒃 = 𝒆𝒊 𝒐𝒓 𝒃 = −𝒆𝒊 for some unit vector 𝒆𝒊 there exists a nonsingular submatrix 𝑨′ of a and an optimum solution x such that: 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒙) ≤ 𝟒𝒏(𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝑨) + 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒃)) with each component of x satisfying: 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒑𝒐𝒏𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒙) ≤ 𝟒(𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝑨) + 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒃)) global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 66 (iii) reduced submatrix case: if 𝒃 = 𝒆𝒊 𝒐𝒓 𝒃 = −𝒆𝒊 for some unit vector 𝒆𝒊 , then there exists a non-singular submatrix 𝑨′ of a and an optimum solution x such that: 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒙) ≤ 𝟒𝒏 ⋅ 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝑨′) proof the proof of theorem 4.3 relies on these definitions 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4 and 2.5 respectively, to analyse the structure and properties of the lp problem. task 1: to show that, for a given lp, there exists a solution with bounded size. by the fundamental theorem of linear programming, there exists an optimum solution 𝒙∗ at a vertex of the feasible polytope {𝒙: 𝑨𝒙 ≤ 𝒃}. o vertex characterization: a vertex 𝒙∗ corresponds to a subset of constraints in 𝑨𝒙 ≤ 𝒃 that are active (i.e., satisfied as equalities). by corollary 2.1. the maximum is attained in a face 𝑭 of {𝒙 ∶ 𝑨𝒙 ≤ 𝒃}. let 𝑰 ⊆ {𝟏, 𝟐, … , 𝒎} denote the indices of active constraints, and let 𝑨𝑰 denote the submatrix of a corresponding to these constraints. at a vertex, the system can be written as: 𝑨𝑰𝒙 = 𝒃𝑰 where 𝒃𝑰is the corresponding sub vector of b. o non-singularity of 𝑨𝑰: for 𝒙∗ to be a vertex, the matrix 𝑨𝑰 must be non-singular (invertible), and ∣ 𝑰 ∣= 𝒏. o size of solution: solving 𝑨𝑰𝒙 = 𝒃𝑰 𝒙 = 𝑨𝑰 −𝟏𝒃𝑰 using bounds on the size of 𝑨𝑰 and 𝒃𝑰, and the fact that 𝑨𝑰 is rational, the entries of are bounded in terms of 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝑨𝑰). specifically, the size of x is bounded by: 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒙) ≤ 𝟒𝒏(𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝑨) + 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒃)). global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 67 task 2: to show that for a give lp has a special case (𝒃 = 𝒆𝒊 𝒐𝒓 𝒃 = −𝒆𝒊 ) if 𝒃 = 𝒆𝒊 𝒐𝒓 𝒃 = −𝒆𝒊 , where𝒆𝒊 is a unit vector, the lp corresponds to finding the maximum value of 𝒄𝑻𝒙 along a specific axis defined by 𝒆𝒊. o existence of a non-singular submatrix: as in task 1, there exists a vertex solution 𝒙∗, and the active constraints correspond to a nonsingular submatrix 𝑨′ of a. o bound on solution size: similar to the general case, the size of x is bounded by: 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒙) ≤ 𝟒𝒏(𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝑨) + 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒃)), with the size of each component of x further bounded by: 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒑𝒐𝒏𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒙) ≤ 𝟒(𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝑨) + 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒃)). task 3: to show that for a give lp has reduced submatrix: let 𝑭′ ⊆ 𝑭 be a minimal face. by corollary 2.1𝑭′ = {𝒙 ∶ 𝑨′𝒙 = 𝒃′} for some subsystem 𝑨′𝒙 ≤ 𝒃′ 𝐨𝐟 𝑨𝒙 ≤ 𝒃. then, in the special case where 𝒃 = 𝒆𝒊 𝒐𝒓 𝒃 = −𝒆𝒊 , let 𝑨′ denote the nonsingular submatrix corresponding to the active constraints at the optimum. now, we may assume that the rows of 𝑨′ are linearly independent. we then take a maximal set of linear independent columns (call this matrix 𝑨”) and set all other components to zero. then 𝒙 = (𝑨")−𝟏𝒃′, filled up with zeros, is an optimum solution to our lp. by cramer’s rule the entries of 𝒙 are given by 𝒙𝒊 = 𝐝𝐞𝐭 𝑨′′′ 𝐝𝐞𝐭 𝑨′′ , where 𝑨′′′ arises from 𝑨′′ by replacing the 𝒋 − 𝒕𝒉 column by 𝒃′. by propositions 2.4 and 2.5 respectively, we obtain 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒙) ≤ 𝒏 + 𝟐𝒏(𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝑨′′′) + 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝑨′′)) ≤ 𝟒𝒏(𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝑨′′) + 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒃′)). if 𝒃 = ±𝒆𝒊 then | 𝐝𝐞𝐭(𝑨′′′) | is the absolute value of a sub determinant of 𝑨′′. the size of x can then be further bounded as: 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒙) ≤ 𝟒𝒏 ⋅ 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝑨′). this follows because 𝑨′ has fewer rows and columns compared to the full matrix a, reducing the maximum size contribution. q.e.d. utilizing results from schrijver (1998) and cook et al., (1986), we derive global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 68 bounds on the size of optimal solutions by analyzing the bit-length of vertices of and properties of rational systems. iv. applications: production scheduling problem i) integer programming: the equivalence of boundedness conditions simplifies complexity analyses for mixed-integer programming problems problem setup a factory produces two products, a and b, using two resources, labor and material. the available resources are limited to 100 hours of labor and 80 units of material. the profit for producing one unit of a is $50, and for b, it's $40. the problem is to determine the production quantities 𝒙𝟏 (units of a) and 𝒙𝟐 (units of b) to maximize profit, subject to the following constraints: labor constraint: 𝟐𝒙𝟏 + 𝟏𝒙𝟐 ≤ 𝟏𝟎𝟎, material constraint: 𝟏𝒙𝟏 + 𝟐𝒙𝟐 ≤ 𝟖𝟎. this is a linear programming (lp) problem. however, if the production quantities 𝒙𝟏 and 𝒙𝟐 must be integers (e.g., you cannot produce fractional units), the problem becomes a mixed-integer programming (mip) problem. rational polyhedron and integer hull  the feasible region defined by the constraints is a rational polyhedron p, containing all real-valued solutions that satisfy the constraints.  the integer hull 𝑷𝑰 is the convex hull of all integer solutions within p. it represents the feasible region for the mip problem. boundedness analysis 1. boundedness of p: the polyhedron p is bounded since it is enclosed by the constraints 𝟐𝒙𝟏 + 𝟏𝒙𝟐 ≤ 𝟏𝟎𝟎 and 𝒙𝟏 + 𝟐𝒙𝟐 ≤ 𝟖𝟎, which intersect in the positive quadrant. 2. boundedness of 𝑷𝑰: the integer hull 𝑷𝑰, being a subset of p, is also bounded. this follows from the equivalence of boundedness conditions: if 𝒎𝒂𝒙 {𝒄𝑻𝒙: 𝒙 ∈ 𝑷} is bounded, then 𝒎𝒂𝒙 {𝒄𝑻𝒙: 𝒙 ∈ 𝑷𝑰, } is bounded. simplifying the analysis instead of analyzing the mip problem directly, the equivalence of boundedness conditions allows us to focus on the polyhedron p to verify boundedness. once p is confirmed to be bounded, we can conclude that 𝑷𝑰, global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 69 is bounded, avoiding the need for exhaustive checks over all integer solutions. solving the problem the integer solutions can then be obtained by applying integer programming techniques, such as branch-and-bound or cutting planes, which operate within the bounded integer hull 𝑷𝑰, . thus, reducing the boundedness check to p, the analysis simplifies significantly, saving computational effort and making the problem more tractable. ii) computational geometry: solution size bounds assist in designing efficient algorithms for convex hull and vertex enumeration. application context consider the problem of computing the convex hull of a set of points in ℝ𝒏. convex hull algorithms, such as quickhull or graham's scan, rely on numerical representations of the points and may involve large computations when the coordinates of the points have a high bit-length. efficient algorithms benefit from guarantees about the size of intermediate and final solutions, which directly impacts computation time and memory usage. problem setup let 𝑷 = {𝒙 ∈ ℝ𝒏: 𝑨𝒙 ≤ 𝒃} be a rational polyhedron defined by m linear inequalities, where 𝑨 ∈ ℚ𝒎×𝒏. the goal is to compute the convex hull of the integer points in p, denoted 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒗(𝑷𝑰). solution size bounds from theoretical results, if an optimal solution x to a linear program over p exists, its size is bounded as: 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒙) ≤ 𝟒𝒏(𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝑨) + 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒃)). this means each vertex of the convex hull 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒗(𝑷𝑰)has coordinates with a bit-length constrained by this bound. application to convex hull algorithms a. numerical stability: o algorithms like quickhull require operations on vertex coordinates, such as comparing slopes or calculating determinants. knowing the bounds on the size of x ensures that these operations remain numerically stable and feasible on finite-precision systems. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 70 b. efficient data structures: o solution size bounds guide the choice of data structures. for example, if the bound indicates small bit-lengths, lightweight data structures (e.g., arrays with fixed-width integers) can be used, reducing memory overhead. c. algorithm design: o when enumerating vertices of 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒗(𝑷𝑰), solution size bounds restrict the search space, enabling pruning strategies in branch-and-bound algorithms. for example, if a candidate vertex exceeds the size bounds, it can be discarded without further computation. application in ℝ𝟐 suppose p is a polygon defined by: 𝑷 = {𝒙 ∈ ℝ𝟐: 𝟐𝒙𝟏 + 𝒙𝟐 ≤ 𝟏𝟎, 𝒙𝟏 + 𝟑𝒙𝟐 ≤ 𝟏𝟓, 𝒙𝟏, 𝒙𝟐 ≥ 𝟎}. the integer points in p are (𝟎, 𝟎), (𝟏, 𝟎), (𝟐, 𝟎), … , (𝟒, 𝟑).  the convex hull of these points forms a polygon whose vertices are subsets of the integer points.  using the size bounds, we confirm that all integer solutions 𝒙 = (𝒙𝟏, 𝒙𝟐) satisfy 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒙) ≤ 𝟒(𝟐 + 𝟐) = 𝟏𝟔, ensuring efficient computations. iii) impact on algorithms: with these bounds:  vertex enumeration: we avoid considering infeasible points with excessively large coordinates.  convex hull computation: ensures that the algorithm’s runtime is proportional to the actual feasible vertices, reducing unnecessary overhead. this example demonstrates how solution size bounds provide theoretical guarantees that directly improve the efficiency and practicality of convex hull and vertex enumeration algorithms. thus, it improves the bounds that contribute to better prerecession and numerical stability in lp solvers. v. conclusion this paper establishes critical theoretical results in rational linear programming and polyhedral optimization, emphasizing boundedness equivalence and solution size constraints. by proving the equivalence of boundedness between rational polyhedra and their integer hulls, as well as global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 71 deriving explicit bounds on the size of optimal solutions, this work contributes to a deeper understanding of the structural and numerical properties of optimization problems. these findings are not only of theoretical interest but also pave the way for advancements in computational optimization, particularly in improving algorithmic efficiency and ensuring numerical stability. vi. recommendations future work may explore extensions to non-convex settings, where the feasible regions are no longer polyhedral, presenting new challenges in understanding boundedness and solution representation. another promising direction involves generalizations to cases with irrational coefficients, which require advanced techniques to address the complexities introduced by nonrational systems. furthermore, integrating these theoretical insights into practical optimization software and exploring their impact on real-world applications, such as logistics, network design, and machine learning, could significantly enhance the utility and scope of rational lp and polyhedral optimization. such efforts would bridge the gap between theoretical advancements and their practical implementations, fostering innovation in both academic and industrial domains. references akif, m b. and cihan, a. (2008). a 0-1 integer programming approach to a university timetabling problem. hacettepe journal of mathematics and statistics, 37: 41-55. cook, w., cunningham, w. h., pulleyblank, w. r., & schrijver, a. (1986). combinatorial optimization. wiley. dantzig, g. b. (1947). linear programming and extensions. princeton university press. dantzig, g. b. (1947). maximization of a linear function of variables subject to linear inequalities. in t. c. koopmans (ed.), activity analysis of production and allocation (pp. 339-347). wiley. elmuti, d. (2003). the perceived impact of outsourcing on organizational performance. american journal of business, 18: 33-42. genova, k. and guliashki, v. (2011). linear integer programming methods and approaches a survey. journal of cybernetics and information technologies. vol 11. gupta, prem kumar (er.) and d. s. hira (2014); operations research seventh global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 72 revised edition. by rajendra ravindra pvt ltd, ram nagar new delhi110055 and published by s. chand & company pvt ltd, india kantorovich, l. v. (1939). mathematical methods in the organization and planning of production. leningrad state university. karmarkar, n. (1984). a new polynomial-time algorithm for linear programming. combinatorica, 4(4), 373-395. laisin, m., edike, c. and bright o. osu (2024); the construction of rational polyhedron on an 𝒏 × 𝒏 board with some application on integral polyhedral. tijer, vol 11, issue 11, www.tijer.org nemhauser, g. l., & wolsey, l. a. (1999). integer and combinatorial optimization. wiley. schrijver, a. (1998). theory of linear and integer programming. wiley. author information: prof. mark laisin is of the department of mathematics, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, uli, anambra state, nigeria. email: laisinmark@gmail.com collins edike is of the department of mathematics, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, uli, anambra state, nigeria. email: edikecollins505@gmail. com dr r. n. ujumadu is of the department of mathematics, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, uli, anambra state, nigeria. email: rozyngujmadu@yahoo. com apa laisin, m., edike, c., & ujumadu, r. n. (2025). on boundedness and solution size in rational linear programming and polyhedral optimization. global online journal of academic research (gojar), 4(1), 60-72. https://klamidas.com/gojar-v4n1-2025-04/. mla laisin, mark, edike, collins, & ujumadu, r. n. “on boundedness and solution size in rational linear programming and polyhedral optimization”. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1, 2025, pp. 60-72. https://klamidas.com/gojarv4n1-2025-04/. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 70 the opportunities and challenges of the fourth industrial revolution in management science by florence eguonor omonzejele & cyril obiora agu abstract this study was set out to review, theoretically, the opportunities and challenges of the fourth (4th) industrial revolution in management science with particular reference to the nigerian economy and how the implications of the disruptive technologies can be driven to enhance the economic situation in the country. they study revealed that while nigeria has made considerable efforts to adapt the technologies of the 4th industrial revolution, she is still far behind in keeping pace with its transformations. the study concluded that the speed of the current technological breakthroughs, along with its transformations, in all aspects of human life certainly shows the emergence of a 4th industrial revolution. therefore, a change in the structure of the nigerian economy is needed to adapt to these transformations. the study recommended, among others, a complete review of the curricula of the different levels of education in nigeria (from primary and secondary schools to all the various forms of tertiary institutions) to include skills in management science – skills that form the bedrock of the 4th industrial revolution. keywords: 4th industrial revolution, disruptive technologies, management science introduction when great britain first brought about technological changes in the 1760s by converting her economy from an agrarian and artisanal to one characterized by industrialization and innovation, the stage was set for a series of industrial revolutions: the first industrial revolution between 1760 to 1840; the second industrial revolution between 1870 and 1914; the third industrial revolution between 1914 and 1950; and the fourth industrial revolution which began in 2014 (schwab, 2016; ajah & chigozie-okwu, 2019; and iberdrola, 2022). the invention of each global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 71 industrial revolution was a hallmark. every successive industrial revolution was a refinement of the previous one and unique in nature. however, the 4th industrial revolution struck every living being on earth with awe, as it turned the entire globe into the smallest bedroom that can be accessed at the speed of light. though, it is said to be built on the third (3rd) one, the 4th industrial revolution cannot be compared to any of the three previous ones. it has been described as “unprecedented”, and “fussion of technologies.” its changes have been seen to “disrupt every sphere of human living physical, digital or biological" (schwab, 2016; and xu, david & hikim, 2018). the disruptive technologies of the 4th industrial revolution include artificial intelligence (ai), internet of things (iot), robotics, nanotechnology, three-dimensional (3d) printing, bio-technology, energy storage, material science, and quantum computing (change, 2017; and mcginnis, 2020). these technologies, on the one hand, come with the potential to increase the level of income globally and raise the standard of living for populations all over the earth (schwab, 2016). on the other hand, they present challenges for developing economies like nigeria, that find it difficult to work out the mechanism to key into the 4th industrial revolution . report shows that nigeria has continued to face huge developmental challenges despite the significant improvements the country has made in recent times (world bank, 2020). these developmental challenges ranging from unemployment, inequality in terms of income and opportunities, to lack of diversification of the economy and governance issues can only be solved by embracing the technologies of the 4th industrial revolution. it is the need for nigeria to attain sustainable economy by harnessing the advantages of the 4th industrial revolution that this study was carried out. no doubt, there are many studies, locally and international, on the opportunities and challenges of the 4th industrial revolution (omoh, 2015, global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 72 schwab, 2016; scheel, 2016; ajah & chigozie-okwu, 2019, onyeizugbe, nnadi & enaimi, 2019; trendov, veras & zeng, 2019, groncharov, 2020; ladimeji, 2020; obijole, 2020, zervoudi 2020, bodeharrison, 2021; change, 2022 and iberdrola, 2022), but very few known studies address the implications of the 4th industrial revolution in the field of management science, with particular reference to the nigerian situation. thus, the objective of this theoretical study was to carry out a critical examination of the implications of the disruptive technologies of the 4th industrial revolution in the field of management science, with a view to finding the way forward for the overall growth and development of the nigerian economy. evolutionof industrial revolution the world ‘revolution’ carries the idea of a dramatic, sudden, radical or complete change. while “industrial” relates to the industry or “characterized by highly developed industries” (merriam webster dictionary, 2022). simply put, industrial revolution is a remarkable change characterized by highly developed industries brought about by significant technological innovations and advancements. vries (2008) defined industrial revolution as the “emergence, during the transition from pre-industrial to an industrial society of modern economic growth, that is a sustained and substantial increase of gdp per capital in real terms”. it is a period of major innovation and industrialization resulting from technological changes that fundamentally transformed the society in terms of its economy, way of working and standard of living (schwab, 2016). in pre-industrial times, man was content with subsistence farming, using crude farm instruments and manual labour in a communal setting. as time went by, man saw the need to expand in knowledge through critical thinking in order to achieve a better and improved method of doing things. this gave rise to innovation/invention and the birth of the first industrial revolution which became one of the major forces of change in the 19th century. as a result, western global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 73 civilization leading to the industrial era that shaped the modern world was actualized. no wonder zeidan (2022) referred to industrial revolution as a process of economic transformation than as a period of time in a particular setting. as noted by obijole (2020), industrial revolution often heralded disruptions in the operations of markets and economies, which are deviations from the status quo and are not always negative. this was the case with the first industrial revolution which began in england in about 1750 – 1760 and lasted to sometime between 1820 and 1840, during which it spread to other parts of europe (mohajan, 2019). it was an era of significant innovation as notable inventions like the steam engine, the spinning jimmy and the telegraph brought about mechanized production and social change (schwab, 2016). there was a transition from human/animal labour technology into machinery leading to among others, improved efficiency in raw material usage, labour and overhead expenses (mohajan, 2019). despite the breakthroughs of the first industrial revolution, it was said to lack scientific base, giving way to another revolution known as the technological revolution – the second industrial revolution (mokyr, 1998). the second industrial revolution began in american between 1870 and 1914, with the invention of combustible engine, electricity and light bulb which brought about social, cultural and economic changes (mokyr, 1998; and schwab, 2016). it was characterized by urbanization and rapid territorial expansion which transformed the united states and some other parts of the world including china (engleman, 2022). the third industrial revolution, known as “digital revolution”, began in the late 1900s and was characterized by the spread of high-level automation and digitalization through the use of electronics, computer/internet facilities, programmable logic controllers (plcs) and robots (ajah & chigozie-okwu, 2019; and ward, 2019). with the dawn of the 21st century, a more aggressive and far-reaching industrial global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 74 revolution appeared in the world scene which, in many ways, was quite different from the previous industrial revolutions – the 4th industrial revolution. the fourth industrial revolution klans schwab was the first to describe the kind of technological change of the 21st century as the fourth (4th) industrial revolution. though schwab (2016) acknowledged the 4th industrial revolution as deriving its foundation from the third, he explained beyond all reasonable doubt that it was distinct, and not a continuation of the third one. he noted that the 4th industrial revolution was occurring at an “unprecedented speed, evolving at an exponential rather than a linear pace, and disrupting almost every industry in every country of the world, with a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital and biological spheres”. with these characteristics of the 4th industrial revolution manifesting at the same time, it could rightly be said that it was indeed unlike any previous industrial revolution. the 4th industrial revolution has been referred to as “innovation based on combination of technologies” and characterized by what is known as “cyber-physical systems” (change, 2017; xu et al, 2018; and ajah & chigozie-okwu, 2019). schwab’s view about the emergence of the 4th industrial revolution has been supported by many scholars (inwalomhe, 2018 in ajah & chigozie-okwu, 2019; xu et al, 2018; and goncharov, 2021). despite the strong arguments made by advocates of the 4th industrial revolution, researchers like moll (2021) posited that the 4th industrial revolution was yet to come. he argued that a long-term socio-economic, cultural and technological changes, at a fundamental or structural level, must characterize an industrial revolution. however, iberdrola (2022) emphasized that with the appearance of smart factories and online production management, there is no better way to describe the rise of a new industrial revolution – the 4th one. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 75 in view of the far-reaching effects of the disruptive technologies of the 4th industrial revolution, one cannot deny its emergence and existence. one can only think of fitting into the 4th industrial revolution by a complete understanding of the use of its evolving technologies. it is only then that one can make good use of the opportunities of the 4th industrial revolutions. technologies of the 4th industrial revolution schwab (2016) listed artificial intelligence (ai), robotics, internet of thing (iot), three-dimensional (3-d) printing, nanotechnology, biotechnology, materials science, energy storage and quantum computing as major technologies of the 4th industrial revolution, bringing about unlimited breakthroughs, with no historical precedent. some of these technologies are briefly discussed below: artificial intelligence (ai): this is the ability of a computer to perform tasks required by human intelligence and discernment. such intellectual tasks include decision making, problem solving, perception, understanding/translating human languages (copeland, 1993; and findler, 2007). ai can be applied in all fields of human endeavour. though moll (2021) argued that ai was a technology associated with the invention of the 3rd industrial revolution, zvika krieger in schwabs (2016) asserted that as ai began to impact the workforce and automation replaced existing skills, there would be an increased need for emotional intelligence, creativity and critical thinking. hence, ai forms part of the evolving technologies of the 4th industrial revolution. robotics: this is a specialized branch of automation and is closely associated with ai. robotics technology has to do with the design, construction and use of machines known as robots to perform tasks that are traditionally carried out by human beings (schreiber, 2022). robotics is constantly evolving and robots have been specifically designed to interact physically with humans in collaborative environment (iberdrola, global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 76 2022). robots help in performing repetitive and dangerous tasks, thus saving the lives of workers in manufacturing industry. internet of things/internet of system: change (2022) referred to internet of things (iot) as a network of interconnected smart devices that allow each separate device to interact (send or receive data from other devices on the network). it is designed to establish a connection between the physical and digital worlds (iberdrola, 2022). internet of systems (ios) refers to business-owned systems that can collect data from iot networks to make an independent business such as in marketing and sales. schwab (2016) opined that iot describes everyday items such as medical wearables that can monitor users’ physical conditions. examples include blood pressure, electrical activity of the heart, to cars and other tracking devices connected to the internet and identifiable by other devices. iot calls for decentralization of basic leadership, empowering continuous reaction as an entire organization is interconnected and companies could be connected with one another (islam, hashin jantan& rehman, 2018). iot has a wide range of uses, from agriculture and manufacturing to healthcare. all of these are leading humans towards a better-connected lifestyle. iot and ios make up the “cyber physical systems” (change, 2022). three dimensional (3-d) printing: this technology, according to iberdrola (2022), helps to develop prototypes of products for sales, quickly, accurately and economically. it allows “manufacturing businesses to print their own parts, with less tooling, at a lower cost, and faster than via traditional processes” (schwab, 2016). it is now widely used in architecture, engineering and other areas of design and production. opportunities and challenges of the 4th industrial revolution in management science – the nigerian situation management science is a field of study which refers to a “broad interdisciplinary study of problem solving and decision making in human organizations, with strong links to management, economics, business, global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 77 engineering and other fields. it uses various scientific research based principles, strategies and analytical methods including mathematical modeling, statistics, and numerical algorithms” in providing solutions to complex problems in organizations and for optimal decision-making (wikipedia, 2022). management science embraces different fields of study (luenendonk, 2019) applying the knowledge derived from these in solving complex management problems such as business uncertainty, tracking team productivity, shaping the culture of the organization, recruiting, on boarding the right employees, employee welfare, effective communication, time management, and regulation and compliance (growth engineering, 2021). management science is a function of industrial revolution. its birth was brought about by the first industrial revolution. in fact, traditional management theories both pre scientific and scientific were derived from the first and second industrial revolutions. the functions of management science revolve around the challenges and opportunities of the technologies of the current industrial revolution. according to luenendonk (2019), management science helps to notice the availability and proper use of resources, realize the future possibilities and needs of the organisation’s consumer base, boost employee motivation and productivity through safer work environment, achieve higher productivity through proper time management and efficient workforce. the fourth industrial revolution has mouth-watering prospects for management science. scheel (2016) specifically pointed to increased production capacity/flexibility by 70% improved working capital/cash flow management by 73%, improved competitive position by 79%, improved operational efficiency by 76% and basis for competitive pricing by 82% as the benefits of the 4th industrial revolution through the use of its disruptive technologies. for example, ai helps in production global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 78 optimization through improved efficiency and quality processes for companies that are able to apply it in their business practices. in discussing the possible future improvements information technology can provide to management science, andrew mcafee in luenendonk (2019) stated that one of the biggest changes management science must face is an unbelievable amount of horse power and a mass of data to apply to it. scientific approaches that are technology facilitated must be used. this means that any company not migrated in the direction of the 4th industrial revolution certainly will lose a huge opportunity, which in turn will affect its survival, growth and development, and of course with the adverse effects on the economy. in another business discussion, philip evans in luenendonk (2019) showed how the iot has transformed businesses by making traditional business strategies obsolete. he argued that modern technology has collapsed the traditional value chain through falling transactions, allowing fragmentation of scales where individuals, instead of organizations, have taken over businesses. he then recommended that management science must accommodate collaboration and competition simultaneously, stating that since information revolution had moved the structure of industries from vertical to horizontal, whether in the private or public sector, business structure must accommodate different ideas and motivations from individuals, organizations and governments. despite its benefits, the 4th industrial revolution presents a lot of challenges in management science. in general, while the availability and wide use of social media can create opportunities for cross-cultural understanding and cohesion, this can lead to exposure of business secrets in many companies, resulting in cyber theft (schwab, 2016; and mayor et al, 2021). income inequality, cyber security risk, core industries disruptions and ethical issues have been listed as challenges of the 4th industrial revolution (bode-harrison, 2021). global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 79 omoh (2015) stated that countries would “either take off or fall behind in the new dispensation, depending on whether or not” they are learning and coping with evolving technologies of the 4th industrial revolution. this view was supported by onyeizugbe et al (2019) who opined that structural and institutional changes are needed to achieve industrial revolution. how much has nigeria done in this regard? although nigeria has made considerable efforts in meeting up with challenges of the 4th industrial technology as could be seen in the wide use of ai and block chain in the financial sector of her economy, the ecommerce digital platforms (such as jumia and konga), social media platforms (in creating markets for entrepreneurs across the country for easy accessibility), marketing resources that were once out of their reach, and the revolution in the transportation sector (which is creating jobs for many via digital platforms like uber and taxity), she still depends so much on numerical labour force and is weak with respect to advancements in science and technology (ndagi & salihu, 2018; and bode-harrison, 2021). the level of utilization of technologies of the 4th industrial revolution is currently not wide spread across nigeria, even though there could be potential applications of these technologies to various sectors of the economy, causing disruptions in industries across the country (obijole, 2020). bode-harrison (2021) identified two major hindrances to the successful utilization of technologies of the 4th industrial revolution in nigeria as:  poor digital infrastructure: he stated that as at the end of 2020, nigeria’s internet penetration stood at 43.3% with major lag in rural areas;  a greater demand for high-skill/high-pay: he posited that due to automation and new technologies of the 4th industrial, there was an increasing demand of high-skill workers and a gradual phasing out of unskilled workers. he opined that the high rate of unemployment was global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 80 due to nigeria’s lack of understanding, production and usage of the evolving technologies of the 4th industrial revolution. in view of the above, nigeria needs a complete “overhaul” of its economy. adepetun (2018) in ajah & chigozie-okwu (2019) emphasized the restructuring of the nigerian educational system from the 9-3-4 system to one that can prepare successive generations for “technological tsunami” and application of theory to real life problems. ajah & chigozie-okwu (2019) recommended a conducive business environment, politically and otherwise, to enable old and new businesses thrive. they appealled to the different stakeholders of the nigerian economy especially governments at the different levels of governance, to adapt the disruptive technologies of the 4th industrial revolution as a way forward, by prioritizing local contents development. conclusion this certainly is an era of the 4th industrial revolution, with its evolving technologies disrupting all aspects of human life and all fields of human endeavour. management science is especially affected by the 4th industrial revolution. this is because it emanated from industrial revolutions, its functions are based on the analytical tools of science and the effectiveness of its decisions shaped by the current existing technologies. with the 4th industrial revolution the traditional strategies of management science have become obsolete. the iot, robotics and ai, among others, have transformed the structure of business organizations from vertical to horizontal, thus calling on all economies to key into this change for survival, growth and development. the nigerian economy is yet to transform the structure of its economy and the management of its institutions to fit into the 4th industrial revolution. though, the economy has made changes in some areas, these changes are yet to cut across the entire country; hence, the massive developmental challenges still faced by the country (world bank, 2021). as rightly pointed out by omoh (2015), the issue of digital gap, resulting global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 81 from a low level of e-literacy and digital skills and weak technological infrastructure, continues to plague the country. obviously, the nigerian economy needs a transformation and an aggressive one at that, if it must survive the 4th industrial revolution. this calls for a repositioning of the economy. therefore, as suggested by the world bank (2021), nigeria needs to reduce her dependency on oil and diversify her economy, address the issue of insufficient infrastructure, build strong and effective institutions, and address governance issues and public financial management systems. all these can only be achieved if adequate attention is given to the use of the disruptive technologies in management science, as advancements in science and technology can only add value to an economy when properly applied in management science. recommendations  all stakeholders of the nigerian economy, from individuals to organizations and governments, must conscientiously pay attention to the evolving technologies of the 4th industrial revolution with a view to acquiring the needed skills in adapting these technologies to the changing needs in their respective fields of endeavour. here, the need of training and re-training on the use of these disruptive technologies of the 4th industrial revolution cannot be overemphasized.  the nigerian educational system – starting from the primary level – must be tailored to the needs of the society. to this end, a review of curricula at all levels of education is needed to include training in eliteracy and digital skills identified by mayer et al (2021), as critical thinking, creativity, problem solving, flexibility, innovation and adaptability.  the polytechnic education is especially meant for the technological development of a nation, for self-reliance and self-sustainability. sadly, nigerian polytechnics are yet to bring the nation to the “promised land” in this regard. the nigerian government is called upon to upgrade the polytechnics in the federation through proper global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 82 funding and sensitization. other stakeholders of the nigerian polytechnics are called upon to play their roles in helping to enhance the status of these polytechnics to meet up with the advancements of the 4th industrial revolution.  experts in the field of management science in nigeria should particular note that the extent to which they adapt the disruptive technologies of the 4th industrial revolution to the changing needs of organizations and industries will directly impact on the development of the nigerian economy. thus, they must work with the speed /velocity of the transformation of the 4th industrial revolution through continuous research, with the aim of moving nigeria from a country developing retrospectively to a fully developed one. references ajah, i. a. & chigozie-okwu, c. e. 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(2020). fourth industrial revolution: opportunities, challenges and proposed policis. retrieved 25th february, 2022 from https://www.intechopen.com author information: dr (mrs) florence eguonor omonzejele is a lecturer at auchi polytechnic, auch, edo state, nigeria. email: florenceomonzejele@yahoo.com cyril obiora agu is affiliated to auchi polytechnic, auch, edo state, nigeria. email: agu.cyril4life@gmail.com global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 68 environmental scarcity and violent conflict in north eastern nigeria by livinus nwaugha, banwo a. irewunmi & odunusi kolawole olu abstract environmental scarcity plays a significant role in triggering violence in many parts of the world and it is the position of this paper that it is a direct cause of violent conflicts in nigeria’s north east geo-political zone. evidence emanating from research conducted in the course of this study contradicts the view held by key western analysts that although the adverse effects of climate change might be an underlying cause of violent conflicts, it is never a direct cause of such conflicts. relying on secondary sources of data collection and structured interviews with knowledgeable persons residing in the affected states of the north east, this study investigated the issue of environmental scarcity and its direct link to violent conflicts in the north east zone of nigeria and came up with findings that validate its position that environmental scarcity, in many instances, can be the direct cause of violent conflicts, not merely a contributory factor. patterns of climate-induced violent conflicts, particularly those involving farmers and herdsmen in the north east, were identified, and possible lasting solutions to the conflicts were proffered by the study. keywords: environmental scarcity, violent conflict, north east, nigeria, farmers, herders introduction northern nigeria is faced with several environmental challenges that threaten the ecosystem of the region, particularly that of its north-eastern part, and make the eruption of violent conflicts more likely to occur in the area. research has shown that “environmental scarcity leads to certain destabilizing social effects that make violence more likely” (kennedy global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 69 2001). environmental scarcity plays a significant role in triggering violence in many parts of the world and it is the position of this paper that it is a direct cause of violent conflicts in nigeria’s north east geo-political zone. this refutes the view of kennedy (2001) that “environmental scarcity is never the sole cause of conflict, but it is often an aggravating or contributing factor” and the claim of martin, blowers & boersema (2006) that “environmental scarcity rarely creates fresh social cleavages”. some local observers share this view which is generally held by western analysts. agwu (2010) holds the opinion that environmental scarcity is not a direct cause of violent conflicts. this study, however, argues that the adverse effects of environmental scarcity can predispose affected parties towards violence, and are known to have done so in north eastern nigeria. when someone or a group of persons, for example, feel that land which they could have utilized for farming or infrastructural project has been grabbed by another party, there will be feeling of animosity towards that party, and this can directly lead to mutual hostility or violent conflict. methodology utilizing secondary sources of data collection and structured interviews, this study will examine the subject of environmental scarcity and its direct link to violent conflicts in the north east zone of nigeria to prove and reinforce its position that environmental scarcity, in many instances, can be the sole or direct cause of violent conflict, not merely a contributory factor. a mixed method of enquiry is used in this study. primary data were sourced through semi structured interview of eighteen (18) respondents purposively interviewed on the topic of environmental scarcity and violent conflicts in the north east. the eighteen (18) respondents were segmented and selected from the six states in the north east geopolitical zone, namely, adamawa, bauchi, borno, gombe, taraba, and yobe. three (3) persons were selected and interviewed from each of the six states. secondary data were sourced from periodicals, newspapers, journals and the internet. definition of terms environmental scarcity the term, “environmental scarcity” refers to the scarcity of an environmentally-generated and renewable resource, such as land, wood and water, due to “reduced supply (depletion or degradation), increased demand and/or increasing inequality of distribution” (martin et al, 2006). kennedy (2001) identifies three kinds of environmental scarcity, namely:  demand-induced scarcity – this is created by a situation where global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 70 demand for limited natural resources outstrips its supply. he illustrates this scenario with sub-saharan africa where the population “has increased from 177 million in 1950 to 657 million in 2000, shrinking the amount of land and freshwater available to the average person. in the case of rwanda, demographic pressures created extreme environmental scarcity that played a role in the 1994 genocide”.  supply-induced scarcity – caused by decreased availability of natural resources due to degradation of the environment. desertification, for example, can reduce the percentage of arable land available in an area, thereby making it more difficult for farmers in the affected area to earn a living. reduced food production in the area might lead to hunger, increased poverty levels, and make people in that area more likely to resort to violence at the slightest social pressure.  structural scarcity – in this scenario, a privileged section of the community monopolises access to natural resources at the expense of the majority of the population. kennedy cites the example of south africa where “the system of apartheid provided whites with 87 percent of the land, while blacks (almost 75 percent of the country’s population) lived within restricted areas that accounted for only 13 percent of the land”. everywhere in the world where there is shortage of natural resources the available ones are scrambled for by individuals and groups, and competition for scarce resources can directly or indirectly lead to conflicts (unep, 2012). violent conflict to understand the scope of our discussion, we need to define the term, “violent conflict” and see what connections it has with similar terms, such as “armed conflict” and “war”. as stated by cgiar, the global body that unites international organizations concerned with food security research, “a violent conflict involves at least two parties using physical force to resolve competing claims or interests” while “an armed conflict is a contested incompatibility that concerns government and/or territory where the use of armed force between two parties, of which at least one is the government of a state, results in at least 25 battle-related deaths in one calendar year”. according to the uk save the children organization, “conflicts are part of war, though not every war sees actual conflict, nor is every conflict connected to war”. since the security situation in the north global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 71 east involves diverse kinds of conflicts, including the protracted boko haram insurgency, it is important to note that the latter and similar armed struggles are excluded from the scope of this discussion. our topic is narrowed to violent conflicts between parties in that zone contesting for renewable natural resources that have become scarce due to climate change or that have been degraded by destructive human activities. environmental situation in nigeria nigeria has a total land area of 923,768 km² and is endowed with diverse ecosystems its government and huge population have the responsibility of conserving and managing. according to the 2016 revised national policy on the environment (henceforth npe 2016), the country’s ecosystems include air and atmospheric resources, fresh water and wet-land ecosystems, coastal and marine ecosystem, mountain ecosystems (mambilla/plateau), arid and semi-arid ecosystems, and forest ecosystems. others are biodiversity and wildlife resources, livestock and fishery, land resources and land use (desertification, land degradation and drought), soils, oil and gas, and minerals. studies have shown that disequilibrium in these ecosystems stems from the activities of human beings. onuoha, chinedu & ochekwu (2022) have noted that the ill effects of “man's activities on the environment include urbanization, deforestation, improper waste disposal, unregulated agricultural practices, among others, which have resulted in desertification, pollution, ocean acidification, health issues, global warming, and ecosystem instability”. further negative impacts of the activities of human beings on the environment include overpopulation and flood (omofonmwan & osa-edoh 2008). abuse or misuse of the environment is associated, among other causes, with the exploration and exploitation of natural resources as well as with industrial activities in both southern and northern nigeria. oil exploration, notably, has adversely affected the ecosystems of the southern region of nigeria, particularly those of the south-south states of bayelsa, rivers, delta, cross-river and akwa-ibom. it began in 1956 when oil was first discovered in large quantities at oloibiri, bayelsa state; oil was subsequently discovered and explored in other states of the geo-political zone. since then, the natural habitat of the zone has been in disarray such that aquatic resources and wildlife in general are threatened with extinction while farmlands and the sub-regions vegetation are devastated. effects of frequent oil spillage and unsustainable exploitation of the area’s oil and gas have made it increasingly difficult for fishermen and farmers to earn a living, thereby exacerbating the environmental scarcity situation of the global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 72 area. many of the environmental difficulties in northern nigeria are linked to drought and desertification. summarizing the environmental state of affairs in nigeria, npe (2016) notes: nigeria's environment is under increasing threat from human activities and natural disasters. there are already certain ominous problems with the environment and visible scars associated with the destruction of the natural resource base (land, water and air) upon which all life depends are being noted. the country's large population of about 170 million and its rapid growth rate of 2.8 per cent are contributing to its environmental degradation. social and ecological environment of the north east since the north eastern zone of nigeria is the focus of this research, we will discuss the social and ecological environment of the zone in this section in order to see how it might be associated with the eruption and prolongation of violent conflicts in the area. social environment of the north east the north east geopolitical zone of nigeria is made up of adamawa, bauchi, borno, gombe, taraba and yobe states. before 1991 the states were known as bauchi, borno and gongola states. in 1991, borno state was divided into borno and yobe states while gongola state was divided into adamawa and taraba states. bauchi state, in 1996, was divided into bauchi and gombe states (scan, 2016:154). according to scan (2016), the essence of the split was to bring government closer to the people. the region has over 500 ethnic groups (scan, 2016); the area’s many languages include kanuri, fulani, hausa and fulfulde. the population of the area is estimated to be 32 million (nbs, 2023), many of whom are engaged in farming, fishing and livestock. islam, christianity and traditional religion are the notable religious groups of the area. ecological state of the north east the north east has challenging environmental problems that include “acts of god” occurrences such as drought, desertification and the drying up of lake chad basin – an important source of water supply to the pastoralists and farmers of the area. the major environmental hindrances of the north east are substantially man-made, and they include overpopulation, deforestation, destruction of the area’s fragile vegetation by herdsmen, land degradation, and air pollution. both natural and man-made factors global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 73 combine to complicate the environmental situation of the north east where, on yearly basis, “the sand dune is progressing at a mean annual rate of about 15.2 km2” (unoosa 2022). bolarinwa (2019:278) has also stated that several kilometers of land are lost to desertification. although climate change is a universal phenomenon, it affects the nations of the world in different ways. according to npe (2016), nigeria is strongly predisposed to severe negative impacts of climate change due to the nature of its economy, weak resilience and low adaptive capacity. much of the economy is dependent on climate sensitive resources. for example, the agriculture sector (crop production, livestock and fishery) and forestry which employ up to 70% of the workforce and contributes about 22% of the rebased gdp is very climate sensitive. climate change is responsible for the receding plight of the lake chad basin, a great source of water for irrigation in the north east where desert encroachment has reduced the size of the zone’s arable land and grazing resources. environmental scarcity and violent conflicts in the north east since 1980, with the recession of the lake chad basin occasioned by climate change, there has been mass movement of herders and farmers within and out of the north eastern part and this has been causing intense competition for the use of the available land. the convergence of these groups has generated altercations rather than amity as herders and farmers migrate away from arid lands towards the south. this southward movement of herders to southward has not been without its own challenges in the southern states of anambra, enugu, delta, edo and ondo. effects of desert encroachment in nigeria are felt mostly in the north. the vast areas encroached by the desert become barren land and push farmers and herders to relocate to safer areas. however, the most desert-prone areas in the north are found in the maiduguri and yobe axis and account for the great number of internally displaced persons in those areas as well as for occupational migrations among the farmers and the herders. the herders who are nomads would usually migrate to another destination and settle, and because they do not practise ranching system, their animals stray to farm lands and destroy crops, and when the farmers resist the encroachment, violent conflicts frequently ensue, and many of such conflicts have often led to horrible reprisal attacks by the herdsmen. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 74 nigerian pastoralists have said that nigerien and chadian nomads, who found their way into nigeria as a result of the drying of the lake chad basin, were mostly the perpetrators of these cruel reprisal attacks. additionally, since the north-east region depends largely on land as the source of their livelihood and the increase in population has continued to exert pressure on land for food crops and grazing of cattle, there is a great deal of competition between the herders and farmers for the use of the available land. the challenge is that both the farmer and herder need the land for sustenance. another dimension is the indigene-settler squabble. according to one viewpoint, the farmers see themselves as the indigenes who are entitled to the use and cultivation of the land while the herders, who are nomads, are seen as the settlers and usurpers of the land (ahamadu, 2011). but this is not always the situation, especially in those circumstances where violence had erupted because the herders had failed to restrain their cattle from destroying economic crops. part of the problem is the grazing reserve laws of 1965 and national policy on agriculture of 1988 (ahamadu, 2011); much of the grazing routes envisaged by the 1965 law are no longer forests as they have been turned into built environments for housing, roads and other infrastructural purposes. only the establishment of ranches, as obtains in many parts of the world, appears to be the most viable solution to the farmers-herdsmen conflicts. the frequency of environmental scarcity-induced violent conflicts in the north east and other parts of nigeria has attracted the attention of governmental and non-governmental organizations. in 1976, the national emergency relief agency (nera) was established. it later metamorphosed into national emergency management agency (nema) by act 12 as amended by act 50 of 1999. national emergency management agency is the agency of government responsible for resettling persons affected by violent conflicts and natural disasters. however, since 2009, nema has been saddled with the responsibility of handling cases of internally displaced persons caused by environmental scarcity-related violent conflicts in nigeria, especially in the north east. this is a huge responsibility; according to the united nations office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs: “the north east region would require over 1.6 billion u.s dollar in order to provide shelter, health care, as as well as to ease hunger within the region”. according to mba (2017), internal displacement crisis in the north east is caused by natural disaster, communal clashes and boko haram global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 75 insurgency, with boko haram accounting for 85.65% of the cases, communal clashes 13.37% while natural disaster accounts for 0.99% (mba, 2017). in order to deal with this problem, the kampala convention of 2009 for the protection and assistance of internally displaced persons in africa spelt out the following objectives: (i) to promote and strengthen regional and national measures to prevent or mitigate, prohibit and eliminate root causes of internal displacement as well as provide for durable displacement solution, (ii) establish a legal framework for preventing internal displacement and protecting and assisting internally displaced persons in africa, (iii) establish a legal framework for solidarity, cooperation, promotion of durable solution and mutual support between the state parties in order to control displacement and address its consequences, (iv) provide for the obligation and responsibilities of state parties with respect to the prevention of internal displacement and protection of and assistance to internal displaced persons, and (v) provide for the respective obligations, responsibilities and roles of armed groups, non-state actors and other actors include civil society organization, with respect to the protection of internal displacement and protection and assistance to internally displaced person. it is on the basis of the above that national emergency management agency, in line with the provisions of the au kampala convention, was established to perform the following functions: (i) to provide relief materials to internally displaced persons and disaster victim, (ii) to co-ordinate and curtail the plight of idps, (iii) to provide for their settlement of the internally displaced persons and disaster victim, (iv) to provide for detection, respond and combat of disaster (v) to educate the public in order to raise their awareness on the reduction of the effect of disaster. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 76 thus, nema’s functions synchronize with united nations charter and kampala convention which emphasizes the protection of the internally displaced persons in line with the international human rights laws that mandated the government to protect the rights of internally displaced persons and to intervene in the welfare of the victims. to support the above objectives, the governors of the states in the north east signed memorandum of understanding (mou) with nema to enable nema supply food and non-food items to the conflict-affected states of adamawa, borno and yobe as part of federal government’s efforts to cushion the humanitarian challenges faced by the internally displaced persons (daitti, 2016). according to daitti (2016), nema is expected to provide adequate intervention support in idps camps to reduce the plight of idps in maiduguri, adamawa and yobe. despite the bold initiatives of nema, it continues to encounter systemic setbacks that challenged its capacity to function optimally as an interventionist agency; these setbacks include lack of capacity and resources, poor record keeping of the actual number of the internally displaced persons, poor delivery and distribution of relief materials and diversion of funds and relief materials for private use. types of climate-induced violent conflicts in the north east an important study by obioha (2008) associated effects of climate change in the north east with certain types of violent conflict in the area: in the recent times, due to the increasing rate of global warming, the northeast region of nigeria has been experiencing continuous climatic change characterized by drastic reduction in rainfall, increase in the rate of dryness and heat, which makes it a fast growing arid environment, with depletion in the amount of water, flora and fauna resources on the land. in response to the pastoral and arable farm occupational needs of the people, there has been continuous population drift southward where there are more fauna, flora and water resources. such southward move, obioha stated, is responsible “for the conflict between tivs and the pastoral hausa/fulani people in june 2001 (irinwa 18 july 2001). also in march 2003, many people were killed when a group of heavily armed men attacked the town of dumne, bornu state in northeastern nigeria.” he said the attack was “not unrelated to a violent dispute over grazing land in september 2002 between local people, who are mainly farmers, and nomadic herdsmen”. in obioha’s view “the decreasing availability of physical, environmental global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 77 and land resources such as clean water, good agricultural land for arable and animal husbandry could create a condition of ‘simple scarcity’, ‘group identity’ and ‘deprivation’ in the area, (homer-dixon, 1994) that may provoke violent conflicts of high magnitude due to population movements and scramble for the available resources.” specifically, obioha’s study sought to locate “the role of scramble for flora in conflict generation among the sedentary arable farmers and the migratory herdsmen/pastoralists in the area” and concluded that the “contention is either arable land or fresh vegetation grazing land…while the objective sort may be for distributive justice…to reinforce group identity or search for relief from scarcity when the occasion arises or both”. obioha (2008) identified 11 types of climatically-induced violent conflicts in the north east; interestingly, subsequent climate-related conflicts in the area have followed the pattern outlined in his typologies table, shown below. obioha used his typologies to characterize inter-ethnic violent conflicts which took place in the north east in the early 2000s. those conflicts included 2000s billiri uprising, 2002’s song crisis and dumen village crisis, and yelwa/shendam/wase crisis of 2003. others were demsa, lamurde, madagali, bali, and numan crises of 2005. all of these crises global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 78 took place long before the boko haram insurgency erupted in the area. unlike boko haram, these conflicts, and similar communal disturbances that subsequently took place, were not primarily caused by religious intolerance; rather, they were violent conflicts that arose “over the scramble over some types of resources in particular: river water and agricultural productive land. these renewable resources by implication seem particularly likely to spark conflicts because their scarcity is increasing rapidly without commensurate replenishment” (obioha 2008). such conflicts have generated a large number of internally-displaced persons (idps) in the area. according to lawal (2018:53), about 22.5 million people have been displaced by environment scarcityand conflictrelated problems since 2008. negative effects of climate change in the north eastern part of the country continues to shape migration patterns in the region (lawal, 2018), with more and more persons migrating southwards in search of arable and grazing land, moves which occasionally provoke violent conflicts. according to unep (2012), violent conflict is likely to occur in communities where environmental scarcity is increasingly a critical problem. the un agency explains that environmental scarcity occurs where supply of renewable resources such as water, forest, ranchland and croplands are not sufficient to meet the demands of those who need them for their occupational or daily survival. unep further observes that wherever this scenario prevails, the outcome would be stiff competition which might lead to violent conflict. although violent conflicts, as we have shown, can be a direct result of environmental scarcity, some conflicts, even when climatically-induced, can broaden into ethnic or religious clashes, as they may be used to settle long-standing grievances, but this should not cancel the fact that the main trigger of the crisis was scarcity of renewable natural resources. so, a violent conflict triggered by environmental scarcity can be used by any of the warring parties not merely for the purpose of achieving “relief from scarcity” or “distributive justice” but also for “reinforcement of group identity”. findings and discussion as earlier mentioned, eighteen (18) respondents were selected and purposively interviewed from the six (6) states that make up the north eastern part of nigeria, namely, adamawa, bauchi, borno, gombe, taraba and yobe. respondents #5, #6, #7, #1,#2 and #8 categorically stated that climate change is largely the cause of environmental scarcity in the north eastern part of nigeria. they further maintained that the drying up of lake chad basin caused by climate change, and the 2012 opening of the global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 79 dams that submerged farm lands, made many people vulnerable to harsh effects of the climatic crisis. they also said the desert encroachment caused by climate change in the north eastern part of nigeria is the source of farmer-herder clashes that left scores of people displaced and several farmlands abandoned. respondents #3, #4, #9, #10, #12, #14, #16, and #18 blamed the situation on natural disasters, such as volcanic eruptions, desertification, gully erosions, tidal wind as well as over population; these, they said, dislocated the ecosystem in the north east. the respondents further opined that year in year out the metrological agency makes predictions/forecast on the weather condition and its likely consequences but the nigeria government often failed to take pre-emptive measures. they cited dubai, a desert region, which has now become the tourist heaven of the world. the last set of interviewees, respondents #11, #13, #17 and #15, attributed environmental scarcity to government’s insensitivity and advised government and the metrological agency to work in concert, so as to provide remedial measures should there be flood; they also said irrigation facilities should be provided for the desert prone north-eastern part of nigeria, and that proper ranching system should be introduced to forestall incessant farmer-herder clashes that often led to loss of lives and destruction of farm crops and livestock. conclusion environmental scarcity is a major problem confronting developing countries, including nigeria, especially north eastern part of nigeria. in spite of the response of government and international agencies, the problem has remained prevalent and devastating, often leading to violent conflicts. the study revealed that environmental scarcity, conflicts and insecurity are interrelated in the north eastern part of nigeria and constitute the direct cause of farmer-herder clashes in the region that have disrupted food production, unleashed hunger, killed many people, and left thousands of people internally displaced. the study concludes that environmental scarcity is an emerging global challenge governmental and non-governmental agencies all over the world should frontally address, and that the best way to start is to deal with regional hot spots, such as nigeria’s north east, where the problem of environmental scarcity is already causing persistent violent conflicts. references agwu, f.a. (2010). impact of climate change on nigeria’s foreign policy. in eze, o.c. & oche. o (ed), climate change and human global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 80 security in nigeria, niia, lagos ahmadu, i. (2011). farmer-grazier conflict view of a livestock worker on ‘official’ interpretation and handling. in ate, b.e. & akinterinwa, b.a. (ed), cross-border armed banditry in the north-east: issues in national security and nigeria’s relations with its immediate neighbors. niia, lagos. bolarinwaj.o. (2010). clash of culture: muslim-christian violence in nigeria and its implication for political stability. in albert i. o. & olarinde o.n. (ed), trends and tension in managing conflict. john archer, ibadan. danjuma, i.a. (2017). globalization and the dynamics of intra-state conflicts or africa. in gwaza, p.a. & ubi, e. n. (ed), nigeria in global governance, peace and security, essay in honour of prof joseph. habila golwa honeybees ltd, lagos danjuma, i.a. (2014). national security and the challenges of terrorism in nigeria. in nwoke, c.n & oche, o. (ed), contemporary challenges in nigeria, africa and the world. lagos. https://climatesecurity.cgiar.org/data/conflictdefinitions.pdf https://www.savethechildren.org.uk/what-we-do/conflict-war#:~:text=a% 20conflict%20is%20a%20fight,every%20conflict%20connected %20to% 20war. https://www.unoosa.org/documents/pdf/psa/activities/2022/un-austria/ mahmoud_ibrahim_ mahmoud.pdf kennedy, bingham jr. (2001). environmental scarcity and the outbreak of conflict. https://www.prb.org/resources/environmental-scarcityand-the-outbreak-of-conflict/#:~:text=environmental%20scarcity% 20refers%20to %20the,such% 20as%20freshwater%20or%20soil. lawal, o. (2018). climate change, migration and international protection laws. nigerian journal of international affairs. volume 44, number 1&2, 2018 pp 46-62 magaji, y.m.m. (2011). strategies for effective confidence-building and peace in nigeria’s north-east zone: taraba state as a case-study in ate, b.e. & akinterinwa, b.a. (ed). cross-border armed banditry in the north-east: issues in national security and nigeria’s relations with its immediate neighbors. niia, lagos. martin, a., blowers, a. & boersema, j. (march 2006). is environmental global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 81 scarcity a cause of civil wars? environmental sciences; 3(1): 1-4. doi: 10.1080/15693430600593981 mba, r. (2017). idps and the need for reinterpretation. https://www.medium .com @ rurhmba//the-plight-of-internaldisplaced-persons-idps-and-need-for-reinterpretationb7555c212f37. mohammad, a. (2011). threat perception, rationalization and response to internal security, in nigeria’s north-east zone in ate, b.e & akinterinwa b. a. (ed), cross-border armed banditry in the north-east: issues in national security and nigeria’s relations with is immediate neighbors. niia, lagos. national policy on the environment (revised 2016). https://faolex. fao.org/docs/ pdf/nig176320.pdf nigerian bureau of statistics (2023). obioha, e. e. (april 2008). climate change, population drift and violent conflict over land resources in north eastern nigeria. journal of human ecology 23(4):311-324. doi:10.1080/09709274.2008. 11906084 omofonmwan, s & osa-edoh, g. (january 2008). the challenges of environmental problems in nigeria. journal of human ecology, 23(1). doi:10.1080/09709274.2008.11906054 onuoha, c. a, chinedu, n & ochekwu, e. (july 2022). environmental challenges awareness in nigeria: a review. african journal of environment and natural science research, 5(2):1-14. doi:10.52589/ajensr-sairdc4k united nations environmental program (2012) report. author information: dr livinus nwaugha is a lecturer at department of political science and international relations, caleb university, imota , lagos state, nigeria. email: livinus.nwaugha@calebuniversity.edu.ng banwo a. irewunmi is of the department of political science and international relations, caleb university, imota , lagos state, nigeria. email: banwo.irewunmi@calebuniversity.edu.ng odunusi kolawole olu is affiliated to department of political science and international relations, caleb university, imota , lagos state, nigeria. email: global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 82 kolabadd@yahoo.com.co.uk apa nwaugha, l., irewunmi, b. a., olu, o. k. (2024). environmental scarcity and violent conflict in north eastern nigeria. global online journal of academic research (gojar), 3(3), 68-82. https://klamidas.com/gojar-v3n3-2024-05/. mla nwaugha, livinus, irewunmi, banwo a., olu, odunusi kolawole. “environmental scarcity and violent conflict in north eastern nigeria”. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3, 2024, pp. 68-82. https://klamidas.com/gojar-v3n32024-05/. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 43 human rights of widows: a study of widowhood practices in a nigerian society by suraiya shahin abstract the subject of widowhood practices remains one of the serious issues of our times and one which has elicited mixed interpretations. nigeria, being a multiethnic society, has different forms of widowhood practices that reflect its cultural diversity. this study focuses on widowhood practices in the south-eastern part of the country which is populated mostly by the igbo-speaking ethnic group, one of nigeria’s largest groups. marriage, as one of the basic institutions of any society, is laden with many challenges for most couples. for the woman, this is worsened by the loss of her husband. in nigeria’s igbo society, when a woman loses her husband, her identity suddenly changes. after the death of her husband, she no longer is viewed as a pure and complete woman. widows in many igbo communities are subjected to dehumanizing practices that cause them to suffer physical as well as psychological trauma. unfortunately, such cultural practices are perpetuated by the umuada (patrilineal daughters) who call themselves preservers of the local culture and tradition. in spite of the enactment of many laws for the protection of the rights of widows, widows in igbo society still face social discrimination and deprivation and are often denied their due inheritance. this paper analyses the phenomenon of igbo widowhood practices with a view to understanding the cultural and social milieu in which such gender-oriented practices thrive. keywords: widowhood practices, nigeria, igbo society, widows’ rights, inheritance introduction customs and traditions are enthroned by the people of any given society. unhealthy or oppressive customs and traditions, therefore, need not remain static but should be jettisoned by the people or replaced by wholesome practices that respect the rights and dignity of every member of the community. culture should not be blind to the contemporary situations and circumstances of the society. literature, as a mirror of the social phenomena has portrayed the theme of culture from many perspectives. this paper is focused on how cultural tenets and practices affect the global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 44 condition of widows in the south-eastern part of nigeria, a region peopled mostly by the igbo ethnic group. the study is based on published information on the widowhood practices and culture of nigeria’s igbo society. to understand the concept of widowhood practices in south-eastern nigeria, one needs to have an in-depth understanding of the socio-cultural norms of the igbo and their implications for individuals and the society at large. the igbo are one of the major ethnic groups in nigeria and also among the largest groups in africa. the igbo people of nigeria believe that death is not the end of life as life is seen as a phenomenon that continues in the spirit realm even after someone’s physical death. ikengametu, a professor of african religious anthropology, asserts that “death is not the final end of man in igbo thought, all men continue to live in some form or the other after death” (62). this has implications for the plight of widows: the igbo culture makes it incumbent on the living to respect the wishes of the dead, while the dead are compelled to protect the living. widowhood practices are therefore integral part of the funeral rites accorded the dead. these funeral rites are aimed at guaranteeing the admittance of the dead people into the abode of the ancestors, who, they believe, will ultimately reincarnate into the community of the living (oreh 4). as ohale has noted, “the igbo people have belief in life after death, in their ancestors and reincarnations. central to the igbo traditional religious thought is the concept of deceased’s ancestors continuing to play an active part in the lives of their descendants” (62). therefore, the world of the dead or the spiritual world is so authentic to the igbo people that they consider a complete human community to be made of ancestors, the unborn, and the living. an aspect of the igbo people’s ontology is that the dead must be honoured and should not be treated as a mere body. he/she should be honoured according to the social status he/she had earned while alive. the igbo believe that if the deceased is not buried properly by culturally following the rites and rituals befitting the dead’s social status, he/she will turn into an evil spirit and wander about to attack the living members of his/her family (okoro 323-350). in this paper, a “widow” is defined as a woman whose husband has died and who has not remarried. widowhood in igbo society is associated with certain cultural norms and practices that suddenly change the narrative of a woman’s life as soon as she loses her husband and makes her life traumatic. in the perception of many igbo, she now becomes impure and unclean and, therefore, needs to undergo some rituals to effect her global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 45 cleansing. the igbo people are known for various cultural beliefs and practices. some of these adversely affect widows. oreh, professor of adult education and community development, paraphrasing boulding, says that a widow, among the igbo, “is like a melancholy bird that sits wailing all night, increasing her distress without redeeming features” (5). oreh further notes that widowhood in igbo society entails a physical break in the family relationship and it is ranked by widows as the most stressful and devastating event in life. this is because widowhood does not only involve the loss of the role of a wife to the husband but also the loss of a person most supportive of the woman, the person who has played a central role in the woman’s life, the father of her children, the family breadwinner and the companion of the woman. this transition from wifehood to a widow happens so suddenly and swiftly that in one minute a woman who is a wife transits to a widow. it is at this moment that she starts to experience all the widowhood practices…. (6) widowhood practices in the igbo society of nigeria every culture and society has its cultural practices for the dead. widowhood practices differ from one society to another. in the igbo society, practices associated with widowhood include mourning rites, seclusion of the widow, shaving of the widow’s hair, limitation of the widow’s inheritance rights, suspicious behaviour of people towards the widow, and change in the widow’s social and economic status. some of these practices have customary roots while others reflect the negative attitude of people towards the widow. widowhood practices in igbo culture should be viewed also from gender perspective. the widow and the widower are human beings in the same society but they get different social response and treatment from the society. generally, when a man loses his wife, the society sympathizes with him and treats him lovingly. the community surrounds him to pay due condolence to him. more importantly, they encourage him to remarry, pointing out that he needs another woman to console him and take care of him and, if applicable, his children. but we don’t find a similar sympathetic response when a woman becomes a widow. the moment she loses her husband, she becomes vulnerable to social bias and control. the same society doesn’t spare a moment before claiming that the widow is the killer of her husband while a man is rarely suspected of being responsible for the death of his wife. furthermore, the widow is viewed as an impure woman in the family and the community. as such, she is required to undergo dehumanizing ordeals to purify herself (dittrich and carrel). global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 46 in his article, “the widow’s right in the context of fundamental human rights”, edekobi comes up with the view that most widowers usually prefer to remarry soon after losing their wives while most widows choose not to remarry, especially when they have children. for fear of losing the children, they suppress their desire to remarry and decide to live in the same family compound in spite of the mistreatment of their in-laws. the igbo society displays clear gender disparity in the matter of mourning rites. while mourning rites are not traditionally imposed on widowers, widows are forced to cry their hearts out repeatedly during the early part of their bereavement (agumagu). this mourning period remains a seclusion period only for the widow and the objective is to prolong her agony and anxiety. during the mourning period, the widow is subjected to emotional, psychological as well as physical torture. a widower, on the other hand, is exempted from such torturous rituals. according to odimegwu, widowhood practices in african societies are given rise to by the sex roles and social expectations imposed by different communities. in the context of igbo widowhood, it has been observed that the rites and rituals signify the traditional concepts about feminine roles, death, inheritance, and family structure (tasie 155-162). ifeoma okoye, a well-known nigerian author, in her book, the trials and other stories, also agrees on the point that the problems of persisting widowhood practices are the outcome of a patriarchal society that supports gender disparity. she has observed that in nigerian society, widows face discrimination and are deprived their fundamental human rights. a patriarchal society believes that women occupy the secondary position to men and thus inferior to men. okoye maintains that it is discriminatory that widowers don’t go through dehumanizing rites and rituals. they don’t lose their property or children when their wives die. they easily acquire their deceased wives’ property. they remarry without losing their children to anyone (2). okoye, as a widow, encountered the phenomenon of widowhood and a few brutal occurences that compelled her to reflect upon some of her experiences in the “letter to the reader” featured in the trials and other stories, her collection of short stories. she writes, “i refused to undergo the subjugating, humiliating and dehumanizing rites of hair shaving to which many igbo widows are subjected” (ii). she tells us that she has not written the trials with the purpose of telling the widows’ stories to the people or entertaining them but to awaken them about the menacing system of widow practices. she has exposed the dehumanizing acts that are forced upon widows in nigeria during the period of mourning. she global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 47 observed that there are some traditional rites and rituals that reduce the respect and dignity of widows. she says that discriminatory patriarchal system of laws is also responsible for the persistent problem of widows losing their inheritance. deprived of their property and inheritance, some widows become beggars, low-paid employees or prostitutes. in some cases, some widows are compelled to withdraw their children from school because of economic deprivation (12). okoye notes that some widows are forced to marry their husband’s brother in order to avoid losing their children if they remarry outside their husband’s family. while widowhood practices are common prevailing phenomena in igbo culture, umezinwa says that the degree of adherence to the rituals differs from town to town. generally, however, the igbo of south-eastern states of anambra, abia, enugu, ebonyi, and imo states treat widows in a very dehumanizing manner. the harsh practices meted to women make widowhood more traumatic than it ought to be. death for the igbo is caused by an ill wind; no death is natural. every death is caused by witchcraft, bad medicine, or some other evil forces. because of this perception, the family or relatives of the deceased starts investigating the cause of the death the moment a person’s death is announced. if the deceased is a young person, they take investing the cause of the death more seriously. a wife is normally the first person to be suspected; she is pronounced the murderer or an indirect cause of the death, depending on her relationship with her in-laws and the umuada, the patrilineal daughters. a wife is taken as the prime suspect of the death because she is the closest person to her husband. usually, she is placed under an oath during the burial period to ascertain her innocence. she is also asked to stay with the dead body of her husband until interment (sossou 201-209). the case becomes more complex when the couple is traditionally enstranged; this makes the suspicion that she killed her husband more intense. in this case, the widow is tortured psychologically and physically. she is forced to drink the water used to bathe the corpse of her husband. ohale elaborates on how a woman enters a state of impurity after she loses her husband: in most areas of igboland as soon as a husband dies, culture dictates that his widow must sit on the bare floor, neither taking bath nor changing her clothes…and secretly attempting to attend to her personal hygiene might attract some punishments (1-11). in some igbo communities, more severe rituals are inflicted upon the global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 48 widow after her husband’s death. in the first period of mourning, she is kept in a secluded place, without having clothes on her body except a few leaves to cover the most sensitive parts of her body. she is prohibited from all outings and from mixing with people. however, in some urgent cases, she is allowed to go outside but accompanied by an older widow who must be a member of the umuada (the patrilineal daughters). while going outside, she must carry a calabash which symbolises that she is in the mourning period. in this period of mourning, the widow is culturally prohibited from touching any object, including her own body parts because she remains impure at that period. thus, she keeps a piece of broken pot or a stick to scratch her body. she is given food cooked separately and served her in some broken plates (sossou 201-209). further, the widow gives a loud wail at a certain period of time – morning, noon, and evening – as the custom demands. in the views of sossou, this ritual of loud wailing reflects her deep sadness and a mark of honour for her deceased husband: “the fundamental social change in her life style is dramatized, emphasising her faithfulness to her husband’s memory and her chastity during the marriage period” (201-209). ohale takes this wailing of the widow at the arrival of good friends and relatives of her late husband as a public show of grief which is done to appease the family and the relation of the deceased and to prove her innocence (1-11). one of the beliefs connected with following these rituals is that the dead husband hovers around seeking to interact with his wife. therefore, the widow is guided, if she needs to go out of her hut for some serious work; she must come from the back door of the hut and must not enter through the same gate. while going outside, she has to carry a knife or stick which would protect her from the attack of her husband’s spirit. meeks confirms the assertion that in some igbo sub-cultures, such as among the nsukka people, the widow is not left alone during her times of mourning and wailing and that the patrilineal daughters are always present there with her. he further notes that the formal lamentation for the deceased by the female relatives continues for three to six days. the female mourners collectively culturally sleep in the hut of the deceased. every morning, large quantities of local beer are served them by their friends and relatives. every day, at dawn, these mourning women give loud cries of grief at the sight of friends and relatives (226). in most igbo communities, it is compulsory for a widow to be placed in seclusion after her husband’s death. this practice is maintained throughout the initial mourning period and ends with the interment of the deceased. in this condition, the widow is restricted from any interaction with people global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 49 (ohale). the first period of mourning is most severe and healthdamaging. in her twenty eight days of confinement, the cultural practice restricts the widow from any social contact. she is not allowed to go to the stream, farmland or market (nzewi 1-11). after the first phase of burial rituals, the second phase of rites and rituals take place. in this stage, certain rituals are performed to purify the family members of the deceased. the widow, especially, has to perform all the purification rituals for she is still considered impure or defiled. the rites performed at this stage also denote the end of the marriage and the separation between the deceased and his wife forever. soon after, the umuada take the widow to the secluded place of the compound where her head is shaved; her pubic hair is also shaved. after shaving her, the widow takes a ritual bath. thereafter, she is dressed in new mourning attire; she will wear this dress for the rest of the mourning period. in the case of a pregnant widow, her hair and the dress she was wearing during the seclusion are buried; in the case of a non-pregnant widow, her shaved hair and dress are burnt to symbolize the beginning of the separation between the widow and her late husband (nzewi 6-7). after this ritual, the widow resumes a life of limited freedom governed by certain widow rules of behaviour. in this phase of mourning, she is permitted to interact with people, talk to anybody and go outside but she is restricted from returning home late during the night. before resuming normal life, the widow must go through the last cleansing process to further purify herself and improve her personal hygiene. her room and its contents are also cleansed. the umuada and the widow’s friends and relatives help the widow in cleaning up the mourning environment. the filth is gathered in a basket which the widow carries to the bush, accompanied by a member of the umuada. this ritual of throwing filth is done very early in the morning to prevent people from watching the event. to forewarn people to look the other way, a woman from the umuada goes before the widow to give a warning cry. then the widow is again bathed culturally and shaved properly by the umuada. this final ritual of cleaning indicates the last separation between the widow and her late husband. now, she can resume her normal life in the family and the society. if she is young and interested in remarrying, she is allowed to do so but if she doesn’t want to remarry, she stays in the same family with her in-laws (nzewi 1-11). igbo beliefs behind widowhood practices the igbo regard burial and mourning rituals as culturally important on several grounds. since igbo people believe in two worlds (physical and global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 50 spiritual), death is not regarded as an end to life. as such, there is need to separate the widow from the spirit of her husband, protect their children and the deceased’s property as well as maintain the peace and stability of the entire community through the widow’s fulfilment of the widowhood practices. ewelukwa (444) notes that mourning rituals in the igbo society are performed to pay homage to the deceased and that such rituals celebrate the status of the deceased as the widow’s late husband. these rituals are also practised in favour of the widow, considering that these mourning rituals are believed to protect the widow from the menace of evil spirits. in the words of okorie, “the traditional concept of death is also an important fact in the widowhood practices…since traditionally it is believed that the dead continue to participate in and influence the lives of the living, we saw in one area, where widows had to run very hot mixture across their faces to expel the spirit of their departed husband” (79-84). tasie believes “the overall aim of the widowhood rites could therefore be summed up as to severe the ties between a dead husband and his living wife/wives” (155-162). properly followed, the rituals bring some benefits to the widow and her family as, according to ewelukwa, a feast and some form of economic package, in some igbo sub-cultures, is awarded to the widow after her successful fulfilment of all the rituals. widowhood practices are also undertaken to enhance the deceased’s smooth entrance into the spiritual world, to make him enter with peace and comfort and facilitate the harmonious relationship between the living and the ancestors. so, it appears the purpose of retaining these rituals is because they are perceived as cultural exercises by which the widow and the community are purified and protected. protecting the rights of widows in nigeria in nigeria, discrimination against widows has reduced due to rapid growth in the education of women and amendment of local laws. onyekuru notes that in spite of the enactment of laws to protect the widows, widows in nigeria are still deprived inheritance rights and are still subjected to physical and psychological torture. there are two types of marriages in nigeria: statutory (monogamous) marriage and customary (monogamous /polygamous) marriage. although statutory law grants women right of inheritance after the death of their husbands, in practice it doesn’t prevail. in customary marriage, controversies and conflicts regarding the matter of inheritance usually take place among the wives after the death of their husband. according to bukar usman, nigeria’s renowned folklorist and writer global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 51 whom i communicated with while researching this paper, customary law pertaining to widowhood practices and the widow’s right of inheritance differs from one ethnic group to another. he says that the widow’s inheritance rights, in customary terms, largely depend on the cultural milieu in which the marriage is contracted. in his view, some nigerian customary marriages are similar to the islamic marriage and there are a large number of nigerians who follow the islamic religion and whose marriages are governed by the customary system. onyekuru is of the opinion that in nigeria the widow usually loses out after the demise of her husband because there is no concept of coownership of property by couples. in nigerian society, male relations of the deceased take possession of the deceased’s assets thereby depriving the widows of their inheritance. in most of the sub-cultures of nigeria, male relatives of the deceased traditionally inherit his wives (widows) and serve as social security for the widows. this practice is sometimes against the consent of the widows. when widows revolt against such discriminatory acts, the patriarchal society would accuse them of being the killers of their husbands, and this might result into several dehumanizing acts being inflicted upon them. there are many laws in nigeria aimed at reducing dehumanizing widowhood practices. the 1999 constitution of the federal republic of nigeria, chapter 4, on fundamental human rights, grants equality of rights, obligations, and opportunities to every nigerian citizen. it also provides widows’ rights to freedom in the choice of remarriage, right of inheritance and provides that no humiliating and dehumanizing treatment should be meted out to widows. on march 8, 2001, the enugu state house of assembly enacted some laws protecting the fundamental rights and welfare of widows and widowers. no person can compel a widow or widower to follow the dehumanizing and humiliating rites and rituals which are against their choices. the law says that anyone who contravenes the provisions of sections 4 or 5 of the law will be fined or sentenced to two years imprisonment. in 2003, in imo state of nigeria, a law (law no. 12) was enacted to prohibit humiliating customary widowhood practices. anyone who goes against this law will be liable to a fine of n10,000 or six month imprisonment. and on november 26, 2004, the cross river state house of assembly enacted a law to protect widows against maltreatment and domestic violence (cirddoc). conclusion after going through the study of facts and myths of widowhood practices among the igbo, this writer comes to the conclusion that the continuation global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 52 of these practices by igbo people is sustained by the belief that widowhood practices are for the protection of the widow, for the welfare of the community, and for maintenance of mutual harmony between the physical and spiritual world. this study also reveals that widowhood practices are engaged in by all igbo widows but the type of treatment, whether harsh or light, meted out to the widows, depends on the socio-economic background of each widow. educated widows and those who are selfdependent or who dwell in the urban place are safer and more protected than the widows who are uneducated, who are dependent on the family or who dwell in the rural areas. the childless widow is the most humiliated because the society regards her as a witch. women should be empowered by being educated. education plays a vital role in encouraging widows to revolt against humiliating cultural practices. one notes from ifeoma okoye’s personal experience of widowhood that being an educated widow enabled her to revolt against the humiliating and dehumanizing aspects of igbo widowhood practices. it is really disappointing to see that the umuada (patrilineal daughters) who are responsible for ensuring that igbo widowhood practices are carried out don’t appear to be sympathetic but rather insist that the widows should fulfil everything the torturous practices demand from them. such umuada needs to be educated to make them change their traditional patriarchal ideologies and understand that they need to treat their fellow women with dignity and mercy. men and women are equally important in bringing about radical changes that would stop or reform these harmful and lethal cultural practices that subjugate and violate the rights of widows. works cited agumagu, j. “the nigerian woman and widowhood challenges and constraints”. sophia: african journal of philosophy and public affairs, vol. 10, no. 1, 2007. civil resource development & documentation centre (cirddoc). “a law to prohibit domestic violence against women and maltretment of widows law no. 10”. public education series 32, 2004, pp. 24-26. dittrich, j. and m. carrel. “organizational equity, perception employee job satisfaction absence & turnover rate”. organizational behaviour and human performance, vol. 24, 1, pp. 5-30. edekobi, a.c. “the widow’s right in the context of fundamental human global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 53 rights”. nnamdi azikiwe university journal of sociology, vol.1, no. 2, 2000, pp. 18-26. egboh, edmund o. “polygamy in iboland (south-eastern nigeria) with special reference to polygamy practice among christian ibos”. institute de sociologie, vol. 22, no. 3, 1972, pp. 431-444. jstor, www.jstor.org/stable/41229235. ewelukwa, uche u. “post-colonialism, gender, customary injustice: widows in african scientists.” www.jstor.org/stable/20069610. george i. k., tasie. “african widowhood rites; bane or boom for african women”. international journal of humanities and social sciences, vol, 13, no. 1, january 2013. www.ijhssnet.com. iffih, b. n. and p. c. ezeah. sociology of the family. john jacobs publishers ltd., 2010. ikenga-metuh e. “the concept of man in african traditional religion with particular reference to the igbo of nigeria”. readings in african traditional religion, structure, meaning, relevance and future. edited by e. m. uka. peter lang, 1991. mathias, bentina alawari. “widowhood practice in eastern nigeria: a comparative study of imo and anambra states”. sociology study, vol. 5, no. 3, 2015, pp. 223-231. meeks, g.k. funeral among the jukun of western sudan. mary knoll, 1931. nzewi. “widowhood practices: a female perspective” a paper presented at a workshop on widowhood practices in imo state nigeria. june 6-7, 1981. www.widowhoodpracticesinnigeria.org. 8th may 2016. ohale, christine. “from rituals to acts: the aesthetics and cultural relevance of igbo satire”. lamham: university of america, 2003. www.widowhoodculture inafrica.edu/org. accessed may 2016. —. “the reproduction of injustice against women: reflections on widowhood practices in africa and the task of the writer in challenging the status quo”. 2012. www.widowhoodpracticeinafrica.edu/org. accessed may 2016. okoro, kingsley n. “religion: a viable instrument for social reforms in a globalised nigeria: a case for african traditional religion”. aspects of religious studies and philosophy. edited by okereke c. c and nwoko, m. n. owerri: skill mark media, 2011. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 54 okoro, et al. “widowhood practices in africa [igbo] traditional society: socio-anthropological [re] interpretations”. journal of humanities and social science, vol. 23, no, 3, 2018, pp. 42-54. okorie, m.a. “african widowhood practices: the igbo mourning experience”. african journal of evangelical theology, vol. 14, no.2, 1995. www.widowhood practicesinafrica.edu/org. accessed 20th june 2016. okoye, ifeoma. the trials and other stories. african heritage press, 2005. onyekuru, b. u. “obnoxious cultural practices associated with bereavement among people of south-east geopolitical zone of nigeria”. journal of emerging trends in education research and policy studies. vol. 2, no. 5, 2011, pp. 355-360. oreh, catherine ikodiya. igbo cultural widowhood practices: reflections on inadvertent weapons of retrogression in community development: an inaugural lecture. unn, september 2015. www.unn.edu.ng/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/ 80th-inaugurallecture-by-prof-catherine-ikodiya-oreh.pdf —. “ problems associated with widowhood: the christian mothers’ roles toward alleviating them in the mother’s voice”. the bulletin of the catholic women organisation. st. peter’s chaplaincy, university of nigeria, nsukka 7, 2006. —. “widowhood practices in a matrilineal igbo community: a case study of community development associations in ozu abam”. a ph.d. thesis presented to the department of adult education and extra-mural studies, 1998. sossou, m. a. “widowhood practices in west africa: the salient victims. international journal of social welfare, vol, 11, pp. 201-209. umezinwa, c. “the faulty logic of widowhood”. west african journal of philosophical studies, vol. 10, 2007. author information: suraiya shahin is of the department of english, jamia millia islamia university, new delhi, india. email: suraiyashahin91@gmail.com global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 33 applications of information cryptography in its various stages of evolution, from antiquity to the modern era by nnaemeka uchenna ezeonyi, obikwelu raphael okonkwo & obinna arthur enweka abstract communication is a daily activity. information needs to be move from a sender to a receiver, for a communication to hold. however, there are information or messages that should be kept secret and does not require knowledge of a third party. such messages are encrypted or coded into a cipher text, so as to make no meaning to a third party who may eventually intercept it. this coding of information is called encryption, while decryption is the reverse of encryption. thus, cryptography is the process of encryption of plain texts and decryption of cipher texts. cryptography began in early civilizations of hebrew, egypt, and rome with the atbash, hieroglyph and ceaser’s ciphers respectively. this period is regarded as the “antiquity”. cryptography later evolved into classic cryptography, in the middle ages, where the “key model” and “cryptanalysis” or code-breaking were introduced. furthermore, cryptography evolved to “field ciphers” and “tele-printer ciphers” during the world war i. moreover, the world war ii saw the evolution of cryptography into various “cipher machines”. in modern times, cryptography evolved into sophisticated mathematical equations called “algorithms”, for encrypting and decrypting messages. at these various evolution stages, cryptography is seen to be applied in civil communications, wars, cryptanalysis and e-commerce. keywords: cryptography, cryptanalysis, ciphers, encryption, decryption, data. 1.0 introduction cryptography is a method of protecting information and communications through the use of codes, so that only those for whom the information is intended can read and process it (richards, 2021).cryptography is one of the techniques used to ensure secure transmission of information via a global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 34 channel between a pair of communicators. this prevents third parties from being acquainted with the data in transit (peralta et al, 2014).cryptography is a greek word that means ‘secret writing’. cryptography is the science of both encryption and decryption. encryption is the process of encoding a message in such a way as to hide its contents. a plain or normal text sent over the network is converted into cipher text so that the information can only be used by the sender and the receiver (krishna and manikandan, 2020). the reverse process of encryption is called decryption. it is the process of converting cipher text into plain text. cryptographers use the decryption algorithms at the receiver side to obtain the original message from non-readable message i.e. cipher text (naser, 2021). however, from ancient times till this modern times, several cryptographic techniques have been invented. this study presents cryptography in different era and are treated in the following order:  cryptography in the antiquity  cryptography in the middle ages (classical cryptography)  cryptography in the world war i  cryptography in the world war ii  modern cryptography 2.0 main body 2.1 cryptography in antiquity antiquity is any period before the european middle ages (5th to 15th centuries) but still within the history of western civilization ("antiquity", 2023). according to naser (2021), from the beginning of civilization when people started to live in different tribes or groups, each of them got the idea to be more powerful than others and to rule other tribes. so they feel for a secure and secret communication and thus how the process of primary cryptography was introduced. hebrew scholars made use of simple mono-alphabetic substitution ciphers (such as the atbash cipher) beginning perhaps around 600 to 500 bc ("antiquity", 2023). early civilizations in egypt, greece, and rome adopted encryption for communication. nearly 1900 b.c. (2000 b.c.), in ancient egypt, a nonstandard encryption was utilized on hidden “hieroglyphics” engraved on stone—the earliest known instance of cryptography—to conceal the meanings from those who did not know them, and for the amusement (naser, 2021).by later periods of antiquity, cryptography was widely global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 35 used to protect important military information, a purpose that it still serves to this day. a prominent example of roman cryptography, known as the caesar cipher, involved shifting the letters of an encrypted message by a certain number of places down the latin alphabet. knowing this system and the number of places to shift the letters, a recipient could successfully decode the otherwise illegible message. figure 1: hieroglyph (first techniques of cryptography) (hashmi and choubey, 2018). below is a summary of the cryptographic techniques in antiquity. 2.2 cryptography in the middle ages (classic cryptography) according to hashmi and choubey (2018), around 500 – 600 bc, cryptography became popular, so encryption followed these methods: substitution global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 36 transposition codes additionally, cryptanalysis began in the medieval ("history of cryptography", 2023) 2.2.1 substitution cryptographic method this was the first cipher method which makes use of key model. therefore, it can be called a ‘substitution cipher’. key means replacing alphabet to other alphabet for some secret rule. this rule becomes called a key (abbasi and singh, 2021). there are two (2) applications of substitution method. i. mono-alphabetic cipher according to aung et al. (2019), in mono-alphabetic substitution, a character (or a symbol) in the plain text is always changed to the same character (or a symbol) in the cipher text regardless of its position in the text (aung et al., 2019).examples are: additive cipher, shift cipher, caesar cipher, multiplicative cipher, affine cipher, etc. figure 2: a mono-alphabetic substitution cipher (hashmi and choubey, 2018) ii. poly-alphabetic cipher in poly-alphabetic substitution, each occurrence of a character may have a different substitute. (aung et al., 2019). examples of poly-alphabetic ciphers are: vigenère cipher, autokey cipher, playfair cipher, beaufort cipher, running key cipher, porta cipher, hill cipher, one-time pad, rotor cipher, etc. 2.2.2 transposition cryptographic method according to twum et al (2019), transposition ciphers shuffles characters around, instead of substituting them with other characters, as in the substitution method treated earlier. a transposition cipher is one which rearranges the order of the letters in the cipher text (encoded text), global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 37 according to some predetermined method, without making any substitutions (nrich, 2018). plain text: enemy tanks approaching hill eight six three stop cipher text: enohh rnkai teesc lsema hlisy piext tpnit oargg hpxxx figure 3: a simple columnar transposition cipher (umich, 2018). 2.2.3 codebook cryptographic method codebook makes use of codes to replace a word or a phrase. using code, it was a good way to obfuscate meaning if the message is small and the codebooks are safe (hashmi and choubey, 2018). figure 4: a codebook cipher method (hashmi and choubey, 2018) 2.2.4 cryptanalysis frequency analysis technique was designed by al-kindi, an arab mathematician, for breaking mono-alphabetic substitution ciphers. this was around ad 800, in the medieval ("history of cryptography", 2023). cryptanalysis means trying to break any security system (or cipher) by using unauthorized ways to access the information in that system. thus, cryptanalysis works against cryptography. the cryptanalyst tries to find any weakness in the cryptographic system to get either the source of information (plaintext) or the key used in the encryption algorithm (aljanabi, al-khateeb and abd, 2017). the objective of cryptanalyst is to be able to decrypt cipher text (tiwari, nandi and mishra, 2013). in the modern era, among several instances, brute-force key-space search has broken some real-world ciphers and applications, including singleglobal online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 38 des, 40-bit "export-strength" cryptography, and the dvd content scrambling system. in 2008, researchers conducted a proof-of-concept break of ssl using weaknesses in the md5 hash function and certificate issuer practices that made it possible to exploit collision attacks on hash functions ("cryptanalysis", 2023). in world war ii, the allies benefitted enormously from their joint success cryptanalysis of the german ciphers – including the enigma machine and the lorenz cipher – and japanese ciphers, particularly 'purple' and jn-25. in world war ii, the enigma cipher system was broken by polish and british cryptographers. ("cryptanalysis", 2023). below is a summary of cryptographies used in the medieval period. 2.3 cryptography in the world war 1 according to cthaeh (2021), radio was invented at the very end of the 18th century and world war i and became the first big war in which it was used. naturally, making communications more effective also increased communication traffic by several orders of magnitude.world war i has a timeline from 28th july, 1914 to 11th november, 1918 (ray, 2018). according to cthaeh (2021), world war i is the second largest military conflict in history, surpassed only by world war ii. the war was fought between two camps — the central powers and the allied powers — and lasted until late 1918. the main participants on the side of the central powers were germany, austria-hungary, the ottoman empire, and bulgaria. on the side of the allied powers were france, britain, russia, and italy. many other countries joined the conflict at different stages (including the united states on the side of the allied powers). the invention of the electric telegraph increased the traffic of messages dramatically. messages could now travel through electric wires close to the speed of light. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 39 2.3.1 standard codes used in world war i cthaeh (2021) stated that the most common use of codes was for naval, diplomatic, and strategic communication. in general, using codes is more cumbersome compared to ciphers, since the encoding/decoding process is significantly slower and the secure distribution of codebooks is always a challenging task, especially when the communicating parties are constantly on the move. on the other hand, these codes were considered far more secure than ciphers. that’s why they were preferred for communication that required absolute secrecy. trench codes: these were less sophisticated codes with a much smaller vocabulary of up to only a few thousand words, used by armies inside trenches. they were less secure but easier to distribute. the lower security wasn’t necessarily a serious issue. even if the enemy managed to break the code for a particular message, it wouldn’t matter too much unless they break it fast enough. the situation on the battlefield is changing quickly and old information becomes useless very fast (cthaeh, 2021). 2.3.2 field ciphers used in world war i i. playfair (british): the playfair cipher system was widely used by american army and english army during the world war i (shang & lu, 2012).the british used it for tactical communication. later on, the americans picked it up too when they joined the war (cthaeh, 2021). ii. interrupted columnar transposition (french): the french used the interrupted columnar transposition cipher for very similar purposes to the british’s use of the playfair cipher (tactical communication on the battlefield) (cthaeh, 2021). iii. turning grilles cipher (german): this is a pure transposition cipher that uses a square made up of smaller squares. crucially, there were holes at the positions of a quarter of the smaller squares. the germans used squares of different sizes, depending on the length of the message they wanted to send (like 7×7 or 10×10), always removing a quarter of the small squares (cthaeh, 2021). iv. adfgx and adfgvx cipher (german): the cipher’s name initially was adfgx and shortly after it became adfgvx, after a small modification. however, the adfgvx modification doesn’t change the nature of the cipher. germany introduced it in early 1918 and used it for communications between divisions, corps, and army headquarters during the spring offensive i told you about earlier (cthaeh, 2021). global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 40 v. vigenere cipher (russia): ernst fetterlein was in the tsarist russian ministry of foreign affairs from 1896 and solved (among others) german, austrian and british codes. he became chief cryptographer with the rank of admiral. the russians used an overcomplicated version of the vigenère cipher. it was broken within three days by austrohungarian cryptanalyst hermann pokorny (cthaeh, 2021). 2.3.3 tele-printer ciphers used in world war i in 1917, gilbert vernam proposed a tele-printer cipher in which a previously prepared key, kept on paper tape, is combined character by character with the plaintext message to produce the cypher text. this led to the development of electromechanical devices as cipher machines, and to the only unbreakable cipher, the one-time pad (rijmenants, 2022). one-time pad to perform one-time pad encryption, we need a key, called one-time pad. a one-time pad can be a single sheet, a booklet or a strip or roll of paper tape that contains series of truly random digits. a one-time pad set consists of two identical one-time pads, one pad called out and one called in. to establish one-way communications, you only need one out pad for the sender and an identical copy called in pad for the receiver. to communicate in both ways, you need two different one-time pad sets: person a has an out pad of which person b has the in copy, and person b has another out pad of which person a has the in copy (rijmenants, 2022). below is a summary of cryptography used in the world war 1 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 41 2.4 cryptography in the world war ii by world war ii, mechanical and electromechanical cipher machines were in wide use (“history of cryptography”, 2023). the world war ii has a timeline from 1939 to 1945. the principal belligerents were the axis powers—germany, italy, and japan —and the allies—france, great britain, the united states, the soviet union, and, to a lesser extent, china (hughes and royde-smith, 2023). in the 1920s, various mechanical encryption deviceswere invented to automate the process of encryption. most were based on the concept of a rotor, a mechanical wheel wired to perform a general substitution (sokouti, sokouti and pashazadeh, 2009). 2.4.1 cipher machines used in world war ii enigma (germany): as complicated as the enigma was, it was broken during world war ii. first, a team of polish cryptographers broke the german enigma and explained their attack to the british. the germans modified their enigma as the war progressed, and the british continued to cryptanalyze the new versions (sokouti, sokouti and pashazadeh, 2009). fig 5: the german enigma (“history of cryptography”, 2023) purple (japan): in the early 1930s, the japanese government purchased the commercial version of the enigma machine from the german government in order to build an enhanced version of it. this cryptographic machine was named ‘‘red” by the us government. soon after the ‘‘red” cipher was broken by the u.s.a, the japanese government created a more evolved and secure cipher known as ‘‘97shiki o-bun in-ji-ki” or ‘‘97 alphabetical typewriter”, named for its creation on the japanese year 2597 in 1937. the us later named it as purple. unlike the enigma machine, which used the blinking lights to represent the message, purple used an electric typewriter, which could global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 42 write the message on paper. this was easy to use than the enigma machine. however, it was heavy and tedious to carry in combat areas. it was a complex machine used to encrypt data not only in the 1930s, but even today. it falls under the category of homophonic substitution ciphers, where a single plaintext letter can be replaced by any of the different cipher text letters. (shikhare, 2015). fig 6: the japanese ‘purple’(shikhare, 2015) typex (britain): after the world war i, the british government in 1926, established the inter-departmental cipher committee to explore possible cipher machines to replace their current book cipher systems. in 1935, the committee decided upon “enigma type cipher machines improved through the use of ‘type x’ attachments” or typex. the typex machine, developed by wing commander o.g.w. lywood, was such a close relative of the enigma machine that the british use typex machines in place of enigma when trying to decipher enigma messages. when german soldiers recovered a typex machine sans rotors, they successfully converted it into an enigma machine. this similarity discouraged german cryptanalysts from attempting to cryptanalyze typex enciphered messages because they believed enigma to be unbreakable (chang, 2012). fig 7: the british ‘typex’ (chang, 2012). global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 43 sigaba (usa): sigaba is a cipher machine used during world war ii until the 1950s. it takes a shot at the electromechanical arrangement of rotors (pal, datta and karmakar, 2020). in the 1930s, the u.s. army cryptologist william friedman and his assistant frank rowlett drew on this simple precept to conceive a cipher machine that was easy to use, simple to rekey, and ostensibly impossible to break. to the army it was known as sigaba, to the navy, ecm (electric cipher machine) ii. not only was sigaba the most secure cipher machine of world war ii, but it went on to provide yeoman service for decades thereafter (mucklow, 2015) fig 8: the usa ‘sigaba’ (mucklow, 2015) below is a summary of cryptography used in the world war ii. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 44 2.5 modern cryptography around 1990, the use of the internet for commercial purposes, the introduction of online commercial transactions and as wireless networks became more common among households, the need for encryption grew, as a level of security was needed in these everyday situations ("history of cryptography", 2023). adomey (2020) explained three (3) types of cryptography: i. secret (symmetric) key cryptography ii. public (asymmetric) key cryptography iii. hash functions iv. hybrid cryptography (additional) 2.5.1 secret (symmetric) key cryptography the symmetric key cryptography is also known as secret key cryptography or conventional cryptography. the symmetric key cryptography is an encryption system in which the sender and receiver of a message share a single, common key used to encrypt and decrypt the message. it uses an algorithm called secret key algorithm or symmetric algorithm (adomey, 2020). figure 9: symmetric key cryptography (adomey, 2020) some examples of popular symmetric key cryptography are: des – data encryption standard, triple-des, aes – advanced encryption system, rivest cipher 4 (rc4). 2.5.2 public (asymmetric) key cryptography according to adomey (2020), asymmetric cryptography, also known as public-key cryptography, refers to a cryptographic algorithm which global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 45 requires two separate keys, one of which is private and one of which is public. the public key encrypts the message while the private key decrypts the encrypted message. public key cryptography is a very advanced form of cryptography. officially, whitfield diffie and martin hellman invented it in 1975. the british clifford cocks of communications-electronics security group (cesg) of (government communications headquarters gchq) first discovered the basic technique of public key cryptography in 1973 but this was a secret until 1997. the figure below depicts a public key cryptography. figure 10: public (asymmetric) key cryptography (adomey, 2020) some examples of asymmetric cryptography are: rivest-shamiradleman (rsa) algorithm, digital signature standard, eigamal, etc. 2.5.3 hash functions according to kundu and dutta (2020), hash functions refer to a function that compresses a string of arbitrary input to a string of fixed length. in other words, we get a fixed-length message digest out of a variablelength message. compared to the message the digest is normally much smaller. the main purpose of hashing is related with message security like protecting message integrity, authenticity, etc. wahome (2021) further explained that using hash functions for cryptography refers to cryptographic hash function. he continued that all cryptographic hash functions are hash functions, but not all hash functions are cryptographic hash functions. mathematically, wahome classified cryptographic hash functions into two classes:  unkeyed hash functions also known manipulation detection code (mdc) or message authentication code (mac) with a single parameter, an input message.  keyed hash functions with two distinct input, an input message and a secret key. wahome (2021) also listed the examples of cryptographic hash functions global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 46 as follows:  the secured hash algorithm (sha) family they are six hash functions: sha -0, sha – 1, sha – 224, sha – 256, sha – 384 and sha – 512. the first four operate on 512-bit message blocks divided into 32-bit words and the last two on 1024-bit blocks divided into 64-bit words. bitcoin, the original and largest cryptocurrency (at the time of writing), uses the sha256 hash function.  the md (message digest) family — comprises of md2, md4, md5 and md6 authored by ronald rivest for rsa security and was adopted as the internet standard rfc 1321.  ripemd (race integrity primitives evaluation message digest) — a family of cryptographic hash functions based upon the design principles used in md4 developed by hans dobbertin, antoon bosselaers, and bart preneel at the cosic research group at the katholieke universiteit leuven. ripemd-160 produces a hash digest of 160 bits (20 bytes).  whirlpool — designed by vincent rijmen and paulo s. l. m. barreto, this hash function based on a substantially modified version of the advanced encryption standard (aes). whirlpool produces a hash digest of 512 bits (64 bytes).  blake — a hash function submitted to the nist hash function competition by jean-philippe aumasson, luca henzen, willi meier, and raphael c.-w. phan. it is based on dan bernstein’s chacha stream cipher, but a permuted copy of the input block, xored with round constants, is added before each chacha round.  curl-p — a hash function formerly used in iota signature scheme (iss). iota is a cryptocurrency designed for use with the internet of things (iot) and automotive ecosystems. iss is based on winternitz one-time signatures but unlike traditional winternitz, in iota users sign the hash of a message. thus, the security of iss relies on its cryptographic hash function, which was curl-p-27. 2.5.4 hybrid cryptographic systems hybrid cryptography means combining two or more cryptosystems. there are benefits and limitations in both symmetric and asymmetric global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 47 ciphers. symmetric ciphers are fast but suffer key exchanging. asymmetric ciphers solve the key exchange problem, in other words secure, but slow. practically, hybrid cryptography, which is an integration of symmetric and asymmetric ciphers, makes use of the efficiency of symmetric ciphers and the simplicity and security of asymmetric ciphers (murad and rahouma, 2021b). 2.5.4.1 approaches to hybrid cryptography in this study, three (3) approaches to hybrid cryptography were studied: double encryption (of symmetric or asymmetric) the first approach, according murad and rahouma (2021a), involves performing two layers of symmetric or asymmetric encryption. here, data is double encrypted by applying two consecutive, either symmetric or asymmetric ciphers in a row. see figure below. figure 11: hybrid scheme uses double encryption of either symmetric ciphers or asymmetric ciphers for data encryption (murad and rahouma, 2021a) symmetric / asymmetric hybrid cryptography as shown in the next figure below, this approach utilizes a symmetric algorithm to encrypt the data and applies an asymmetric algorithm to encrypt the secret key. see figure below. figure 12: hybrid scheme uses symmetric ciphers for data encryption and asymmetric ciphers for key encryption (murad and rahouma, 2021a) cryptography with other supportive methods (i.e. with other technologies) to further strengthen cryptography, researchers have presented schemes global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 48 where supportive methods were used to improve cryptography security level. examples of such supportive methods are: hybrid cryptography and steganography method to embed encrypted text message within image (jassim, et al., 2019) a hybrid scheme of cryptography and watermarking (kaur and kaur, 2016) a hybrid cryptographic technique using rsa algorithm and scheduling concepts (shankar and akshaya, 2014) these supportive methods are applied to increase the strength of a symmetric / asymmetric hybrid algorithm. below is a summary of cryptography used in the modern era. 3.0 conclusion based on the above reviews, cryptography has evolved in so many ways and is still evolving. it has been found to be applied in the following ways: global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 49 i. civil communication cryptography is applied in encrypting messages in civil communications or messages between two regular individuals or organizations. starting from antiquity, through the medieval, and through the world wars, and in the modern era, messages can be encrypted to ensure confidentiality. emails are usually encrypted in order to keep them confidential. as messages travel through communication links, both wired and wireless, they are often encrypted. ii. cryptanalysis cryptanalysis is as an application of cryptography, though as a reverse process. cryptanalysis began in the medieval period. this is because classical cryptography began in this era, with the introduction of keysbased cryptography or ciphers. the medieval period cryptographic methods and those used in the world wars were at a point in time broken. in this modern era, cryptographic systems are not easily broken, because, they cannot be solved by hand. however, the one-time-pad is a teleprinter cipher which has never been broken. iii. wars in antiquity, hieroglyphs were used to encrypt messages between soldiers. cryptography in wars was mostly applied in the world war i and in the world war ii. cryptography is very essential during wars since each army group needs to frequently send messages to their colleagues in case of a need of unfavorable circumstances like need for back-up, need for a retreat, need for change of plans or change of direction, need for supply of more ammunitions. the message must be confidential, otherwise the enemy camp will know their plans and move ahead of them. iv. e-commerce cryptography is very important and is carefully applied for commercial purposes. encryption keeps your data secure when you're shopping or banking online. it scrambles data like your credit card details and home address to ensure hackers can't misuse this information. cryptography in e-commerce ensures data privacy. references abbasi, f. and singh, p. 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(2019). a proposed enhanced transposition cipher algorithm based on rubik’s cube transformations. international journal of computer applications, 182 (35), 18 – 26. umich (2018). transposition systems [powerpoint slides]. retrieved from http://websites.umich.edu/~umich/fm-34-40-2/ch11.pdf, on 25 august 2021. wahome m. (2021). cryptographic hash functions. 1-9. retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/351837904_cryptographi c_hash_functions, on 07 october, 2021. author information: nnaemeka uchenna ezeonyi is system analyst, university library, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu universty, igbariam, anambra state, nigeria. email: nu.ezeonyi@gmail.com. obikwelu raphael okonkwo is of the department of computer science, nnamdi azikiwe university, awka, anambra state. email: ro.okonkwo@unizik.edu.ng. obinna arthur enweka is affiliated to department of computer science, federal cooperate college, oji river, enugu state, nigeria. email: enweka.arthur@gmail.com. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 27 interfaith marriage among male muslims: factors and effects (a case of abeokuta metropolis, ogun state of nigeria) by waheed adeyemi situ abstract in spite of the difference of opinion on the legality of a male muslim marrying a christian woman, some male muslims enter into marriage with christian women. this practice has been proven to have some negative effects on the couples, their children and in the muslim ummah. although there is existing literature on interfaith marriage between moslems and christians, most treat the topic from women’s perspective; very few researchers have covered interfaith marriage from men’s perspective, which is the focus of this study. specifically, this study investigates the main causes and effects of male muslims going into marriage with christian women with the goal of suggesting ways of curbing the practice. this study employs quantitative survey research design, using questionnaire as research instrument. a 5-point likert scale questionnaire was adopted and administered, using snowball sampling technique, among 106 muslims sampled from families which are involved in interfaith marriage in abeokuta metropolis of ogun state. the data collected from the participants were statistically analysed with the use of spss version 24. keywords: interfaith, jihad, alh al-kitab, ummah background to the study in any society, religion determines people’s day to day life and hardly can we find a phenomenon which is not guided by religion. islam places emphasis on marriage as an institution of a great benefit to the individuals and society. marriage has been in existence since the time of adam as allah provided for him a mate, hawawu, and they had children. allah says: “and among his signs is that: he had created mates for you from among yourselves so that you may find tranquility with them.” (q30:21). prophet muhammad (s.a.w) said: “marriage is part of my sunnah. and whoever does not follow my sunnah has nothing to do with me.” however, this is guided by law in islam. marriage between couples who global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 28 share different faiths exits in many societies from time immemorial, despite the fact that it is not devoid of one problem or the other. many male muslims are faced with challenges as a result of being married to wives who are non-muslim. allah discourages inter-religious marriage in the glorious qur’an, except the woman or man embraces islam sincerely and wholeheartedly. allah says: “do not marry unbelieving woman (idolaters) until they believe; a slave woman who believes is better than an unbelieving woman, even though she allures you nor marry your (girls) to unbelievers until they believe…” (q2:221). this is a clear prescription for a muslim before going into a marriage. from all indications, from the glorious qur’an and the hadith of prophet muhammad (s.a.w), it is established that marriage is compulsory for all muslims but guided by rules and regulations in islam. allah legalizes the food and women of ahl al-kitāb (jews and christians) for muslim consumption. allah says: “this day are (all) things good and pure made lawful unto you. the food of the people of the book is lawful unto you and yours is lawful unto them. (lawful unto you in marriage) are (not only) chaste women who are believers, but chaste women among the people of the book.” (q5:6). based on this, some male muslims marry christian women as wives. these marriages are not devoid of unpleasant implications on the couples, the children and the muslim ’ummah (community) at large. most of the children from these families often end up practising christianity, the religion of their mother, as most of the wives (mothers) domineeringly take the children to churches, as they do not usually practise islam with their husbands, or revert to christianity if a slight condition of hardship befalls them, their husbands or children when their husbands are too incapacitated to stop them from this practice. in fact, the context of the ayah, which does not expressly state the conversion of the christian woman to islam as a condition for the legality of the marriage, engenders different opinions from islamic scholars. some islamic scholars submit that a christian woman under the husbandhood of a muslim man can continue practising her religion (christianity or judaism) without necessarily converting to islam. yusuf (1974), in his commentary on the ayah (verse), submitted that a muslim man may marry a christian woman with the expectation that the christian woman would need to succumb to the interest of her husband, religious interest inclusive. however, in spite of the permissibility of a muslim man marrying a chaste woman from the people of the book, some islamic jurists, such as the hanafis, frown at the lawfulness of a male muslim marrying a christian global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 29 woman. niekert and vertuyten (2018), using multi structural modelling equation as statistical analysis technique, carried out a research involving 21,373 participants in 22 muslim-majority countries on attitudes of muslim parents towards interfaith marriage between muslims and christians. they found out that although some muslims allowed interfaith marriage, some have negative attitude toward sons marrying a christian woman while some exhibited strong negative attitude toward a daughter marrying a christian husband. their respective attitudes depended heavily on the depth or level of their religiosity. the study did not look at the effect of the muslim man marrying a christian woman. moreover, the areas or places where the research was carried out were traditionally and culturally different from the nigerian, yoruba and abeokuta environment. the unique relevance of this research is that it fills a vacuum by being the first time a study on the effect of a muslim man marrying a christian woman was carried out in the abeokuta, and probably also in the yoruba, environment. nolte studied religious coexistence among the yoruba people of southwest nigeria, exploring interfaith marriage between muslims and christians as a positive anchor fostering their relationship. though he confirmed that the muslim-christian marriage is problematic, he did not focus his study on the factors and effects of a muslim man marrying a christian woman. hence, this work aims at investigating the factors that are responsible for inter-religious marriage and its effects on the muslim homes and the general muslim ummah in abeokuta metropolis. this is to serve as a guide for muslim children who are yet to marry and as a tool for awakening and encouraging parents and muslim clerics to preach against interfaith marriage, particularly muslim-christian marriage. research methodology the paper used survey design and utilized quantitative technique. a fivepoint likert scale was adopted to gather the primary data. a snowball method was employed to administer the questionnaire across five main areas in the abeokuta metropolis, namely, tόtorό, àdátán, ìjàyè, rounder and àgό-ìbà. the total sample for this study was one hundred and six (106) respondents. both males and females participated significantly in answering the questionnaire. the face and content validity of the instrument was checked by giving the questionnaire to some experts in islamic studies. all the item-statements were considered good for the research. reliability test was carried out through a test-re-test method and there were close similarity in the results obtained from the pilot tests. this global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 30 means that the items were reliable. data collected were subjected to simple percentages analysis using the spss version 24. principles of marriage in islam five major principles must be observed for a lawful marriage in islam. these are: hijābwa al-qubūl (offer and acceptance): this usually means a man offering a woman a marriage proposal and the latter accepting; however, a woman can as well offer a man a marriage proposal. the basic rule on this is that either party must voluntarily and consciously accept the offer, and not compelled or forced to accept. the offer and the acceptance may be oral or written and should not be made under any influence of intoxication nor while any party is sleeping. islam greatly disapproves of forcing, particularly, a woman into marriage. this is supported by the hadith of the prophet (p.b.u.h)) thus: the apostle of allah said: “do not marry the divorced or widow except with their consent and do not marry the virgin except with their permission. they asked: “o you apostle of allah! how would a virgin give her consent? he said (to them): “by keeping silent. (muslim, hadith no. 3306). consent of waliyy (guardian): this is another principle in the validity of marriage proposal. the approval of the guardian of a woman is compulsory before a marriage is considered valid in islam. the guardian could be the biological father of the lady intending to be married or any of her paternal uncles who must be a muslim or the imam of her mosque or organisation or the qādi (judge) of an islamic court. approval of waliyy is so important that without it there is no marriage. allah says in the glorious qur’an: “and wed them with the leave of their owners…” q4:25. mahr (pride price): mahr is a compulsory gift from a man to the lady. allah says: “…and give them their dowers according to what is reasonable…” q4:25. mahr can be paid in advance or at the point of marriage or deferred to an agreed future time. no maximum or minimum amount of money is fixed for the mahr in the qur’an but a sum could be fixed on the agreement of the contracting parties or by the mosque or the muslim ’ummah (community). two witnesses (al-shāhidān): it is required that minimum of two witnesses which could be from the families of the man and/or the woman must attest to solemnisation of a marriage contract in islam. this serves as mini publicity of a marriage. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 31 walimahal-nikāh: this is the celebration of marriage ceremony. this is recommended but not compulsory, according to submission of the jurists. however, the prophet enjoined the muslims to observe marriage ceremony with at least a goat for people to dine with the couples. walimahalnikāhalso serves as marriage publicity beyond the third principle of nikāh – two witnesses – as discussed above. the prophet (p.b.u.h) said: “celebrate (your marriage) even if it is with a sheep.” (ibn ismail hadith no. 2047) the observance of the above conditions is to ensure that the marriage is not unintentional and that it is openly conducted with the support and awareness of family members and the public. for a male muslim going into marriage with a female christian, following the aforementioned principles, it should be crystal clear that such a woman must automatically become a muslim, and it must be emphasised that she cannot revert or reverse. if this could be achieved, the action will be regarded as jihād (act of propagation of islam) according to sharī‘ah. who should not go into marriage in islam? an insane person, someone who is mentally sick (al-majnūn), whether a male or a female, is not allowed to marry in islam as marriage covers a half of a muslim’s faith. similarly, an immature person who is not yet considered as al-bāligh (adult) is prohibited from marriage until such reaches the puberty age. an impotent man (ỏkόbό in yoruba language) is not allowed to go into marriage in islam. a man must be sound and has capacity to have intercourse without any condition that can deprive the woman from having sex. similarly, a woman must also possess the female organ for sexual intercourse. a woman with closed virgina (lákíríboto) is not allowed to go into marriage, according to sharī‘ah, because this would prevent the couple from having sexual intercourse and breeding children, thus jeopardising the objectives of marriage. a sick person that has a protracted health challenge(s) is not allowed to go into marriage. a man or woman can go for divorce if the other is unhealthy or a man can marry another woman to replace unhealthy wife. thus, a man or woman going into marriage must be physically healthy. he or she must be free from any sort of communicable diseases, extremely bad body odour, mouth odour, eye cancer, leprosy, etc, that may be unbearable for either party. in the case of the hermaphrodite, it is regarded as genderless. however, a hermaphrodite’s eligibility to go into marriage depends on the predominant sexual organ. if the female organ is predominant over the male organ, the person is considered to be androgynous. thus, she is treated as a woman and could be married as a wife to a husband. in like global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 32 manner, a person is considered a male if the male organ is more predominant than the female organ. prohibited marriage in islam other than the prohibition of muslims from marrying non-muslims (unbelievers) and/or the contentious opinions on the lawfulness of a muslim man or woman marrying a christian man or woman, some forms of marriage are prohibited in islam. allah mentions the categories of people prohibited from marrying one another in the qur’an. allah says: and marry not women who your fathers married except what is past. it was shameful and odious, an abominable custom indeed. prohibited to you (for marriage) are your mothers; daughters; sisters; fathers’ sisters; mothers’ sisters; brothers’ daughters; sisters’ daughters; fosters mother (who gave you suck); foster sisters; your wives’ mothers; your step-daughters under your guardianship, born of your wives to whom you have gone in no prohibition if you have not gone in; (those who have been) the wives of your sons proceeding from your loins; and two sisters at one and at the same time, except for what is past; for god is oft-forgiving, most merciful. also (prohibited are) women already married, except those whom your right hands possess; thus has god ordained (prohibition) against you; except for these, all other are lawful… (q4:22-24). a marriage among these groups of people is subsumed as a consanguine marriage under the categories of prohibited marriages in islam as discussed below. consanguine marriage is a type of marriage between two couples who are closely related especially by blood. etymologically, consanguine takes its root from two latin words “con”, a prefix which means “with”, and “sanguis”, which means blood; the combination of both means “with blood” i.e. related by blood. so, foster marriage, marrying one’s sister, mother or niece is consanguineous (marriam-webster). and thus, it is prohibited in islam. another form of prohibited marriage is polyandry, that is, one woman being married to more than one man at the same time. the word came from the greek, “poly”, which means “many” and “andros”, which means “man” (marriam-webster). allah also prohibits same sex marriage of any form be it man to man, which is called gay marriage, or woman to woman, which is called lesbianism. same sex marriage, particularly man to man, was condemned by allah. and allah severely destroyed the people who practised gay sex in the time of prophet lut (q9:70). temporary marriage is a contract specified for a particular period of time which can be for some global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 33 months or years depending on the agreement between the couples. it was mostly practised by travelers or traders who used to travel to other places and stayed there for some time. the marriage is terminated at the expiration of the term of their agreement. temporary marriage was said to have been allowed by prophet muhammad as contained in one of his ahadith compiled by muslimas narrated by abdullah bnmas’ud: abdullah bnmas’ud reported: we were on an expedition with allah’s messenger (peace be upon him) and we had no women with us. we said: should we not have ourselves castrated? he (peace be upon him) forbade us not to do so. he then granted us permission that we should contract temporary marriage for a stipulated period given her garment and abdullah then recited this verse: those who believe do not make unlawful the good things which allah has made lawful for you and do not transgress (q5:87). in spite of this hadith, nikahmut’ah (temporary marriage) is considered by the sunni muslims as unlawful and that the referred hadith has been abrogated (q4:24). the practice is considered a systematic or indirect approval of prostitution. the zaidi shiites condemned it whereas the twelvers shi’ites still allow temporary marriage in their doctrines (sundawi, 2013). submissively, any of the marriages above is illicit in islam. demographic profiles of respondents from the gender profiles of the participants, it is revealed that females participated most in the study with 65.1% of the sample size. a total of 34.9% was males. this reveals that females were more available than their male counterparts and they were ready to partake in the study. the participants fell between age 18 and 40 years. none of the participants was above the age of 40 years. most of the participants were young couples within the age of 18 and 30 years. age 26 30 was the highest with 34.0% and followed by age 18-25 with 33%. the result of the survey indicated that 35.8% of the respondents were single – children of couples of interreligious marriage family. a total of 39.6% of the respondents were married and were still living together as husbands and wives. however, 20.8% had separated and only 4 respondents were recorded as widows. discussion of findings factors of inter-religious marriage eight item statements were used to investigate the factors that are responsible for a muslim man going into interfaith marriage with a christian woman as contained in table 2 (see appendix). it is established global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 34 from the result that 50% of the respondents agreed that irreligiousness can make someone change his or her religion. that is, if the level of someone’s involvement in one’s early religion is low, the practice of such a religion, generally, will not be part and parcel of such a person’s life. thus, with any minor reason(s), one could easily change his/her religion to join another one that appeals to him/her; 33% of the participants strongly submitted that irreligiousness could be one of the influencing factors that can make a person change his/her religion for another. of the total respondents, 83% were of the view that irreligiousness is a factor capable of influencing an adherent to convert to another religion. it was also gathered that experiencing a long delay before getting married can tempt a man or a woman to convert to another religion if their prospective partner presents that as a pre-requisite for agreeing to be their spouse. this fact is established from the table as 61% of the total respondents agreed that a long delay in finding a prospective spouse can make one to change his or her religion if he or she could not find a partner from his or her own religion, and if conversion is made a pre-marital condition for the man or woman. the item-statement, “lack of sound knowledge of one’s religion leads to inter-religious marriage”, was supported by 53.8% of the total respondents as 30.2% and 23.6% agreed and strongly agreed to the statement. this can be interpreted that many participants affirmed that if one does not possess a good knowledge of the doctrines of one’s religion, he/she can take a decision outside the dictates of his or her religion at any time. a total number of 66 participants, who form 62.2% of the total respondents, submitted that western education neutralises stern decision to stick to marrying a muslim woman as evident from the results depicted in table 2. thus, it can be generalised that western education makes some moslem men less discriminating and influences them into marrying christian women. however, 40% of the respondents share the view that western education may not necessarily influence a person to marry indiscriminatingly someone with whom one shares different faith. from the results it is depicted that 51% of the total respondents attested that association with christian friends can lead to inter-religious marriage among the adherents of the two religions. however, 40% of the respondents disagreed while 9% stayed neutral to the claim that when one associates with people with whom one shares different faith, that does not make one to marry from among the adherents of the other faith. in this case, we can conclude that a half of the respondents agreed while another half of them disagreed with the claim. therefore, western education, as an global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 35 influencing factor that makes one marry from other religious faithful, may not be strong enough but can be combined with other factors emanating from western educational institution environment, such as peer group. “nonchalant attitudes of parents in guiding their children towards the choice of partner selection leads to inter-religious marriage” recorded 61.3% support. this implies that the number of those who supported that parents’ guide can influence children’s decision are more than those who did not see it as significant as only 33% disagreed while 5.7% were neutral to the item statement. the result exhibits that lack of access to a stable islamic education by muslim children can lead to inter-religious marriage when they grow up. a total of 75.5%, which forms the majority of the total respondents and considered very high, agreed that if a child is not given adequate knowledge of islamic education, the tendency for such a child to marry any person as a wife is high as he will not consider it as a discouraging act. the statement, “love of money can make me to marry a spouse of different faith from mine”, received a high support from the respondents as a total of 67% of the respondents are of the opinion that love of money can make many people to ignore their faith when it comes to the issue of selecting a wife or a husband. only 24.5% disagreed to the opinion that love of money can make them to ignore his/her faith in selecting a wife or a husband. this set of people might be the few people who understand the hadith of the prophet that enjoins the muslims to consider religion first and most important and that they should not marry for the sake of money while 8.5% stood neutral to the opinion. from the results exhibited in the table, three of the eight (8) itemstatements employed to determine the influencing factors towards marrying a partner with whom one share different faith have the highest percentages of acceptance, as follows: irreligiousness (83%); lack of access to a stable islamic education by muslim children (75.5%); and love of money (67%). this means that these three factors, among others, should be strictly and strongly given adequate attention, concern and focus to reduce the rate of male muslims leaving female muslims to marry nonmuslims, a practice which, in the long run, leads to children of such interfaith marriages taking to their mothers’ religion. in some cases, male muslims – the husbands of non-moslem wives – even drop islam for christianity, a situation which is abhorrent in the sight of allah. effects of inter-religious marriage among muslim families table 2 (see appendix) displays the responses of the respondents to the global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 36 items designed to measure the effects of inter-religious marriage with christian women among muslim families in abeokuta metropolis. the item “they suffer support from in-laws” reflects that 74.5% of the respondents confirmed that the couples are deprived the support of their parents, particularly those whose parents were against the union. this means that family consent and approval of marriage union is very core and significant for a well-laid marriage and a stable family life as stated in the qur’an. allah says “…and marry them with the consent of their relatives…” q4:24. only 15.1% disagree that the couple may not suffer family support while 10.4% were neutral to the item statement. the table depicts that marriage between persons of different faith may end up in divorce. this conclusion is supported by the responses of the respondents to the item-statement, “inter-religious marriage seldom leads to separation/divorce”, as 58.5% of the respondents submitted to the statement. however, 19.8% disagreed with the statement while 21.7% were neutral to the statement. this means that an appreciable number of respondents, because they think differently or because of their experiences, do not support the statement. it is depicted in the table that interfaith marriage often reduces love between the man and the woman as the marriage grows in age. this can occur when one of the partners in interfaith marriage reverts to his or her at-birth religion or when religious practices, such as festivals, clash or when there is a conflict of interest or ideology in relation to the naming of a new-born baby. there can also be misunderstanding when a spouse is trying to pull the children to his or her religious side. this statement was supported by 60.4% of the respondents. however, 24.6% disagreed with the statement while 16% were neutral. this means that 40.6% did not support the statement. although this is an appreciable number, the percentage of those who supported the statement is significantly higher than the percentage of those who did not support it. the statement, “inter-religious marriage begets misunderstanding”, was opposed by 24.5% of the respondents while 15.1% were neutral to the statement; this means that 39.6% of the respondents did not support the claim. yet, the statement received the support of 60.4% of the respondents, thereby establishing the fact that misunderstanding is inevitable when partners in marriage do not embrace one faith; arriving at unanimous decisions, in religious matters, may be difficult in most cases. undue interference, regarding issues of faith, from family and friends of the couple may lead to disagreements between the spouses. struggle over control of the children is another likely effect of interglobal online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 37 religious marriage. a total of 67.1% of the respondents agreed that the matter of who controls the children is usually a problem in an interfaith marriage as each of the two parties would like the children to practise his or her religion. even when the couple practises the same faith, the one who conditionally changed his or her faith may not bother if any of the children chooses to practise his or her former religion. from this result, it can be interpreted that each spouse would struggle to pull the children to his or her side. in some cases, the couple may create religious division among the children by struggling to win any of the children to his or her own side. i have a practical experience of a friend, at camp, a suburb of abeokuta metropolis, who married a christian woman. the christian woman retained her religion and that influenced the first born of their three children, a male child, to become a christian while the remaining two children, who were female, remained moslems. a similar situation occurred in osiele, a suburb of abeokuta metropolis, where the mother pulled all the children into christianity with the exemption of one, the only male child of the five children of the family. the result of the survey corroborated these experiences. misunderstandings and disagreements between the spouses could generate incessant commotion in the family. this statement is supported by the result stated in the table as 35.8% and 33%, which form a total of 68.8% of the respondents, agreed and strongly agreed to the statement that interreligious marriage can bring about incessant commotions among couples. from the table, three of the six items used to explore the effects of interreligious marriage among the couples recorded the highest percentages. “a couple of different faiths suffer support from the in-laws” recorded 74.5% submission by the respondents and has the highest percentage. this is followed by problem of incessant commotions (68.8%) and struggle over who wins control over the children (67.1%). this implies that these three crises and hurdles are usually confronted by couples from different religious background and practices. as most of the couples do not enjoy the support of the in-laws and are usually engaged in misunderstanding and commotion, thus, the marriage, sometimes, ends up in separation and/or divorce. effects of inter-religious marriage on the children as contained in the results, most children from inter-religious families often have misunderstanding among themselves. this may lead to unnecessary grudges and gossips as there is tendency for one child to follow his or her mother while the other follows the father. since the children differ in religious practice, contradictions and differences of global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 38 opinion cannot be ruled out among them. looking at the result, 59.4% of the respondents affirmed that an inter-religious marriage, where the children effectually share different faiths, has the tendency of breeding frequent misunderstanding in the family. equal number of respondents agreed and disagreed with the statement that inter-religious marriage can reduce love among the children. this is shown in their responses to the item-statement which recorded 46.2% (agreed) and 46.2% (disagreed). however, 7.5% were neutral which can be grouped with those who disagreed, forming 53.7% representing those who disagreed with the statement. this means that, even if there occurs some misunderstanding among the children, it may not necessarily make them to hate themselves as perceived by the 46.2% who agreed with the statement. in some cases, the children can face confusion in religion selection. some children can follow their father in his religion while others follow the mother. there may be some inconsistency in the choice of the religion the children are likely to practise. the result from the table attests that 65.1 % of the respondents submitted that children from inter-religious family background face the challenges of religious selection. the item-statement “a child who chooses the mother’s religion loses the favour and interest of his/her father” was supported by 49.1% while 37.7% disagreed with the statement while 13.2% were neutral. this means that it is unlikely for the father not to be displeased with any child who refuses to practise his religion except the father is a type who is irreligious and allows his children to practise any religion of their choice. however, a mother might not also be well pleased with any child who does not follow her in her religion, particularly if the mother is highly inclined towards her at-birth religion and never joined her husband in his religion from the first day of their marriage. the table also exhibits that 52.8% of the respondents disagreed with the statement, “a child who follows father’s religion may suffer some maltreatments from the mother”. however, 35.9% of the respondents agreed while 11.3% were neutral. the result reflects a true picture of an ideal family in yorubaland and in islam while the choice of the father is superior in the family. the result takes same direction with the previous item-statement, “a child who chooses the mother’s religious loses the favour and interest from his father”, which reflects the supremacy of the husband over the religious choice of the children in an ideal family. children of inter-religious marriage do suffer some psychological problems. some of them do face problems with regard to choosing global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 39 between islam and christianity. if a wife does not practise islam with the husband, the children face some maltreatments from either the father or mother depending on whose religion they follow. there is often misunderstanding among the children as there can be some disagreements on issues that have to do with religious rituals. effects of inter-religious marriage on muslim ’ummah the results on the effects of inter-religious marriage between male muslims and female christians on the muslim ’ummah reveal that muslims lose most of their children to christianity. the item recorded 81.1% support of the respondents. only 4.7% disagreed while 14.2 were neutral to the statement. this reveals that most of the children from the muslim families whose mothers or wives are christians by birth are diverted to the religion of the mothers – christianity. this might be as a result of the weaknesses of most muslim husbands who fail to give strong religious practice background to the children at their childhood or as their neglect of the children to a total care of their mothers or a result of the death of the husbands before the children are mature to choose for themselves or decide on their own. the table also shows that 62.3% of the respondents agreed that most muslims who marry christians as wives often convert to christianity. only 19.8% disagreed with the statement while 17.9% were neutral. this might be as a result of the high level of irreligiousness of many muslim men who out of their irreligiousness fall into marrying christian wives and afterwards, instead of defending his religion and preaching it to the wives, they fall out of islam to join christianity. it is also observed from the findings that most christians who marry muslim husbands stick to christianity and fail to practise islam with their husbands. the objective of sharī‘ah which considers marrying nonmuslim wives as a form of jihād with the aim of converting the wives to islam is defeated. this was confirmed from the responses of the respondents from the table as 51% agreed to the statement, “most christians who marry muslim husbands often retain their christianity”. only 28.3 disagreed to the statement while 20.8% were neutral. muslim ’ummah is at a great disadvantage engaging in inter-religious marriage with christian women. the ’ummah loses most of the children from this marriage to christianity. most of the wives do not really join islam with their husbands and even many of the husbands, instead of winning the wives into islam, it is them who are won into christianity. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 40 conclusion though islam permits muslims to marry christian women, it is found out that muslims and muslim ’ummah are usually at disadvantage engaging in inter-religious marriage with christian women as enough islamic education are not provided for the muslim children right from their childhood to their adulthood, thus, they are simply carried away from their religion by christian women who equally seize the control of the children. muslim clerics have been resolute in the discharge of their obligations in guiding their congregants (parents and children) religiously and in equipping them with strong islamic ‘aqīdah. following the results from this study, in order to reduce the involvement of muslim men in marrying christian women and to achieve the reason why some men go into it as an act of jihād aimed at making the wives and the children to practice islam, the following are suggested: 1. inter-religious marriage with christian women should be discouraged for muslim men. 2. muslim parents should give their children adequate arabic and islamic education through which they would have more knowledge about their religion. 3. islamic organisations should establish marital counselling centres where muslim singles will be orientated prior to marriage. 4. muslim parents can support their children in searching for prospective partners. bibliography a. e. karakaya, (2022).interfaith marriage in islam: classical islamic resources and contemporary debates on muslim women’s interfaith marriages, journal of religions 13(8):726. doi:10.3390/rel130s80726 a. goya, (2022). identity formation among mixed family in a conflictual society: the case of jewish-muslim family in israel. social compass. a. h. hazrat, (1997).the translation of the meaning of sahih albukariarabic/english (m.m khan),riyach: dara-salam publication. a. lemu, (2005). islamic studies for senior secondary schools. minna, niger state, nigeria. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 41 yusuf, a., trans. (1975). the holy quran: text, translation and commentary. united kingdom: the islamic foundation. abu ameenah and b. philips, (1985). polygamy in islam. saudi arabia: international islamic publishing house. article history. encyclopedia britannica. d. a. jibril, (1422 ah). complement of marriage. lagos: islamic publication bureau. d. w. roger and r. d. joseph, (n.d). mass media research. micheal rosenberg. f, cerchiaro, a. stef, and h. dick,(2015). christian-muslim couples in the veneto region northeastern italy: dealing with religion pluralism in everyday family life. social compass. vol 62pp. 43-60. i. nolte, (2020) at least i am married: muslim–christian marriage and gender in southwest nigeria. https://doi.org/10.1111/1469-8676. 12765. j. v. niekerk & m. verkuyten, (2018). interfaith marriage attitudes in muslim majority countries: a multilevel approach, the international journal for the psychology of religion, 28:4, 257-270, doi: 10.1080/ 10508619.2018.1517015 k. sundawi, (2013). temporary marriage in sunni and shiite islam: a comparative study. harrassowitzverlag. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctbq. 3qn. m. abdul-aziz, and z. jamad al-din (1996). islamic fatawa regarding women (trans): saudi arabia. darussalam publishers and distributors. m. damesour and f. elham (2016). muslim marriages in the western world: a decade review. journal of muslim mental health. 10:1 m. daneshpour, (2003). lives together, world apart? journal of couples and relationship therapy. vol2. pp. 57-71 m. m. azad and s. sharmin (2018). laws of muslim marriage from the concept of the holy qur’an, international journal of engineering and applied sciences (ijeas), vol. 5 (7). m.o.a. abdullahi (1974). the gateway to islam. lagos, islamic publication bureau. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 42 marriam-webster’s collegiate dictionary, (2011). marriam-webster. https://www.marriam-webster.com ibn al-hajjaj, m. (d. 875).ṣahīḥmuslim:kitāb al-imān, ḥadīth no. 3306. ibn ismail,m. (d. 870). ṣahīḥal-bukhari:kitāb al-ṣalah. ḥadīth no. 2047 author information: dr waheed adeyemi situ is an adjunct lecturer, lagos state university, ojo, lagos, federal college of education campus, abeokuta, ogun state, nigeria. email: adewaheed10@gmail.com global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 86 towards enhancing reading culture in an era of social media and get-rich-quick syndrome distraction: the nigerian perspective by nnaemeka uchenna ezeonyi, udemezue joseph ogugua & amarachi jovita ikeagwuani abstract the paper seeks ways to enhance the reading culture among nigerian youths in an era of social media and get-rich-quick syndrome distraction. at this crucial point in the nation’s history, there is need to enhance reading culture among nigerian youths as this would translate to preparing them to take up leadership positions in the country. no doubt, the advent of social media has made deep inroads into the reading culture of nigerian youths as they spend the largest chunk of their time glued to their various devices. in the same vein, the desire to make it early in life encroaches badly on the reading culture of nigerian youths. apart from discussing the effect of social media and the quest for materialism on the reading culture of nigerian youths, the paper also looks at other factors, such as: poverty, poor value system, funding issues, corruption, poor parental upbringing, lack of incentives to outstanding scholars, poor remuneration of teachers, lack of libraries/poorly equipped libraries. in view of these identified challenges, the paper offers recommendations on how to enhance reading culture to wit: social media regulation, change of value system, adequate funding of the education sector and related agencies, tackling corruption in higher institutions, rewarding and celebrating outstanding scholars, provision of scholarship programmes, establishment of libraries, etc. the paper concludes that widespread reading culture among the youths would make a nation soar to greater heights in terms of quality of leadership, socioeconomic development, among others. keywords: reading, reading culture, social media, get-rich-quick syndrome, nigeria global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 87 introduction reading is an indispensable aspect of human life. it makes one mentally alive at all times and keeps one abreast of the latest developments in and around the world. furthermore, reading is particularly important in that it opens one’s eyes to the magical world. reading makes a man and that is why it is often said that a reader is a leader. in essence, a reader can stay in one spot and travel around the whole world. reading motivates and inspires the reader to desire to attain lofty ambitions in life. thus, a child who develops reading culture at an early age would probably go far in life as he may learn about famous personalities who influenced their world. reading is a worthwhile venture and any person who makes reading a habit is likely to end up being a go-getter and an achiever. olasehinde, akanmode, alaiyemola and babatunde (2015) assert that reading is a basic building block of learning while the reading culture is the philosophy of developing a progressive reading attitude. they argue that reading hones the mind, making a person think logically and dispassionately. it appears that reading culture is on a rapid nosedive in nigeria, especially among youths. the reason could be attributed to the fact that social media have taken over the reading space. furthermore, the fact that our youths now desire to acquire wealth at an early age is a contributory factor. according to the world culture score index (2017), nigeria is one of the countries in the world with the lowest reading culture. in its 2017 survey on hours of reading per week per person, india was leading in reading culture with a score of 10.42 hours per week followed by thailand with 09.24 hours and china eight hours. in the survey, only two african countries, egypt and south africa, were listed. this situation paints a gloomy picture for the kind of leaders nigeria produces. furthermore, akinfenwa (2019) points out that available statistics from the national commission for mass literacy, adult and non-formal education indicates that 38 per cent of nigerians are non-literate as four in ten primary school children cannot read for comprehension. apart from the fact that social media have blurred the minds of nigerian youths, making them engage in all sorts of fake life, its counterpart which is the desire to get rich quick is even taking a heavier toll on reading culture. there is no gainsaying the fact that about 90 percent of nigerian youths who should leverage their formative years for productive and useful ventures spend their time on social media and only think of how to get rich at an early age. this scenario has resulted in youths abandoning reading culture to engage in frivolous comparison and competition on global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 88 social media with severe and/or drastic consequences. they see reading as a waste of time and an unproductive venture. this paper discusses the need to enhance reading culture in an era of social media and get-rich-quick syndrome distraction in nigeria. the effect of social media on the reading culture of nigerians is much more pronounced among the youths though the adults are also affected. reading culture and its role in national development it is an indisputable fact that a society’s reading culture is critical to its development. this is why it is important that reading culture should be inculcated in children from an early age. the national library of nigeria worries that the increasing drop in the interest of nigerians to read and research is a big challenge that would affect the socio-economic development of the country. at an event to mark the 2022 annual readership promotion campaign with the theme “reading as a panacea for societal problems,” nln solicited the support of nigerians towards correcting what it described as an “anomaly” and return nigeria to the “good old days” where people read, learn, get informed and lead. reading is an important aspect of nation building but the reading culture of any society, according to fagbemi (2018), depends on the level of literacy of the people. she argues that where illiteracy is on the high side among the people, the orientation of the people to reading would be negative and this explains why nigerians have poor reading culture. also, okebukola (2004) harps on the generational value of knowledge, emphasizing that reading provides the tools for transmitting ideas to succeeding generations as well as the opportunity of partaking of the wisdom of the past generations. okpala (2019) avers that reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body in that it helps to stimulate the brain and improve its capacity and memory. she posits that apart from improving one’s analytical skills, reading can also catapult one from one’s immediate environment to a make-believe environment. in this way, it reduces stress and guarantees inner peace of mind. moreso, she argues that through reading, an individual learns to empathize with fellow humans, which is an aspect of human intelligence. reading helps one to become more understanding of other people’s problems and, in this way, one becomes more tolerant and less judgmental. in this regard, one learns to identify with others and show more love to them irrespective of their social status, health challenges, religion, tribe or family background. she further emphasizes the therapeutic effect of reading whereby it helps one to deal with some global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 89 health, psychological or social issues otherwise referred to as bibliotherapy. indeed, the problem-solving advantages of reading have also been stressed. according to unesco, “a well-read mind is assertive, articulate and seeks information to help to solve daily challenges.” this is as a result of the fact that people who read are more alert and empowered. equally, good reading culture improves the academic performance of children and also helps their mental development outside the classroom environment. reading culture, literacy development and the role of the library there is no gainsaying the fact that reading culture aids in literacy development. in fact, reading constitutes the bedrock of education and a child’s educational journey starts with reading. literacy development is the process a child takes in learning letters, sounds, and comprehension of written language. the process starts from the preschool years of children and even when they are toddlers and goes into their teenage years. thus a child navigates from being unable to connect sounds and letters to analyzing the plot and characters of a complex novel. children who are confident readers see that the confidence translates to other subject areas and the learning process as a whole. study.com states that children with strong literacy and reading skills who have undergone proper and successful literacy development are likely to succeed in many other areas of learning and life. at this juncture, it is important to state that the library plays a pivotal role in promoting reading culture. there is no doubt that children who make the library their second home are likely to develop reading culture and this helps them to become life-long learners. the poor reading culture of nigerian youths is largely due to the fact that there are no libraries in rural areas and even the few ones available are not functional. nigeria is a country that places a very low premium on education. this accounts for the low budgetary allocation to the education sector. owing to this, there is lack of funds to establish libraries and equip them with state of the art resources for the educational and recreational well-being of the citizenry. on the role of the library in enhancing the reading culture of nigerian youths, alex-nmecha and horsfall (2019) opine that libraries offer us a depth and breadth of resources for us to read, learn, connect and play. in the same vein, aina, ogungbemi, adigun, akesode, & ogundipe (2011) contend that libraries provide enabling environment and materials that offer more extensive and varied information than classroom study alone. furthermore, itsekor and nwokeoma (2017) argue that libraries play global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 90 invaluable role in the educational set-up of any institution or country and could be seen as the national treasures where knowledge, both in print and non-print formats, is acquired, preserved and disseminated to the reading public. citing busayo (2011), itsekor and nwokeoma believe that the role libraries play cannot be over-emphasized in the provision of the much-needed facilities for the development of good reading habits and interest, as it caters for different reading interests at various stages of our intellectual development and for pleasurable reading. in their opinion, the library could be seen as an agent of educational and social change. in the same breath, libraries contribute greatly to the enhancement of reading culture by supporting schools. in this regard, the national policy on education of the federal republic of nigeria (2004) as cited by aina, et al (2011) states that libraries especially school libraries are fundamental and basic to the design, implementation and attainment of educational excellence. it adds that libraries are an integral part of the educational development of school children and youth. the goals of education as contained in the national policy on education of the federal republic of nigeria (2004) as cited by aina, et al (2011) include the inculcation of national consciousness and national unity; the inculcation of the right type of values and attitudes of the individual and the nigerian society; the training of the mind in the understanding of the world around; and the acquisition of appropriate skills and social abilities and competence as equipment for the individual to live and contribute to the development of the society. aina, et al (2011) believe that without the support of efficient libraries, schools on their own cannot successfully achieve the afore-mentioned goals. they further argue that libraries provide access to enjoyable information-rich reading materials through which children and youths can gain and improve their skills. equally, libraries help introduce the use of reading for information, pleasure, passing examinations (learning in school) and personal growth through life-long learning. libraries provide materials that offer more extensive and varied information than classroom study alone. voluntary reading helps develop reading skills and mastery of language, extends students’ knowledge and assists them in their academic work (aina, et al., 2011). on their own, odunewu and odeyemi (2019) opine that libraries extend services beyond the physical walls of a building, by providing materials accessible by electronic means, and by assisting the librarians in navigating and analyzing very large amounts of information with a variety of digital tools. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 91 reading culture and social media incursion essentially, the advent of web 2.0 tools otherwise known as social media has done more harm than good to the reading culture of nigerian youths. social media platforms include twitter, facebook, whatsapp, instagram, youtube, tiktok, etc. youths are now so addicted to these platforms that they abandon reading and stay all day long on social media, doing all sorts of frivolities. on account of this, reading is relegated to the background as they only read to pass their exams. however, this does not mean that social media do not have positive uses. kojo, agyekum and arthur (2018) have enumerated both the academic and non-academic uses of social media by students. according to them, the academic uses of social media by students include collaborating with classmates on assignments, accessing literature, discussing content with instructors, being up-to-date with current news and events while the nonacademic reasons include keeping in touch with friends, sharing opinions, filling up spare time, entertainment, etc. still on the positive effect of social media, daluba and maxwell (2013) as cited by kojo et al (2018) see social media as the latest technological explosion in the information world. they assert that it is an online platform that focuses on building and reflecting on social relation among people who share common interests or activities. they further point out that since the universalisation of the internet in the 1990s and the emergence of social networking sites in 1994 and beyond, there is abundant evidence that millions of people across the world use social media on a regular basis for various reasons. also, onuoha and saheed (2011) as cited by oji and erubami (2020) argue that among many nigerians using the web 2.0 based platforms it is not merely a fad but an integral aspect of daily life that pervades all age groups and social classes. they contend that the use of social media has become an integral part of daily routine of most nigerian youths and this has made them the most technology-savvy group in the country. in their view, the need for social interaction, relationship building and sharing of multimedia/digital contents are the principal purposes for which the nigerian youths deploy the social media whereas other reasons, as leisure reading, may only come as a second fiddle. ahmed (2018) emphasizes that despite the negative use of the internet by most students, it can be used positively to facilitate online learning: the use of social media has helped students to learn through various online learning platforms available to them. the use of youtube to watch educational videos has helped students to gain wider knowledge. he also global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 92 enumerates several groups students can join through online platforms which are related to their course of study, peer group, school, environment, etc. such online platforms include whatsapp, twitter, facebook, and others which would help the students to have access to quality information when needed. nevertheless, it seems the negative effects of social media on the reading culture of youths outweigh the positive effects. adesanya (2018) argues that the poor reading culture of youths could be attributed to the environment they find themselves in and the impact of social media on them. he further contends that the reading of relevant learning materials in most schools has been taken over by social media such that students prefer to spend more of their time on informal activities on the social media than on books. similarly, anyira and udem (2020) carried out a study on the effect of social media addiction on the reading culture of nigerian students in which it was established that social media have negative consequences on the reading culture of nigerian students. in the same vein, oji and erubami (2020) conducted a study on social media use and reading culture of nigerian youths in which it was found out that 94.3% of these youths use social media and that there is a general poor culture of reading among nigerians. kabir and jeromes (2022) posit that the rapid development of the internet is one of the most fascinating phenomena characterizing the information age and affecting the cultural, social and economic life of the modern world. however, they contend that young people who are termed “the digital generation” spend more time on surfing the internet, adding that this has become an addiction and that it causes many youths to view reading as an ordeal. according to them, children can only benefit largely from electronic technology when firmly established as readers. also, talaue, alsaad, alrushaidan, alhugail and altaha (2018) as cited in ntakirutimana and okoro (2021) believe that social media have a dual impact on student achievement and that it is necessary to approach adolescents’ use of social networks with utmost responsibility. in the same vein, kojo et al (2018) argue that the advent of social media is a distraction to students because they are expected to read and keep abreast of the happenings around them but this is not the case. ahmed (2019) opines that poor reading culture is one the most critical factors posing a threat to the development of education in nigeria. this, he argues, could be attributed to a combination of many factors among which is the advent of social media. he cites a study conducted on “children’s reading habits and their use of media: suggestion on encouraging reading habits among children” which revealed that 40 per cent of nigerian adults never finish global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 93 reading a fiction book from cover to cover after leaving school. the study also showed that about 30 million nigerians have graduated from secondary schools with poor reading habits cultivated during their school days. in like manner, sotiloye and bodunde (2018) conducted a study on assessment of reading culture of students of the federal university of agriculture, abeokuta (funaab) in which they concluded that most students read only to pass examinations as they scarcely engage in any reading outside school books owing to the influence of social media. also, kur and olisah (2007) as cited by kojo et al (2018) aver that social media encourage negative behavior among tertiary students as they are exposed to fraud, use of drugs, easy point of access to pornography and other obscenities which distract their reading culture. they are of the opinion that social media have become a vital component of daily life of tertiary students and is steadily taking over the consciousness of the youths thus affecting their reading culture. adejumoh (2016) laments that reading which used to be widespread among nigerian students, youths, and even adults, is fast eroding at a jet speed. he attributes this trend to the advent of the new media which he asserts has shifted the paradigm and discourages young men and even adults from reading for knowledge. according to him, people now devote more time to chatting, uploading photos and commenting on irrelevant posts on the social media than seeking for materials that would enhance their knowledge. reading culture and get-rich-quick syndrome strange as it may sound, the quest for materialism has made deep inroads into the reading culture of nigerian youths. this situation cannot be divorced from the influence of social media on the youths. the youths are more interested in browsing online videos that teach them how to make it early in life. in the same vein, the competition over who would post better photos on social media is among the factors leading to the abandonment of reading by the youths in their quest for materialism. in this regard, adejumoh (2016) argues that the pursuit of material fame and fortune among nigerian youths and paying lip-service to education have contributed to the decline in reading culture. he maintains that our youths now attach undue importance to fame and wealth thereby relegating the place of reading. he further contends that youths now prefer to venture into the lucrative world of entertainment where their intelligence quotient would hardly be tested and parents are even encouraging them to toe the path because they want to be the parents of super stars or celebrities. in his words, people now celebrate mediocrity global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 94 in their quest for materialism. he decries that many nigerians have abandoned their educational careers in pursuit of “quick money” which they believe could be faster through business, entertainment and politics. moreso, in an interview she granted to vanguard, the chief executive officer, national library of nigeria, professor chinwe anunobi blames the poor reading culture in the country on a change of value system. she argues that people have shifted their emphasis from reading and acquisition of knowledge to materialism, maintaining that it is dangerous to the growth and development of nigeria. she blames the society for the quest for materialism, arguing that people have no iota of respect for the learned “because they have no money and cannot call the shots.” similarly, akinfenwa (2019) contends that our socio-economic environment is not reading-friendly, noting that the struggle for economic survival provides little or no time for people to cultivate a good reading habit. also, esheu (2020) opines that many youths have the conviction that reading may not be of benefit to them. this accounts for why they go after ventures that would offer them immediate pecuniary benefits. akande (2017) is of the view that very few nigerians read and those who read do so out of duty rather than desire. in her words, “young people in nigeria prefer to watch movies, chat with their friends or play games. older people prefer to chase money or worry about not having money rather than read. the few adults who read have a sense of duty to read for knowledge and continuous self-improvement.” according to her, younger people who read do so mostly out of compulsion such as the necessity to pass examinations and obtain certificates. she argues that very few students read out of genuine interest to know more. in the same vein, madu (2017) contends that people are actually looking for books that would enhance their operations and earning capacity. that is, people read books that would enhance their capacity to earn across board. furthermore, ehiosu (2017) asserts that instead of reading, youths are eager to make money at all costs in order to cover their knowledge deficiencies, adding that they (the youths) would rather engage in examination malpractices, cult and criminal activities. he says: “the number of people that read today is quite few; those who have the natural instinct to study and be successful. others have a drive to crime and corruption; penchant to make it fast, thus turning a blind eye to books that can bring about mental rebirth.” he maintains that this explains why many people do not find reading fanciful because they see it as a waste of time and this attitude does not better the lot of those who read. in his global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 95 view, on account of the fact that people want the easy way out, there is a high incidence of cultism, kidnapping, armed robbery and terrorism in the land. in the same regard, he further argues that young people want to make it quick today to the neglect of reading where they can be fed intellectually. in his submission, this has affected the quality of leadership we are producing as it is often said that “a reader is a leader.” similarly, aina et al (2011) contend that the undue importance nigerians attach to wealth is a major factor affecting reading culture. they maintain that people usually rush for material things, noting that many have abandoned their educational careers in pursuit of money. other factors affecting reading culture in the 21st century apart from the influence of social media and the quest for materialism on the reading culture of nigerian youths, other factors which have been identified to hamper reading culture include: poverty, poor funding, corruption, poor parental upbringing, poor value system, lack of libraries, neglect of the educational sector, etc. poverty poverty is one of the major factors affecting the enhancement of reading culture among nigerian youths. in this regard, aina et al (2011) have pointed out that only a few people live above poverty line in sub-saharan africa. they argue that as a result of poverty, most nigerian families cannot afford to send their children to school and they do not have money for tuition fees and textbooks. according to chukwudera (2022), reading culture flourishes in countries where the people are prosperous and diminishes in countries where poverty seems to be on the increase. he notes that extra-curricular reading could be factored as one of the attributes and symptoms of a high standard of living, adding that wealthier people who spend a large chunk of their earnings on groceries and other basic amenities are as likely to spend money on buying books or visiting the library. funding issues/lack of funds lack of funds is one of the factors affecting reading culture in nigeria. budgetary allocation to the education sector is poor. in this case, there is dearth of fund to establish libraries and equip them with adequate relevant resources. similarly, the readership promotion campaign sponsored by the national library of nigeria has been seriously hampered by lack of funds. aina et al (2011) argue that the readership promotion global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 96 campaign which is aimed at encouraging more nigerians to read lacks national spread as it is restricted to abuja, lagos and few state capitals. according to them, the impact has not been felt in other parts of the country as the national library has not been adequately funded to put the campaign in print or electronic media. corruption corruption is endemic in the nigerian society such that it has permeated every facet of our life. most nigerian students, for instance, see reading as a waste of time because they believe they can “sort” themselves out after examinations. in the same vein, the high rate of immorality in tertiary institutions is such that students use sex to buy grades. most students go after money because they believe that with it, they can even buy certificates. in this case, reading culture is relegated to the background. poor parental upbringing the issue of poor parental upbringing is one of the problems hampering the promotion of reading culture among nigerian youths. nigerian parents do not inculcate reading culture in their children. this is as a result of the fact that they themselves have poor reading culture. they would rather push their children to go into trade or any other gainful venture that would yield quick money. lack of incentives to outstanding scholars in nigeria, outstanding scholars are not rewarded or honoured like their counterparts in entertainment, politics or sports. for instance, outstanding musicians and footballers are celebrated by the government and society while first-class students are often poorly rewarded or not rewarded at all. this has really hampered the promotion of reading culture in the country as youths see reading as a waste of time and/or something that is not worthwhile. poor remuneration of teachers teachers help a lot in promoting reading culture among youths. however, in nigeria, they are poorly paid. as a result, they lack the inspiration to inculcate reading culture in the youths. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 97 lack of libraries/poorly equipped libraries lack of libraries or poorly equipped libraries is one of the factors hindering the enhancement of reading culture in nigeria. most schools do not have libraries and even those that have, the libraries are often poorly equipped. the situation is worse in rural areas which are often neglected by the government. poor value system the value system we have in nigeria today hampers reading culture. youths and adults alike do not believe education is the right way to go. wealthy people, politicians, entertainers and sports stars are highly celebrated while scholars are not even recognized. as a result of this, the youths place a low premium on reading, believing it is not worthwhile. this has led to a drastic decline in the reading culture of our youths. recommendations the decline in reading culture among the youths is not without solution. in view of the identified challenges facing the enhancement of reading culture among nigerian youths in an era of social media and get-richquick syndrome distraction, the following recommendations are made: social media regulation there is need to regulate social media to tame the youths who have become addicted to it. recently, the nigerian government embarked on the regulation of the social media though it was based on hate speech. the government needs to take decisive steps to regulate the use of social media so as to tame the youths who are already addicted to it. appropriate legislations should be put in place to regulate the use of social media. the government should not only observe those who are critical of their policies but should strive to have a holistic regulation of social media. popular author, chimamanda ngozi adichie opines that youths should give up social media and read books. according to her, the best ways to counter what seems to be an ugly tsunami of book banning going around the world is to read. she further notes that the only way to answer to censorship of books is to read. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 98 change of value system the value system in the country should be geared towards inculcating reading habits in the youths. this should start with the parents and then the government. scholars should be celebrated just like politicians, entertainers and sports stars. establishment of libraries libraries should be established across the length and breadth of the country. the libraries should also be adequately equipped with up-to-date information resources to meet the needs of the clientele. both school and public libraries should be stocked with fiction materials, biographies and autobiographies. also, aina et al (2011) advocate the resuscitation of mobile library services. they are of the opinion that promotion of reading habits should not be confined to students in the classroom or physical library alone, noting that consideration and extension of library services should be given to children and youths who, for one reason or the other are out of the normal school or library environment. however, mobile library services require the establishment of public libraries as it is their sole responsibility to carry out this type of services. provision of scholarship programmes the government should roll out scholarship programmes that do not require stringent procedures. this would address the issue of millions of out-of-school children in the country and in turn enhance reading culture among nigerian youths. tackling corruption in tertiary institutions the management of various tertiary institutions should take decisive steps to tackle corruption in their institutions. students who engage in examination malpractices as well as staff who aid and abet same should be made to face the full weight of the law. in the same vein, the government should clamp down on the so-called “miracle centres” across the country. when these are done, reading culture would receive a big boost. adequate funding of the education sector and related agencies the government should provide enough budgetary allocation to the education sector and other related agencies. the national library of global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 99 nigeria, for instance, should be adequately funded to enable it spread its readership promotion campaign which is aimed at promoting reading culture among youths to all the states of the federation. as has been pointed out before, the readership promotion campaign lacks national spread owing to dearth of funds. rewarding and celebration of outstanding scholars/teachers outstanding scholars and/or teachers should be adequately rewarded and celebrated. this would send a clear signal to the youths that reading is not a waste of time. in this way, they would see reading as a worthwhile venture. similarly, teachers should be highly remunerated to enable them discharge their duties effectively. this would enhance reading culture as it would make the teaching profession an attractive and a noble one. conclusion a nation that possesses reading culture can soar to greater heights in terms of leadership, socio-economic development and otherwise. in nigeria as well as other developing nations, reading culture seems to be on a rapid decline. the advent of social media has largely contributed to this development as youths and adults have been overtaken by the frenzy or craze associated with it. similarly, the get-rich-quick syndrome that is prevalent in the society today constitutes a big distraction to the youths as regards imbibing or developing reading culture. everybody wants to make it by hook or by crook hence reading culture is relegated to the background. the youths see reading as a waste of time since they believe it is not a worthwhile venture. it is the hope of the authors that the reading culture of nigerian youths can be enhanced through the various ways advocated in this paper. this would restore the lost glory of the nation and prepare the youths to take critical leadership roles which the country is in dire need of. references adejumoh, k. 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(2021). social media use and reading culture of undergraduate students of adventist university of central africa, rwanda. international journal of academic library and information science, 9 (5), 256-268. retrieved from https:// publications.babcock.edu.ng/asset/docs/publications/educ/9734/ 6635. pdf nwachi, c., idoko, n., & onoh, c. (2020). school libraries and the promotion of reading habits among students: a review. journal of applied information science and technology, 13 (1). retrieved from https://www.jaistonline.org/13vol1/20.pdf odunewu, k. o. & odeyemi, b. v. (2019). the role of libraries and librarians in developing information management and reading culture in nigeria. international journal of social and humanities research, 7 (4), 687-697. retrieved from https://www.researchpublish.com/upload oji, m., & erubami, j. a. (2020). discourse on social media use and reading culture of nigerian youths. academic journal of interdisciplinary studies, 9 (6), 105-113. retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/346444217-discourse-onsocial-media-use-and-reading-culture-of-nigeian-youths okebukola, f. o. (2004). reading: key to life-long development. a keynote address delivered at the workshop on readership promotion campaign organized by the national library of nigeria press okpala, a. e. (2019). promoting reading culture for sustainable development in nigeria. literacy and reading in nigeria, 18 (1), 120128. retrieved from https://www.researchgate. netpublication /355592968-promoting-reading-culture-for-sustainable-development-innigeria. olasehinde, m. o., akanmode, o. a., alaiyemola, a. t. & babatunde, o. t. (2015). promoting the reading culture towards human capital and global development. english language teaching, canadian centre of science and education, 8 (6). retrieved from https://dx.doi.org/ 10.5539/ett.v8n6p194 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 103 onuoha, u. d., & saheed, f. o. (2011). perceived influence of online social networks on academic performance: a study of undergradiuates in selected universities in ogun state, nigeria. the information manager, 11 (1 & 2), 6-13. kojo, d. b., agyekum, b. o. & arthur, b. (2018). exploring the effects of social media on the reading culture of students in tamale technical university. journal of education and practice, 9 (7). retrieved from https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/234641415.pdf. sotiloye, b. & bodunde, h. (2018). assessment of students’ reading culture in a nigerian university: waxing or waning? legon journal of the humanities, 29(2), 285 – 307. author information: nnaemeka uchenna ezeonyi is a system analyst, university library, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, igbariam, anambra state, nigeria. email: nu.ezeonyi@gmail.com udemezue joseph ogugua is librarian/lecturer, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, igbariam, anambra state, nigeria. email: joeogugs2095@yahoo.com amarachi jovita ikeagwuani is assistant librarian, university library, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, igbariam, anambra state, nigeria. email: jovitaikeagwuani@gmail.com https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/234641415.pdf global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 46 issues in profitable marketing of nigerian popular music artistes’ works by stella n. nwobu & agatha ijeoma onwuekwe abstract from the early 1970s till around 2013, conventional music marketing in nigeria has been a lucrative business starting with the selling of vinyl records such as sps, eps, lps and mp3; cds and vcds took over by late 90s. from 2015 till date, music marketing has been struggling to survive as a result of many challenges that emanate from the use of social media and technology, from issues relating to exploitative contracts and agreements, copyright infringement (piracy), music copyrights, royalties collections, and more. this paper attempts to look at various issues of the conventional music marketing that encroached into the rights of marketers and artistes as entrenched in the legal and institutional frameworks of nigerian music industry. normative ethical theory of aristotle forms the bedrock for this paper. the study made use of descriptive survey method to collect data. primary as well as secondary resources were used in order to elicit information. it discovered among other things that there is need for reestablishment of legal framework which needs to be deriven by legal enforcement organizations that regulate the activities in the industry. keywords: nigeria, music, marketing, copyright, piracy, internet introduction music marketing is one of the major careers in the music industry; it is essentially the intersection of music and marketing. musical works are provided by artists while marketing activities are done by the marketers. this is an area of music careers where both artists and marketers are indispensable companions; one cannot survive without the other as music global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 47 artistes create, perform and release music either independently or through record labels. music marketing involves marketers and artistes, where artistes prepare music albums and hand them over to the marketers who then design and implement advertising campaigns to promote artistes and releases through tv, radio, newspapers, magazines and crnivals. they examine how music and consumers behaviour interact, showing how effectively using music brings products and services closer to their customers. they help musicians unlock their full potentials. through the process of marketing, actions are implemented to reach and persuade general fans and create awareness for artiste’s work. beside talent and production, marketers are the key component in turning artistes into stars. they amplify artistes’ hard work and talents to millions of potential fans. in nigeria, music artists are given rights to record music, sell or distribute copies of the music they recorded in different formats, perform the music in public, recreate the musical work and prevent others from doing any of these acts without their acquiescence. marketers who are desirous of dubbing and marketing artists’ albums after paying contractual fees are given the rights to dub such works into cassette, cds or any other format and to market such works not withstanding that the copyright belong to the licensors. marketers and the rights of musicians are embedded in nigerian music law. mbanugo (2020: 119) asserts that “music law is essentially a subset of entertainment law that guides specific issues in the music industry. such issues being but not limited to music publishing, music licensing, copyright ownership, contracts amongst others”. he went further to explain that music law covers a range of traditional legal subjects including intellectual property law (copyright law, trademarks, image publicity rights, and design rights), competition law, bankruptcy law, contract law, defamation and, for the live events industry, immigration law, health and safety law, and licensing. this law is a very important aspect of law that guides the affairs of the stakeholders in the industry and it equally regulates their conduct. according to the registry of trademarks, patents and designs, federal ministry of trade and investment (2011), the principal legislation on copyright in nigeria is the copyright act (as amended), chapter c20, laws of the federation of nigeria (lfn) 2004. it states that: copyright law grants authors, composers, songwriters, and other creators’ legal protection for their literary, artistic and other types of creations, which are usually referred to as works”.copyright law gives an author or creator of work a diverse bundle of exclusive rights over his/her work for a limited bur rather lengthy period of time. these rights enable the author global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 48 to control the economic use of his work in a number of ways to receive payment (p. 1). marketers and musicians in nigeria need to understand copyright laws to enable them know when authorization is essential and how to go about obtaining it. they should understand the types of works that are copyrightable and the criteria to meet to qualify for protection. in nigeria, to qualify for copyright protection, the basic requirements to be met include: a. originality the work must have an original character. it must originate in its expression from the author and not copied from another work or from another material in the public domain. b. fixation – the work must be fixed in any definite medium of expression that can be known, or later developed and from which can be written on paper, stored on a disk, and recorded on tape. c. the author at the time of the work must be a citizen of nigeria, a person domicile in nigeria and the work is a sound recording made in nigeria, published first in nigeria (registry of trademarks, patents and designs, federal ministry of trade and investment, 2011). discussing rights accruable to owners of musical compositions, famojuro and nebolisa (2021) state that a copyright owner of a musical work has an exclusive right over acts stated in section 6 (1) (a) of the nca subject to the exceptions specified in the second schedule to the nca – which include the reproduction of the work, publication of the work, performance of the work in public, public display of the work, preparation of derivative works, commercial distribution of the work by way of retail, lease, hire, loan or similar arrangement, communication of the work to the public by a loudspeaker, among others. they further stress that “for creators of designed works like musicians to be protected under the law, must have sufficient effort in addition to the work being fixed in a tangible medium of expression from which it can be perceived or reproduced” (p. 1). two works which emanate from the recording of a song that are protected by copyright are musical works and sound recordings. musical works are created by songwriters or composers of work while sound recordings are created by the performers and producers of the recordings. the interpretation section of the nigerian copyright act (nca) cap (28) laws of federation of nigeria 2004 according to famojuro and nedolisa global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 49 (2021) defines musical works to mean any musical composition, irrespective of musical quality and includes works composed for musical accompaniment and sound recording is defined to mean the first fixation of a sequence of sound capable of being perceived aurally and of being reproduced” (p. 1). copyright in musical works exists throughout the lifetime of the author and continues for a period of seventy years after the end of the year in which the author of the work dies and if owned by two authors the copyright lasts for seventy years after the death of the last surviving author. copyright in sound recording lasts for fifty (50) years after the end of the year in which the recording was first published. in nigeria, copyright laws confer right to creators of artistic, musical or literary works which gives exclusive right on the copyright owner and eliminates any other person from replicating or exploiting the work without the authorization of the copyright owner. copyright owner can prevent those original elements from being used by others and to control commercial exploitation of original works without proper authorization. music marketing business in nigeria is not without challenges that can only be remedied with the re-establishment of ethical principles that can guide the industry (ethics of morality). the reasons for this are for the well-being of consumers and the application of standard of fairness or moral rights and wrongs to marketing decision making, behaviour and practice, in order to satisfy the needs of both customers and the organization. marketing ethics sets the guidelines for which good marketing is practised. to market ethically and effectively one should be reminded that all marketing decisions and efforts are necessary to meet and suit the needs of customers, suppliers, and business partners. music marketing should set guide lines, rules, norms, codes and principles that will lead musicians and all other music workers to make moral decisions. ethical principles guiding music production assist music workers in determining what is right and how to choose the best from several alternatives. conventional music marketing in the past, nigerian music industry’s focus, revenue-wise, was limited to physical music sales, fees from appearances and shows and, for the more popular artists, endorsement fees from music product. music marketing was all about pushing out music with big money to fit in front of as many people as possible and this is the way most records are made. a music artist creates, performs and releases music independently or through a record label. he signs a recording contract drafted by the marketer’s attorney for a major label and hands in his or her recordings. the global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 50 company then turns them into records. such company moves the artistes’ records to distributors and retailers for the selling of such records to consumers. the company then gears up its advertising, promotion, and marketing. they tend to bombard traditional media (like tv, radio, magazines and newspapers). they also use music videos and live performances to monetize and promote their artists. the norm has been music for music creators to put the basic principles of retail marketing to bear: introduce a song/album), advertise (promote) it until there is consistent need for the production. recorded works need to be promoted and even after been distributed, just like any other business needs to promote a new product even if the product itself is amazing, for without promotion, no one will know about it, the business will not serve people and no money will be made. in conventional music marketing, the artiste is responsible for the art, making the music, recording it and performing it even when a record label has decided to sponsor the recording. the label hires and pays for producers, mix engineers, managers, advert, promoters, and event bookers, among others, to perform their assigned tasks. the artiste as well receives royalty from the record label. according to passman (2003) “the artiste turns his recordings over to the company who then sells the finished product. for each record sold, the artist gets a piece of the price and the company keeps the rest to cover its costs and a profit” (p.69). sometimes, artiste after recording an album might decide to sell the music outright to a music marketer who in return pays the artiste off. through that way, the artistes automatically relinquish the copyright to the marketer with the condition that the artistes name and pictures remain intact. before the digital and technology marketing era, high potential artiste had far more time to grow; experiment and even fail before coming up with something great. a record label would sign an artist for three or four releases or more and during the amount of time needed to produce and publish those records; an artist had the opportunity to mature. during this time, big labels would sign the artist and then handle their music marketing strategies and promotional activities. when a thoughtful strategy is in place and artist and marketer are appropriately aligned, everybody wins. the artistes get a monetary reward, additional exposure or both. the marketers receive engaging contract to reinforce the values of their company and the artiste’s fans get more great art. traditional methods of artist development have always been centered on record label investing huge amounts of funds to produce the best tracks, global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 51 trademarks and image. in nigerian music industry, the dream of every music artist is to become famous; though some people think success depends on luck, others know that it depends on hard work and opportunities, and on what strategies one uses to promote one’s music. issues from conventional music marketing many issues are associated with music marketing, especially in nigeria, which have implications for overall profitability. these include absence of/poor legal framework, lack of training /orientation, copyright issues, poor production, piracy, and social media and technology, among others. for more than ten years, traditional method of music marketing that has worked for years has been challenged. illegal and unethical behavour have hovered around the music marketing business as a result of these issues. recording artistes and marketers, alleging all sorts of wrong doings by those who want to make illegal money from the industry, have been the subjects of documentaries. the sense of what is fair and just, which is part of cultural values instilled in people from their early ages, has been broken over the years. artistes as well as marketers have lost trust in each other. majority of marketers in nigeria participate in illegal use of resources and embezzlement of their artistes’ funds. once trust is breached, it becomes difficult to re-establish. according to the registry of trademarks, patents and designs, federal ministry of trade and investment, (2011), it may take years to create an environment of trust with an artist and the other members of the management team where the talent agent, attorney, artist, personal manager and business manager trust one another. one breach of a fiduciary relationship can end many years of loyal and devoted service (p. 7). absence of / poor legal framework for music industry to work properly there is need to have proper working legal framework. mbanugo (2020:118) avers that “like most industries, proper regulation of the music industry and creation of an effective legal and institutional framework will do great good to ensuring that the gold present in such industry is greatly explored, mined and harnessed”. but looking at the relationship between some marketers and their artistes, one believes that lots of things have gone wrong even when contracts agreement is signed between the record company and the artist stipulating the function of the licensor and the licensee. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 52 according to mbanugo (2020:122-123), “contracts are the basic entities that establish a relationship between the artists and the record label, inclusive of other related persons”. he further listed the very key contracts, record deal, publishing deal, distribution deal, administration deal, producer deal, co-writer agreement, performance license, booking or performance deal, which are music specific to include considering the multiple relationships needed to be established and the dynamic of these contracts. he equally points out an overview of a few of the important clauses in music contracts to include:  term and distribution which states the time for which the contract will be operative.  exclusivity which explains that artist cannot give similar obligations and rights to another entity.  the territory which explains the area to which the contract will be applicable.  grant of rights uniquely the specific rights accruable to distinct parties.  termination right explains conditions where the contract can be terminated.  advance and royalty rates state the advances and royalty rates to be given to the artists. even after these conditions, some of the marketers don’t keep to the agreement. they swindle the artiste because the artiste might be a novice and has no way of keeping track of what is happening (the number of records sold). the artiste, who is ignorant of what is happening in the business, might be popular but without getting or ripping the fruit of his labour. in some cases, the artistes abandon the record label for one reason or the other which would amount to a breach of contract and make them liable. all these can frustrate the artiste and hinder his creative compositions. lack of training /orientation another issue affecting the music marketing industry in nigeria is lack of lack of training /proper orientation of aspiring artists on peculiarities of music industry. this is very important as the success of this industry depends on the training of young and aspiring artists many of whom do global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 53 not comprehend the innards of the contracts signed for marketers thereby making it essential to train or engage the services of professionals in this regard. conflicts between marketer and artiste may arise as a result of not keeping to the terms stipulated in the direct agreements (contract) made and signed. there is need to get a legal practitioner to scrutinize the agreement before signing it in order to avoid crying out against exploitative contracts. this is found to be in conformity with what mbanugo (2020) says: it is fairly easy for marketers to take advantage of artists especially if such artist is relatively new in the music scene, has little legal knowledge and just looking to land a major deal. they most often sign off a great percentage of their rights and the benefits accruable to that. we see this very often as young artists over time begin to cry out against exploitative contracts. (p. 124). signing of contract agreement shouldn’t be done in haste, even with an attorney, without studying the implications of the deal. copyright issues “copyright is a form of legal protection given to many kinds of created works such as musical compositions or songs, lyrics, records (cds, lps, singles, 45s, cassettes, dat, etc) poems, films, tv shows, computer software and commercials” (mbanugo, 2020:121). copyright is not only one of the major pillars for sustenance of the entertainment industry, but it is indeed a cornerstone; an indispensable factor for the very existence of music industry. it is the bedrock of the music industry. it enables music owners, creators and entrepreneurs to make a living from their creative/intellectual works, and gives any author or owner of musical work the right to copy, (meaning reproduce, perform, adopt, rework) their own music. passman (2003) defines it as “a limited duration monopoly which promotes the progress of science and useful arts by giving creators exclusive rights to their works for a while” (p. 191). ekpo, 1993 in okwilagwe (2002) avers “copyright is closely related to music.” (p. 106). according to mbanugo (2020), the importance of copyright law regulating the music industry can hardly be over-emphasized hence this law is one of the laws with the primary function under the law to protect from annexation the fruits of a person’s work. he further asserts that “this protection is of immense importance generally to actors, playwrights, performers and other artistes; particularly it is important to musicians and composers of music… (121). okafor (2002) opines that: global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 54 copyright is the moral and financial rights creators have over their works. so, copyright grants an author, an artist, writer, publisher, musician, performer, photographer, architect, film maker, sculptor or any other creator rights over his/her work. he/she has the moral rights, which make it mandatory that his/her authorship to the work must always be acknowledged anytime it is used. then he/she has the financial rights, which confer on him the right to earn a living and profit from the sale, exhibition, hire or other use of his/her work (p. 114). the issue in nigerian music industry is that many copyright holders are not aware of their rights so that they can rise up to fight for the rights under the provision of the law. some are too cautious to go to court to seek recompense. some may also be too poor to get legal aide to pursue their claims through the court. olatunbosum (2014) opines that “copyright law protects the owner of rights in artistic work against those who copy, those who take and use the form in which the original work was expressed by the author, without license or due authorization” (p. 15). in nigerian music industry, lots of copyright works exist but artists couldn’t register them because they are not original works. osele (2010:191) points out that “most of our musicians are not original”. some of our artistes are fond of manipulating and copying each other’s song and style resulting to copyright infringement. the copyright act stipulates those conditions that must be satisfied before an author can lay claim to copyright. it is not all works that are eligible for copyright. in nigerian music industry, copyright has been established, developed and administered without much effect because of ignorance of most of the artistes regarding the rights. some corrupt marketers in nigeria aide in crippling the business because of copyright issues. okwilagwe (2001: 109) lists some strategies that have been put in place to ensure effective implementation of the copyright system; hence opportunities have been provided for the copyright owners to maximally exploit rights as follows: 1) institute an action to recover damages that may result from the act of infringement 2) institute criminal prosecution to punish infringers 3) use anton pillar order (a device to prevent piracy) 4) ensure that an appropriate contract is signed with the producer global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 55 5) join a collective society for collective administration of right. in nigerian music marketing industry in recent years, lots of marketers have failed themselves as well as some of their artistes. they exploit their artistes since they are inferior to them and cannot challenge their superiority. poor production processes conventional music marketing was seen as a lucrative business which attracted even unprofessional persons to venture into the business just to make money. some artistes simply want to become popular, to be exposed and some marketers want to make money irrespective of how and the outcome. marketers sometimes force music ideas on their artistes, either to translate works from one language to another or requesting artistes to record works similar to the existing selling music. in some cases, artistes in a bid to make more money usually abandon the record label that assigned them which would amount to a breach of contract and make them liable. mayiko (2003) in osele (2010) condemns the attitude of some music companies who are not selective as far as music production is concerned. once they discover an artiste who can give them quick money, not minding whether the music will stand the test of time, they go ahead to contract him. at the end the music comes and fades. the result is the deplorable standard of living of most nigerian artistes. it is clear that the poor quality of production makes exportation of nigerian music impossible and this in effects reduces the quality of sales. according to olatunbosun (2014), the music industry is now dominated with people who do not have the professionalism and interest to make good musicians or good music but are only interested in making money out of the upcoming musicians and promising talent in the music world. people now run labels when they have no idea about music or the making of music, several artists and studio managers are businessmen who only use their resources to promote music making with zero knowledge on music professionals (p. 17). most companies do not check materials that can cause them legal hassles such as infringing somebody’s copyright, denigrating someone or use of obscene language. that results in recording and re-recording without restrictions. album is released and after a period of time, another person will duplicate the entire album or copy ideas or imitate such work and also release it. what is happening in this field is that some marketers are global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 56 not interested in any other thing except money. olatunbosun (2014:16) points out that “entertainment industry is becoming more lucrative, it has drawn attention from the society. the attraction has initiated people of different characters and interests into the industry with genuine, ingenuine and prejudicial intentions”. the desire to make quick money made most of the marketers to delve into marketing many albums at the same time and loosing lots of money from unpurchased albums which gradually liquidated some of them. non adherence to ethical principles guiding the industry, amongst other issues, led to the near collapse of the business in nigeria. piracy piracy has become a stigma in nigerian music industry. it is a serious problem that defiles solution. according to mbanugo (2020), the biggest issue plaguing the music industry is piracy which entails the use of works protected by copyright law without permission, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, such as the right to reproduce, distribute, display or perform the protected work, or to make derivative works. piracy’s impact on the revenue and economic benefits accruable to the artists is mind-blowing; it takes away a major chunk of the amounts. incidences of piracy in the music industry are alarming and act as obstacles to budding talents. mbanugo further describes nigeria as “a country where music piracy and piracy of other copyrightable materials still reign supreme, with the attendant losses of income to the authors, music producers and many other copyright owners”. piracy is a somber problem that affects both the marketers and the artistes in the field of music production in nigeria. efurhieve (2016) opines that: it is the copying and distributing of copies of a piece of music for which the composer recording artiste or copyright holding record company did not give consent. piracy negatively impacts the music industry through the loss of album sales. in addition, the music industry often complains that piracy has a crippling effect on its revenues (p. 268). weinstain (2015) in efurhieve (2016) observes the negative impact of piracy on musicians and the music industry. he avows that with the expansion of technology comes financial damage of some kind for the artist involved. he is of the notion that piracy is not a new phenomenon, it is much more wide spread and its effects are seen on a much wider scale than ever before. olatunbosun (2014) discussing the menace of piracy confirms that piracy has supplanted legal business in the music industry. that it has not only knocked out the essential backbone of the music industry but also destroyed the careers of musicians that would global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 57 have made significant contributions to global music. mbanugo (2020) agrees that music piracy and piracy of other copyrightable materials still reign supreme in this country, with the attendant losses of income to the authors, music producers and many other copyright owners. the pirates have dismantled all the structures of the music industry (the activity of companies and industries that have the aim of promoting performers and selling legitimate recorded music) and erected in their place crude and primitive structures of the one man one shop business. social media and technology the nature of the music industry rapidly changed especially with the increasing influence of the online/digital environment, which creates both uncertainties and opportunities in the market place. according to clerk (2021), the music industry has radically changed in the last couple of decades. the internet revolution has transformed the way we create and consume music. it has built new hierarchies and power balances, taking the control once owned by major record labels and giving it to the consumer. the emergence of streaming services and streaming platforms has greatly impacted the music listening experience in nigeria and globally. mbanugo (2020:118) avers that: the consumption of art and expression in the music scene has metamorphosed over the last decade. globally and nationwide, music sales and distribution has moved from physical retail stores to online outlets, providing live streaming options, digital sales, amongst others. he further confirms that the supply chain of music has undergone a major shift, globally as well as in nigeria, because prior to the digital era, channels to the marketing were typically physical retailers, analogue radio, public performance, films and tv. with this development, an artist now earns royalties based on the number of streams their songs have generated on the streaming platform. although these streaming platforms have made cd piracy a thing of the past, a new challenge was created – digital piracy. prior to the emergence of social media and technology, music recordings in nigeria were sold on sps, eps, lps and mp3, cds, and vcds. this created a huge opportunities for pirates to reproduce and sell these cds at cheaper rate, thereby stripping the artist of any profit on such a piece of work. with social media, many promotional practices, such as physical retailing, analogue radio advertisements, public performance, films and tv in the music industry, that were useful in the past are no longer effective or relevant. because of the internet, there is a new phase global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 58 of marketing in the music industry – online promotion. savannah (2017) deliberates extensively on the issue of social media and its impact in music industry. he noted that the internet has completely changed the music industry as we once knew it. music scene was a very different place before technology and social media came into play. before this time, music consumers had to rely heavily on cds, cassettes, records, top-of-the-charts, newspapers and radio to access music but today the scene is much different. with the power of social media and the internet, we can get access to music in a matter of seconds. digital music downloads replaced buying physical albums, music videos on youtube replaced music television and social media sites like instagram and twitter and trending topics replaced the record labels having to create a musician’s fame. he points out that just as the internet gave us youtube, digital downloads and worldwide trending topics, it has also gifted us with the biggest craze in music: streaming. social media platforms have given musicians more control over the distribution of their music and through the use of service. many artists now have the option to bypass the industry conventions completely. with streaming and social media, the music industry is losing its power over artists and musicians as a result of this shift from a product-based business to a service-based business. today, there are fewer major labels and an abundance of independent online platforms, each striving to promote their artists to over abundance of consumers. though cds and records are still being sold and people rarely purchase them this way because most of us download music on our phones, apps or listen for free on youtube. with most music being free or almost free to access, how does any label survive? savannah laments that streaming is killing the industry. when everyone stream music, the number of people buying music physically or digitally will dramatically decrease. social media music marketing has opened a new phase of piracy – digital piracy which is worst and difficult to trace. here, artists’ works are being uploaded without proper authorization or the consent of the artists. mbanugo (2020:121) avers that: despite the growing contribution of the music industry to nigeria’s economy as a vibrant subset of the entertainment industry, it is still plagued with the issue of piracy, unauthorized sampling and prevalence of exploitative contracts, amongst others. this is more so in this digital era. with the growing trend of live streaming, online downloads and file sharing. the artist is placed in a critical position where he gets little or no economic benefit for his work. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 59 according to udozor (2020:407), the effect of this digitalization on music brought about a lot of changes like a drastic drop in the cd sales in lagos, onitsha and aba in abia state which are majorly the main market for music sales, platforms like spotify.com, cd bay.com and other internet sites took over music sharing and sales. the illegal sharing of music from cds has apparently contributed to the current poor economic health of the music marketing industry along with other problems. in onitsha, emeka offor plaza, to be precise, as well as nwobu plaza, eke awka in awka, anambra state, people rent stores and shops only to pirate music properties. once an album is released in the market, they buy the cd, conver it into mp3 format and start sharing to the public at the rate of n20 per track. indiscriminate sharing of music files have become so devastating to the extent that even music artistes leverage on that as a means of promotion whereby an artiste will even pay these mp3 pirates to share their song freely. that is how bad it has become. (udozor interview, 2021). this frustration was expressed by austin ukwu, a gospel artiste as well as a music marketer in the southeast of nigeria; he said: many artistes and marketers have died because of digital sales. many people who use music as their livelihood have gone to their villages because of digital sales. many have turned their music shops to something else as a result of hardship accrued as a result of the change of mode of music business via cd sales to pure virtual sales (online). it is a very big problem for an artiste who after production and mass production of cds cannot sale as a result of one person ripping the song into system and shares the files to his friends online and the artiste will be left with thousands of unsold cds and such results to discouragement effect. (interview, 2021). stella nadis also laments on how online sales and mp3 aided to the crippling of the music marketing business in nigeria. she confirms that there was an unimaginable drop in the music marketing of cds that cause the major distributors to diversify, thereby causing exit of some talented artistes and marketers from the industry while the remaining ones are struggling to survive. evidence gathered during the fieldwork she conducted in january 2023 indicated that the following record labels in nigeria have folded up and are no longer in business: global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 60 business name market location 1. galaxy music 2. stone music 3. biltop music 4. pahak music 5. clems music 6. adonai music 7. a-z music 8. delight music 9. gods’love music 10. biltop music 11. nas music 12. judeai music 13. ansonic music 14. abuventure music 15. chitex music 16. obaino music 17. adjutant music 18. atc music 19. confidence music 20. nelly music 21. a-z music 22. danko music 23. apeal music 24. joebest music 25. chocho music 26. nedis music 27. homzy music 28. old man music 29. abhu venture music 30. mama ejime music 31. ngozi music 32. chosen man music 33. nd music 34. bamco music 35. o. ben 36. chimason music 37. ahia bere ego music 38. great king music 39. king sonic music 40. ansonic music 41. padango music 42. globe disc music 43. ubapasivic music 44. motion music 45. evans music abuja abuja iweka road onitsha/ iweka road onitsha iweka road onitsha iweka road onitsha iweka road onitsha iweka road onitsha iweka road onitsha iweka road onitsha iweka road onitsha alaba lagos alaba lagos alaba lagos alaba lagos alaba lagos nosamu ajegunle lagos nosamu ajegunle lagos nosamu ajegunle lagos alaba lagos alaba lagos alaba lagos ogbete enugu ogbete enugu ogbete enugu ogbete enugu ogbete enugu alaba lagos alaba lagos alaba lagos alaba lagos iweka road, onitsha enugu alaba lagos alaba lagos alaba lagos alaba lagos alaba lagos alaba lagos alaba lagos alaba lagos alaba lagos alaba lagos alaba lagos alaba lagos global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 61 46. equity music 47. mentus music 48. kora music 49. anodisc music 50. ben nigeria record jos jos ibadan port-harcourt rd. aba port-harcourt rd. aba some of those that are still managing music marketing business in nigeria include: business name marketing location 1. pandora music ` 2. labaco music 3. somistex 4. onwuzuligbo music 5. c-meks music 6. de nesco music 7. neme music 8. vinosco music 9. god’s grace & mercy music 10. favour music 11. majority record 12. ossy affassen music 13. remmy jes music 14. norget music 15. benoka music 16. rogers all stars 17. onyekwelu music 18. melody record 19. sammy sparkle all stars 20. vintex music 21. jjd 22. ugo & company 23. judic music 24. julec 25. bissy record 26. levi music 27. emesia music 28. obisco music 29. uba music 30. luik music 31. okoli music (super international) 32. ossy star iweka rd. onitsha iweka rd. onitsha iweka rd. onitsha iweka rd. onitsha iweka rd. onitsha iweka rd. onitsha iweka rd. onitsha iweka rd. onitsha iweka rd. onitsha ugwunabankpa onitsha iweka rd. onitsha iweka road onitsha iweka road onitsha iweka road onitsha iweka road onitsha onitsha iweka rd. onitsha nawfia awka aba aba aba aba aba aba aba alaba lagos alaba lagos alaba lagos alaba lagos nosamu ajegunle lagos enugu global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 62 this evidence shows that there are more people who have been forced out of the music marketing business than those who are still in the industry. conclusion everyone who works in the music industry is subject to laws that govern their rights and actions. music artists must abide by these laws, as must producers, promoters, marketers, music publishers and others. these laws pertain to the terms of record deals, royalties for artists, copyrights and more. to protect investments of investors in the industry, necessary actions must be taken to ensure that the rights and obligations of every participant, be it the marketer or the artiste, are exercised. there is need for continuous education and training for everyone involved in the industry. the artistes and record labels should work with a chain of professionals whose expertise is indispensable in this field. the recording contracts should not be shallow, it has to be written in such a way that ties the loose ends so that everybody is fairly treated, and the artiste as well as the marketer is not cheated. there is need to implement wellwritten legal contract agreements. there is need to establish the means of proving copyright infringement. issues surrounding division of proceeds between the artiste and record company should be resolved. finally, the established guidelines must be strictly followed. music marketing industry in nigeria needs to adopt a proper and common business structure and by implementing basic ethical principles into this business, positive changes will occur which will yield positive results to the artists as well as the marketers. recommendations the menace of pirates needs to be curtailed. the record labels should employ experts in order to produce excellent musicians and music. they should also work with chain of professionals whose know-how is indispensable. to sensitize and to add to knowledge in order to educate more on the need to protect more creative works as established within nigerian constitution of 1999, this paper further recommends that the record license agreement shall be signed subject to the following guidelines: 1. the agreement shall be made between the “licensor” and “licensee’’ (which expression shall where the contents admit include their successors in title) of the one and second parts. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 63 2. both licensor and licensee shall present legal practitioners that shall work out agreement that will protect the interest of both parties. 3. an attorney or manager shall present copyrightable (original) work to the licensee while licensor shall be the sole owner of the copyright. 4. the marketer shall reproduce the songs to the agreed number of copies and shall market same for the licensor. 5. royalties accruing to the licensor shall be paid to him by the licensee. 6. both parties shall jointly register master tape in any publishing company where mass dub of same shall be done with the consent and approval of both licensor and licensee. 7. both parties shall agree on the printing of jackets suitable for the work and it shall be exclusive for the work only. 8. piracy of the said musical work is highly prohibited and amounts to a crime. 9. either party to this agreement may terminate this contract upon giving the other three (3) months’ notice of such termination. 10. upon termination both parties shall ensure that amicable settlement of matters is observed. 11. parties are to abide by the terms of the above mentioned contract as failure by either party shall amount to a breach of contract. references clerk, b. (2021) 7 of the biggest problems with the music industry – retrieved from http://www.musicianwave.com/biggest efurhievwe, m. a. (2016). managerial strategies and music production practices: problem and prospects. journal of the association of global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 64 nigerian musicologists. no.10. (pp.260 -277.). association of nigerian musicology. famojuro w. and nedolisa a. (2021). nigeria: what musicians should know about copyright law in nigeria – retrieved from https://www.mondaq.com>nigeria mbanugo, o. (2020). the music industry through the law: the need for appropriate regulation. ojukwu e. et al (eds). the pedagogue festschrift in honour of professor chukwuemeka eleazar mbanugo. (pp. 117-128). awka: dolivel prints okafor r. c. (2002). copyright enforcement and nation building: environment, problems and opportunities. idolor e. (ed). music in africa facts and illusions. (pp.113-118). ibadan: stirling-horden okwilagwe a. o. (2002) african traditional music and the concept of the copyright law. idolor e. (ed). music in africa facts and illusions. (pp.105-112). ibadan: stirling-horden olatunbodun adekogbe (2014) effect of piracy on economic contribution of music industry & the nation’s grass domestic products (gdp). nigerian music review. no 13. (pp.12-23). ileife: department of music, obafemi awolowo university. osele a. a. (2010). nigerian music artistes: problems and prospects. awka journal of research in music and the arts vol.7. (pp.178 193). anambra: department of music, nnamdi azikiwe university awka. passman, d. s. (2003). all you need to know about the music business. new york: free press registry of trademarks patents and designs, federal ministry of trade and investment (2011). creative expression for small and medium sized enterprises in nigeria. abuja. retrieved from https://www.wipo.int>guides savannah t. l. (2017). technology and social media impact on the music industry. retrieved from https://www.qeedle.com>the impact… udozor, v. c. (2020). digital music recording and survival of a nigerian artiste. ojukwu e. et al (eds.) the pedagogue festschrift in global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 65 honour of professor chukwuemeka eleazar mbanugo. (pp. 117128). awka: dolivel prints. author information: dr stella n. nwobu is a lecturer in the department of music, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, anambra state, nigeria. email: sn.nwobu@coou.edu. ng dr agatha ijeoma onwuekwe is a lecturer in the department of music, nnamdi azikiwe universty, awka, anamea state, nigeria. email: musikdon@gmail.com global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 50 workplace harmony and organizational productivity of selected deposit money banks in anambra state by ifeoma evangeline odunukwe, maureen obiozo anah & mary ukamaka ezeh abstract this study examined the relationship between workplace harmony and organizational productivity of selected deposit money banks in anambra state. four hundred and thirty-five (435) employees comprised of senior and junior staff of selected deposit banks were sampled in the study. the study adopted a correlation research design using a structured questionnaire to elicit data. pearson’s product moment correlation was used to test the hypotheses. the result revealed that there is a positive and significant relationship between mutual trust and organizational productivity. it was also found that there is a positive and significant relationship between communication and organizational productivity in selected deposit money banks in anambra state. the study concludes that workplace harmony adopted by banks significantly influences their productivity in various dimensions. based on findings, the following recommendations were highlighted: banks need to adopt a harmonious work environment that enhances the employees’ skills and makes them have a sense of belonging; constant training and development of employees should be encouraged to enhance their knowledge in tune with the need of the environment. keywords: workplace harmony, mutual trust, communication, organizational productivity introduction in the fast-changing organizational environment, organizations are turning their focus to the human intellectual management and information system resources as a driving force behind their success and the sustainability of their competitive advantage; they are also encouraging innovation practices (altamony et al., 2012). to some global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 51 extent, these factors may contribute to the progress of the organization as well as determine whether they achieve their goals irrespective of the constituted workforce. indeed, building a productive working environment is an quintessential part of every organization to survive and sustain in any business world. this is because the primary objectives of most organizations are to maximize productivity and provide a flexible work arrangement that benefit both the employer and employees’ who are committed and hence reduce labour turnover (adim & david, 2020). thus, every organization strives to develop a committed and conducive workforce that would facilitate effective and significant productivity by adopting the optimal methods to ensure employee retention (yew; riveros & tsai, 2013). given the competitive nature of banking sectors in nigeria, there is a continuous struggle to stand out among others by inventing new service delivery strategies, good customers’ relationship and minimising the cost of change implementation. despite the good number of efforts situated by the management of the banks, the poor survival rate of the workforce shows lack of a fundamentally valid framework of how to employ and manage organisational productivity (igudia, 2021). unfortunately, there is dearth of literature that examine the impact of organizational climate and work productivity among finanicial institution in nigeria to the best of the researchers knowledge. consequently, this study wants to bridge the lacuna in the literature within the nigeria context. organizational productivity defines the magnitude of output that results from performance behaviours as well as external contextual and opportunity factors of an organization (zhang, liao, li & colbert, 2020). it is an organizational asset that can be equated to progress and success (asio, 2021). specifically, this productivity significantly facilitates satisfaction to the employees, the organization, and other stakeholders. thus, it is considered an essential component of any successful organization. although organizational productivity may be viewed from different perspectives, it depends largely on its human factor and the physical work environment or arrangement. research has opined that work-related productivity is measured in two ways such as subjective and objective measures (farooq & vij, 2018; vij & bedi, 2016). subjective measures of productivity are capable of making cross-industry comparisons but can have problems with common method bias, social desirability, and supervisor biases (vij & bedi, 2016). the use of subjective measures of productivity is preferred over objective measures because managers can use the relative measures of performance. improving work productivity is one of the important objectives of the global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 52 organization because higher levels of employee productivity can be beneficial to both its employees and organizations (hanaysha, 2016). given these reasons, workplace harmony is an essential component of organizational turnout which facilitates positive growth and job involvement (irawan & sari, 2021). although this may not be absolute in all organizations, other factors may play a subtle role in influencing the outcome of an organization depending on its goals. for example, literature has demonstrated that having a motivated, involved, and committed workforce is an important asset to an organization’s success that helps in maintaining employee motivation, commitment, and job involvement which is likely to improve productivity and lower turnover rates (fossey, harvey & srivastava, 2013). given the unstable global business workforce precipitated by the global pandemic which has continued to ravage nigerian’s economy and its workingenvironment (asio, 2021), there is a considerable need to explore factors that could improve work productivity to attract investors. interestingly, building and maintaining a harmonious work environment has been underlined as a high priority in achieving a productive outcome in the organization (leung & brew, 2009). a harmonious workplace that guarantees the satisfaction of workers’ and employers’ aspirations is essential for enhanced organizational productivity and growth (elangovan & xie, 2000). it is critical to the success of an organization, especially the bank sector, managers of both the private andpublic sectors are faced with the challenge of ensuring workers’ satisfaction, commitment, and loyalty, increasing productivity level, and most importantly, sustaining harmony and mutual trust in the workplace (adim et al., 2020). organizations that rely on the material of remunerative control tend to use monetary rewards and fringe benefits in harnessing and controlling workers’ behaviour, while organizations that normative rely on the use and manipulation of symbolic representations and rewards in the control of workplace behaviour usually adopt a mix of the remunerative and symbolic control. in other words, a disharmonious work environment presents itself in the form of disagreement or opposition to particular ideas, interests, persons, or state of things and indicates a level of incompatibility in the society, organization, or group (adim et al., 2020). however, workplace disputes are now becoming commonplace in most organizations today. although not planned, but it has led to the collapse of several once viable organizations in the world today particularly in nigeria. securing effective organizational productivity is not one of those easiest things to global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 53 do, but witha harmonious work environment,there is the possibility of attaining it. given the above submission, this present study wantsto bring to the fore the possibility of securing efficient and effective productivitythroughworkplace harmony. statement of the problem the current competitive workforce in nigeria has provided an advantage for employers and employees to establish a positive relationship in order to achieve their organizational goals. consequently, this has empowered the employees to become more conscious of their rights and privileges in the collective contribution to the organizational productivity (nwinyokpugi, 2015). this recent awareness in the organizational workforce has become a spotlight in increasingmanagerial process and the environmental condition of both the employers and the employees. the trend appears to be affecting workplace harmony since the frequency of management-workforce confrontations is rapidly increasing in many areas of the global economy.it is noteworthy that the workplace environment plays a crucial role in the lives of employees. hence, organizations need to reconfigure their workplace in a manner that will allow employees to feel as an integral part of the organization (amah and ahiauzu (2013). unfortunately, the inability to offer a pleasant and harmonious work environment has resulted in several issues and losses for both the company and its employees. disrespect, continuous abuse, theft, gossiping, sexual harassment, absenteeism, lack of dedication, organizational sabotage, low worker morale, and frequent or excessive breaks are examples of such issues. as a result of these, the damages tothe workplace environment have become immersed to the extent that the workplace is experiencing low productivity, poor level of goal attainments, lack of cohesiveness, poor communications, and poor growth level.essentially, these has led to disharmonious workplaces that sometime inhibit the effective of organisation. this is perhaps due to unprofessional behaviour of managers of such unions that are responsible for workers' rights and privileges at work who do not play to the rules that guide workplace affairs. as such, it is our focus in this paper to find out how organizational productivity can be developedeffectively through workplace harmony. objectives of the study the broad objective of this study is to determine the nature of the relationship between workplace harmony and organizational productivity of selected deposit money banks in anambra state. however, the specific global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 54 objectives are to;  ascertain the nature of the relationship betweenmutual trust and organizational productivity of selected deposit money banks in anambra state.  determine the nature of the relationship betweencommunication andorganizational productivity of selected deposit money banks in anambra state. research questions in the context of the above objectives, the following research questions are raised for the study;  what is the nature of the relationship betweenmutual trust organizational productivity of selected deposit money banks in anambra state?  what is the nature of the relationship between communication andorganizational productivity of selected deposit money banks in anambra state? research hypotheses in the context of the research questions above, the following null hypotheses are formulated to give direction to this study: h0 1: mutual trust has no significant positive relationship with organizational productivity of selected deposit money banks in anambra state. h0 2: communication has no significant positive relationship with organizational productivity of selected deposit money banks in anambra state. review of related literature concept of workplace harmony workplace harmonyrefers to a friendly and cooperative agreement on workingrelationships between employers and employees for their mutual benefit (osad & osas, 2013). according to puttapalli and vuram (2012), workplace harmony is concerned with the relationship between global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 55 management and employees with respect to the terms and conditions of employment and the workplace. in effect, it is a situation where employees and management cooperate willingly in pursuit of the organization’s aims and objectives. a positive work atmosphere is essential to a company's success (nkiinebari et al., 2014). managers in both the commercial and governmental sectors confront the task of guaranteeing worker happiness, dedication, and loyalty while also boosting productivity. workplace harmony in its ideal form presupposes an industry in a condition of relative equilibrium where the relationship between individuals and or groups is cordial and productive. workplace harmony can only come out of what is known as “organizational democracy” a situation in an organization where to a larger extent, the participation of workers is adequately sought in the process of making decisions that will determine the conditions of their working lives. workplace harmony enhances labour productivity and in turn improves performance inorganizations, achieving economic growth, and enhancing living standards and quality of life. itcreates a peaceful working environment conducive to tolerance, dialogue and other alternatives (to strike) means of resolving workplace or labour disputes (such as negotiation, mediation, arbitration, conciliation, and litigation or court adjudication). this creates a high level of employee satisfaction. concept of trust trust is the “willingness of an individual or group to be vulnerable to the actions of others based on the expectation that they will perform a particular important action, irrespective of the ability to monitor or control performance” (mayer, davis, & schoorman, 2007, p.712). trust helps you to develop effective individual, intergroup, and cross-group relationships and provides the foundation for a minded set that can lead to greater levels of performance, as well as collaboration, within your organisation (jones & george, 1998; poon, 2006). this mindset therefore includes a sense of obligation to corporate with others, a high degree of self confidence and confidence in one’s colleagues, a willingness to support one’s colleagues, willingness to subjugate one’s personal needs for the greater good. trust can therefore be demonstrated in two levels namely trust in self which focus on task oriented that is competencies and the other level is trust in others which refer to the relationship. to have a greater performance requires an everyday feeling or level of trust in an organisation. failure to these, lead to a low trust climate and low performance in an organisation. this therefore end up with employees feeling angry and betrayed because their expectations of the organisation’s toward them are not met. trust is being vulnerable to global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 56 someone even when they are trustworthy; trustworthiness is the characteristics or behaviours of one person that inspire positive expectations in another person, and trust propensity being able to rely on people. once trust is lost, by obvious violation of one of these three determinants, it is very hard to regain. trust should exist among all the people in the organisation especially the hierarchical relationship. there should be a relationship between the supervisor and the peer, also between co-workers and the entire stakeholders of the organisation. to create trust and gain trust is quiet challenging but not impossible. since organisation exist to successfully satisfy stakeholders there must be a pro relationship between all the levels in the organisation and also quality human resource practices, leadership style, human resource policies in managing to be able to work effectively and achieve greater performance. concept of effective communication it is often said that employee relations refer to how the human resources department communication with its employee. if there is effective interaction between the employer and employees, it will become a huge impact on the organisation’s performance, enhancing its productivity. normally, the department of human resources assists in handling employee relations by identifying and solving problems at work. besides that, the human resource department should measure and increase the employee’s morale, and the conflict in the organisation can also be reduced when the employee relations are positive. based on schroth (2019), communication skills involve the content and expression of social interaction. this involves the use of proper words and phrases, as well as the appropriate tone of voice, facial expressions, body language, and direct eye contact with the audience (schroth, 2019). in a similar, kumar and manjula, (2017) stressed that transparency in communication is crucial for a healthy employee-employer relationship as it initiates group activities in the workplace, it helps an employees to develop a friendly approach with his/hercolleagues. communication in an organization deals with the extent of exchanging information among employees to aware of the important aspects of the organization which includes institutional policy, strategy, procedures, and manuals that help them to understand what is expected of them and how they are going to accomplish their duties. in line with this assertion, sequeira and shriti (2015) in a study confirmed that well-informed employees are much higher in performance than those ill-informed employees. furthermore, research carried out by global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 57 hasen and salman (2016) asserted that there is a positive and significant influence of effective communication on employee performance as effective communication is an essential tactic that has been performed which can extract the ultimate of the employee to help both organizations and the employees to achieve their ultimate goal. organizational productivity organizational productivity remains a primary element for success in most organizations (haenisch, 2012). organizational productivity can be defined as a measure of the quantity and quality of work done, considering the cost of the resources used (mathis & jackson, 2010). it shows whether the activity of an organization is efficient and effective (saxena, 2014). in some cases, the terms productivity, efficiency, and effectiveness are used interchangeably by researchers who sometimes alternate their meanings. for example, igudia (2021) stressed that work productivity measures the efficiency and effectiveness of production within an organization. similarly, igudia (2021) argued that work productivity encompasses the capacity or aptitude to maximise the use of physical resources, human resources, and other factors at lower production costs, increase market expansion, increase employment and, a rise in living standards. in this context, the human resource appears to be the must driving force of productivity needed to achieve the desired goals and objectives of any organisation as it is the only factor that gives effect to organisational change and guarantees the survival of the organisation using other resources (igudia, 2021). although other factors may play a significant role is determining productivity, human resource coordinates all other factors for the accomplishment of organisational goals. as opined by tavakolia (2010) motivation, creativity, innovation, competitiveness, activity cost reduction, the improvement in the quality of activities, work time reduction, job satisfaction, and the spirit to achieve goals positively affect the level of productivity. regardless of the workforce situation, every activities of an organization are design to achieve the set objectives (ho, 2008). employees’ inputs may contribute best output for the organisation with great impact on the total production, sales, profit, progress and market position of the company in the market (igudia, 2021). in the same vein, economists define productivity as the relation between output which consists of a given product, service, and the amount of both, and input which consists of resources used in the product creation global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 58 process, such as labor, materials, energy. productivity could be seen as a the efficiency of a person, system, machine, factory, etc., in converting inputs into outputs. there are many different ways of measuring productivity. for example, factory productivity might be measured based on the number of hours it takes to produce a good, while in the service sector productivity might be measured based on the revenue generated by an employee divided by his/her salary (ibid). in general, productivity is a measure of production efficiency; how much output is obtained from a given set of inputs (al-abri, 2017). in the context of service delivery firms like the financial institution sector, the firms invest more on their working force to sustain long term relationship with customer to provide service satisfaction (khosa et al, 2016). thus, lack of adequate workplace harmony may affect workers productivity which inturn affect their attitude to the job and customer’s relationship. theoretical framework this study is anchored on the theoretical framework of systems management theory developed by jacqueline and francesco (2010). the theory asserted that businesses consist of multiple components that must work in harmony for the larger system to function optimally. the organization’s success, therefore, depends on synergy, interdependence, and interrelations between subsystems. according to the theory, employees are the most important components of a company, and departments, workgroups, and business units are all additional crucial elements for success. according to this theory, managers should evaluate patterns and events within the organization to determine the best management approach. they need to collaborate and work together on programs to ensure success. organizational success depends upon interaction and interdependence between the subsystems, synergy between the sub-systems, and interaction between internal components (closed system) and external components (internal system). the systems approach implies that decisions and actions in one organizational area will affect other areas. for example, if the purchasing department does not acquire the right quantity and quality of inputs, the production department would not be able to do its job. this approach recognizes that an organization relies on the environment for essential inputs. further, the environment serves as an outlet for its outputs. empirical review global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 59 opara and mbani (2022) examined the relationship between avoidance management strategies and workplaceharmony in oil servicing firms in rivers state. the study adopted cross sectional and ex-post facto design. data were generated by quantitative and qualitative method. the study used purposive sampling techniques. a total population of 330, sample size of 321 was determined using yaro yamane’s formula at 0.05 level of significance. also, 321 copies of questionnaire were distributed to the respondents, while 317 copies were completed and retrieved. the instruments were validated with reliability above 0.7 co-efficient, using cronbach alpha technique. the reliability coefficient analysis was avoidance (α =.882), accommodating (α=878), mediation (α=866), infrequent strike (α=884), mutual trust (α=870), management workers cooperation (α=882) and organisation culture (α=887). three hypotheses were raised which was tested with pearson product moment correlation. from the findings, the concept of avoidance conflict management strategies creates positive impact on infrequent strike, mutual trust and management workers cooperation. in conclusion, avoidance strategies have significant influence on the workplace harmony of the oil servicing firm. based on the findings and conclusion, this study contributes tothe knowledge that effective conflict management encourages enthusiasm, boosts morale, and stimulates individual and organizational development; while ineffective conflict management produces more conflict and destructively effects the whole organization. it could be recommended that oil producing firms in port harcourt should endeavor to adopt and use mediation as a means of settling organizational conflicts to achieve lasting harmony. also, workers or employees should do their best to avoid confronting organizational matters in such a way that it will result to managementworker non-cooperation. mojaye and dedekuma (2015) conducted a study on the influence of communication on industrial harmony in the civil service of delta state nigeria. the study tries to establish a link between communication and good industrial relations and industrial peace. the study focused on the delta state civil service and attempted to find out the role that effective communication had played in ensuring industrial peace since the advent of the state. questionnaires were administered to 325 civil servants out of which only 299 were useful. one of the research questions was whether there is any relationship between industrial harmony and effective communication. the study showed that while effective communication may not necessarily lead to good industrial relations but it may engender industrial peace. ukonu and gideon (2016) investigated the role of the national industrial global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 60 court in sustaining harmony in the nigerian health sector: a case of the university of abuja teaching hospital. the main objective is to examine the role national industrial court (nic) has played in sustaining harmony in nigeria health sector while the specific objective is to examine the role national industrial court has previously played and can still play futuristically to enhance the desired industrial harmony in university of abuja teaching hospital, the entire health sector and other sectors of the economy. this study concludes, that the role of the national industrial court in sustaining industrial/organizational harmony especially in the health sector cannot be over emphasized. industrial harmony is requisite to economic growth, development, and industrial advancement in any economy. as such, whether in the instances of interunion disputes or the demesnes of employee and employer relationships, nic has risen to the challenge to extinguish the rising tensions that might have escalated out of proportion in uath as well as other institutions. akuh (2015) investigated industrial harmony for academic excellence: an imperative for a productive educational system in nigeria. the objective of the study was to discuss the imperative of industrial harmony for academic excellence and a productive educational system in nigeria. to ensure harmonious industrial relations, the leader of every institution will need to encourage, open and frank discussion of the institution’s problems with the subordinates; seek the opinion of those doing the institutional job i.e. the staff; explain their discussion to those who have to carry them out; recognize the contributions of all involved in the institutional job; set collaborative goals to encourage teamwork instead of autocracy and listen to rather than talk at their subordinates. in conclusion, an effective and understood grievance procedure that is simple, straightforward, flexible, proactive, responsive, devoid of protocol, and time conscious is central to harmonious industrial relations. above all, promoting visionary and disciplined leadership within our educational system is a key to a conducive environment for learning devoid of corrupt practices and indiscipline. sholokwu and olori (2016) investigated management practices and industrial harmony in oil and gas firms in rivers state, nigeria. the study examined the relationship between management practices and industrial harmony in the oil and gas firms in rivers state. a sample size of 343 was derived using the taro yamane formula from the population of 2400 respondents that consist of managers and employees in twelve oil and gas firms in rivers state. a descriptive survey method of research was adopted and data were collected through a questionnaire. the demographic data were analyzed using simple percentages and mean global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 61 scores were used in the analysis of items on the questionnaire. the spearman’s rank correlation statistical method was used to test the seven hypotheses at 0.01 level of significance which was facilitated by statistical package for social sciences (spss) software. the results revealed a significant relationship between management practice and industrial harmony. it was also found that organizational culture significantly moderates the relationship between managerial practices and industrial harmony in oil and gas companies in rivers state. therefore, the study concludes that management practice affects industrial harmony in oil and gas companies in rivers state. based on the findings, the study recommended that oil and gas companies should embark on good management practices by implementing the collective agreement, reducing casualization of staff, and developing a promotion policy, to fewer incidences of strikes and grievances to attain industrial harmony. however, this research is not exhaustive; hence, it suggests that future research should be carried out on the effect of staff casualization practices on industrial harmony in manufacturing firms in rivers state. nwokocha (2015) conducted a conceptual study on the title employers and the enhancement of industrial harmony in private sector organizations in nigeria. the study examines the role of employers in enhancing industrial harmony in organizations with a focus on private sector organizations in nigeria. the paper posits that conflict is inevitable in all organizations and, assuch, the employer who has the responsibility of making major organizational policies to achieve corporate objectives must play a dominant role in ensuring industrial harmony. the paper exposes some of the factors that undermine industrial harmony and productivity in private sector organizations to include leadership behaviour, lack of effective communication, work environment, and non-recognition of the trade union as a bargaining party. it further explicates that productivity and growth are not fully enhanced because of management practice of exclusionism, poor labourmanagement policies, and dehumanization of the work environment. as a panacea to mitigate conflict and promote a culture of harmony that will achieve the organizational goal, the study proposes that management of private sector organizations in nigeria should fashion out a framework of joint committee/expanded collective bargaining, create a work culture that is based on collaboration and teamwork, initiate participatory management and develop and restructure an effective communication process. instituting these measures will help to close conflictual loopholes that hinder industrial harmony and productivity in private sector organizations in nigeria. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 62 mojaye and dedekuma (2015) conducted a study on the influence of communication on industrial harmony in the civil service of delta state nigeria. the study tries to establish a link between communication and good industrial relations and industrial peace. the study focused on the delta state civil service and attempted to find out the role that effective communication had played in ensuring industrial peace since the advent of the state. questionnaires were administered to 325 civil servants out of which only 299 were useful. one of the research questions was whether there is any relationship between industrial harmony and effective communication. the study showed that while effective communication may not necessarily lead to good industrial relations but it may engender industrial peace. in south africa, green (2016) examined the perceived influence of organizational productivity. the study employed a quantitative paradigm using a non-probability sampling technique. data were collected from a total of 161 employees using a strusctured questionnaire across two different office sites in kwazulu-natal, south africa. the researcher found that an association exists between organizational policies and employee benefit; organizational policies and performance appraisal; and performance appraisal and employee benefit. furthermore, in a case study of selected bank in nigeria, igudia (2021) examined the effect of organisational change on employee productivity in the banking sector. the primary data collection method was adopted employing questionnaire strategy. 102 respondents were selected as sample size. the study used the multiple regression statistical analysis through spss statistical package version 25 for analysis. the results showed that organisational change has a positively significant impact on employee productivity. similarly, okolocha (2021) investigated the effect of job satisfaction on employee productivity of public universities in south-east, nigeria. the researcher adopted a survey research design. data collection was ensured through the use questionnaires distributed among academic staff of south-east states of nigerian public universities. regression analysis was used to test the two formulated hypotheses with aid of spss version 20.0. the result revealed that working condition and salary have positive significant effect on the employee productivity of public universities in south-east, nigeria global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 63 gap in literature although there are several empirical literature that shows some promising interrelationship between performance, organizational change and employees productivity, majority of these research had been conducted outside the banking sector domain and devoid of considerable attention on workplace harmony. the existing research is well documented in the literature that dissatisfaction among employees due to inhibiting factors within the organization may adversely effect organizational productivity. however, this present study is motivated by the need to evaluate the impact of workplace harmony on organizational productivity among banking sectors in nigeria. this study will help to close the gap and add to the existing literature on the organizational productivity with unique reference to banking sector. methodology this study adopted a correlation research design. a total of four hundred and thirty-five (435) employees were selected from three different banks (first bank plc, united bank of africa (uba), and access bank) located in anambra state, nigeria. the participants were drawn from the senior and junior staff of the selected banks using a multi-stage sampling technique. the ages of the participants ranged from 18 to 70 years, with a mean age of 37.05 and a standard deviation of 10.62. they comprised 123 males and 312 females. the sample size was determine using taro yamane formula (1964).the instrument employed for data collection is questionnaire constructed by the researchers. in order to ensure that the instrument measure what it was designed for, content and construct validity was used to validate the instrument. cronbach alpha was used to test for the reliability ofthe instrument at a 5% level of significance. pearson product-moment correlation coefficient was employed fordata analysis. data presentation and analysis test of hypothesis one mutual trust has no significant positive relationship with organizational productivity of selected deposit money banks in anambra state global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 64 table 1: pearson r on mutual trust and organizational productivity variables n mutual trust organizational productivity remark mutual trust 435 1.00 .141 positive relationship organizational productivity 435 .141 1.00 the result in table 1 above showed that there is a significant positive relationship between mutual trust and organizational productivity at r = .14, p< .05.thus, the first hypothesis of the study was hereby rejected. by implication, this means that as a positive mutual trust increases, employees productivity level also increases, hence, improving employees’ job competence, commitment, and general organizational relationship. test of hypothesis two h02: communication has no significant positive relationship with organizational productivity of selected deposit money banks in anambra state. table 2: pearson r on students’ communication and organizational productivity of selected commercial banks in anambra state variables n communication organizational productivity remark communication 435 352 .322 high positive relationship organizational productivity 435 .322 352 the inspection from table 2 above revealed that there is a significant positive correlation between channel of communication and organizational productivity of selected deposit money banks in anambra state at r = .32, p< .05. for this reason, the second hypothesis of the study was rejected. this indicates that proper channels of communication between the management and employees will increase organizational productivity of deposit money banks in anambra state. similarly, the global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 65 stronger the communication in an organisationthe higher the productivity level which may result to a remarkable success in a competitive working environment like banking sectors in nigeria. summary of the findings 1. the findings revealed that mutual trust has a significant positive relationship with organizational productivity of selected deposit money banks in anambra state. 2. it was also found that communication has a significant positive relationship with organizational productivity of selected deposit money banks in anambra state. conclusion the study in the light of the broad and specific objectives which determine the nature of the relationship between workplaceharmony and organizational productivity of selected deposit money banks in anambra state; with the specific objectives to ascertain the extent to which mutual trust and communication have a significant positive relationship with organizational productivity of selected deposit money banks in anambra state. the research study concludes that the nature of workplace harmony adopted by banks significantly influences their productivity in various dimensions. the obvious conclusion is that conformity and compliance with the harmonious work practices will aid the bank competitiveness while involvement in disharmonious conduct may spell distress or lead to the bank’s total collapse. based on the findings, the following recommendations were made: 1. the bank should adopt a harmonious workplace that enhances the employee’s skills and make them feel belonged. 2. constant training and development should be encouraged to enhance their knowledge and to still be in tune with the need of the environment. references adim, c. v., david, g. o. 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(2019). are you ready for gen z in the workplace? california management review, 61(3), 5–18. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0008125619841006 sequeira, a. & dhriti, a. (2015). employee relations and its impact on employee performance: case study. sholokwu, b. m. & olori, w.o.(2016). management practices and industrial harmony in oil and gas firms in rivers state, nigeria. international journal of advanced academic research social & management sciences. 2, 11. ukonu, o.i & gideon a. e. (2016). the role of the national industrial court in sustaining harmony in the nigerian health sector: a case of university of abuja teaching hospital. journal of management and sustainability, 6 (1). zhang, x.a., liao, h., li, n., & colbert, a.e. (2020). playing it safe for my family: exploring the dual effects of family motivation on employee productivity and creativity. academy of management journal, 63(6), 1923-1950. author information: ifeoma evangeline odunukwe is of the department of business administration, faculty of management sciences, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, igbariam campus, anambra state, nigeria. email: ifyskin@yahoo.com maureen obiozo anah is affiliated to department of business administration, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, anambra state, nigeria. mary ukamaka ezeh is affiliated to department of business administration, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, anambra state, nigeria. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 7 food safety media campaign and the health of nigerians by catherine isioma nwokoro, bernard emesiobi onyewuchi, clare adenike onasanya & emmanuel elo-oghene great abstract food safety is a crucial practice many people do not yet carry out, an indication that they have not yet imbibed its principles. where such knowledge is lacking, education of the populace on the relevance of food safety measures should be emphasized. this is the essence of media sensitization and educational efforts. this paper is an analytical study whose focus was on identifying whether media campaigns about lassa fever successfully encouraged food safety since the outbreak of the disease reached epidemic proportions in ondo, edo and taraba states (nddc reports, january 26, 2023, vanguard newspaper of february 29, 2024). objectives of the study were to; ascertain if media campaigns were used to educate the residents of ondo, edo and taraba states on lassa fever, examine whether media campaigns influenced the residents of ondo, edo and taraba states about lassa fever and identify which media was most significant in disseminating messages about food safety to prevent the spread of lassa fever among residents of ondo, edo and taraba states. the theoretical framework for the study consists of protection motivation theory and health belief model theory. the population was drawn from the three aforementioned areas with the interview method used as the instrument of gathering data. the study found that respondents were properly sensitized but the majority chose to be nonchalant about imbibing the new health behaviour advocated for curbing the spread of lassa fever; the most significant media used for the sensitization efforts was the billboard. the study recommended that use of pesticides against rats should be encouraged among residents of these three states in order to avoid a reoccurrence. in addition, government should promote innovations in specially designed nets, that can be placed on people’s doors and windows, which can kill rats on close contact. keywords: media campaign, food safety, lassa fever, health sensitization efforts introduction food safety is a very vital aspect of human existence. food safety in nigeria is generally disregarded as many people hardly care about what global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 8 they eat. there is low level of awareness of food safety measures with most people, due to the high level of poverty, apparently concerned with filling the stomach with anything, so long as it is food. all over the country, food policies issued by the regulatory bodies are hardly implemented. africa faces a high number of deaths as a result of foodrelated diseases, with an estimated 137,000 deaths and 91 million acute illnesses per year (www.usaid.gov/2020). food safety is crucial not only for the assurance it gives consumers that a particular food item they desire to eat is prepared or stored in the right manner but for its foundational role in preserving their overall wellbeing. when the contrary is the case, food-related diseases like diarrhea, lassa fever and stomach ulcers may result. food safety applies to the private and business sectors both of which should ensure that food is safe for consumption. food safety entails the process of making sure that handling, preparation, distribution and storage of food are geared towards preventing, controlling and reducing food hazards to the barest minimum. the food safety system is built around compliance to quality-safety culture, laws, regulations and policies, including corrective action to pursue and ensure that the minimum standards are in place to check food-related diseases. the case of lassa fever, as reported by the nigerian centre for diseases control (ncdc), 2023, indicates that food safety measures and policies, regulation and implementation at governmental and individual levels are faulty. according to the world health organization, lassa fever is “an acute viral haemorrhagic illness caused by lassa virus, a member of the arenavirus family of viruses… the disease is endemic in the rodent population in parts of west africa” (who 2019). the symptoms of the disease include fever, muscular pains, sore throat, nausea, and difficulty in breathing; bleeding gums, nose, eyes or other parts of the body, vomiting and chest/abdominal discomfort (asogun, gunther, akpede, ihekweazu & zumla, 2019). humans are usually infected with lassa virus through exposure to food or domestic items contaminated with urine or faeces of infected mastomys rats (who, 2021). in nigeria, this food-related disease became a serious national issue when, at the beginning of the year 2020, 27 out of 36 states that make up nigeria reported 1,708 laboratory-confirmed cases (ncdc, 2020). the issue even became worse when in january, 2023, edo, ondo and taraba reported a soaring number of infected persons and later it was reported that 9 persons died of lassa fever in ortese idp camp in benue state which had 46 recorded cases in february, 2024. these made lassa fever a disease of global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 9 concern (ncdc reports, 2023). non adherence to food safety measures is a prevalent issue in nigeria because there is persistent poor food hygiene, food contamination and haphazard enforcement of food safety best practices. despite the availability of food safety enforcement system, to ensure that foods produced and sold in nigeria, are in line with the expected standards, it is yet to reach an appreciable level of performance, despite policies put in place to redress the situation, such as the national policy on food safety and its implementation strategy (npfsis) formulated in 2014 by the federal ministry of health (fmoh), to guide nigeria’s food safety. since the formulation and implementation of policies have not helped in improving food safety and the health of nigerians, using the mass media to sensitize and educate the populace may succeed in moving food safety compliance in the desired direction. where the government and its agencies have opted to use the media to disseminate their messages to achieve proper sensitization and education of the populace, the question as to whether such messages have been appreciated enough to spark new ways of behaviour naturally arises. have nigerians through such messages imbibed good food safety habits, leading to observance of food safety measures, to avoid frequent incidences of food-related diseases in the country? seeking an answer to this question is the essence of this study. statement of the problem in nigeria, people die from food-related diseases that are associated with poor food hygiene, inadequate enlightenment and sensitization on food safety culture, prolonged handling and improper heating of food, food contamination and poor enforcement of best practices for food safety. recent ncdc (january 23, 2023) report and that of vanguard newspaper of february 29, 2024, pertaining to cases of lassa fever soaring very high in states like ondo, edo and taraba, with a number of deaths recorded, substantiate these aforementioned issues. the high number of deaths associated with lassa fever in these three states made it necessary for this study to ascertain whether the residents of these three states were aware about lassa fever and to examine whether the media campaigns disseminated in these three states influenced the residents to implement measures aimed at preventing the outbreak and spread of lassa fever. these are research gaps hoped to be filled in this study. objectives of the study the objectives set for this study are to: global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 10 1. ascertain if media campaigns were used to educate the residents of ondo, edo and taraba states on lassa fever; 2. examine whether media campaigns influenced the residents of ondo, edo and taraba states to practice good food safety measures to prevent the outbreak and spread of lassa fever; 3. and identify which media was most significant in disseminating messages about food safety measures to guide against lassa fever spread among residents of ondo, edo and taraba states. research questions 1. did the residents of ondo, edo and taraba states gain awareness of lassa fever through media campaigns? 2. did media campaigns about lassa fever influence the residents of ondo, edo and taraba states to practice good food safety measures? 3. what media was mostly used to disseminate messages about lassa fever among residents of ondo, edo and taraba states? justification of the study since there is large imbalance in the level of food safety awareness and the need for people in nigeria to imbibe proper food hygiene in order to promote better health, this study will serve as a means of filling that gap in knowledge. according to the feed the future 2020 report on food safety, cited in www.usaid.eatsafe, most nigerians do not observe proper practices pertaining to eating well, like washing of hands, covering of food and cooking the food the right way to ensure that germs are killed before the food is eaten. onyeka, ekwebelem, eze, onwuka, aleke, nwaiwu & chionuma (2021) add that the majority of the sources of food-borne diseases are caused by poor food hygiene, hence the need for this study which will help to act as a means of educating policy makers, like standard organization of nigeria (son) and national agency for food and drug administration and control (nafdac) amongst other agencies, on how to implement policies that will promote good health. theoretical framework the protection motivation theory and health belief model theory constitute this study’s theoretical framework. protection motivation theory (pmt) global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 11 the protection motivation theory (pmt) was propounded by rogers, w. r in 1975 to enable the understanding of an individual’s response on health issues using fear appeals disseminated through the media. in modern times, the pmt is mainly used in areas that relate to health concerns as it helps to explain how people react when diagnosed with health-related ailments. the prevalence and peculiarity of lassa fever and the high rate of mortality from the disease made it one of the most important health challenges featured in the media (roghayeh, shokrollah & fatemeh, 2021), and the most focused on since the ncdc report of january 26, 2023. with this theory, people will be properly sensitized on the need to adhere to the sanitation and protective behaviours expected of them in order to live better lives. this can be achieved by identifying the processes involved in protective health care or behaviours (roghayeh et al, 2021). according to rogers & psychol (1975), the protection motivation theory postulates three crucial components of fear appeal to be: 1. the magnitude of a depicted event or health issue 2. the probability of the event’s occurrence and 3. the efficacy of a protective response to rogers & psychol (2021), these communication variables listed above initiate the corresponding appraisal that can mediate a change in attitude towards a health issue. rogers, r.w proposes that people get to protect themselves based on factors which come under threat and coping appraisals. this theory applies to health as it explains people’s decisions and actions taken regarding their health. the decision making process takes into consideration the cognitive processes of an individual. this is what leads to the consideration of these two appraisals that will help to understand how this theory applies to a health issue like lassa fever. as stated in www.communicationtheory.org/ 2021 report, engaging in the threat and coping appraisal processes, discussed below, helps in understanding the consequences or results of engaging or not engaging in specific health behaviour. (a) threat appraisal: the first type of appraisal deals with how threatened one feels by the threat of an illness. hence, it is through perceived vulnerability and perceived severity, which are the two sets of beliefs, that threat appraisals are formed. perceived vulnerability is the individual’s belief that the illness is a potential threat to his or her health. from threat appraisal, the mind evaluates the various factors that are likely to influence global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 12 one to get involved in a potentially unhealthy behaviour as well as the potential consequences. these consequences applied to the perceived severity of an ailment on an individual (rogers et al, 2021). fear arousal is a good means for individuals to ascertain how fear can be formed as a result of perceived vulnerability and perceived severity. the vulnerability and severity of a person’s anxious or fear level can be ascertained through asking them how they feel regarding an illness. this can be done through interview to gather opinions from the victims. (b) coping appraisal: the appraisal here concerns the evaluation of the various factors that are likely to ensure that an individual engages in a recommended line of action to prevent lassa fever; for example, washing of hands and shunning eating of fruits already eaten by rats. the response is of great importance regarding imbibing a preventive step to live a certain recommended life by a health expert which is based on the efficacy of the potential to change an attitude. response efficacy is one believing that engaging in a certain attitude will result in a discovered health threat getting reduced. the second phase is concerned with a ‘self-efficacy approach’ which has to do with the belief that the person whose attitude needs to be changed has the required capabilities to engage in a new health behaviour while the third set of belief relates to the response-cost agreements that make a person deal with the costs of engaging the performance of a new behaviour. this means that if a person is convinced that the rewards of adopting a particular health behaviour will make them to effectively reduce a health risk, the person can go for it, but if the person feels that getting involved with the new health behaviour will not be favourable, the person will shy away from such practice and hence refrain from adopting and practising it. this is why proponents of this theory are of the opinion that a ‘measure of intention’ to engage in the recommended preventive behaviour is the most common index of protection motivation. simply put, the two factors which people use to protect themselves from ailment examines the severity of a situation, thereby explaining how serious a situation is (threat appraisal) and how an individual responds to the situation (coping appraisal). the theory, therefore, states that in order for an individual to adopt a health behaviour, the use of fear resulting from the threat to the person’s health about the knowledge of the disease is a good strategy (www.communicationtheory.org 2021) because when it comes to new areas of health concern, people tend to act indifferent until proven otherwise (mark & paul, 2005). global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 13 the protection motivation theory deals with how people cope with and take necessary steps in times of stressful conditions like challenges to their health. the pmt is a theory that proposes that people protect themselves from diseases when fear appeal is used to explain the threat of a disease and how they can cope with the ways of preventing the illness. health belief model (hbm) the health belief model (hbm) is a model that roots health-seeking behaviour to perception of the facts of a disease (severin & tankard, 2014). the health belief model is a theoretical model that can be used alone or with other theories to guide the health patterns and behaviours of individuals regarding the changes in their health conditions (www.ruralhealthinfo.org/ 2005 reports). the health belief model was developed in the 1950s by social psychologist hochbaum rosenstock. this theory surfaced when rosenstock and his colleagues who were working in the united states public health service tried to explain the failure of people to participate in activities that will help them to prevent and detect diseases. the proponents of this theory are of the opinion that the hbm can be used to design short and long term health interventions. in order to achieve these interventions, five key decision-making points that can influence health behaviours of individuals have to be considered. these steps of the hbm that can be used to promote health as well as prevent diseases from spreading among the people are:  gathering of information by conducting a health needs assessment to understand the nature of the disease, symptoms and other efforts to determine who is at risk and how to avoid the entire population from contracting it.  conveying the consequences of the issues surrounding the health concern and how such is associated with the risk behaviours in a clear manner that all infected can understand the disease. this step is associated with the perceived severity earlier mentioned.  communicating to the target population the recommended steps and actions to take by emphasizing on the benefits.  providing assistance of all kinds to patients suffering from the disease helps to reduce barriers to taking effective and recommended measures to avoid or cure the disease.  enhancing self-efficacy through development activities can help to achieve successful behavioural changes in the infected or yet to be global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 14 infected individuals. the hbm derives from psychological and behavioural theory with the foundation that two components of health-related behaviour are:  the desire to avoid diseases or illness or, on the other way round, get well if ill and  the belief that a specific health action or behaviour will prevent or cure an illness. hence, getting infected with an illness and taking the right course of action is an individual’s choice. such choices made or to be made depend on the assumed benefits and barriers related to a specific health behaviour. this perception, according to the proponents of this theory, is based on six constructs: 1. perceived susceptibility – this simply refers to an individual’s subjective perception of the risk of contracting an illness or a disease. 2. perceived severity – this is an individual’s feelings on the seriousness of contracting an illness or disease, avoiding exposure to the disease and if having contracted such an illness decides to leave it untreated. 3. perceived benefits – this refers to an individual’s perception about the effectiveness of the available preventive ways or methods to reduce the threat of the illness to his/her body. the line of action that an individual takes in preventing or curing a disease depends on the consideration and evaluation of both susceptibility and perceived benefit, such that the person would accept the recommended health action if it is perceived beneficial. 4. perceived barriers – this refers to a person’s feelings on the obstacles to performing a particular recommended health action. the individual at this stage considers the effectiveness of the measures recommended in terms of cost, safety and action that when taken will not be detrimental to his health. 5. cue to action – this is the stimulus needed to trigger the decisionmaking process towards accepting to adopt a recommended health action or behaviour. these could be news reports quoting a health authority, an advert claim, amongst other sources of information regarding the preventive measures for the disease, possible cure and knowledge about the symptoms of the disease. 6. self-efficacy – this refers to the level of an individual’s confidence in his or her ability to successfully perform the behaviour as prescribed global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 15 by the medical practitioner or organizations like ncdc. literature review food safety is a very crucial aspect to healthy living in any part of the world. this is why authorities in the food industry have in one way or the other tried their best to sensitize the populace, particularly in nigeria – a developing country. but despite these sensitization efforts, there have been frequent and unending cases of food-borne diseases. a case in point is that of lassa fever which soared so high in january 2023 that it became a major health concern as declared by ncdc (ncdc reports, 2023). according to world health organization (who reports, 2023), lassa fever is a disease that is caused by the multi-mammate rat (mastomysnatalensis) which carries the pathogen that affects human health when in contact with it but does not affect it. the ncdc as cited on https://www.cdc.gov/2014 declared that the reservoir (rat) of this disease once infected is able to excrete the lassa fever virus in its urine, saliva or faeces over a long period of time. going by the living conditions of most nigerians, rat is a mammal that is found in most unkempt homes with very poor hygienic environment. unfortunately, rats can even be found in rich homes if there are holes through the doors or windows that lead to the outside and there is availability of food. rats of this nature breed frequently and are always in large numbers particularly in west, central and east africa (onyeka et al, 2021). lassa virus is known to be transmitted to humans through contact with the urine and droppings of infected rats. the disease can be passed on through eating exposed and contaminated foods, foods not properly cooked or fried and mostly from the foods that these rats have eaten from which an unsuspecting individual eats. dr adetifa, the dg of ncdc addressed the disease as a major killer that is often underrated (ncdc reports, 2023). he further adds that lassa fever disease is not only transmitted by an infected rat but through numerous other ways like person-to-person transmission via the exposure of the virus in the blood, tissues and excretions of a lassa fever patient to an uninfected individual. other sources of getting infected with lassa fever includes eating infected rodents as commonly indulged in by farmers when bushes are burnt before planting (as this is considered a cheap source of protein), exposing open cuts or sores to viruses and inhaling air contaminated with infected rat excretions like when sweeping a particular environment where such is prevalent. however, without close contact of body fluids (touch of the skin of an infected individual by an uninfected person) lassa fever cannot be global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 16 transmitted. but where there is no protective equipment to prevent the transmission of the disease, human to human infection may occur. this is referred to as nosocomial infection (www.ecdc.europa 2020). medical experts are of the view that, in the course of treating an infected patient, cases of the disease have come up where already used needles for treating an infected patient transmits the disease to another individual due to contact with bodily fluids like the blood. yuill (2022) indicates that lassa fever is a fatal arena virus infection which is predominant in west africa as there had been outbreaks of the disease in nigeria, sierra leone, guinea to mention but a few within 7 to 31 days from the day the symptoms are noted. he adds that, in acute cases, lassa fever can lead to death of the victim and can be worse for pregnant women since the virus can lead to the loss of the unborn child. from the foregoing, it shows that lassa fever is not a disease that ought to be treated with levity, rather, all hands must be on deck to help bring a lasting solution to the spread of the disease. where such is not currently achievable due to the continuous poor untidy conditions of most homes in nigeria, it becomes incumbent on the government, policy makers and the media to come up with adequate measure that would adequately create awareness and mobilize the people to take up preventive steps to stop or curb the spread of this disease, since there are no known vaccine against it (yuill, 2022). although primary transmission of the disease can be prevented by avoiding the saliva, excreta, urine and bodily fluids of rats coming into contact with foods, lassa fever remains dangerous. 68% of patients do not show symptoms, which means that in most cases diagnosis may be delayed, raising the rate of deaths resulting from the disease; the remaining 22% that show symptoms early enough can be diagnosed and treated (www.ecdc.europa.eu 2022). in nigeria, okoro, bamgboye, dan-nwafor, umeokonkwo, illori, yahe & ihekweazu (2020) opine that lassa fever is prevalent within the dry season, the most favourable period for its widest spread being novembermarch. ncdc reports show collaborative efforts it has made, in the immediate past, with overseas organizations like european centre for disease prevention (ecdc), centre for disease control (cdc), institute of lassa fever research and control (ilfr&c) and world health organization (who) in order to diagnose lassa fever, increase the ability to record the cases of the fever and curtail laboratory-confirmed cases of lassa fever (dalhat, olayinka, meremikwu, dan-nwafor, iniobong, ntoimo & adetifa (2022), yet no complete control of the disease has been global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 17 achieved. when the confirmed cases rose to a soaring number in january 2023 with laboratory confirmed cases of 82% (ondo, edo and taraba states being the worst hit states), including cases of infected persons from bauchi, benue (ortese idp camp where 9 lives were lost on february 29, 2024), ebonyi, oyo, kaduna, cross river and delta) with over 40 fatalities in the aforementioned states, it became imperative to sensitize and mobilize the public through the media to avoid eating contaminated foods and start practising good food hygiene. it is important to state that in the course of delivering good healthcare, information that is proactive, regular and comprehensive is good for the general public (nwokoro, 2022). it is the responsibility of health experts or agencies to apply these strategies and the best of media campaigns that will spur the public to take up effective action against a viral disease such as lassa fever. using effective communication that is comprehensive is very crucial when handling viral diseases in countries like nigeria where the majority of the people need direction in order to make informed choices that would place them in a healthy condition (www.gov.uk/phe/2017). this implies that communication at all levels has to be enforced in order to get the desired impact from the audience. in order to get a behavioural change that is positive, communication is at the core of creating awareness and mobilizing the people to develop likeness for and accept a new attitude change (nwokoro, 2022). it is not all communication that works because communication can be impulsive or planned. impulsive communication does not work out but a well thought-out and planned communication can help to reinforce change (okunna, 1999). communication can help to interprete, survey the environment and analyze disease, especially a novel disease like lassa fever. this is why media campaigns are necessary in disseminating messages on health as the media can go far in reaching people, unlike face to face messages which, though good, are very limited. as development and media experts opine, it is important to apply the tactics of knowing the audience beforehand and noting the type of media that is acceptable to them, that can aid quick understanding, and that can best explain the nature of the message without any form of difficulty (okunna, 1999; agbanu & nwammuo, 2009). mass media are categorized into three: print, broadcasting and the smart or online media. each of these has specific global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 18 features that make it unique. due to the nature of lassa fever-prevalent communities, the aforementioned mass media types may not function well. media campaign creators ought to know the right media channel or vehicle to use in order to get the change desired from the audience. in the case of lassa fever, for example, the type of media that best describes the nature of the disease, showcasing the symptoms with the right kind of demonstration for the audience to see and learn no matter how remote the location, will be the best. this type of media that appeals to the viewer with a pronounced visual element can give proper motivation to understand the message (vivian, 2009). this study will find out if there was lassa fever awareness in ondo, edo and taraba states in nigeria, if the disease was known to the residents of the aforementioned states and through what media did they gain this awareness? empirical review this study relates to the current research paper. it is titled “south africa public awareness of sexually transmitted diseases in rural south africa by treves-kagan, ntswane, gilvdis & gulati (2017). it was undertaken to study the residents of pretoria and durban on whether they were aware of sexually transmitted diseases and if it was the mass media tools that aided this knowledge. the study employed the use of the survey with the copies of the questionnaire as the instrument for gathering data from a total of 149 number of respondents who were residents of pretoria and durban. the study found that publicity strategies like social media, press releases, factsheets, community relations programmes aided the awareness base of the respondents who answered in the affirmative that they got educational messages from their exposure to the media. this reviewed study shows gaps in research design and in the population as it made use of survey (quantitative) and south africa as its population while the on-going research focuses on ondo, edo and taraba states in nigeria in west africa and utilizes interview (qualitative design) as its research design. another study that relates to this research was the one conducted by nwokoro catherine isioma (2023) on awareness and adoption of omicron covid-19 preventive measures among the residents of south-south nigeria (with a scope of rivers, delta and edo states) in order to ascertain if the extent of awareness of the people of the south-south region in nigeria about omicron variant of covid-19 determines their extent of adoption of the preventive measures against the virus. in order to determine the source of awareness, the study used the survey and generated hypotheses to global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 19 understudy the variables. the study made use of copies of the questionnaire that were structured using a four-point likert scale that were distributed with the aid of two research assistants in the three local government areas chosen randomly in the three states used for the study. a total of 384 sample size was determined by using krejcie and morgan (1970) sample size determination table out of a population of 747,102. the study concluded that the extent of awareness about omicron variant of covid-19 largely determines the extent of adoption of its preventive measures. this study under review identifies gap in knowledge as the study under review focused on omicron variant of covid-19 while the ongoing study focuses on lassa fever. methodology this study used the qualitative research design based on in-depth interview as its method of gathering data from the respondents. the population of the study was taken from three local governments areas (lgas) that were randomly chosen from the three states aforementioned. the lgas used were: ilage (ondo state), ardo kola (taraba state) and egor (edo state).the population of these three lgas was drawn from www.citypopulation.de/2006. the sampling techniques used for the study were random and stratified sampling. the stratified sampling was used to define the respondents into strata in the three local government areas used, as defined on the sample frame below. state local government area projected population (20062023) ondo ilaje 617,760 edo egor 472,182 taraba ardo kola 120,612 total 1,210,554 source of projected population: owuamalam (2012) the three projected populations are too large to be interviewed, hence the need for sample size generation. according to krejcie and morgan (1970), for every 100,000 people and above, the sample size is 384. the sample size for this study was 384 but the researcher used only three opinion leaders from each of the three villages (totaling nine opinion leaders) in the chosen three lgas of the three states selected. the reason for this was to ensure that adequate opinions were gathered from policy makers who are more exposed to issues (since they are discussants on issues in the village global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 20 circle). the villages used were: lepe (ondo), urunmwom (edo) and tau (taraba). the instrument of the data collected was mobile phone which was used as recording device on a face to face level since internet services are poor in these villages. mobile phones were used to record the opinions of the respondents on lassa fever. the researcher carried out a two-week pilot study in order to ascertain if the interview schedule and questions were suitable for some opinion makers and that the responses were the same after a repeat. in order to ensure that the study is reliable, the researcher interviewed only opinion leaders who were chiefs or health attendants, between 30-55 years of age, semi-educated and who had pre-informed views of what lassa fever entails. data presentation and analysis research question 1: were the residents of ondo, edo and taraba states aware of lassa fever through media campaigns? 1. are you aware of lassa fever? in responding to this question, the respondents stated yes. all of the respondents affirmed that they were either highly or relatively aware of lassa fever. 2. how did you gain the knowledge about lassa fever? the respondents stated they got to know about lassa fever through friends and family members, symposiums, the mass media, sensitization and mobilization programmes in health centres, banners, billboards and the community public relations programmes held in town halls, festivals and open school fields. research question 2: did media campaigns about lassa fever influence the residents of ondo, edo and taraba states to practice good food safety measures? 1. were there media campaigns in your community? the response was in the affirmative as the respondents stated that there were numerous media campaigns ranging from television talk shows (for those that have television), billboards mounted at major parts of the community like junctions and marketplaces, health talk shows on the radio, an expert’s discussion programmes to influence positive attitude change on food practices, and chieftain’s men discussing lassa fever in town halls, open school fields and community health centres. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 21 2. did media campaigns influence you to practise good food hygiene to avoid lassa fever? most of the respondents (6 of them) agreed that to a large extent, the messages disseminated to the audience were good enough to sensitize them but they chose to ignore these media messages; not that they did not understand or believe it but due to their belief that they will not contract the disease – in other words, they were nonchalant. the remaining three (3) respondents stated that they practised food safety hygiene such as covering of food properly, avoid drinking garri, wash fruits well before eating and stop eating any food (bread) earlier bitten by rat as explained by the messages which they received. 3. why did you or did you not practise food safety hygiene to avoid lassa fever? the respondents that affirmed that they did not practise food safety hygiene as spelt out on media and non-media outlets stated that they have continued to eat food the way they have always eaten it because they felt they will not contract the lassa virus. few respondents stated that they had to imbibe the culture of food safety in order to stay alive since lassa fever was a very fearful disease that was gathering momentum in the community. research question 3: what media was mostly used to disseminate messages about lassa fever among residents of ondo, edo and taraba states? 1. what common tasks do you think that the mass media did in your community? the respondents were of the view that their communities were filled with mass media activities and all of them affirmed that the media presence was well felt through its regular education and sensitization of the people towards changing their unhealthy food-handling and eating habits at home and anywhere they find themselves in order to stay healthy. some of the popular media activities, according to the respondents, were: community public relations programmes, open talks in health care centres and town halls, discussion programmes on television and radio and sensitization efforts on the causes of lassa fever held in open school fields and town halls. 2. what media reinforced this food safety measure to guard against contracting lassa fever? most (7 of them) of the respondents clearly stated that the billboards were global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 22 so prominent as they were virtually everywhere they went to in the community. only two (2) of the respondents stated that it was the radio that they used more to know about the lassa fever virus. discussion of findings the data gathered showed that the respondents were aware of the lassa fever virus but chose to ignore the warnings attached as majority stated that they were exposed to the messages but did not imbibe the aspect of practising food safety measures as spelt out by health agencies that carried out sensitization efforts through media campaigns. this is not far from the view of onyeka et al (2021) that most nigerians, even when they are exposed or aware about good food practices that will be for their benefit, will still support the pathway that will not improve their health. the soaring height of lassa fever in these three states may not be unconnected with the nonchalant attitude of the people towards adopting good food safety practices (who, 2023; ncdc, 2023). on the aspect of how the respondents gained the information about lassa fever, the study found that they got to know about lassa fever from friends and family members, symposiums, the mass media, sensitization and mobilization programmes in health centres, festivals, billboards and the community public relations programmes held in town halls. of all these listed means of sensitization and mobilization, the media that the respondents were mostly exposed to was the billboard since billboards are used to get to where the media that makes use of airwaves may not get to (ozoh, 2013). conclusion from the foregoing findings gathered, it can be deduced that the residents ignored, to a very large extent, the media campaigns and the sensitization efforts done in health centres, open school fields and community public relations programmes in these three communities which would have helped to avert the scores of infected victims and the incidences of deaths. recommendations having identified the gaps which this study has filled, the researcher recommends the following: 1. since the people were aware of the media campaigns but did not respond, media campaigns, in order to influence a new behavior, should be very practical and educative enough for the people to understand. 2. in addition, government should promote innovations in specially global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 23 designed nets that can be placed on people’s doors and windows to kill rats on close contact in order to reduce their number. 3. use of pesticides against rats should be encouraged among residents of these three states in order to avoid a reoccurrence of lassa fever in the near future. references agbanu, v. n & nwammuo, a. n (2009). broadcast media: writing, programming, production and management. enugu state rhycekerex publishers. dalhat, m. m, olayinka, a., meremikwu, m., dan-nwafor, c., iniobong, a., ntoimo, l. f. & adetifa, i. (2022). epidemiological trends of lassa fever in nigeria, 2018-2021. 17 (12). retrieved on 3/19/2023. krejcie, r. v & morgan, d. w (1970). table of sample size determination. educational and psychological measurement, 607610. accessed from www.kenpro.org/ 2012>sample-sizedetermination-using-krejcie-and-morgan. retrieved on 7/4/2023 mark, c. & paul, n. (2005). predicting health behaviour (2nd edition). usa, mcgraw–hill. accessed from https://www.scholar.google. com. retrieved on 6/12/2021. nwokoro, c. i (2023). awareness and adoption of omicron covid-19 preventive measures among the residents of the south-south nigeria, unpublished ph.d thesis okunna, c. s. (1999). introduction to mass communication. enugu. new generation books okoro, o. a., bamgboye, e., dan-nwafor, c., umeokonkwo, c., illori, e., yasha, r. & ihekweazu, c. (2020). descriptive epidemiology of lassa fever in nigeria 2012-2017. the pan african journal, 37. retrieved on 4/4/2023 onyeka, h., ekwebelem, o., eze, u. a., onwuka, q. i., aleke j., nwaiwu, o. & chionuma, j. o. (2021). improving food safety culture in nigeria: a review, in national institute of health. retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nim.nih.gov>articles>pmc8394198 on 3/4/2023 ozoh, c. (2013). principles and practice of advertising. enugu, rhyceekerex publishers global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 24 owuamalam, e. o. (2016). communication issues in public relations and advertising, owerri, image press owuamalam, e. o. (2012). data analysis & research project writing, owerri, image press roghayeh, e. r., shokrollah, m. & fatameh, n. (2021). application of protection motivation theory covid-19 preventive behaviours in hormozgan. accessed from www.biomedcentral.com/open access/ html. retrieved on 4/4/2023. rogers, w.r &psychol, j. (1975). protection motivation theory of fear appeals and attitude change. accessed from www.pubmed.ncbi.nim.nih. hhs>national-library-of-medicine/ html. retrieved on 4/4/2023 severin, j. w. & tankard, j. w. jr. (2014). communication theories: origins, methods and uses in the mass media, new york, pearson education inc. tresves-kagan, s. ntswane, l., gilvydis, j. m &gullati, h. (2017). publicity and public enlightenment on sexually-transmitted infections in rural south africa. bmc public health, 16 (1). retrieved on 3/4/2023 vivian, j. (2009). the media of mass communication (9thed.). boston, pearson education international www.cdc.gov/vh/lassa-fever/2014. retrieved on 6/4/2023 www.citypopulation.de>edo>ondo>taraba-states/2006<nationalpopulation-commission-census/. retrieved on 4/4/2023 www.ecdc.europa.eu/2022>lassa-fever-european-union/a-z-disease-list. retrieved on 2/4/2023 www.gov.uk/phe/2017>lassa-fever-origins-reserviortransmission&guidelines. retrieved on 4/1/2023 www.ncdcreports.ng.gov/2023.pdf/>the-lassa-fever-disease. retrieved on 3/5/2023 www.ruralhealthinfo.org/ 2005> the-health-belief-model. retrieved on 3/3/2023 www.usaid.eatsafe.gov/pdf_doc/review-of-food-safety-policy-innigeria/2020/feed-the-future-initiative. retrieved on 3/4/2023 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 25 www.who.int/health-topics/lassa-fever#tab=tab_1 retrieved on 6/24/2024 www.whoreports.org/2023>the-lassa-fever-virus. retrieved on 4/16/2023 www.communicationtheory.org/2021>protection-motivation-theory. retrieved on 5/4/2023 yuill, t. m. (2022). lassa fever infection disease. retrieved fromhttps://www.msdmanuals.com. retrieved on 5/4/2023 author information: dr catherine isioma nwokoro is a lecturer in the department of mass communication, dominican university, ibadan, oyo state, nigeria. email: nwokoro.i@dui.edu.ng. bernard emesiobi onyewuchi is of the department of mass communication, wellspring university, benin city, edo state, nigeria. email: bernardonyewuchi@ wellspringuniversity.edu.ng clare adenike onasanya is of the department of mass communication, wellspring university, benin city, edo state, nigeria. email: clareonasanya@gmail.com. emmanuel elo-oghene great is affiliated to wellspring university, benin city, edo state, nigeria. apa nwokoro, c. i., onyewuchi, b. e, onasanya, c. a. & great, e. e. (2024). food safety media campaign and the health of nigerians. global online journal of academic research (gojar), 3(3), 7-25. https://klamidas.com/gojar-v3n3-2024-01/. mla nwokoro, catherine isioma, onyewuchi, bernard emesiobi, onasanya, clare adenike and great, emmanuel elo-oghene. “food safety media campaign and the health of nigerians”. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3, 2024, pp. 7-25. https://klamidas.com/gojar-v3n3-2024-01/. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 53 self-querying process (sqp): a technique for attaining clarity through self-analysis by duve nakolisa abstract this paper presents aspects of the author’s innovative self-querying process (sqp), which he espouses as a practical technique for attaining clarity through self-analysis. it is a complement to his “bevalhabismic theory” (nakolisa, 2022) which posits that the belief-values-habit (bvh) make-up of an individual is the fundamental cause of their ability or inability to achieve set goals. the sqp process consists of two selfadministered exercises: the self-probing talk (spt) and the guided question and answer (gqa) session. the spt talk induces the individual to recall personal issues and events given rise to by their bvh framework with a view to analyzing their implication for the pursuit of set goals. the gqa exercise methodically narrows the clues the individual emerges with from the self-probing talk into two clear options: positive (+) or negative (-), thereby reducing otherwise complicated issues of personal dilemma into two clear options that enhance the individual’s ability to choose and take a definite, success-generating, course of action. keywords: bvh, sqp, self-querying process, spt, self-probing talk, gqa introduction let’s begin with an explanation. the self-querying process (sqp) is a method of self-analysis i designed to enable anyone faced with a difficult problem to rouse and examine their thoughts, feelings, and past choices in order to gain the clarity of mind they need to make a quality goaldriven decision that paves the way for a possible solution. each sqp activity should be an exercise aimed at reaching, from the perspective of global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 54 the individual employing the method, the best decision regarding a vital issue of his or her life. the self-querying process is made up of two soul-searching activities:  self-probing talk (spt), and  guided question and answer (gqa) exercise. the spt and gqa sessions are explained below. the self-probing talk the self-querying process (sqp) starts with the self-probing talk (spt). the spt is a self-examination exercise in which one may or may not talk aloud. it appears more effective when one talks quietly to oneself, letting the voice of one’s inner being respond to the issue of the moment. the spt entails one’s inner self talking to one’s outer self. it could be a monologue or a “dialogue” of sorts. the spt is essentially an exercise dominated by the inner self who utters into one’s consciousness truths, sometimes disturbing truths, long suppressed and hidden in the mind’s bid to make one overlook or forget the unpleasant or unresolved aspects of one’s life. the spt function is like turning one’s pant inside out in order to see how clean or dirty it really is, what caused the dirt, and what kind of laundry is required to clean it. the spt, if you like, is an auto-dialogue in which one engages with oneself to thrash out a critical personal matter. an important idea behind the spt concept is the notion that every problem contains the seed of its own solution. in other words, the closest solution to everyone’s personal problem lies within them. if the individual can dig deep enough into the recesses of their being, speaking out relevant data about a given area of their life, there is a huge possibility of “unearthing” a useful, relevant or appropriate direction, decision or solution. a complementary concept behind the spt is my understanding that everyone is largely a reflection of all the choices they have made (including their response to other people’s choices) and all the actions they have taken or failed to take (including their response to other people’s actions and inactions). most personal problems arise out of wrong choices and actions (including one’s responses to other people’s wrong choices, actions and inactions). global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 55 the spt is an inward exploration in which the individual looks deeply inwards and voices out the happenings and intimations of their past as they relate to a given current problem. while there is no strict procedural formula for the spt, it should be conducted as an investigative soulsearching talk. you can sit down and begin to think about the difficult challenge staring you in the face. “how did things get this bad?” you might audibly ask, and then proceed by reviewing your past and present journey in that area of your life, noting key incidences that point to what happened, when they happened, where they happened, and how they happened? be analytical, think through scenarios, make necessary linkages and observations, and draw tentative conclusions that might give you clues regarding the way forward. it must be borne in mind that the underlying aim of the spt talk is to take you forward, not backward. why digging into the past is necessary is because it traces the build-up of events that led, directly or indirectly, to the crisis of the moment, thereby enlarging the scope of the problemsolver’s understanding. even if the events recalled during the talk have little connection with the past choices and actions of the solution-seeker, the spt talk will help in heightening the moment of crisis and in arousing the person recalling his journey to seek new, better, or more promising paths. unless agitated into taking action, many people would rather tarry with their problems as long as it has not completely swept them out of their comfort zone. one of the finest typesetters i have ever known started his successful computer-services business after he was undeservedly sacked from a business he had co-founded. it was a big blow and he was about to apply to work in another business centre when he implemented the selfprobing talk. digging into his past jerked him up and propelled him towards a clue that changed his life: you may have no money, and no office space, but start your own business centre right away! don’t ask me how he did it; digging into his past life, the spt way, evoked that clue which made it possible for him to do it! people hardly revisit themselves, they conduct no personal retreats, and so produce no new strategies to overcome difficult, and often recurring, personal problems. they seem not to know that within their past lie useful but often undetected insights into their future. the spt activity, when seriously and soberly conducted, is much more than a talk show. the spt exercise, when fertilized by thoughtful enquiry under the guidance of a mind sensitive to useful cues, can give birth to urgent global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 56 insights that crystallize the right decisions, fresh opportunities, creative alternatives, and amazing results. figure 1: look inwards and talk to yourself source: www.clipartmax.com the conduct of the spt exercise may differ from person to person, and that’s ok; just make sure your own exercise is conducted in accordance with the guidelines stated in this paper. the outcome of the spt exercise should be noted. in fact, if the individual involved so prefer, the “talk” may be conducted in writing. this will entail sitting down in some quiet corner and pouring down, in one or two sessions, one’s evaluative recollection or understanding of events. many people, i believe, will find it easier or more cathartic to talk orally than to capture their thoughts in writing. whichever method is adopted, it is crucial to ensure that one is talking to oneself and not to someone else and that the talk is conducted when one is alone. the self-probing talk, it needs to be stressed, is self-analysis, not group analysis. it is one talking to oneself, probing one’s actions and inactions, and exploring private and confidential matters. it is important to conduct the talk where no one else will hear or distract you. once you are seated or pacing to and fro in your private room, you can begin your spt talk by probing into that area of your life where the issue of concern is emanating from. proceed as your thoughts and emotions global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 57 may lead you but ensure that you reassess key issues of your life with a view to determining where you made choices that hurt the steady and unwavering pursuit of specific goals. the spt talk is essentially recalling personal chronicles given rise to by one’s beliefs, values and habits (bvh) and analyzing their implication for the pursuit of set goals. so, during your spt exercise, you need to ask, among other questions, bvh-specific questions. questions such as: “my belief that advertising is exploiting people’s emotion in order to make them buy what they don’t need – how has this belief and my refusal to advertise led to the poor sales i’ve been recording?” “should i increase the percentage of my salary that i invest to enable me earn more passive income?” “i have had three fiancées and now i’m about to break up with the fourth. what is really wrong with my relationship values?” it is called the self-probing talk because it is one talking to oneself to see where one had made right or wrong decisions or choices. it is not a talk about what others had done or failed to do. it is not a blame or buckpassing game. yes, others might have contributed to your past failures and losses but if you are honest about it, you will discover that you have, somehow, contributed, favourably or unfavourably, to nearly every situation of your life. could it not be they cheated you because you were careless or trusted too much? could you have failed if you were thoroughly prepared for the business or the competition? it might have been sheer hatred that stood those forces against you, but if you had reacted tactfully couldn’t things have turned out differently? oh, it is the system; it is all designed to work against someone like me… don’t let this kind of thought bother you, for when you excel, and excel irresistibly, systems open to let you pass. the spt activity offers you moments of hard-hitting reflection that enables you to gain clarity and locate what you need to do to make a success of your life. the biting edge of such self-analysis, especially when unnecessary excuses are disallowed, may be very discomforting, but let the scalpel of this self-enquiry do its work. how did i get it wrong? how did i miss the mark? what personal shortcomings brought about the setback? what do i need to do differently to make me succeed, regardless of the challenges? these are the kind of questions and issues you should sincerely and openly address. other people might have consciously or unconsciously blocked your way, and there might have been some unfavourable external factors but global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 58 none of these must be elevated above your capacity to break through every barrier and achieve your goal! you will arrive at the destination you envisioned if you let nobody and nothing block your way. it is your way! it is your responsibility to surmount or circumvent whatever is on your way to make things happen for you. and should the task be daunting, should the way be repeatedly blocked, well, you must do what you can to out-manouevre the obstacle. and if need be, pave a new way for yourself. by all legal and innovative means, succeed! you must be merciless, but without wallowing in self-pity, while analyzing your situation. find out where you made mistakes in the past and locate what you must do right to make you succeed. don’t deny your mistakes; you must realize that if you had not made a mistake you might not have mis-stepped. accept your mistakes without feeling sorry for yourself, but be determined not to repeat those mistakes or make other careless choices in the future. avoid agonizing over what someone has done to frustrate or stop you! don’t rub the balm of self-pity and soothe your aching ego by blaming others. this will not help you to get to where you are going. it is your life, it is your quest. focus on where you are going, and don’t forget that realizing your desired goal is what matters most. this is why the self-probing talk is about you looking inward to gain clarity, to re-strategize, and take winning steps towards the future. everyone can do this but, just as earlier noted with respect to the bvh evaluation, there might be some people who might need expert guidance to carry out this process with significant beneficial results. don’t forget, the self-probing talk is not a pointless reflection: its ultimate aim is to produce, through your sober recollections, a useful decision-making insight or a clue towards a possible solution or new course of action. unless it led you to harness a helpful clue or clues, the self-probing talk should not be deemed to be over. keep mulling over the issues until something epiphanic happens – a revelation or connection that illuminates the confusion and points you to a promising way out of the problem. but “the way out” must not be an escapist “solution” that side-tracks the challenge and steers you toward some pleasant goalboycotting path. continue with the spt exercise until you have some clues regarding the way forward or the way out of the problem. the endpoint of the selfprobing talk is the attainment of significant clarity, one that suggests a global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 59 useful clue – it could be the identification of what might be the problem and a possible solution; or it could be an inkling that leads to a change of strategy. if this endpoint is not reached, do not move to the guided question and answer (gqa) stage. if you do, you are likely to get a distorted result, a set of pointless clues that leave you confused regarding which step to take. should this happen, return to the self-probing talk stage and do it all over again before continuing with the gqa session. there are two ways of repeating the self-probing talk. the first is to start “talking” to yourself the way you had earlier done – speaking out audibly or inaudibly to yourself in your closet, pouring out your mind on paper, or using a recording device to capture your talk. the second method of repeating your self-probing talk is to recall your earlier “talk” on the same issue and read or listen to it over and over again. proof-readers would tell you that the more they go through a manuscript, the more mistakes they are likely to find. a similar reality applies here; the more you read or hear your talk’s “message”, the more insight you are likely to gain into key aspects of the matter of current concern. on one occasion, i had to listen to and reflect upon my spt talk twice before hitting the crucial point that led me to the way forward. note, however, that the method of recalling your earlier “talk” may not be adopted unless the following conditions are met: i. the initial talk was clearly written or recorded, ii. the initial talk was exhaustive enough to make conducting a fresh talk unnecessary. the self-probing talk is deemed to have been concluded at any given time only after one has gotten a helpful clue regarding which cause of action to take. before going further, let us note that the spt is not meant to be used in determining the validity of issues of public interest, such as a public health advisory, nor should it sidetrack the need for fact-finding research. information is vital. some of the issues people face can be easily resolved if they can avail themselves of available information, and take necessary action. many people, for example, are unemployed because they don’t know where their services are needed and, therefore, have not gone there or reached out by mail to seek for employment. to dig up non-personal hard facts, one would need to conduct objective research. don’t watch your problem; find out what can be done about it, and take action! global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 60 the spt is basically a vocalized recollection of past experiences aimed at generating an optimal goal-driven decision concerning a developmental, occupational or social matter of personal relevance. complemented by the gqa session (discussed below), the spt exercise serves as one of the means of weighing how relevant an idea, clue, thought or suggestion is in the decision-making process or to the pursuit of one’s goal. only for the willing and sincere as you might have realized by now, the self-querying process can only make sense if the person utilizing the tools being proposed here is willing to reassess his or her beliefs, values and habits. willingness and sincerity are the primary requirements. should one be willing and sincere as well as repentant, in the sense of being ready to depart from current negative beliefs, values and habits, then we have the perfect individual for whom this paper was written. issues of beliefs, values and habits can be personal and any meaningful change in perspective or behavior would need the cooperation of the individual involved. so, for any step of the self-querying process to yield result for any individual, he or she must be sincere at every stage of the soul-searching procedure. the entire process is predicated on the fact that the individual involved in it is desirous of change as well as ready to be honest about his or her strengths and shortcomings. specifically, ensure that the self-probing talk (discussed above) and the gqa session (discussed below) are applied to your unique situation with a delicate sense of destiny. see these steps as self-managed mechanisms you can utilize to overcome whatever is hindering you from charting a clearer and more focused path for your life. the self-querying process is very personal and confidential and can deliver great benefits in self-enlightenment for whoever would approach this process with a sense of purpose and mission. the guided question and answer (gqa) session the second soul-searching step of the self-querying process (sqp) is the guided question and answer (gqa) session. while this sort of autoanalysis may take other forms, the technique i have developed, having used it and found it effective in different contexts, is the guided question and answer (gqa) method. the main aim of the gqa session is to enable the individual to ask personally-relevant, issue-based questions to which only yes or no answers are required. whatever matter is under global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 61 consideration, the yes/no answers are taken as indicators of what could be that individual’s right decision, goal or response. the gqa session involves a series of questions set by the one who had conducted the spt talk and derived a clue or clues about the way forward. at the gqa stage, such a person is required to turn the issues he had recollected and reflected upon into guided questions framed within the context of whether the issue raised in the question is pro-success or anti-success. if the person’s response to his or her own question is yes, the matter raised in the question is deemed to be pro-success or positive (+); if no, the matter raised in the question is deemed to be anti-success or negative (–). in a nutshell, the goal of the gqa session is to use the tool of guided questions to generate responses that narrow the many clues the enquirer might have emerged with from the self-probing talk (spt) into two clear options: pro-success or anti-success. in a well-conducted session, the respondent’s yes responses would turn out to be pro-success while the no responses would most likely be anti-success. for the gqa session to be effective, the guidelines that characterize it must be strictly adhered to. to make your gqa session generate realistic rather than emotive, goal-pointed rather than blurred result, the following rules should be observed: a. all the questions must arise from and be restricted to the issues raised during the self-probing talk (spt). b. use one format (with or without slight variations) for all the selfevaluative questions relevant to your specific situation or enquiry. this format can be a uniformly-phrased question, such as, “this thing that i believe, value, or do (specify), will it take me closer to my goal?” the dependent clause (“this thing that i believe, value, or do”) would differ from question to question but the independent clause (“will it take me closer to my goal?”) should be the same or similar in every question that requires a yes/no response. this will ensure that the questions are commonly posed, thus making the yes or no responses generated effective, uniformly-derived pointers to action. c. since the objective of the gqa session is to enable the enquirer to determine what is to be done about the matter under consideration, each question (such as, “…will it take me closer to my goal?”) should address a present or future concern. questions probing the past (such as “…did it take me closer to my dream?”) are not allowed during the gqa session. but during the self-probing talk exercise, which precedes the global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 62 gqa stage, one may analyze present and past events in any possible manner. however, reference to past events within the dependent clause may be allowed as long as the clause completing the sentence ends with “…will it (will he/she or will they) take me closer to my goal?” or some other permissible uniformly-adopted format of ending the question. success is a matter of yes or no a lot, quite a lot in success progression or regression, will depend on how one answers gqa’s self-evaluative questions. let’s consider how not to answer them. it is important not to be wordy, defensive or explanatory in the responses you give. excuses often hide in thickets of words. in football, it usually takes only one effective shot to score a goal while many ineffective kicks and passes may lead to no goal. explaining away the failure to score could take words that outnumber all the futile kicks and passes put together. don’t be wordy to avoid making undue excuses. so, discounting the possibility of a spectrum of values (the aforerecommended phrasing of the self-evaluative questions having effectively ensured that), we may now dichotomize and declare that, as far as the pursuit of success is concerned, there are two kinds of beliefs, and two kinds of values, and two kinds of habits: positive and negative. in considering, therefore, the self-evaluative question, “this thing that i believe, value, or do (specify), will it take me closer to my goal?”, your answer should be either yes (positive) or no (negative). success (or failure) is a matter of yes or no – a matter of choosing one way or the other and acting in the direction of that choice. anything other than yes or no is suspect, cannot be given a positive (+) or negative (–) sign and, therefore, may not be a clear pointer or guide to action. this is why gqa session questions are phrased in a manner that prompts one to say yes or no. no middle or neutral ground. no provision for “i don’t know” answers. no room for equivocation or sitting on the fence. the gqa session places you in the court of your own opinion demanding neither “guilty” nor “not guilty” plea but simply your yes or no response to vital queries of your visionary quest. if the question is properly phrased, a yes response (assigned a + sign) is goal-oriented and pro-success while a no response (assigned a – sign) is explicitly countergoal and anti-success: yes = pro-success + – anti-success = no global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 63 interestingly, the most fundamental things of life are separated into two divisions: day and night, male and female, good and evil, life and death. to gain clarity in one’s life, one should be able to sort out issues in terms of “yes” or “no”. equivocation is a sign of indecision, and an indecisive person is an unstable person – and unstable people hardly make substantial progress in life. that is why it is important to use the gqa session to determine what is pointedly right or wrong in one’s success journey. rules governing the framing of questions for the guided question and answer (gqa) session for the gqa session to generate a reliable, goal-oriented outcome, each of the questions requiring a yes/no response should be posed according to the following rules: 1. all the questions must arise from and be restricted to the issues raised during the self-probing talk (spt). 2. each question should be asked in the first person. 3. each question should be asked in such a way that a yes or no answer would be given. 4. a modal verb inverted with the subject, which indicates future time (such as “will” or “can”), should be used to form the interrogative question. 5. the independent clause ending with the question mark should be uniformly or similarly worded in all the questions. goal-chasing fundamentals before we demonstrate how the gqa session can be conducted in practice, let us briefly refresh our minds about the basic things we need to know regarding setting and realizing personal goals. knowledge of goal-chasing fundamentals should be in place before anyone can derive maximum benefit from the gqa session. life is meaningless without a defined sense of purpose to dictate and coordinate one’s desires and actions. no one can have a sense of purpose without having a set of authentic beliefs, values, and habits (nakolisa, 2022). these will stimulate him to envision a desirable future. then, he begins the exciting, highly focused climb towards it. he approaches this vision passionately through rungs of short-, medium-, and long-term goals. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 64 for your goals to be workable, they must be specific, measurable, and timed (doran, 1981). a specific goal usually aims to get one thing accomplished, and the goal-setter realizes this objective by ignoring other things competing for his attention to focus on getting this one thing done. a goal is measured by the specific tasks the goal-setter needs to perform before realizing it. ideally, such tasks are performed sequentially such that one accomplished task lays the foundation for and enhances the performance of the next scheduled task. and effort should be made to perform each task within the time allocated to it. goals, also, are not arbitrarily executed but are realized one by one in an ascending order of visionary relevance (nakolisa, 2006). it is in this sense that goals can be said to be ascendant arrows of graded attainments. (see figure 1.1) figure 2: ascendant arrows of graded attainments a visionary picture is what drives a goal – it enables every individual to see where they are going and supplies them the passion they require to keep seeing where they are going, even in their life project’s foggy moments and in seasons of personal and social turmoil. a vision is an internal force. everyone’s goals are the steps they take to externalize and make real their visionary dream. so, everyone needs their vision, and they need their goals. everyone’s vision is the lubricant of their goals. vision gives goals direction. it helps one ensure that one’s global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 65 goals are not arbitrary or contradictory but are rather sequential targets or results that take one closer to that big thing one wants to achieve in life. an illustrative story we need a real-life scenario to illustrate how the gqa session might be conducted by the individual. below is a true-life story with the real names of the individuals mentioned in the story changed. let’s call it teddy’s story. teddy’s story teddy’s family was holding a meeting to see how he could be helped to start a new business or learn a new trade. sitting quietly in their midst, teddy (real names withheld) was nursing his resentment of some past ventures that looked too promising to fail but failed nonetheless. claiming to be better in using his hands than in cramming class notes, teddy had dropped out of secondary school two years before he was due to take his ordinary-level examinations. since then, he had worked as an apprentice motor mechanic, a barber, a school-bus driver, a bricklayer, a pub guitarist, a cross-border cannabis smuggler, and a quick-fix pimp and match-maker of sorts. during his stint work as a political thug, he got his only somewhat appreciable pay when he was compensated for losing two teeth in defence of the boss. none of the above engagements had financially stabilized teddy, a regular face in rowdy parties where he was hailed by many but trusted by none. years after many of his schoolmates had graduated from the university and climbed the corporate ladder or set up successful businesses, teddy was pressurizing his siblings and aged parents to contribute funds to enable him “travel abroad and make money”. exemplification of the yes/no responses to make the normative value of the yes/no responses more practical, let’s return to teddy’s story. you will recall that he was in a family meeting called to see how his protracted failure to make progress in life could be ended. teddy left the meeting asking his family to give him time to think over their proposals. let’s assume he was now tired of his self-engineered retardation and had used the self-probing talk to appraise his situation more honestly, emerging from the talk with a clearer sense of what he should be doing with his life… and now, teddy is ready to use the gqa session to test the clues he obtained from the spt exercise – to find out the best decision he should make to move his life forward. let’s assume teddy, after his spt session, came up with 10 questions and is set to test each of them in terms of whether it is pro-success or global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 66 anti-success. each question is framed around issues taken from his unique experience, particularly those emerging from his reflections during his self-probing talk. for illustrative purposes, let’s take it that teddy seriously considered the following questions: 1. my lack of a sense of purpose or an overriding goal in life, will it take me closer to my dream of being a successful person? 2. my habit of dropping out of worthwhile pursuits and my habit of starting a project without finishing it, will it take me closer to my dream of being a successful person? 3. my get-rich-quick attitude and schemes, which had continually put me in trouble, will it take me closer to my dream of being a successful person? 4. the kind of choices i made after the failure of each of my past businesses, choices that didn’t indicate i had learnt the right lesson, will they take me closer to my dream of being a successful person? 5. remaining a pimp and a cannabis smoker and smuggler, assuming i don’t get caught and jailed like sneaky boy, will it take me closer to my dream of being a successful person? 6. my family members have pledged to give me a lump sum of money to start life all over again on the condition that i should first serve under a successful trader and learn a trade for two years…going to learn a new trade, as proposed by my relations, will it take me closer to my dream of being a successful person? 7. doing music is the one thing that gives me the greatest joy in life and the one thing that i can work hard at with a sense of responsibility and achieve success, but that’s what my family is not willing to sponsor. doing whatever i can to advance my music career, foregoing every other alternative venture my family would prefer to finance, will it take me closer to my dream of being a successful person? 8. what about my plans and hopes of going abroad…? my mum had blocked my plans of being sponsored by the family when she said that someone who could not be a successful lizard at home should not hope to be a crocodile abroad. maybe my mum is right… going abroad without first correcting those shortcomings that made me to fail repeatedly in the past, will it take me closer to my dream of being a successful person? global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 67 9. uncle ray has suggested that i should go back to school and even promised to sponsor me. but i feel i’m too old for that and i’ve never really been a good student. taking up uncle ray’s generous offer, will it take me closer to my dream of being a successful person? 10. what of returning to my former master, from whose workshop i ran away many years ago, to complete my training as a car mechanic…will it take me closer to my dream of being a successful person? chart of teddy’s yes/no responses preparing a chart such as the one below is desirable because it makes you to state your questions and answers in writing and leaves you with a written record of the turning point your gqa session could become. besides, the writing option makes it easy for you to correct your questions and bring them in line with the rules governing the framing of gqa questions. there are people who find writing things down, particularly when it runs into a few paragraphs, very stressful. some others may feel that the effort expended in ensuring that their thoughts are properly framed may obstruct or derail the free flow of their thoughts. it will be nice if this category of persons can choose to overcome their shortcomings and write down their questions. otherwise, they should resort to using the recording device in their electronic gadgets to voice out their questions and answers, particularly if the questions are not more than five. let’s take a look at what might have emerged as teddy’s responses – responses that indicate an apparent willingness to change for the better. here is the table of his responses to the 10 questions posed above. for the sake of brevity, only the direct questions are used below; the preceding statements are excluded. and the independent clauses ending with the question mark have been reworded to bring them in line with rules 4 and 5 above. teddy’s questions and answers question answer sign 1 my lack of a sense of purpose or an overriding goal in life, will it take me closer to my vision? no – 2 my habit of dropping out of worthwhile pursuits and starting a project without finishing it, will it take me closer to my no – global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 68 vision? 3 continuing my get-rich-quick attitude and schemes, which had continually put me in trouble in the past… will it take me closer to my vision? no – 4 continuing with the kind of choices i made after the failure of each of my past businesses, choices that didn’t indicate i had learnt the right lesson, will it take me closer to my vision? no – 5 continuing to be a pimp and a cannabis smuggler, with the risk of being caught and jailed like sneaky boy, will that take me closer to my vision? no – 6 my family members have pledged to give me a lump sum of money to start life all over again on the condition that i should first serve under a successful trader and learn a trade for two years…following this proposed plan, will it take me closer to my vision? no – 7 doing whatever i can to advance my music career, foregoing every other alternative venture my family would prefer to finance, will it take me closer to my vision? yes + 8 insisting on going abroad without first correcting those shortcomings that made me to fail repeatedly here at home, will it take me closer to my vision? no – 9 taking up uncle ray’s generous offer to sponsor my return to secondary school decades after i dropped out of school, will it take me closer to my vision? no – 10 what of returning to my former master, from whose workshop i ran away many years ago, to complete my training and become a car mechanic, will it take me closer to my vision? no – global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 69 in the above illustrative table, you would notice that teddy gave only one positive response, which clearly indicated what step he should take. some charts may be more complicated than this in that they may contain more than one positive response, which is not a problem if all the positive responses support each other or enhance the emergence of a definite goal/decision or point towards a definite course of action. if such indicated steps appear contradictory, it is possibly i. a sign that the individual had not emerged from the self-probing talk with a genuine clue or clues regarding what might be his or her decision, goal or direction; or ii. an indication that some or all of the questions of the gqa session were not properly thought out or phrased. the likely solution to (i) above is for the individual involved to return to the self-probing talk (spt) stage and conduct afresh the exercise. let him or her probe deeper into the issues of concern, noting the choices made and examining if or how those choices contributed to the eventual turn of events. the person probing his past actions should also endeavour to locate the extent to which specific beliefs, values and habits have positively or negatively contributed to leading or misleading him or her to make those choices. the solution to (ii) is to revise the questions in order to ensure that each of them is framed according to the rules earlier specified. meanwhile, during the process of talking and analyzing issues, the sober self-analyst is likely to generate some inner awakening that might light up some areas of confusion, doubt or ignorance…and this is when the self-analyst should steer his reflection to the search for clues that point toward a solution, the right decision, a purposeful goal or a meaningful vision. as earlier pointed out, the gqa session is a process that should only be meaningfully used after one has, at least, gotten a clue regarding what decision, goal or vision he or she appears to be leaning towards. the series of questions raised during the gqa session is aimed at generating answers whose positive or negative slant would authenticate or invalidate the clue(s) gotten at the end of the self-probing talk (spt). the spt is a spontaneous, chronological or non-chronological recollection of past events. when the reflection leads to clarification of mind-boggling issues or produces an insight into the way out of the global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 70 problem, viable clues usually emerge. now, these clues will need to be verified during the gqa session. where a one-track solution is required, as in many cases in life, the gqa session becomes a way of helping the solution-seeker to choose a course of action, and to choose rightly. references doran, g. t. (1981). there's a s.m.a.r.t. way to write management's goals and objectives. management review, 70 (11): 35–36. nakolisa, d. (2006). ten key qualities of highly successful people. abuja: klamidas. nakolisa, d. (2022). utilizing beliefs, values and habits as tools for determining personal outcomes. global online journal of academic research (gojar),1(1): 7-39. https://klamidas.com/gojar-v1n1-2022-01/. www.clipartmax.com/middle/m2i8i8b1h7a0h7n4_695px-group-ofpeople-talking-clipart-ate6g4rt4-clipart-people-talking/ author information: duve nakolisa is the general editor, klamidas books, abuja. email: klamidasbooks@gmail.com. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 41 oil spills in the niger delta and their impact on food security in nigeria: a prevalent challenge festus funmileyi ajomale & christian osemuyi oseghale abstract oil spills frequently arise from oil exploration but the nature of these incidents, in terms of scale and environmental impact, varies in different parts of the world. the niger delta region of nigeria is one of the areas of the world that has the largest deposits of crude oil; oil exported from the region represents a significant part of nigeria’s foreign-exchange earnings. however, this wealth comes at a huge cost, particularly due to the ravaging effect of oil exploitation on the region’s environment, the degradation of which impacts negatively on the ecosystems of the local communities, adversely affecting food security in the country. oil spills are a frequent occurrence in this region due to factors such as pipeline leaks, sabotage, and inadequate infrastructure. these spills represent a major environmental and socioeconomic challenge. frequent oil spills, often due to pipeline leakages, sabotage, and operational failures, have led to widespread contamination of land and water resources. this pollution has a negative influence on agricultural production, fishing resources, and overall food availability for local communities that rely largely on these for a living. the study uses a mixed-methods approach to investigate how oil spills relate to food insecurity in the region. this includes the use of quantitative and qualitative research design to investigate changes in food production as a result of polluted land and water resources, as well as increases in food costs owing to a lack of supply. the study's goal is to establish a clear correlation between environmental deterioration and food security concerns faced by local populations. in conclusion, the paper emphasises that oil spills in the niger delta pose a grave threat not only to the environment but also to food security in the country; their devastating ripple effects include economic instability, exacerbation of poverty, health hazards, and communal unrest in the region. the interplay between environmental degradation caused by oil spills and the resultant food insecurity and communal disorder presents a complex issue that requires urgent attention from policymakers, stakeholders, and the international community. keywords: environmental degradation, food security, livelihood security, oil spillage, pollution global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 42 introduction since oil production began, in the wake of the industrial revolution, oil spillage has been occurring. the term, oil spill (which is a form of pollution), refers to the release of a liquid petroleum hydrocarbons, which are chemical compounds composed of the elements hydrogen and carbon, into the environment, particularly on marine areas, due to human activity (ahmed & fakhruddin, 2018). oil spills occur when oil is released into the ocean or coastal waters, as well as on land, due to accidents involving the vessel or tanker carrying the crude oil, pipeline vandalism, oil bunkering, theft, and poor maintenance of drilling rigs and wells, as well as spills of refined petroleum products such as gasoline and diesel (iskander et al., 2021). oil spillage generally causes immediate harm to the entire environment, endangering aquatic organisms, causing huge combustions that release dangerous gases into the atmosphere, thereby aggravating the greenhouse effect and global warming. this, in due course, leads to serious ecological problems and long-term environmental contamination of the atmosphere and water resources of the inhabitants of the affected areas (amosu & adeosun, 2021). oil pollution causes serious environmental hazards, provoking adverse climate change which, in turn, leads to food insecurity, water scarcity, flooding, spread of infectious diseases, extreme heat, economic losses, and displacements. due to these serious and interconnected effects, the world health organization (2019) regards climate change as the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century. according to encyclopedia of environmental health (2019), oil pollution causes one of the most devastating damages to the environment and can result in both shortand long-term disruption of ecosystems, creating food security challenges. although most countries of the world are beset by natural hazards, nigeria is faced with numerous man-made disasters, one of which is oil spillage, an incidence fraught with major and severe shortand long-term effects on affected inhabitants (albert et al., 2018). amnesty international, in june 2009, described the niger delta region of nigeria, which is home to some 31 million people, as one of the 10 most important wetland and coastal marine ecosystems in the world. however, wetlands international (2016) and izah (2018) have noted that in africa the niger delta region of nigeria has the largest wetland and the third largest mangrove forest in the world. they emphasized that besides the region’s richness in biodiversity and oil and gas resources, its wetland ecosystems also play a critical role in supporting the livelihoods of millions of people. but unfortunately the region’s environment is being degraded by unsustainable practices and a legacy of pollution and oil spills. nigeria remains africa's largest oil producing nation, she also houses the second largest proven oil global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 43 reserves in africa, with its crude oil production estimated at more than 2.5 million barrels per day between 2015 and 2019 (herman, 2020). however, the world data atlas (2021) had stated that nigeria’s crude oil production fluctuated substantially, decreasing through may 2020 april 2021 period and ending at 1,372 thousand barrels per day as at april 2021.the oil sector, according to olujobi (2021), accounts for more than 95% of nigeria’s foreign exchange earnings. literature review oil spills have severe environmental and socio-economic consequences, particularly in sensitive ecosystems like the niger delta. they contaminate soil and water, which are crucial for agriculture and fishing, the primary sources of food for local communities. oil-contaminated soils inhibit plant growth and reduce agricultural productivity, while water pollution disrupts local economies that thrive on fishing. the unique biodiversity of the niger delta is threatened by oil spills, which lead to habitat destruction for numerous species and food production shortages. socio-economic consequences extend beyond environmental damage, directly affecting food security. livelihoods are disrupted, leading to reduced income and increased poverty levels. health issues, such as respiratory problems and skin diseases, are also exacerbated by exposure to oil pollutants. food availability decreases due to contaminated land and water sources, resulting to food insecurity among vulnerable populations. persistent oil pollution can also force communities to migrate, leading to overcrowding in urban areas and further complicating food security challenges (akan et al., 2020; efe et al., 2021; fao, 2022; nwankwoala et al., 2018; ogonor & ogbomida, 2019; undp, 2023). the massive oil deposits, which have been extracted for decades by the government of nigeria and multinational oil companies, are located in the niger delta region of nigeria. the region is made up of nine states (abia, akwa ibom, bayelsa, cross river, delta, edo, imo, ondo and rivers) from three geopolitical zones (south-south, south-east and south-west), all of which are in the southern part of nigeria. the niger delta has remained a development oxymoron; it is characterized by widespread poverty in the midst of abundant natural and financial resources. in its 2013 report, the united nations development programme (undp) stated that the niger delta was suffering from administrative neglect, crumbling social infrastructure and services, high unemployment, social deprivation, abject poverty, filth and squalor, and endemic conflict. the era of oil production in nigeria has negatively impacted the niger delta region due to unprecedented oil spillage which has been ongoing for the past global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 44 five decades, making the region one of the most polluted in the world (kadafa, 2012; babatunde, 2017; joseph, 2019 & yaguo et al., 2021). it is estimated that while the european union experienced 10 incidences of oil spills in 40 years, nigeria recorded 9,343 cases within 10 years (albert et al., 2018; allen et al., 2018 & alejandre et al., 2021). oil spills are wreaking environmental havoc wherever they occur. since the discovery of enormous crude oil deposits in oloibiri, in present-day bayelsa state, in 1956, and the subsequent drilling and refining of this great natural resource popularly referred to as black gold, nigeria, no doubt, has experienced rapid industrial development. but, unfortunately, oil pollution in niger delta region, over the years, have so negatively impacted farmlands, crops, vegetation and water that people can no longer engage in productive farming and fishing (iwok, 2017 & babatunde, 2020). this environmental dislocation has adversely affected traditional livelihoods and undermined household food security in the region. oil spills massive oil spills are common in the niger delta as over 40 million litres of crude oil is spilled annually, resulting in human deaths and damage to the local ecosystem (adebayo, 2019; ratcliffe, 2020 & okoye, 2021). a study published by the journal of health and pollution in 2018 found that more than 12,000 oil spill incidents occurred in the niger delta region between 1976 and 2014. fifty percent of these spills were attributed to pipeline corrosion and tanker accidents while 50% occurred as a result of operational error, mechanical failure, and sabotage by mostly militant groups (adebayo, 2019 & ratcliffe, 2020). according to ikporukpo (2020), between 2010 and 2018 there were 5,848 incidents resulting in the spillage of about 169,691 barrels of oil. oil spills take place in all parts of the oil producing region of the niger delta; that is why the region is commonly described as the most polluted area of the planet (ikporukpo, 2020). regardless of the fact that oil has generated an estimated $600 billion for nigeria since the 1960s, the majority of niger delta’s population live in poverty (brown, & evangel, 2013 and amnesty international, 2012). many people in the region do not have access to clean water or health-care. the poverty rate in niger delta, in spite of the enormous wealth generated there for the nigerian state, is very high, making it one of the world’s starkest and most disturbing examples of the “resource curse” (amnesty international, 2009). as ratcliffe (2020, p.1) has noted, “you just need to take a tour to understand the magnitude of the environmental abuse.” stressing further, he said, “(bayelsa) used to be green; you could go to farm or fish. we used to have very impressive harvests. you would spend just an hour in the water and you have a lot of fish.” however, the discovery of the black gold in this global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 45 region and its subsequent exploration since the late 1950s has turned this hitherto green land of plenty, where cash crops, including rubber, cocoa, oil palm and coconut, and food crops, such as cassava, yam and plantain, are produced to dry land of sorrow, pain and poverty (undp, 2013). food security according to the united nations committee on world food security and the food and agriculture organization, food security is attained when all people, continuously, have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their food preferences and dietary needs to enable them live a healthy and active life (fao, 2009). according to the food and agriculture organisation (2005), there are three components of food security: firstly, availability (the availability of appropriate and sufficient quantities of food); secondly, access (having the economic power or other resources to access food); and thirdly, utilization and consumption (having adequate dietary intake and the ability to absorb and use nutrients in the body). on the basis of scholarly prediction that global population would reach 9.2 billion by 2050, fukase & martin (2017) and silva (2018) projected a corresponding increased food demand of 59%-102%. in the light of this reality, it seems obligatory to increase agricultural production by about 60%– 70% to provide food for the global population in 2050 (silva, 2018). to improve the availability of food and achieve food security globally, the agricultural sector needs to play a strategic role in achieving the feat of providing food for the global population (wegren & elvestad, 2018). globally, the basic human need is food security; in nigeria, one of the greatest challenges is fighting hunger. according to ahungwa et al. (2018), in the colonial era and briefly after independence, the mainstay of nigeria’s economy was agriculture, which played a strategic role, as it not only boosted the economy but also provided adequate food for the population. nigeria is now faced with a looming food security crisis, with its growing population increasingly dependent on imported foods. she has navigated from agrobased economy to petroleum-dependent economy. according to kralovec (2020), climate change compounds the challenges confronting agriculture. oil spillage in the niger delta is a major cause of climate change, as hitherto green lands suitable for agricultural production were turned into terrains that yield little or no farm products. the global oil industry’s track record has shown that punctures and oil spills are common; they occur wherever oil is drilled either as large spills, like the 1989 exxon valdez accident, or small and more frequent spills that don’t always capture global attention, such as the ones that occur in the niger delta region of global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 46 nigeria. the march 24, 1989 exxon valdez oil spill accident in alaska's prince william sound was a man-made disaster that occurred when exxon valdez, an oil tanker owned by the exxon shipping company, spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil into the ocean. this was the largest single oil spill in u.s. waters at the time (evanisko, 2020). babatunde (2017) emphasized that the degraded environment in the niger delta has contributed in no small way to food scarcity and an astronomical increase in the price of food, placing it beyond the reach of a vast majority of the local people. most local people lack access to sufficient wholesome food which they need for their daily nutritional requirements. the exploration and exploitation of crude petroleum the exploration and exploitation of crude petroleum in nigeria positioned petroleum products as the mainstay of the nation’s economy, especially during and after the oil boom of the 1970s. a report by the nigeria bureau of statistics (nbs) showed that crude oil export accounted for n3.74 trillion or 70.84 per cent of total exports in the third quarter of 2019, while its contribution to the gross domestic products (gdp) stood at 9.77%. the effect of the oil boom slowly but surely created a shift of focus by the nigerian government from agriculture to crude oil exploration, which created more wealth for the country and more environmental and socio-economic crisis for the niger delta region (sanchez, et al., 2021). the harmful effects of petroleum spillages lead to severe environmental degradation; they pose a threat to human survival and to virtually all aspects of the natural environment. despite this threat, the spill of oil and its accompanying environmental hazards remain frequent realities in the niger delta (raimi et al., 2019; okoyen et al., 2020). since the discovery of crude oil in nigeria in 1956, about 600 million gallons of crude oil, poorly managed by the oil companies, have been spilled in the niger delta region (raimi et al., 2019 & okoyen et al., 2020). these spills have polluted vast areas of land, damaging farmlands, killing fishes, causing food scarcity and severe suffering for the people. according to amnesty international (2018), as at 2011, shell accounted for 17.5 million litres of oil spillage while eni recorded 4.1 million litres of oil spillage as at 2014; however, according to statistics posted by the nigerian government, these two company’s spilled almost twice the above figures during the period. this statistical disparity indicates how difficult it is to measure accurately amounts of oil frequently spilled in this region of nigeria practically ‘swimming in oil’ (amnesty international, 2018). akinwumiju et al. (2020), utilizing arcgis mapping, found that 6400 oil wells with over 1143 km of pipeline networks are located in the niger delta. on the level of oil spillage going in the region, akinwumiju et al. (2020) stated that between 2006 and 2019, there was a total global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 47 of 7943 oil spill incidents in the niger delta, with 62% linked to corrosion issues and 7% due to equipment failure. the highest number of oil spills occurred in rivers state, which recorded over 3770 oil spill incidents (akinwumiju et al., 2020). statement of the problem oil accounts for at least 90% of nigeria’s foreign exchange and more than half of government revenue. nigeria is the largest exporter of oil in africa; crude oil exports accounted for 70.84% of nigeria’s total exports in the third quarter of 2019, contributing to 9.77% of her gdp (statista, 2024). in spite of these economic benefits accruing from crude oil, the problem of oil spills in the niger delta region has remained a recurring decimal that continually ruins fishing habitats, swamps, agricultural land, groundwater and waterways. over two million barrels of oil in 2,976 separate spills have resulted from the exploitation of niger delta oil reserves by international oil companies since 1976. about 300 oil spills occur in the region every year. in 2011, a spill at shell's bonga oil fields released 40,000 barrels, affecting over 350 farming communities and forcing 30,000 fishermen to abandon their means of subsistence. the people of the niger delta are practically watching their resources drain away due to oil spillage. the level of contaminants and pollution can seriously harm living creatures, including humans, animals, plants, and all forms of agricultural production. despite extensive scholarly attention, cleanup and remediation efforts and conflict resolution strategies, the environmental issues of the niger delta have not been successful addressed. it is crucial for peace and conflict resolution scholars to adopt empirical and community-based approaches in their studies in order to understanding the peculiarities of every affected community within the niger-delta region and work out suitable solutions. food security is a significant component of human security; food scarcity due to environmental degradation is a frequent problem, but little scholarly attention has been paid to the issue of food security in the niger delta. objectives of the study the first objective of the study is to quantify and analyze the frequency and severity of oil spills in the niger delta region. this involves collecting data on historical spill incidents, their geographical distribution, and the volume of oil spilled. by establishing a comprehensive database, researchers can better understand how widespread these incidents are and identify patterns over time. another critical objective is to evaluate the environmental consequences of global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 48 oil spills on local ecosystems. this includes studying soil contamination, water quality degradation, and impacts on biodiversity. the research aims to determine how these environmental changes affect agricultural productivity, particularly focusing on crops that are staples for local communities. the study also investigates the socioeconomic ramifications of oil spills on communities in the niger delta. this includes assessing how spills affect livelihoods, particularly for those dependent on agriculture and fishing. surveys and interviews with local populations can provide insights into changes in income levels, food availability, and overall community wellbeing. an essential goal of this research is to develop actionable policy recommendations aimed at mitigating the impact of oil spills on food security. this could involve suggesting improved regulatory frameworks for oil extraction companies, enhanced disaster response strategies, or community-based initiatives that promote sustainable agricultural practices despite environmental challenges. an additional objective is to raise awareness among stakeholders – including government agencies, ngos, and local communities – about the ongoing challenges posed by oil spills in relation to food security. by disseminating findings through reports, workshops, and public forums, the study seeks to foster a collaborative approach towards addressing these issues. methodology the techniques that will be used in this study are qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection and analysis. this type of mixed-methods research design will enable the researcher to combine elements of qualitative and quantitative research approaches such as the use of qualitative and quantitative viewpoints, data collection, analysis, and inference techniques for the comprehensive purposes of extensiveness and depth of understanding and corroboration in the study area. theoretical framework the niger delta region of nigeria is one of the most ecologically sensitive areas in the world; it is heavily impacted by oil spills due to extensive oil exploration and production activities. these spills have profound implications not only for the environment but also for local communities, particularly concerning food security. therefore, to analyze and interrogate this complex issue effectively, integrating ecological theory and governance theory came handy as it provides a comprehensive framework for the study topic. ecological theory emphasizes the impact of environmental changes on global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 49 ecosystems and human societies. oil spills in the niger delta can disrupt biodiversity by destroying habitats, altering food webs, and affecting local fishing communities. hydrocarbons introduced into aquatic ecosystems can lead to declines in fish populations and soil contamination, affecting agricultural productivity. the degradation of ecosystems can also lead to health issues among local populations, exacerbating food insecurity. the lack of effective work or farming skills among affected individuals can further exacerbate the situation. therefore, it is crucial to address these environmental impacts to maintain ecological balance. governance theory on the other hand is a framework that focuses on how institutions manage resources and address collective challenges through policies and regulations. it is particularly relevant to oil spills in the niger delta, where effective governance involves creating robust policies to regulate oil extraction activities and ensure accountability for environmental damage caused by oil companies. stakeholder engagement is crucial for ensuring that policies reflect the needs of those most affected by oil spills. governance theories can also help develop dispute resolution mechanisms for conflicts between communities, government entities, and corporations. monitoring and enforcement of environmental regulations is also essential, highlighting areas of ineffective enforcement. with the use of governance theory, stakeholders can identify strategies to improve regulatory frameworks that protect both the environment and food security in affected regions. using ecological theory alongside governance theory provides a multifaceted approach to understanding the impacts of oil spills on food security in nigeria’s niger delta region. this integration allows for a thorough examination of both ecological consequences and institutional responses necessary to mitigate these challenges effectively. both theories collectively offer insights into environmental impacts as well as policy implications related to food security. data analysis descriptive and inferential statistics analysis of questionnaire responses on oil spills to analyze the data collected from the questionnaire regarding the effects of oil spills, we will utilize both descriptive and inferential statistics. the responses provide insight into public perception regarding environmental impacts, agricultural consequences, and social issues related to oil spills. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 50 1. descriptive statistics descriptive statistics summarize the basic features of the data. here we will calculate frequencies, percentages, and some measures of central tendency where applicable. 1.1 agreement on environmental effects of oil spills  total respondents: 381  agree: 365  disagree: 16 percentage agreeing: percentage = (365/381) × 100 = 95.79% 1.2 environmental consequences on ecosystems and livelihood  agree: 353  disagree: 28 percentage agreeing: percentage = (353/381) × 100 = 92.64% 1.3 agricultural output decline due to contamination  agree: 377  disagree: 4 percentage agreeing: percentage = (377/381) ×100 = 98.95% 1.4 pollution of rivers affecting fishing  agree: 375  disagree: 6 percentage agreeing: percentage = (375/381) × 100 = 98.43% 1.5 community leadership tussles related to oil bunkering  agree: 350  disagree: 11 percentage agreeing: percentage = (350/381) × 100 = 91.83% 2. inferential statistics inferential statistics allow us to make conclusions about a population based on sample data. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 51 2.1 hypothesis testing we can set up hypotheses for each question to test if there is a significant agreement among respondents. null hypothesis (h0): there is no significant agreement that oil spills have devastating effects. alternative hypothesis (h1): there is significant agreement that oil spills have devastating effects. using a one-sample proportion test for each question: for example, for the first question:  sample proportion (p) = p = 365/381= 0.96 (approximately) assuming a significance level (α = 0.05), we can use a z-test for proportions: the standard error (se) can be calculated as: se = p(1−p)n = 0.96(0.04)381= 0.0313 (approximately) calculating the z-score: z = p̂−p0se = 0.96−0.50.0313 = 14.53 (approximately) given that this z-score is far greater than any critical value from z-tables at α = 0.05, we reject h0 for all questions indicating strong evidence that respondents agree with the statements regarding oil spills. inference: the analysis indicates overwhelming agreement among respondents regarding the negative impacts of oil spills on the environment, agriculture, and community dynamics in sensitive ecosystems like the niger delta. summary of findings obtained from respondents:  high levels of agreement were observed across all statements.  the lowest percentage was approximately 91.83, while the highest was 98.95. thus, it can be concluded that there is a strong consensus among respondents about the detrimental effects of oil spills the niger delta. overall summary of findings the quantitative research design utilized a questionnaire to gather data regarding perceptions of oil spills in the niger delta and their effects. the findings indicate a strong consensus among respondents, with high levels of global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 52 agreement across all statements presented in the questionnaire. specifically, the lowest percentage of agreement was approximately 91.83%, while the highest reached 98.95%. this range suggests that nearly all respondents recognize the negative impacts associated with oil spills in this region. the results highlight a significant concern regarding environmental degradation and its broader implications for communities within the niger delta. given that these percentages reflect a robust agreement, it can be inferred that there is a widespread acknowledgment of the detrimental effects of oil spills on local ecosystems, health, and occupations. in juxtaposition to the quantitative findings, qualitative research conducted through key informant interviews (kii) further supports these conclusions. all 20 respondents interviewed expressed unanimous agreement that oil spills have severely impacted food security in niger delta and indeed nigeria. this qualitative data complements the quantitative results by providing deeper insights into how oil spills affect not only environmental conditions but also socio-economic factors such as food availability and safety. the qualitative responses likely elaborate on specific mechanisms through which oil spills disrupt food security, including contamination of water sources, destruction of agricultural land, and adverse health effects on local populations that hinder their ability to produce or access food. both quantitative and qualitative research designs converge on the understanding that oil spills in the niger delta pose significant challenges not only to environmental integrity but also to food security in nigeria. the strong consensus observed in both methodologies underscores the urgency for policy interventions aimed at mitigating these impacts and addressing community concerns. discussion of findings the niger delta region in nigeria, a major oil-rich area, is facing significant environmental degradation due to oil spills. these spills, primarily caused by operational failures, sabotage, and inadequate infrastructure maintenance, result in extensive contamination of land and waterways. between 1976 and 2018, over 2 million barrels of oil were spilled, with a significant portion occurring in the last decade. the ecological consequences of these spills are severe, leading to habitat destruction, loss of biodiversity, and long-term soil contamination. mangrove forests, crucial for fish breeding, are particularly vulnerable, causing fish populations to decline, directly impacting local fishing communities. the challenge is not only environmental but also socioeconomic, undermining food security for nigeria's most vulnerable populations. to address this issue, comprehensive strategies must be global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 53 implemented, including stricter regulations on oil companies; improved infrastructure maintenance practices, community engagement initiatives focused on sustainable agriculture, and enhanced support systems for affected communities. agriculture is a primary source of income for many households in the niger delta. however, oil spills severely affect crop production through soil contamination and water pollution. contaminated soils can lead to reduced crop yields or complete crop failure due to toxic substances absorbed by plants. studies have shown that crops such as cassava and yam exhibit stunted growth when grown in contaminated soils. furthermore, water sources used for irrigation become polluted with hydrocarbons from oil spills. this not only affects crop health but also poses health risks to farmers who consume contaminated produce or use polluted water for irrigation. the result is a cycle of poverty where farmers face declining incomes due to reduced agricultural output. fisheries are another critical component of food security in the niger delta. oil spills contaminate rivers and coastal waters, leading to killing of fish and a decline in fish populations. the nigerian institute for oceanography and marine research has reported significant declines in fish catches that could be attributed to pollution from oil activities. the loss of fish stocks directly impacts food availability and nutrition for local communities that depend heavily on fish as a primary protein source. additionally, fishermen face economic hardships as their catch diminishes; this further exacerbates food insecurity as families struggle to afford alternative sources of nutrition. the health implications associated with oil spills also contribute indirectly to food insecurity. exposure to pollutants can lead to respiratory issues, skin diseases, and other health problems among local populations. poor health reduces individuals’ ability to work effectively in agriculture or fishing sectors, thereby diminishing household incomes and exacerbating food scarcity. moreover, contaminated water supplies can lead to gastrointestinal diseases which further strain community resources as families must allocate funds towards healthcare instead of food purchases or agricultural investments. the nigerian government has implemented various policies aimed at addressing oil spill incidents; however, enforcement remains weak due to corruption and lack of accountability among oil companies operating in the region. while initiatives like the national environmental (pollution abatement) regulations exist, they often fall short in practice due to insufficient funding and lack of political will. community-led efforts have emerged as vital responses; however, they often lack adequate support from global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 54 governmental bodies or international organizations, and such support is needed for effective remediation efforts. conclusion and recommendations conclusion: oil spills in the niger delta have severe environmental and socio-economic consequences. crude oil contaminates soil and water bodies, causing habitat degradation, fish population declines, and unsuitable farming land. this is especially alarming for people in the niger delta, where agriculture is the principal source of income. the socioeconomic consequences are grave, as fish populations drop and agricultural output falls, leading to food insecurity. households who struggle to provide proper nourishment experience greater poverty rates. oil spills increase existing vulnerabilities by restricting access to food sources and increasing reliance on high-cost imported goods. direct contact to spilt oil causes health difficulties, as do indirect consequences from tainted food sources. communities around oil spills may face breathing issues, skin illnesses, and other health complications caused by harmful chemicals contained in crude oil. consumption of polluted seafood or crops might result in chronic diseases. efforts have been undertaken at different levels, including government, nongovernmental organisations (ngos), and community groups, to address these concerns through legislative reforms aiming at strengthening environmental rules and encouraging sustainable practices. however, enforcement remains ineffective owing to corruption and a lack of political will. community resilience techniques are critical in reducing the impact of oil spills on food security. initiatives that concentrate on alternative livelihoods such as aquaculture or agro-ecological techniques can assist communities in adapting while minimising reliance on conventional fishing and farming ways. addressing these issues requires a comprehensive approach that includes strong regulatory frameworks to avoid spills, remediation activities to repair damaged habitats, and support networks for impacted populations to strengthen their resistance to food scarcity. recommendations: here are some vital recommendations that cover some major areas of concern: strengthening regulatory frameworks: the nigerian government should improve current rules controlling oil exploration and production operations. this includes greater enforcement of environmental rules designed to avoid oil leaks. investment in remediation technology: there is an urgent need to invest in innovative technology that can efficiently clean up oil spills. collaborations with international environmental organizations can help you gain access to global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 55 best practices in spill response. community engagement programs: local communities should be actively involved in monitoring oil operations and spill responses. empowering these communities through education about their rights and environmental stewardship can lead to better outcomes. diversification of livelihoods: to mitigate the impacts of oil spills on food security, programmes aimed at diversifying income sources for local populations should be developed. this could include promoting alternative agricultural practices or supporting small-scale fisheries. health monitoring initiatives: establishing health monitoring systems for communities affected by oil spills will help address health-related issues stemming from exposure to pollutants while providing necessary healthcare support. international collaboration: engaging with international bodies can provide technical assistance and funding necessary for both immediate response efforts following spills as well as long-term sustainable development initiatives aimed at restoring food security. references adebayo, b. 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(2018). russia’s food self-sufficiency and food security: an assessment. post-communist http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/ 1463 1377.2018.1470854 wetlands international (2016). conserving and restoring wetlands in nigeria’s niger river delta, https://www.wetlands.org/ global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 59 world data atlas, (2021). nigeria production of crude oil including lease condensate,https://knoema.com/atlas/nigeria/topics/energy/oil/produ ction-of-crude-oil www.statista.com/statistics/1165865/contribution-of-oil-sector-to-gdp-innigeria/#:~:text=contribution%20of%20oil%20and%20natural,gdp %20in%20nigeria%202018%2d2023&text=before%20the%20coron avirus%20(covid%2d19,country's%20gdp%20reached%205.48% 20percent. yaguo, e. b., egbo, m. w., & goldie, j. (2021). total petroleum hydrocarbon accumulation in gills and muscle tissue of tilapia spp in kolo creek, imiringi, bayelsa state. research journal of environmental science and toxicology vol, 2(2), 010-014. author information: festus funmileyi ajomale is of caleb university, imota lagos, nigeria. email: funmilayi.ajomale@calebuniversity.edu.ng dr christian osemuyi oseghale is a lecturer in caleb university, imota lagos, nigeria. email: trustnigent1 @gmail.com. orchid id: 0009-0001-0276-0607 apa ajomale, f. f. & oseghale, c. o. (2025). oil spills in the niger delta and their impact on food security in nigeria: a prevalent challenge. global online journal of academic research (gojar), 4(1), 41-59. https://klamidas.com/gojar-v4n1-2025-03/. mla ajomale, festus funmileyi and oseghale, christian osemuyi. “oil spills in the niger delta and their impact on food security in nigeria: a prevalent challenge”. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1, 2025, pp. 41-59. https://klamidas.com/gojar-v4n1-2025-03/. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 7 reachability and uptake of modern contraceptives among spouses in kogi state, north-central nigeria by edward ukwubile egwuaba and sunday blessing adeyi abstract this study investigated the reachability and uptake of modern contraceptives among spouses in kogi state, north-central, nigeria. specifically, amongst others, it determined how the level of reachability of modern contraceptives affect the use among spouses in kogi state, and identified those factors that affect the use of modern contraceptives among spouses in kogi state. the study made use of five theories, but relied on the rational choice theory in explaining the social phenomena studied. the study adopted cross-sectional survey design. kogi state has a 2016 projected population of 4,473,490. however, the population for the study consisted of all spouses of age 1849. the study has a sample size of 1067. the instruments for data collection were questionnaire, in-depth interviews (idis) schedules and focus group discussion (fgd) guide. multi-stage sampling techniques, entailing simple random sampling, systematic and purposive sampling techniques, were adopted in the study. the data analysis was based on 1,064 questionnaires that were correctly filled and returned by the respondents out of the 1067 distributed. a total of 6 idis and 12 fgds were conducted in the study. descriptive statistics like frequencies and percentages were employed in interpreting the data, while chi square was used in testing the hypotheses. results revealed that 50.3% of the respondents report non availability of modern contraceptives in their locality which affects contraceptives use among spouses in kogi state. 75.2% of the study respondents report that lack of education amongst majority of spouses as well as several other determinants like non-accessibility, cost, proximity or distance of clinics from their homes and religion and culture of the people account for poor and low use of modern contraceptives in kogi state. based on the above findings, the study recommends that sociologists should educate and create more awareness about the need of spouses to use modern contraceptives by organizing programmes that educate and keep spouses and reproductive persons well informed. government should collaborate with international bodies and organizations that are capable of providing the required healthcare needed by spouses that can provide these services at subsidized rate for spouses. if possible, government should incorporate and implement already formulated policies that promote free family planning services to rural dwellers. keywords: reachability, modern contraceptives, kogi state, healthcare, family planning global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 8 introduction the growing use of modern contraceptives around the world has given spouses the opportunity to control the number of children they give birth to, in addition to other tremendous lifesaving benefits. the availability of family planning services allows individuals to achieve desired birth spacing and family size, and contributes to improved health outcomes for infants, children, women, and families (center for disease control and prevention [cdcp, 1999]; gipson, koening & hindin, 2008; sonfield, hasstedt & gold, 2014). access to safe, voluntary family planning is a human right. family planning is central to gender equality and women’s empowerment, and it is a key factor in reducing poverty (guttmacher institute, 2014; gavin & pazol, 2016; lawrence & mia, 2016). yet in developing regions, an estimated 218 million women who want to avoid pregnancy are not using safe and effective family planning methods, for reasons ranging from inadequate access to information or services to lack of support from their partners or communities (gavin, moskosky & cater, 2014). this threatens their ability to build a better future for themselves, their families and their communities (berghella, buchanan & pereira, 2010). however, despite the campaign on the usefulness of family planning in having smaller and healthier family, studies by national population commission (2009) and adeleye, akoria, shuaib, & ogholoh (2010) indicate that contraceptive use is still low in many developing countries, including nigeria and kogi state, where only 24 percent and 8.5 percent of currently married women had used one method of contraceptive. different factors such as culture, low education, poverty and poor access to contraceptives, among others, have been identified by scholars as issues militating against the use of contraceptive methods (bankole, 2008). monjok, andrea, john, & essien (2010) argue that the rate is very low, despite high rate of sexual activity and wide spread knowledge of contraceptive methods particularly among young couples, leading to unintended pregnancies and illegal abortions. though a number of studies have been done in some other parts of nigeria on access and use of modern contraceptives among couples of reproductive ages, none has been on the availability and use of modern contraceptives among spouses in kogi state. although the state boasts of about 247 family planning clinics, it has the lowest adoption rate within the middle belt region – about 11 percent for any contraceptive method, 8.5 percent for modern methods. this necessitated the present study in other to fill this gap. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 9 statement of the problem the present population of the world is about 7.9 billion people with fourfifth of them living in the developing societies and keeps increasing by 90 million annually, with 90 percent of the increase occurring in developing societies. this is because population growth rate in developed societies is considerably lower than in developing societies. in the past, the need for family planning had been rationalised by a significant number of women who state a desire to stop childbearing. however, because of unmet needs for contraceptives, very little has been achieved in aggregate fertility reduction. this trend in the uptake of family planning services has not spared kogi state in general where there is large estimated number of births per household (kogi state economic empowerment and development strategy[koseeds], 2015). standards of living tend to worsen when the rate of population growth exceeds the rate of economic growth. at the household level, the high fertility rate may be contributing towards depletion of productive resources in the society, rising cost of living, ill health, poor nutrition and limited educational opportunities, ultimately trapping women and families in poverty cycle. moreover, considering the young age structure of west african, the number of women of reproductive age is expected to increase population growth and challenges to meet the different needs of these people (nabila, 2014; adensi-pipim, kwafo, & garchiner, 2016). the combination of high fertility and a growing number of women of reproductive age sets the stage for continued rapid population growth. objectives of the study specifically, this study was undertaken to: 1. determine the reachability of family planning services in kogi state. 2. find out the level of use of modern contraceptives among spouses in kogi state. 3. identify factors influencing spouses’ utilisation of family planning services in kogi state. review of related literature the concept of family planning family planning has attracted attention all over the world due to its relevance in decision making, population control and development. samuel (2010) defined family planning as the practice that helps global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 10 individuals or couples to attain certain objectives such as avoiding unwanted pregnancies, bringing about wanted babies at the right time, regulating the interval between pregnancies, controlling the time at which birth occurs in relation to the ages of parents and determining the number of children in the family. family planning is defined as the ability for individuals and couples to attain their desired number of children and plan the spacing and timing of their births through use of contraceptive methods (who, 2013). family planning utilisation across the globe several studies have been carried out throughout the world to examine family planning and use among couples and groups. a study carried out by rugendo and maseno (2015) on assessing utilisation of family planning services among women of reproductive age in north kanyabala revealed low usage of contraceptives compared to the national level (53 percent), and use of services varied in terms of level of education and sources of income. pascal and ghana health services (2014) studied factors influencing the uptake of family planning services in the talensi district, ghana, and the results revealed that 89 percent of respondents were aware of family planning services, 18 percent of respondents have used family planning services in the past. similarly, world health organisation report (2010) on the statistics of contraceptive prevalence in 53 african countries showed that nigeria has 14.1 percent contraceptive prevalence rate, unlike other african countries like mauritius with 75.8 percent, morocco 63.0 percent, algeria 61.4 percent, cape verde 61.3 percent, egypt 60.3 percent, south africa 60.3 percent, tunisia 60.2 percent, zimbabwe 60.2 percent, namibia and swaziland with 55.1 percent and 50.6 percent respectively. another study by adinan (2013) on awareness and practices of family planning in wa municipality of ghana revealed that 88 percent of respondents were generally aware of family planning even though family planning practices remained as low as 12 percent. also, a study by roumideb (2010) on knowledge, attitude and practices related to family planning methods among the khasi tribes of east khasi hills meghalaya, india, showed that the awareness level among khasi tribe was very high but only half of the women adopted family planning. reachability and utilisation of family planning services across africa many sub-saharan africa countries have high rates of unmet need for family planning (fp) (westoff, 2011; bongaart, & bruce, 2012) and low rates of contraceptive use (bongaart, & bruce, 2012). individuals and global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 11 couples who want to limit their fertility are often unable to obtain the family planning methods they need due to numerous barriers (campbell, nuriye, & malcolm, 2006). these barriers include high cost, long distances, poor distribution, medical restrictions and fear of side effects, or even misinformation. although much of the available literature assumes that financial cost is the primary factor inhibiting contraceptive use, various studies around the world suggest that fear of side effects of fp are more influential in decision-making (campbell, nuriye, & malcolm, 2006; darroch, gilda, & haley, 2011; colombia demographic and health survey, 2005; uganda bureau of statistics and orc marco, 2001; sedgh, rubina., akinrinola, & susheela, 2007). it is estimated that 59 percent of unintended pregnancies could be eliminated if method-related reasons for non-use were overcome; and fear of side effects is the most commonly cited reason for such non-use (darroch, gilda, & haley, 2011). the fear of side-effects is also a commonly cited reason for contraceptive discontinuation (bradley, hilary, & shane, 2009). many studies have found that while some of these are based on actual health related side effects, many fears are based on rumours, rather than personal experience (campbell, nuriye, & malcolm, 2006; schuler, maria, & susanna, 1994; cstle, 2003; rutenberg & watkins, 1997; keesera, 2009; hall, stephenson, & juveker, 2008; plummer, wight, wamoyi, hayes, & ross, 2006). a study in nepal found that side effects were the main reasons cited for discontinuing the use of fp and that most people received information about fp from mass media (tuladhar & marahatta, 2008). in nigeria, knowledge of fp is generally high; however, use remains low. the main reasons for this lack of fp use include fear of complications, lack of understanding of methods and fear of opposition from the husband (obisesan, adeyemo, & fakokunde, 1998). nadia, campbell, & seema (2012) identified evidence of fear of fp side effects among females and males from india, nepal and nigeria. furthermore, fear of side effects from hormonal methods among male partners has also been found to impact females fp decision-making and their fear to use fp (raine, jennifer, cherrie, sadia, beth, hernandez, & harper, 2010). generally, researches show that spousal communication can increase contraceptive uptake and continuation (bawah, 2002; nzioka, 2002; sharan & valente, 2002; miriam, kate, dominik, brad, & greg, 2012). moreover, it is clear that spousal discussion and partner approval are significant in inducing a woman to use modern contraceptives in the central terai region of nepal (kang, o' donnel, & sparks, 2010). global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 12 utilization of modern contraceptives/family planning services in nigeria several studies have also been conducted to explore family planning services utilisation in nigeria. lasisi, bassey, ita, & awoyemi (2014) carried out a study on the awareness and utilisation of family planning among married women in the traditional core areas of ibadan, oyo state. result showed that the utilisation of family planning methods was low among married women in opoyiosa (9 percent) and ayeye (11.2 percent), but high in mapo, oja-oba and inalende with utilisation rates of 31.5 percent, 29.2 percent and 19.1 percent respectively. also, obisessan, adeyemo, & takokude (1998) studied the level of awareness and the rate of family planning method use among women of reproductive age in ibadan, nigeria, on 1188 married women. result revealed that 94.3 percent were aware of family planning methods, but only 12 percent had visited a family planning clinic. specifically, the study found that the awareness of specific method was 82.6 percent for condoms, 75.7 percent for oral contraceptives, 75.5 percent for injectable contraceptives and 65.5 percent for iuds, while current use of family planning methods was low, with 10 percent using withdrawal, 8.1 percent using oral contraceptives, 5.2 percent using iuds and 4.7 percent using condoms. in another study by clifford (1999) on family planning attitudes and use in nigeria, a factor analysis found out that majority of respondents reported knowing a contraceptive method (76 percent), only 28 percent were currently using one, and fewer than half (47 percent) reported ever having used one. eko, osonwa, osuchukwu, & offiong (2013) in a study in calabar, southern nigeria, on prevalence of contraceptive use among women of reproductive age pointed out a low prevalence rate of contraceptive use of about 21.6 percent. theoretical thrust rational choice theory was propounded by adam smith in the 1700s and refers to a set of guidelines that help understand economic and social behaviour (blume & david, 2008). rational choice theory (rct) theorists believe that most human decisions are based on maximizing a person's own benefits, while minimizing that which can hurt the individual. rational choice theory proposes that there are two outcomes of two choices regarding human action. firstly, the feasible region will be chosen within all the possible and related action. second, after the preferred option has been chosen, the feasible region that has been selected was picked based on restriction of financial, legal, social, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/feasible_region https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/feasible_region global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 13 physical or emotional restrictions that the agent is facing. after that, a choice will be made based on the preference order (de-jonge, 2012). the theory postulates that an individual will perform a cost-benefit analysis to determine whether an option is right for them (gary, abigail, frank, 2000). it also suggests that an individual's self-driven rational actions will help better the overall economy. rational choice theory looks at three concepts: rational actors, self-interest and the invisible hand (levin & milgrom, 2004). the basic premise of rational choice theory is that the decisions made by individual actors will collectively produce aggregate social behaviour. the theory also assumes that individuals have preferences out of available choice alternatives. these preferences are assumed to be complete and transitive. completeness refers to the individual being able to say which of the options they prefer (i.e. individual prefers iud over vaginal rings, vaginal rings over iuds or are indifferent to both). alternatively, transitivity is where the individual weakly prefers option iuds over vaginal rings and weakly prefers option vaginal rings over oral contraceptive pills, leading to the conclusion that the individual weakly prefers iuds over oral contraceptive pills. the rational agent will then perform their own cost-benefit analysis using a variety of criteria to perform their self-determined best choice of action. rational choice theory does not claim to describe the choice process, but rather it helps predict the outcome and pattern of choice. it is consequently assumed that the individual is self-interested or being homo economicus. here, the individual comes to a decision that maximizes personal advantage by balancing costs and benefits (grune-yanoff, 2012). rational choice theory can be viewed in different contexts. at an individual level, the theory suggests that the agent (spouses) will decide on the action (or outcome) they most prefer. if the actions (or outcomes) are evaluated in terms of costs and benefits, the choice with the maximum net benefit will be chosen by the rational individual. rational behaviour is not solely driven by monetary gain, but can also be driven by emotional motives. it is important that in promoting spouses' access and use of modern contraceptives, medical/health sociologists as well as service providers need to identify such barriers and work with spouses to reduce them. family planning service providers should help spouses to identify these barriers and help them to reduce it through counselling and prompt use of modern contraceptives. since every spouse would want to live a healthy life, have healthy babies and a balanced family they are likely to take action that will help them to avoid the risk of unplanned pregnancies and to take necessary intervention so as to manage, plan, and provide for their https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/preference global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 14 families adequately, if the benefits are adequately explained to them. the above-mentioned model is selected because it best explains the behaviour and actions taken by spouses towards accessing and using reachable modern contraceptives and its implications on their health. study hypotheses the following hypotheses were guide to this study: 1. spouses with higher level of education are more likely to utilise family planning services than those with lower level of education. 2. spouses with higher level of income are more likely to utilise modern family planning services than those with lower income level. methodology this study adopted a multi-stage cluster sampling procedure. this entails successive random sampling, systematic and purposive sampling techniques for the selection of respondents from communities, wards, villages, streets, households and respondents that were involved at the services centres in the study. in the first stage, kogi state was purposively divided into three in line with the three geo-political senatorial districts. the local governments found in the state represents urban and rural. 14 lgas to be studied were then randomly selected in the proportion of 3:6:5 from kogi central, kogi-east and kogi-west senatorial districts respectively based on the 2006 population census result which reflected the population proportion as such. given a sample size of 1067 respondents, each were assigned respectively to urban and rural areas. to achieve this, the researcher used a list of the enumerated areas (eas) in each of the fourteen lgas obtained from the national population commission (npc, 2016), kogi state, alongside with the population result of 2016 projection. in each of the lgas, five percent of the eas were selected using systematic random sampling. three streets were picked randomly from the eas from where every 5th household was selected for further sampling. samples drawn from each of the fourteen lgas were determined by the proportion of the population of each of the lga to the overall population of the lgas selected with a view to ensuring evenness of the samples drawn. the sample size was 1067 drawn from fourteen local government areas out of the twenty-one (21) lgas in kogi state and from the total number of households (495,786) that made up each local government from the global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 15 selected ones. due to the scattered habitation arrangement in the rural communities, the researcher and his assistants twirled a bottle at the market square and whichever direction the neck of the bottle faced served as the starting point. two eligible members in each household were purposively selected in each unit taking into account the age variable, and any household that did not have persons (respondents) with the required characteristics were substituted with another household until the desired number of the respondents was achieved. for clearer demonstration, the household that had three or more persons within the age range, two of them were selected using srs (balloting). qualitative data was also collected with the use of both in-depth interview (idi) guide and focus group discussion (fgd) guide. the idi and fgd helped to explore information on availability and use of modern contraceptives among spouses as were expressed by the participants in idi and fgd sessions. the information derived from idi and fgd helped to complement the data collected from questionnaire. for the qualitative data, six fgd sessions were conducted in the selected wards and villages of urban communities and rural communities. each session was made up of between 6-12 participants, aged 18 to 49 years. to achieve this, there were six fgd sessions (one male and one female) in the urban and rural communities of kogi-central, kogi-east and kogiwest. to select the respondents for the fgd from the two wards that represented urban communities, the researcher liaised with the research assistants who were residents/indigenes of the selected wards to help in selecting the participants for the discussion. also, to select the respondents for the fgd from the villages that represented rural communities, the researcher liaised with the research assistants who were residents/indigenes of the selected villages to help in selecting the participants for the discussion. the participants for the fgd were purposively selected putting into consideration their age and sex. the researcher facilitated the six idis while two of the research assistants served as note takers. the six idi sessions were conducted in locations, days, and time chosen by the interviewees. findings/results table 1: distribution of respondents’ socio-demographic characteristics global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 16 source: author’s field survey, 2022 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 17 this current study was carried out in kogi state, nigeria. questionnaires were distributed among three regional districts to elicit information for this study. data in table 1 showed that more than half of the respondents were women (59.2%) while men were 40.8%. the reason for this finding can be traced to the fact that most often women are readily available and easily accessible. the study area is highly populated with the women folk, they actively participate in health, community, and religious activities; their readiness to participate fully in this study is shown in their large representation. respondents’ age intervals indicated that those aged 26 – 33 years were 48.1%, those aged 18-25 years were 27.4%, those aged 42-49 years were 14.6% while those aged 34-41 years were the least sampled (9.9%). the relevance of this finding showed that those within the age interval of 26-33 years are young, are busy occupied with the happenings of life and are always ready to partake in activities that bring about change and development. hence, their willingness to participate in this study. in terms of respondents’ marital status, the information displayed in table 1 showed that those who were married (68.5%) were the highest; this is followed by those separated (13.4%). also, those who were widowed were 10.2% while those divorced were 7.9%. the displayed data in table 1 revealed that respondents who had their secondary education were 36.7%, those who had obtained their tertiary education were 25.4, and those who had their primary education were 21.0% while those who had no formal education were 17.0%. this finding revealed that citizens of kogi state have value for education as more than half of the respondents either had their primary, secondary or tertiary education. furthermore, results on table 1 showed that civil servants (43.4%) were more in this study. the next to them were those who were unemployed (27.3%). those who were into trading were 12.2%, those who were artisans were 8.7% while those into farming were 8.4%. the relevance of this finding to this study showed that even if majority of the respondents had obtained their primary, secondary or tertiary education, most of them still struggled with unemployment. respondents’ monthly income showed that majority (24.2%) of them earned between 41,000-60,000 naira. this is followed by those who earned 61,000-80,000 naira (22.4%). those who earned 81,000-100,000 naira were 19.7%, those who earned 21,000-40,000 naira were 17.2%, and those who earned less than 20, 000 naira were 10.3% while those who earned above 100, 000 naira were only 6.1%. two major religions global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 18 exist in the study area. results in table 1 showed the religious affiliation of the respondents. the result revealed that respondents who were christians accounted for 59.1% while islam accounted for 40.9%. on family type of the respondents, the results indicated that 68.5% of the respondents were involved in monogamy while only about 31.5% practised polygamy. this finding showed that most persons in the study area are only married to one wife or one husband. the study further enquired about the number of children respondents’ intended or would love to have. data in table 4, 13 showed that slightly above half (50.9%) of the respondents desired to have 4 children, 17.1% mentioned that they would love to have 3 children, 16.5% said they would love to have 6 children and above, 12.8% said they would love to have 5 children while only 2.6% of the respondents indicated that they would love to have just 2 children. figure 1: distribution of respondents on reachability of family planning services in their locality source: author's field survey, 2022 the information portrayed in figure 1 showed responses of the respondents on the availability of family planning services in their locality. out of the 1064 respondents utilised for this study, 50.3% of the study respondents indicated that their area of location had no available family planning services while 49.7% said that they had available family planning services in their area. this finding implies that despite the high level of knowledge of family planning, majority of the respondents do not enjoy these services since it is not available in their locality. 49.7% 50.3% global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 19 figure 2: distribution of respondents on access to family planning services source: author's field survey, 2022 data in figure 2 showed that out of the 1064 respondents used for this study, 54.5% of the study respondents indicated that they had no access to family planning services while 45.5% said they had access to family planning services. this finding implies that not everyone in kogi state has access to family planning. the problem with accessing family planning services can be traced to distance and locality of the respondents. data from the qualitative study supports this. according to a female participant: “the family planning centre is quite far from my place of residence and coupled with the hard economic state of things in our state, i find it hard making it to the family planning centre for the use of the services therein” [participant: fgd; female, kogi-east]. another participant also opined thus: “my place of residence is really far from the family planning clinic but i still manage to go there to get and use the available services to help in planning and spacing my children so as to enjoy good health as well.” [participant: fgd; female, kogi-central]. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 20 figure 3: distribution of respondents on current use of modern contraceptive method (n=1064) source: author's field survey, 2022 the study sought to find out if respondents were currently utilizing modern family planning method. data displayed in figure 3 showed that majority (52.5%) said they were not currently utilizing family planning methods while 47.5% said they were currently utilizing family planning methods. figure 4: distribution of respondents on current modern contraceptives been used (n=505) source: author's field survey, 2022 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 21 data in figure 4 showed the percentage distribution of respondents’ answers to the type of family planning they were currently using. majority (81.2%) of the respondents mentioned that they were currently using oral contraceptives, 9.7% said they were using condoms, 5.1% said they were using withdrawal method, 2.6% said they were doing periodic abstinence, 1.2% said they were using billings ovulation method while 0.2% mentioned cervical cap. this finding implies that the commonest type of family planning method employed is the oral contraceptives and this may be as a result of its high level of safety and its accessibility/cost. table 2: distribution of respondents on reasons for choice of family planning method source: author's field survey, 2022 respondents were asked the reasons for their choice of the type of family planning method they are using. data in table 2 showed that majority (85.4%) of the respondents said the method was suitable and effective/reliable, 4.7% said it was affordable, 3.85 said it has little side or no side effect, 3.0% said it is readily available, 2.3% said it involves their partner’s usage and .8% had no reason for using the family planning method they are currently using. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 22 figure 5: distribution of respondents on reasons for non-use of contraceptive methods source: author's field survey, 2018 in figure 5, respondents were asked their reasons for not using family planning. majority (22.6%) of the respondents said it is not easily accessible, 20.3% indicated fear, 20.0% said it is expensive, 18.5% said it encourages promiscuity, 7.8% said it is against their culture, 6.9% mentioned that it is against their religion and 3.9% said it diminishes their sexual activity. figure 6: distribution of respondents on proximity to family planning centre from their house source: author's field survey, 2022 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 23 in figure 6, respondents were asked the proximity of their family planning centres from their houses. majority (76.6%) of the respondents said their family planning centres were not so or very close to their place of residences, 11.6% said it was very far from their houses, 7.9% said they don’t know, 3.7% said it was far from their house and 0.3% said it was very close to their house. these findings imply that since most of the spouses live quite far away from where the very few available family planning clinics are located, it makes it cumbersome for spouses and/ or couples to access such services. table 3: distribution of respondents on factors inhibiting the use of contraceptives source: author's field survey, 2022 entries displayed in table 3 revealed the challenges inhibiting the utilization of family planning services by respondents. out of the 1064 respondents who were sampled for this study, majority (75.2%) said lack of education of spouse(s) inhibits the use of family planning, 11.6% mentioned attitude of health workers towards clients, 9.0% said cost of services, 2.8% mentioned the age of spouses, 1.1% mentioned culture and customs of the people and 0.3% said disapproval from husband/religious reason. this finding implies that amidst the numerous challenges inhibiting the use of family planning methods, lack of education of spouses’ poses more threat. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 24 decision rule: in the application of chi-square (χ2) for the test of hypotheses, the following rule was applied: reject the null hypotheses if the calculated value of the test statistics is greater than the table value. hypothesis one null hypothesis (h0): spouses with higher level of education are not more likely to utilize family planning services than those with lower level of education. substantive hypothesis (h1): spouses with higher level of education are more likely to utilize family planning services than those with lower level of education. table 4: percentage distribution of respondents on utilization of family planning by level of education χ2=47.314, df=1, n=1064, p<.000 source: author's field survey, 2022 to test hypothesis one, the chi square test result showed that the computed χ2 is 47.314 while the critical/table χ2 value is 3.841 and df= 1. the test also showed that there is a statistically significant relationship (p <.000) between education and the utilization of family planning services. from the decision rule, since the chi-squared calculated (47.314) is greater than the chi-squared tabulated (3.841) we accept the substantive hypothesis which stated that spouse with higher level of education are more likely to utilize family planning services than those with lower level of education, while the null hypothesis which stated that spouse with higher level of education are not more likely to utilize family planning services than those with lower level of education is hereby rejected. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 25 hypothesis two null hypothesis (h0): spouses with higher level of income are not more likely to utilise family planning services than those with lower income level substantive hypothesis (h1): spouses with higher level of income are more likely to utilise family planning services than those with lower income level table 5: percentage distribution of respondents on utilization of family planning services by income level χ2=6.795, df=1, n=1064, p< .009 source: author's field survey, 2022 to test hypothesis three, the chi square test result shows that computed χ2 is 6.795 while the critical/table χ2 value is 3.841 and df= 1. the test shows that there is a statistically significant relationship (p <.009) between income and utilization of family planning services. from the decision rule, since the chi-squared calculated (6.795) is greater than the chi-squared tabulated (3.841) the substantive hypothesis which states that spouse with higher level of income are more likely to utilize family planning services than those with lower level of income is hereby accepted while the null hypothesis which states that spouse with higher level of income are not more likely to utilize family planning services than those with lower level of income is hereby rejected. discussion of findings reachability of modern contraceptives/family planning services being informed about a family planning service is good but the availability of these services makes it important for respondents to easily access these services. findings from this study revealed that majority (50.3%) of the respondents said that family planning services was not available in their locality. this finding is in congruent with what ahmed, shokai, abduelkhair, and boshra (2015) found. concerning the global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 26 availability of family planning services, people in jelhak mentioned that family planning services do not exist. it was observed that there was only one health centre which provides medical services in addition to selling pills with very low rates. furthermore, this finding found that a little less than majority (41.8%) of the respondents said counselling of clients for appropriateness of methods and provision of variety of contraception were the available family planning services. this finding has a slight dissimilarity with that of ahmed, shokai, abduelkhair and boshra (2015). according to them, women and men in jelhak and renk had good knowledge about traditional and modern methods of family planning and poor knowledge about contraceptives. injectable contraceptives rated the lowest of all while condoms were well known but remains socially unacceptable. utilization of modern contraceptives/family planning services in terms of the utilization of family planning, majority (54.5%) of the said they had no access to family planning services hence they cannot utilize it. also, this study found out that despite the level of awareness of family planning services available in kogi state, majority (58.1%) of the respondents said they don’t utilize family planning services. when asked the reasons for not utilizing family planning services, majority of the respondents said family planning services have harmful health side effects while another significant majority said it was against their religion. similar finding by etokidem, ndifon, etowa and asuquo (2017) revealed that 56.0% of their study respondents indicated that their religious belief hinders their utilization of family planning services. another striking finding is that 52.5% of the study respondents said they were not currently utilizing family planning services. this is in contrast to the finding of ushie, otu and undelikwo (2014) in cross river state. ushie, otu and undelikwo (2014) found that 61.3% of their respondents were currently using one form of family planning method or another. factors influencing the uptake of modern contraceptives/family planning various factors influence the utilization of family planning services. from this study, it was found that accessibility, cost, proximity, culture and religion were all the reasons why people utilise or do not utilize family planning services. again, fgd from kogi-east revealed that place of residence was an influencing factor for the utilization of family planning. according to a participant, “the family planning centre is quite far from my place of residence and coupled with the hard economic state global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 27 of things in our state, i find it hard making it to the family planning centre for the use of the services therein”. this finding has similarities with that of gaetano, lutuf, zaake and annika (2014) who, in their study, revealed that although most people were aware of the benefits of family planning services, they however complained that it was difficult to access family planning services because these services were provided by health facilities that were far from their homes. education is a major factor in influencing the use of family planning method; majority (75.2%) of the respondents indicated that lack of education inhibits the utilization of family planning. this finding is slightly similar to that of apanga and adam (2015). apanga and adam (2015) in their study revealed that lack of knowledge and misconceptions about family planning have been strongly linked with non-use of family planning methods. conclusion this study investigated the reachability and use of modern contraceptives among spouses in kogi state, north-central, nigeria. the use of modern contraceptive is important in preventing maternal and neonatal deaths; hence, its availability and accessibility cannot be overemphasized. this study provides facts to demonstrate that even though there is a good knowledge of modern contraceptive among spouses in kogi state, it does not inevitably increase the reachability and use of modern contraceptive since the spouses indicated that they had no access to these services and that it was not available. it is therefore crucial to enlighten people on where to find these services and how to utilize these services. this will help spouses utilize family planning services. husbands should be fully active in family planning decisions. women should not be made to go through this stage alone. both husband and wife should take decisions of family planning services. to this end, the government, organizations, international bodies, community leaders, institutions, health workers and the general public should quickly rise to their distinct responsibilities in providing relevant information about family planning services. recommendations based on the findings, the researcher recommends the following to guide the government, religious leaders, organizations, institutions, health care providers, sociologists, all spouses and the general public in addressing issues on the reachability and uptake of modern contraceptives. the recommendations are:  sociologists should educate and create more awareness on the global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 28 benefits of utilizing family planning services. this they can do by organizing programmes that educate and keep spouses as well as couples and reproductive persons informed.  impediments limiting access to and reachability of family planning services should be addressed by the state government. this will help spouses utilize family planning services and will in turn improve their well-being.  government should collaborate with international bodies and organizations that are capable of providing the required healthcare needed by spouses and that can also provide these services at a subsidized rate for couples. if possible, government should also incorporate and implement already formulated policies that promote free family planning services for rural dwellers. references adansi-pimpim, g., kwafo, s. k., & garchiner, c. 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(2010). sub-saharan africa: facts on investing in family planning and maternal and newborn health. new york: guttmacher institute & unfpa. retrieved on the 13/04/2022 from http://www.unfpa.org/webdav/site/global/shared/additup/factsheet_ aiv_africa_ en.pdf. guttmacher institute. (2014). in brief: facts on publicly funded contraceptive services in the united states. new york, ny: retrieved on 22 march, 2022 from: https://www.guttmacher .org/pubs/fb_ contraceptive_serv.html. hill, k., you, d., inoue, m., &oestergaard, m. z. (2012). technical advisory group of united nations inter-agency group for child mortality estimation.plos med, 9(8): e1001303. iniabasi, n. i &anthonia, a. (2013). adolescents and utilisation of family planning services in rural community of nigeria. journal of research on humanities and social sciences. www.iiste.org. vol.3, no. 1. pp. 112-132. kabagenyi, a. jennings, l., reid, a., nalwadda, g., ntozi, j., & atuyambe, l. (2014). barriers to male involvement in contraceptive uptake and reproductive health services: a qualitative study of men and women's perceptions in two rural districts in uganda. reprodhealth.11 (1):21. koseeds (2015). kogi state economic empowerment and development strategy: a bridged version. kogi state ministry of budget and planning 2015. lokoja, kogi state, nigeria. lawrence, e. b. & david, e. (2008). rationality. the new palgrave dictionary of economics. 2nd edition. monjok, e., andrea, s., john, e. e., & essien, j. e. (2010). contraceptive practices in nigeria: literature review and recommendation for future policy decisions. open access journal of contraception, 1:9-22. nabila, j. s. (2014). "the ghana national family planning programme and national development" paper presented at the national conference on population and national reconstruction. university of ghana, legon, april 7-10. national population commission (2006). federal republic of nigeria. http://www.unfpa.org/webdav/site/global/shared/additup/factsheet global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 31 official gazette, 94,178-198. national population commission (nigeria) & icf marco. 2009. nigeria demographic and health survey 2008. abuja, nigeria: national population commission and icfmarco. nigeria demographic and health survey (ndhs) 2008. national population commission, federal republic of nigeria. abuja, nigeria & icf macro. calverton, maryland, usa. november 2009. npc (2009). kogi state priority table vol. npc 2006 population and housing census of the federal republic of nigeria. okeowo, t. a., & olujide, m. g. (2014). attitude, knowledge and utilization of family planning methods among rural women in ogun state, nigeria. agrosearch, 14 (1), 39-53. paschal, a. a., & matthew, a. a. (2015). factors influencing the uptake of family planning services in the talensi district, ghana. pan afri med j. 2015; 20: 10. doi: 10.11604/pamj. 2015.20.10.5301 rugendo, m. m., & maseno university (2015). assessing utilisationof family planning services among women of reproductive age (15-49 yrs) in north kanyabala sub-location, homabay sub-county. journal of biology, agriculture and healthcare.vol. 5, no. 7, 2015. www.iiste.org. retrieved on 20th may, 2016. samuel, e. (2010). human sexuality & family health education, nsukka, afro-orbis publishers limited. sedgh, g., rubina, h., akinrinola, b., &susheela, s. (2007). women with an unmet need for contraception in developing countries and their reasons for not using a method. 2007, occasional report. new york: guttmacher institute. semachew-kasa, a., tarekegn, m., & embiale, n. (2018). knowledge, attitude and practice towards family planning among reproductive age women in a resource limited setting of northwest ethiopia. bmc research notes, 11(1), 57. doi:10.1186/s13104-018-3689-7. sonfield, a.hasstedt, k. & gold, r. b. (2014). moving forward: family planning in the era of health reform, new york: guttmacher institute. uganda bureau of statistics (ubos) and orc macro (2001). uganda demographic and health survey 2000–2001. 2001, calverton, maryland, usa: ubos and orc macro. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 32 ushie, m. a., otu, j. e., & undelikwo, v. a. (2014). a comparative analysis of fertility differentials in cross river state. dev country study, 4(1), 36-40. westoff, c. f. (2011). unmet need at the end of the century. dhs comparative reports no.1. calverton, maryland: orc macro. world health organization (2010). world health statistics: (geneva: world health organization. world health organization (who) (2013). family planning fact sheet. retrieved on the 26/03/2022 from http: //www.who.int/media centre/factsheets1to351/en/pdf. author information: dr edward ukwubile egwuaba is a lecturer in the department of sociology, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, igbariam, anambra state, nigeria. email: edwardegwuaba@yahoo.com sunday blessing adeyi is affiliated to the department of sociology, prince abubakar audu university, anyigba, kogi state, nigeria. email: sundayblessingadeyi@gmail. com <!--<script data-ad-client="ca-pub-3540750425318101" async src="https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>--> global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 37 the ubiquity of signs by stella tonyo akinola abstract language is a means of human communication that sets man apart from other animals. language gives structure to experience and every other aspect of life. language, of course, is primarily spoken and society is dominated by the spoken form, but for those who are unable to speak, communication takes place through signs. this article seeks to find out if the society can do without signs and symbols in daily communication. the population of sign language users is insignificant as compared to the population of persons that use spoken language yet some aspects of society seem to function better with signs and symbols. this is a descriptive work and it is qualitative. the instrument in operation here is the questionnaire and the theoretical framework hinges on functionalism. seventy-four (74) respondents took part in this study. this study concludes that the society in general cannot function maximally without signs and symbols. keywords: ubiquity, signs, iconicity, signals, symbols introduction language is essentially a communication system in the sense that it associates meaning (i.e. the message) with a set of signs (i.e. the sounds or symbols). all linguistic units of expression (sounds, words, sentences) are the signs of the objects, entities or states of affairs that they represent. there is a relationship between a sign and the entity it stands for. language contributes to the totality of knowledge immensely. it is a unifying factor for everything and connects environmental practice with knowledge of culture and transmits everything synchronically and diachronically among members of a speech community between various generations, (crystal, 2000; egbokhare, 2011). language gives structure to experiences and establishes and maintains social relations. language is also used to release nervous tension physiologically and psychologically. the necessary tool to acquire skills and knowledge is of course, language. language can be described as a code which comprises meaningful sounds and symbols shared by a speech community for the purpose of global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 38 communication. the set of sounds and symbols are governed by a system and structural rules which permit combination possibilities. ndimele (2006) describes language as a semiotic system that entails the use of certain agreed upon symbols or signals to convey meaning, from one person to another within a given speech community. this definition seems to be all encompassing as it recognizes every variable that make up the entity called language. semiotics investigates the properties of signaling systems, both natural and artificial, especially with regard to the meanings or messages that they convey. this is the most convenient definition for this paper as is bothers on signs, which forms an integral part of communication. sign language interpretation can be regarded as semiotic in a sense but that has to do with the fact that all simultaneous interpretation – indeed all use of language – is semiotic, rather than establishing language in opposition to other semiotic systems. from ndimele’sperspective, linguistic translation, including the simultaneous interpretation of sign languages as well as spoken languages, are not as distinct from semiotic translation but as subset of the more general category of semiotics. recent findings about sign languages are but one entity in a growing list of factors pointing to the inadequacy of contemporary linguistics to describe human languages,(hymes, 1973). thus, one of the problems to be overcome with regard to language is the linguist’s usual conception of it. a broader, differently based notion of the form in which we encounter and use language in the world therefore is needed. to hymes, this broader view is represented by the term, “ways of speaking” or “the ethnography of communication”. ingram (1977), in his study of sign language interpretation, declared that we must combat the assumption that sign languages are not only grammatical surrogates of spoken languages, but also that they overlap spoken languages semantically.a sign language output may seem easier to facilitate than a spoken language output simply because the former is easier to fake. an interpreter can always shift into a sign language form that is easier for him, but not necessarily more comprehensible.a spoken language output, though is not so easy to fake, its flaws become readily apparent to the hearer/receptor and an interpreter’s only recourse is to complain that interpretation from a sign language to a spoken language is a more difficult task. societal pressures being what they are, may have likely established the spoken form as the dominant language. it is expected that the greater the global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 39 linguistic dominance the more likely an interpreter will identify with the speakers of the dominant language, rather than with clients speaking his “other” language. sign languages use two different modalities, the visual and the gestural. although, the two modalities clearly differ in the production and perception of communicative signals, the underlying linguistic structures seem to be very similar across both modalities (meier 2002, 2012, sandler & lillo-martin, 2006). nevertheless, sign languages, retain some modality-specific properties that may impact the linguistic structure and the cognitive processes underlying the perception and production of signed communication. first of all, sign languages employ various articulators such as the hands, the upper part of the body, the head, and the face to express grammatical features simultaneously.second, sign languages use the geometrical properties of the signing space to realize morphosyntactic, semantic and pragmatic categories in the three dimensional space (pfau &stanbach 2016). third, sign languages grammaticalize and integrate gestural elements, since sign languages and manual as well as non-manual gesture use the same modality. as a consequence, the interface between these two systems is permeable and leads to a more prominent presence of iconicity at different grammatical levels. by contrast, there is much less transparency between the signals used in auditory communication and their meaning (schlenkes 2018). besides these linguistic differences, sign languages differ from many spoken languages also in various sociolinguistic dimensions (aronoff et al., 2005). problem statement the study of signed languages is of great theoretical interest. by and large, claims about what is universal across human languages are based on the examination of a relatively small percentage of the world’s languages. and signed languages have not been included among that small percentage. language whether spoken or signed, is a tool of communication. but this tool of communication can sometimes create a communication gap when two people do not have a common means of a communication language. this is the reason globalization came with a demand for a standardized language for international platforms. in-depth studies of signs could reveal a great deal about the characteristics of language that are truly universal.signs seem to cut across cultures and languages. signs have global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 40 meanings that permeate all languages. thus, the common means of communication we seek for is embedded in signs. conceptual review signals, signs and symbols, these three related components of communication processes found in all cultures have attracted considerable scholarly attention because they do not relate primarily to the usual conception of words or language.each is apparently an increasingly more complex modification of the former, and each was probably developed in the depths of prehistory before or at the start of early human experiments with vocal language. signals a signal may be considered as an interruption in a field of constant energy transfer. the basic function of such signals is to provide the change of a single environmental factor in order to attract attention and to transfer meaning. a code system that refers interruptions to some form of meaningful language may easily be developed with a crude vocabulary of dots, dashes or other elemental audio and visual articulations. taken by themselves, the interruptions have a potential breadth of meaning that seems extremely small: they may indicate the presence of an individual in a room, an impatience, agreement, or disagreement with some aspect of the environment or in the case of a scream for help, a critical situation demanding attention. coded to refer to spoken or written language, their potential to communicate language is extremely great.it seems likely that the underlying opposition between “sign” and “background” needs to be invoked and that much of the point of these proposals is precisely that they address cultures and persons without discussing mode of production or treating social class as a factor in change (hymes, 1978). signs while signs are usually less germane to the development of words than signals, most of them contain greater amount of meaning and by themselves. ashley montagu, an anthropologist, has defined a sign as a “concrete denote” possessing an inherent specific meaning, roughly analogous to the sentence. the most common signs encountered in daily life are pictures or drawings, although a human posture like a clenched fist, an outstretched arm or a hand posed in like a “stop” gesture may also serve as signs. road signs global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 41 road signs are universal. symbols often get noticed when they are out of context, used unconventionally, they convey strong messages. a stop sign on the door of a corporation makes a political statement as does a camouflage military jacket worn in an antiwar protest. together, the semaphore signal “n” and “d” represent nuclear disarmament – and form the well-known peace sign. (westcott 2008) today, some students have taken to wear pajamas and bedroom slippers to class, clothing that was formally associated only with privacy and bedtime. though students might deny it, the outfit defies traditional cultural norms and makes a statement. sports signs these wears are indicative of sports. the flags on the football pitch are all signs. a football match goes on for ninety (90) minutes without verbal communication. this shows that communication with signs is possible across board. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 42 the main difference between a sign and a signal is that a sign (like a policeman’s badge) contains meanings of an intrinsic nature while a signal (like a scream for help) is merely a device by which one is able to formulate extrinsic meanings. their difference is illustrated by the observation that many types of animals respond to signals while only a few intelligent and trained animals (usually dogs and apes) are competent to respond to even simpler signs. symbols the world is filled with symbols: sports uniforms, company logos and traffic signs are symbols. in some cultures, a gold ring is a symbol of marriage. some symbols are highly functional, stop signs, for instance, provide useful instruction. as physical objects, they belong to material culture, but because they function as symbols, they also convey non material cultural meanings. some symbols are valuable only in what they represent. trophies, blue ribbons, or gold medals for example serve no other purpose than represent accomplishments. but many objects have both material and non-material symbol value. a police officer’s badge and uniform are symbols of authority and law enforcement. the sight of an officer in uniform or a squad car triggers reassurances in some citizens and annoyance, fear or anger in others. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 43 it’s easy to take symbols for granted. few people challenge or even think about stick figure signs on the doors of public bathrooms. but those figures are more than just symbols that tell men and women which bathrooms to use, they also uphold the value that public restrooms should be gender exclusive. even though stalls are relatively private, most places do not offer unisex bathrooms. symbols are more difficult than signs to understand and to define, because unlike signs and signals, they are intricately woven into an individual’s ongoing perception of the world. the symbol has been defined as any device with which an abstraction can be made. although far from being precise construction, it leads in to profitable direction. the abstractions of the values that people imbue in other people and in things they own and use, lie at the heart of symbolism. in whitehead’s opinion, symbols are analogues or metaphors (that may include written or spoken language as well as visual objects) standing for some quality of reality that is enhanced in importance or value by the process of symbolization itself. even the destruction of a symbol is symbolic. effigies representing public figures are burnt to demonstrate anger at certain leaders. in 1989, crowds tore down the berlin wall, a decade old symbol of the division between east and west germany, communism and capitalism. while different cultures have varying systems of symbols, one symbol is common to all languages. language is a symbolic system through which people communicate and through culture is transmitted. some languages contain a system of symbols used for written communication while others rely on only spoken and non-verbal actions. societies often share a single language and many languages contain the same basic elements. an alphabet is a written system made of symbolic shapes that refer to spoken sound. taken together, these symbols convey specific meanings.some global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 44 gestures are nearly universal, smiles often represent joy and crying often represents sadness.shakespeare says, “action speaks louder than voice” iconicity the visual-gestural modality of signed languages has greater resources for iconic representation than does the oral-aural modality of spoken languages. aside from onomatopoetic representations of sounds (e.g., bow-wow, meow), the mapping between form and meaning in the words of spoken languages is seldom imagistic; rather, form-meaning mappings are typically arbitrary. in contrast, the movement of the two hands in the transparent, three-dimensional signing space allows signed languages to represent the shape and movement of objects imagistically. whether in sign or speech, the mapping between form and meaning need not always be arbitrary, but all languages must allow arbitrary form-meaning mappings in order to have lexical items for abstract, non-imageable concepts (meier, 2002). crucially, whether arbitrary or imagistic, formmeaning mappings in signed and spoken languages are conventional within particular linguistic communities.rich clusters of related and unrelated symbols are usually regarded as icons. they are actuallygroups of interactive symbols, like the “brick house” in port harcourt, “aso rock” in abuja. methodology a survey research design method was adopted. the target population comprised two groups: students and lecturers in the university of africa, toru-orua, bayelsa state. the study adopted simple random sampling. the bulk of the relevant data were collected through questionnaire. a questionnaire containing ten (10) items was administered to students and lecturers across the four (4) faculties in the university.one hundred (100) questionnaires were given out,twenty-five (25) per faculty, out of which seven (7) were given to lecturers in each of the faculties and eighteen (18) to students in the various faculties as well. out of one hundred (100) questionnaires, eighty-seven (87) were returned, of which seventy-four (74) were found useful for the data analysis. functionalism theory was employed in the analysis of data. data presentation and analysis the data gathered in the course of the study was carefully harnessed and analyzed based on the theory of functionalism which has to do with the extent to which a given activity promotes or interferes with the maintenance of a system. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 45 demographic information of respondents the sex and age were the only demographic information that was taken from the respondents. the essence is to ascertain the gender and the age range of the respondentsso as to validate the data in relation to the respondents. this is because the study does not require detailed demographic information. the total number of males that took part in the study is forty-two (42) while the total number of females is thirty-two (32). the implication is that, both genders were satisfactorilyrepresented. thus, there is gender balance. age is another factor that is important to this study. issues about language almost always depend on the age factor. the age range of respondentsis between fifteen (15) and above fifty (50). it means that there is no gap within the age groups, that is, all the useful, productive age groups were fully represented in the study. the level of the student respondents was taken not for anything significant but to enable one get across all the age groups. thus, the different age groups were captured between 100 level – 400 level. secondly, it was easier to distribute the questionnaires when the students were taking their various faculty courses, hence the uniformity of levels across faculties. table 1: distribution of questionnaires (students) s/n faculty level no. out no. rtnd 1 arts & education 200 18 16 2 social & management sciences 300 18 14 3 sciences 400 18 16 4 agriculture 100 18 18 total 72 64 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 46 table 2: distribution of questionnaires (lecturers) s/n faculty no. out no. rtnd 1 arts & education 7 7 2 social & management sciences 7 5 3 sciences 7 5 4 agriculture 7 6 total 28 23 as clearly stated in tables 1 and 2, a hundred questionnaires were given out to students and lecturers but eighty-seven (87) were returned and seventy-four (74) were found useful for the analysis of the data. data analysis this paper is an attempt to find out if the world can do without signs in communication, since prominence is given to the verbal form of language. sign language may not necessarily be the use of signs but it uses more of signs and gestures. people tend to live their daily lives without actually acknowledging the place of signs and symbols in communication. we encounter signs and symbols on daily basis in our interaction with the world especially in public domains yet sign language is seen as inferior to spoken language. thus, this paper regards the use of signs as a part and parcel of sign language. the first item in the questionnaire which has to do with what sign language is, received an interesting response.73% of the respondents agreed that any language that uses visual modality to convey meaning is a sign language including non-verbal communication. thus, the respondents view road signs, laurels, uniforms, traffic lights, gestures, etc.,as part of sign language. the implication is that virtually all the respondents are conversant with what signs and symbols are, which is attributed tosign language. it means that there are other significant modes of communication other than spoken and written forms and these tend to be in close association with sign language. that is, sign language is not strange to the respondents. they all have a peripheral idea about sign language but not its complexities. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 47 concerning the level of importance of sign language in society, some of the respondents are of the view that life can go on smoothly without signs and symbols. signs and symbols are of no importance to the society that is free of deaf and dumb persons. precisely,87% strongly disagree that sign language is very important. the respondents think that their lives are not connected to sign language in any way. better still, sign language is not involved in their day to day activities since they can speak. that is, they strongly disagree on the importance of sign language while an insignificant percentage which is about 13% of the respondents agree that sign language is very important. other respondents think it is important because of the signs, symbols, gestures and the likes encountered on daily basis in their interaction with the world. driving around town, one comes across road signs that give direction as to know when, where and how to go. the sea sign is indicative of a vehicle that stopped on the road as a result one thing or the other. as a matter of fact, when a vehicle breaks down, the driver makes attempt to put it in order by calling a mechanic or moves away to look for solution. nobody expects him/her to stand there and continue to flag down vehicles to give such information for as long as the vehicle remains there. the sea sign, for instance, speaks to everyone driving along a road. little wonder, the road signs are taught before one is allowed to handle the steering, hence their importance. 91% agree that spoken language is the primary mode of human communication while 8% are of the opinion that sign language is the primary mode.there is no argument as to which of the modes is primary. it is obviously the spoken is the primary mode of communication but life does not leave a vacuum. so, if there are communication barriers, signs take the stage. this implies that communication with signs is possible for everyone pending on the situation a person finds himself. some respondents identified the spoken form of language as being superior to sign language since the spoken form is the primary mode of expression. others observed that both are forms of communication and that no one is superior to the other. this is similar to prescriptive linguistics where some languages were seen as being superior to others. today, descriptive linguistics has taken over, thus the question of superiority does not exist anymore.the spoken form and the sign form are both distinct and they perform communicative roles that are unique. humans, consciously and subconsciously are always striving to make sense of their surrounding world. symbols such as gestures, signs, objects, signals and words – help people understand that world. they global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 48 provide clues to understand experiences by conveying recognizable meanings that are shared by societies. signs and symbols come to play here as society searches for universal communication modes. examining the response to this item further reveals that people have a negative notion about sign language. they seem to think that it is the language for imbeciles, language of the down trodden in the society. thus, the exhibition of negative attitudes. as a matter of fact, they are not willing or do not want to have anything to do with signs and symbols in communication, since such communication is perceived to be sign language. people tend to have stigma towards sign language just as the deaf and dumb are stigmatized. the stigma towards signed languages is based on assumptions, from attitudes and beliefs that signed languages are not “real” or full languages. but the tools of linguistics reveal that signed languages are just as complex as spoken languages: they have phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax & semantics. furthermore, neural imaging has revealed that users of sign languages recruit the same areas of the brain for producing and understanding language as users of spoken languages do. safety signs are crucial in any work environment. the primary importance of displaying safety signs is to prevent emergencies and ensure staff and visitors are well aware of the possible dangers and hazards ahead in certain situations and/or environments. without signs, many employees would lack the necessary direction in times of crisis and employers might find themselves in significant legal difficulties, if any accident arises as a result. conclusion language is constantly evolving as societies create new ideas, in this age of technology. even while it constantly evolves, language continues to shape our reality.symbols tend to appear in clusters and depend upon one another for their accretion of meaning and value. they are not a language by themselves: rather they are devices by which ideas too difficult, dangerous or inconvenient to articulate in common language are transmitted in common ways. it does not appear possible to compile discrete vocabularies of symbols because they lack the precision and regularities present in natural languages that are necessary for explicit definitions. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 49 references fau, r. &stanback, m. (2006). modality-independent and modalityspecific aspects of grammaticalization in sign language. linguistics in potsdam 24(3) 98. hymes, d. (1973). on the origins and foundation of inequality among speakers. daedalua,102(3) 59-86. hymes, d. (1978). new literary history.the university of virginia. ingram, r.m. (1977). principles & procedures of teaching sign languages. british deaf association. kimura, d. (1976). the neural basis of language qua gesture. in h. whitaker and h.a. whitaker, (eds.). studies in neurolinguistics, 2(perspectives in neurolinguistics and psycholinguistics). academic press. meier, r.p. (2002). sign language acquisition: online publication. napol, d.j. (2018). the oxford book of morphological theory. ndimele, o.m. (2006). introduction to linguistics. emhai press. sandler, w. & lilo-martin, d. (2006). sign language and linguistic universals. cup. schlenker, p. (2018). visible meaning: sign language & the foundation of semantics. de cruyter mouton. author information: mrs stella tonyo akinola, phd, lectures at the university of africa, toru-orua, bayelsa state, nigeria. email: stella.akinola@uat.edu.ng global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 78 a study on the cadaveric anatomical dimensions of the pterion in a nigerian population: an important landmark guide in lateral approach surgeries* by ozor i.i, nkwerem s.p.u, iroegbu-emeruem l, nnachi s.i, asimadu i.n, aroh v.e & elisa f.i. abstract background: the pterion is a craniometric point near the sphenoid fontanelle of the skull. in neurosurgery, pterional approach is one of the most widely used operative interventions and treatments. the aim of this study is to determine the cadaveric anatomical features of the pterion in a nigerian population and compare with those of different populations. materials and method: this is an observational study carried out in the human anatomy departments of enugu state university college of medicine, university of nigeria college of medicine, nnamdi azikiwe university college of health sciences, ebonyi state university college of medicine and chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university college of medicine, nigeria, using fifty cadaveric skulls of both sexes. oral approval was gotten from the various departments on presentation of letter of introduction from the department of anatomy, enugu state university of science and technology, enugu. results: the sphenoparietal type of pterion was found to be the most common type (78%) on the right and (74%) on the left, followed by frontotemporal which is (14%) on the right and (18%) on the left; the least common types of pterion is stellate and epipteric with (4%) on the right and the left. conclusion: despite the significant variation between the left and right sides of the pterion, the pterions found in cadaveric skulls of nigerian origin are similar to those of other population. introduction the pterion, which is an important landmark in human craniometry, is a point of convergence of the frontal, sphenoid, parietal, and squamous temporal bones of the calvarium (vigo et al 2020). it is a very useful landmark in surgical planning and orientation intraoperatively. murphy described four types of pterions namely sphenoparietal, frontotemporal, stellate, and epipteric (murphy, 1956). see figure 1. occasionally, a small global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 79 epipteric bone may be present. the pterion is a reference area in locating the broca’s motor speech area, anterior pole of the insula, and middle cerebral artery (sindel et al, 2016). it is also very useful in neurosurgical approaches, especially for anterior circulation aneurysm (bhargavi, c., saralaya, v., & kishan, k., 2011). furthermore, the pterion which is the weakest areaof the skull, overlies the middle meningeal vessels (ilknur, mustafa, & sinan, 2009), which are the major cause of extradural hematoma in head injuries. (lama, mottolese, et al, 2000). previous cadaveric study around the pterion in southeast nigeria was a single centre study (ukoha et al, 2013). besides, the relationship of pterion with the mastoid process, another important neurosurgical landmark, was not explored in the study. this multicenter study is an attempt to determine the cadaveric anatomical features of the pterion in a nigerian population, compare previous studies in nigeria and with those of different populations. figure 1: skeletal picture of the types of pterions. (murphy, 1956 & oguz et al., 2004). figure 2: types of pterions. (çimen et al, 2019) global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 80 materials and methods this is an observational study carried out in the human anatomy departments of enugu state university college of medicine, university of nigeria college of medicine, nnamdi azikiwe university college of health sciences, ebonyi state university college of medicine and chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university college of medicine. oral approval was gotten from the various departments on presentation of letter of introduction from the department of anatomy, enugu state university of science and technology, enugu. cadaveric skulls irrespective of males and females with intact calvaria and well-defined sutures were included in the study, while damaged skulls and very old skulls with obliterated sutures were excluded. study was conducted on fifty human unsexed adult skulls. dry skulls are taken up for the study as there is paucity of cadavers. pteria was classified based on murphy’s classification. measurements were taken on both sides of the skull from the center of the pterion to the midpoint of zygoma, tip of the mastoid process, bregma and to the fronto-zygomatic suture using vernier calipers. each of the measurements were taken twice then averaged so as to minimize bias errors. relevant findings regarding various types of pterions and position of pterion were noted. values were recorded separately on right and left sides and compared. values were also compared with previous studies for their statistical significance. the measurement of pterion this was done in the laboratory, the data collected in this study were statistically analyzed using descriptive statistics like the percentages, mean and standard deviation. to compare between right and left sides, one way anova (analysis of variance) was used. results in the present study, we found sphenoparietal type of pterion to be the most common type (78%) on the right and (74%) on the left, followed by frontotemporal which is (14%) on the right and (18%) on the left, the least common types of pterion are stellate and epipteric with (4%) on the right and the left. table 1: the percentage distribution of various types of pterions is shown in the table below. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 81 types of pterions right percentage (%) left percentage (%) sphenoparietal 39 78 37 74 frontotemporal 7 14 9 18 stellate 2 4 2 4 epipteric 2 4 2 4 total 50 100 50 100 the table below is a comparison of left and right sides using standard deviation table 2a (right side) type right x x-x (x-x)2 sphenoparietal 39 26.5 702.25 frontotemporal 7 -5.5 30.25 epipteric 2 -10.5 110.25 stellate 2 -10.5 110.25 total 50 953 standard deviation s for the right =17.8 table 2b (left side) type left x x-x (x-x)2 sphenoparietal 37 24.5 600.25 frontotemporal 9 -3.5 12.5 epipteric 2 -10.5 110.25 stellate 2 -10.5 110.25 total 50 833 standard deviation s for the left= 16. table 3: anova table sources of variation sum of square degree of freedom mean square fraction treatment(α) 1782 (p-1) 594 594 error(e) 4 (p-1)4 1 total 1786 7 the critical region is f>f (0.5) (3, 4) =f>6.59 since the calculated f~ ratio (594) is greater than the critical value (6.59) we reject the h0 at α = 0.05 and concluded that the varietal difference is significant. (note this result is also significant at α = 0.01). table 4: comparing the distance from the pterion to mid-point of zygomatic arch(p-za), frontozygomatic(p-fzs), mastoid process (pmp) with that of other populations. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 82 authors year population distance(cm) p-fz p-za p-mp right left right left right left pretty rathnakar et al 2019 india 4.0 4.0 3.2 3.2 8.3 8.3 sowya s et al 2017 india 3.42 3.33 4.0 3.99 ma et al 2012 australia 2.6 2.5 3.4 3.4 iiknur et al 2009 anatolian 3.3 3.44 4.05 3.85 k.natsis et al 2019 greek 3.47 3.52 4.13 4.09 bhargavi et al 2011 india 3.93 3.8 4.42 4.45 adejuwon et al 2013 nigeria 3.1 3.083 3.91 3.87 ukoha et al 2013 nigeria 2.74+/.07 2.74+/0.06 4.02+/0.05 4.01+/0.03 present study 2021 nigeria 3.32 3.40 4.53 4.39 8.92 8.78 discussion the predominant pterion found in the present study is the sphenoparietal type (78%) on the right and (74%) on the left, and this is similar to all other studies summarized in table 4. in the asians, the sphenoparietal pterion frequency ranged between 72% and 93.55%. the japanese has the highest frequency with (93.5%) followed by the indians with (72-77%). the greeks has the lowest frequency (58.4%) followed by the kenyans (66%). the high frequency of sphenoparietal pterion could be as a result of evolution (lui yh, et al 1999), given that it is the commonest type in primates (ashleymontagu m. 1933). in the present study, the vertical distance from pterion to zygomatic arch is found to be slightly more on the right side compared to the left side, while the pterion to frontozygomatic suture was slightly more on the left compared to the right. according to measurement pterion was lying approximately 4.53cm above the arcus zygomaticus on the right side, 4.39cm on the left side and 3.32cm behind the frontozygomatic suture on the right and 3.40cm on the left. a study done in greek by k.natsis et al (2019) shows the distance from the pterion to the zygomatic arch to be 4.13cm on the right and 4.09cm on the left, while the distance from the pterion to the frontozygomatic is 3.47cm on the right and 3.52cm on the left. in another study done in india by bhargavi et al (2011) recorded the distance from the pterion to the zygomatic arch to 4.52cm on the right and 4.45cm on the left, while the distance from the pterion frontozygomatic suture is 3.93cm on the right and 3.8cm on the left. another study done in anatolia by iiknur et al (2009) shows the distance from the pterion to the zygomatic arch to be 4.05cm on the right and 3.85cm on the left, while the distance from the pterion to the frontozygomatic suture is 3.3cm on the right and 3.44cm on the left. comparing the result from the present study to that of the result gotten global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 83 from other studies done in different populations it shows that the distance from the pterion to zygomatic arch is found to be slightly more on the right side compared to the left side, while the pterion to frontozygomatic suture is slightly more on the left compared to the right. conclusion the pterions found in cadaveric skulls of nigerian origin have the following features when compared to those of other population; distance from the center of the pterion to mid zygomatic arch and mastoid process was found to be more on the right than the left, from the pterion to the frontozygomatic arch was found to be more on the left than the right and bregma is equal on both sides. references adejuwon, s., olopade, f., & bolaji, m. 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(2010). morphometric study of pterion in dry skull gujarat region. njirm, 1:25 9. * this is a revised version of an article of the same title published by the authors in 2023. author information: ozor ii is affiliated to neurosurgery unit, department of surgery, college of medicine, enugu state university of science and technology and department of anatomy, college of medicine, enugu state university of science and technology, enugu. email: ikemozor@yahoo.com nkwerem spu is of neurosurgery unit, department of surgery, college of health sciences, nnamdi azikiwe university teaching hospital. iroegbu-emeruem l is of department of surgery, faculty of clinical sciences, college of medical sciences, rivers state university, port-harcourt. nnachi si is of department of anatomy, college of medicine, enugu state university of science and technology, enugu. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23771454 https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?journal=niger+j+clin+pract&title=anatomic+study+of+the+pterion+in+nigerian+dry+human+skulls&author=u+ukoha&author=ck+oranusi&author=ji+okafor1&author=oo+udemezue&author=ae+anyabolu&volume=16&issue=3&publication_year=2013&pages=325-328&pmid=23771454& global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 86 asimadu in is of department of ophthalmology, enugu state university of science and technology, enugu. aroh ve is of department of surgery, federal university teaching hospital, abakaliki. elisa fi is of department of anatomy, college of medicine, enugu state university of science and technology, enugu. ama ozor ii, nkwerem spu, iroegbu-emeruem l, nnachi si, asimadu in, aroh ve, elisa fi. a study on the cadaveric anatomical dimensions of the pterion in a nigerian population: an important landmark guide in lateral approach surgeries. global online journal of academic research, 2024;3(2):78-86. https://klamidas.com/gojar-v3n22024-05/. apa ozor i.i, nkwerem s.p.u, iroegbu-emeruem l., nnachi s.i, asimadu i.n, aroh v.e, elisa f.i. (april 2024). a study on the cadaveric anatomical dimensions of the pterion in a nigerian population: an important landmark guide in lateral approach surgeries. global online journal of academic research, 3(2), 78-86. https://klamidas.com/gojarv3n2-2024-05/. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 7 exposure to tinubu’s “let the poor breathe” viral video on social media and its influence on audience perception of his economic policies by casmir u. obiakor & chinonso c. adikuru abstract president ahmed bola tinubu of all progressives congress (apc) while making his inaugural speech on may 29, 2023, as he was being sworn as the new president of nigeria, said “let the poor breathe”. the statement became a popular sound bite as this video went viral on various social media platforms. with the economic policies of president tinubu, especially the removal of fuel subsidy and floating of naira against the dollar which have led to inflation, there is a growing concern as to whether tinubu actually wants to let the poor breathe. this research work, among other objectives, investigates audience perception of tinubu’s “let the poor breathe” comment which went viral on social media and how the comment influences people’s perception of his economic policies. the focus group discussion (fgd) method was used to study 60 purposively selected participants among anambra state civil servants at the state’s secretariat, awka. the study was anchored on the reception and perception theories. the result showed that respondents were well exposed to the “let the poor breathe” video and their main sources of exposure were whatsapp, twitter and facebook. the study also found that respondents had negative perception of the comment, seeing it as a mockery of the poor after his economic policies of fuel subsidy removal and floating of the naira which led to inflation in the country. the respondents see president tinubu as being insincere towards the poor as his harsh economic policies have worsened the condition of the poor in nigeria. the study recommends that president tinubu should introduce shortterm policies that will reduce the hardship faced by many nigerians, including the poor, in addition to palliatives he has promised to give to the poor. keywords: “let the poor breathe” viral video, exposure, social media, influence, perception, economic policies. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 8 introduction for most observers, the significance of the mass media for public policymaking arises from the fact that the media shape public opinion, thereby forcing political actors to respond to popular preferences (voltmer & koch-baumgarten, 2007). the mass media in the political process has changed fundamentally from playing the role of a rather passive conveyor of messages to discharging the duties of a political actor in its own right. as a large body of literature suggests, the media is now taking an active part in the public representation of politics by shaping the agenda of political discourse and by contributing their own preferences in political controversies (bennett & entman 2001; voltmer & koch-baumgarten, 2007). the mass media in every democratic society is established as an important organ of information sourcing and dissemination, provision of electoral education, surveillance, social enlightenment and mobilization (oshega, et al., 2017). thomas jefferson, former american president, avers that since the basis of democracy was the opinion of the people, if it were left for him to decide whether his country should have a government without the mass media or mass media without a government he would choose the latter (akinfeleye, 2008). the above statement further emphasizes the vital role of the mass media in the democratic process. the power of the new media, particularly, in the area of timely dissemination of information is a trend that has gained global acceptance and is now indispensible in every serious communication activity. applications such as facebook, twitter, and youtube, as well as user-generated content websites or blogs, provide new ways of disseminating political information (heblich, 2016). agba & ogri (2016) summarize the role of the mass media in a democratic process by stating that, during political campaigns, the media are used extensively by competing candidates and political parties to canvass for the electorates’ votes and supports. they further state that the electoral umpire and concerned government agencies also use the media platforms to educate the electorates during elections. also, the media carry messages about events that reflect positively or negatively on government and other actors in the political arena (agba & ogri, 2016). these functions of the media make them bridge the yawning gap between the government and its citizens to facilitate growth and development of nigeria’s nascent democracy. in contemporary times, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to have a functional electoral process without the mass media. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 9 the mass media plays a crucial role in creating development awareness through transferring information to the audience and exchanging thoughts. through agenda-setting function, the media conditions society’s vision and understanding of sports and provides a narrative that exerts a didactic influence on the concept of sports and physical education (marín-motín, 2008; puertas-moleroa, marfil-carmona, zurita-ortega & gonzalezvalero, 2019). it plays an effective, instructive and leading role in development, awakening public consciousness and raising public awareness by spreading novel ideas through information dissemination. this makes it possible for people to understand trend of events in their surroundings and premise decision making regarding personal and social issues on clearer and more updated information (kumari, 2019). this also helps individuals get familiar with their social responsibilities, especially for development. furthermore, media messages are developed according to criteria of topicality, objectivity and simplicity, which aim to produce a message with the widest reach possible (sherwood & nicholson, 2017). studies show that mass media are promising channels for providing information that potentially influences behaviour of audiences on a large scale (xavier et. al., 2013; liu, 2020). social media are channels and messaging apps that are very effective in dissemination of information. social media, as a concept, was first coined by tim o'reilly and dale dougherty (beetseh, olise & tor-akwer, 2021). social media platforms have been described as places for adding or editing information or a web which allows people to make use of digital tools to create, change and publish dynamic content (okike, terna & beetseh, 2019; tor-akwer, 2019). president tinubu of all progressives congress (apc) while making his inaugural speech on may 29. 2023, as he was being sworn as president of nigeria, said “let the poor breathe”. in his maiden speech on democracy day on june 12, 2023, president tinubu made what sounded like two impressive sound-bites which tended to give the impression that he would be a people-friendly leader. he told nigerians: “i share your pains” with regard to the harsh economic experience occasioned by the commencement of implementation of the petrol subsidy removal. president tinubu was seen on a viral video saying: “let the poor breathe, don’t suffocate them”. he made the statement on may 29, 2023, during his inauguration as the new president of nigeria. he announced the final removal of petrol subsidy right there at the inauguration venue. his government also announced the floating of the naira – an exchange rate system that eliminates a fixed price for forex trading within the country, thereby introducing an exchange rate method where the local currency is global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 10 set by the forces of demand and supply within the forex market (tijani, 2023). these two economic policies led to inflation and fall in standard of living, thereby giving the impression that the president was saying one thing while his government is walking a different, in fact opposite, road. it is against this background that this study seeks to analyze audience perception of tinubu’s “let the poor breathe” comment which went viral on social media and how the comment influences people’s perception of his economic policies. it provides an insight into how the citizens of nigeria perceive the president’s economic policies based on media exposure to his comments. statement of the problem the perception of government in power could affect public support for its policies. a negative perception could lead to lack of support or belief in the policy of a particular government in power. comments of political leaders could influence perceptions which the public have about them. if the comment about the poor as made by tinubu is perceived in bad light, this could affect public support for his administration’s policies and lead to lack of belief in his administration. this is why it is important to find out whether tinubu’s “let the poor breathe” comment is perceived in bad light by nigerians, especially as it affects his economic policies. okoro and nwafor (2013) observed that there is “social media war” taking place on the various social media platforms in nigeria, which could make most members of the public to lose confidence in the social media and to raise questions about this media’s viability as an important tool for public discussion and as a means of reaching government officials in the country. therefore, it is important to look into the effectiveness and the role of social media outlets as platforms for political dialogue among nigerians. the effect of the social media on political participation has been studied, but whether comments in reaction to president tinubu’s “let the poor breathe” statement influenced people’s perception of his economic policies, especially as it pertains to fuel subsidy removal and floating of the naira, has not received analytical attention. to fill this gap, this study investigated the audience exposure to the viral video on president tinubu’s “let the poor breathe” comment and its influence on perception of his economic policies. it is possible that the viral social media video may have influenced perception of his economic policies and a negative perception of government policy could discourage public support for such policies. to the best of this researcher’s knowledge, no study has looked at president tinubu’s “let the poor breathe” comment and its influence on global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 11 perception of his economic policies. it is this gap in knowledge that this study intends to fill. objectives of the study  to ascertain the frequency of exposure to tinubu’s “let the poor breathe” video on social media by respondents in awka.  to ascertain the source of exposure to tinubu’s “let the poor breathe” video by respondents in awka.  to find out respondents’ perception of tinubu’s “let the poor breathe” comment.  to ascertain respondents’ perception of tinubu’s economic policies in relation to his “let the poor breathe” comment. significance of the study the findings of the study will provide insight to political parties on the role played by social media in shaping public opinion on government policies. the use of media to create a favourable image that influences public acceptance of government policies is very essential, and political parties and politicians need to know how this strategy shapes public discourse on policy acceptance by the people. this study is also very important to students, researchers and scholars in communication and related disciplines as the findings would contribute to literature on social media influence and the effect of public opinion on government policy acceptance. evidence from available literature indicates a paucity of studies like this, especially how comments by political office holders disseminated through social media platforms influence public opinion on government policies among residents of awka, anamabra state, nigeria. most studies of this nature were done in the western world and, given the obvious dissimilarities in the socio-political, environmental and cultural settings of western societies and the nigerian society, there is every need for literature from a local study, like this one, on assessment of exposure to social media and its influence on perception of government policy. theoretical framework reception theory reception theory presents media users as active interpreters of media contents. also known as reception analysis, the theory was founded based global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 12 on the principles first put forward by the birmingham school of thought, led by stuart hall (idakwo & oloruntola, 2020). it stipulates that people interpret texts they are exposed to in different independent ways. mcquail (2010) explains that the essence of reception is the construction and negotiation of meaning between the message source and its receiver. reception theory provides explanation on the existence of diverse groups in the society, with the dominant group mostly seeking to impose its interpretation of culture on all other groups. reception analysis is one standard for measuring media audiences, as this analysis attempts to offer a meaning for understanding media texts (print, electronic, internet) by first getting to understand how media text characters are read by audiences (aminudin, 2018). people who analyze the media using the reception study pay attention to the experience of the audience members exposed to the media, including understanding how the experience shapes the meaning being created. morley (1992), one of the leading researchers that made use of hall's model in an influential analysis of the television show “nationwide” audience, summarizes the premises of hall's encoding/decoding model thus:  individuals can encode the same story or event in more than one way.  the message usually conveys more than one potential “reading”. what this means is that messages propose or "prefer" a specific reading over others, but those messages can never become wholly closed around one reading: a television text remains polysemic (which means that it is capable of passing across a variety of interpretations).  decoding and understanding the message constitute a problematic practice, not minding how transparent and "natural" the act may look like. messages that were encoded in a particular way can always be decoded in a different way (morley, 1992). morley (1992) says that a negotiated reading refers to an audience member accepting the preferred reading but at the same time modifies it so that it will reflect his or her own interests, position, or experience. oppositional reading is anti-hegemonic and has to do with the process whereby media users reject the existing frame of the preferred reading and provide an alternative frame of reference. hall says that in this reading, the audience member “detotalises the message in the preferred code in order to retotalise the message within some alternative framework of reference. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 13 this is the case of the viewer who listens to a debate on the need to limit wages, but also 'reads' every mention of 'the national interest' as 'class interest'” (hall in mcquail, 2002, p. 308). it is important to emphasize the fact that these three readings are moments of decoding that lie in the realm of pragmatics. in other words, the media users’ interpretations of the television text are above the levels of semantics and syntactics. the media users understand the literal meanings and whether what they read are dominant, negotiated, or oppositional actually depends on the connoted meaning (and pragmatic codes) of the text. stuart hall argues that the media offer the guiding myths that shape interpretations which individuals hold about the world (griffin 2012; aminudin, 2018). hall further dismissed the claim of only one existing interpretation for media messages and emphasized that to achieve this interpretation an individual has to interface with different groups. griffin (2012, p. 347) cited stuart hall who emphasized that culture is primarily concerned with the production and exchange of meanings. this presentation makes the reception theory apt for the current study which is premised on audience members’ reception, interpretation and perception of social media video on tinubu’s “let the poor breathe” as it concerns how his policies on fuel subsidy and naira floating against the dollar affect the lives of the poor in nigeria. perception theory in view of the fact that the subject matter of this work is basically focused on perception of presdient tinubu’s “let the poor breathe” comment and how it influences perception of his economic policies, it becomes essential to adopt the theory of perception for this study. there are two: the selfperception theory and the cognitive dissonance theory. first, the theory of self-perception, inspired by b. f. skinner’s analyses, refers to when individuals come to “know” or have better understanding of their own attitudes, emotions and other personal states largely by drawing conclusions from observing their own behavior and/or the situations in which this behavior occurs (baran, 2002). the process of media audience perception involves four stages of selective exposure, selective perception, selective attention and selective retention, which fall within the selective process, a postulation of festinger leon in 1957 while pioneering this line of thought (festinger, 1957; folarin, 1998; baran, 2002). research often emphasizes on the study of these selective process, especially in dealing with media audience perception and attitudinal change. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 14 selective exposure entails a process where individuals expose themselves to selected messages and, because of this, it is difficult for other messages to have effect on them. the concept of selective retention assumes that people remember best and longest those messages that are consistent with their pre-existing attitudes and beliefs. people tend to retain messages that are useful to them when they are exposed to a certain medium. two people cannot have the same interest (folarin, 1998; baran, 2002; agbanu, 2013). the concept of selective perception predicts that people will interpret messages in a manner consistent with their pre-existing attitudes and beliefs. finally, selective attention says that because the eye processes information much faster than the brain can interpret, the human brain has to select which information to pay attention to at any given time. perception theory is very essential to this study because it has to do with the perception of the people about tinubu’s “let the poor breathe” comment and how his economic policies, especially fuel subsidy and naira-dollar exchange floating, have affected standard of living of the poor in nigeria. the review social media and public opinion formation opinion dynamics is the study of how people’s opinions evolve (lee, yang & kim, 2022). people hold their own thoughts to issues they confront, and individual opinions change over time through communication among their peers. as mobile devices become necessities in people’s modern daily lives, access to media is getting easier and easier. people can easily express and post their thoughts and emotions about social issues and freely interact with others (lee, yang & kim, 2022). so, lots of contents that have various points of view about social issues arise and disappear constantly in a modern society. considering that the echo chamber filter bubble appears in many platforms which serve contents tailored to individual tastes and preferences, opinion formation is greatly influenced by the contents that the media provide. therefore, the portion of our opinions that are shaped by what we read or watch on media cannot be ignored (dong et al., 2018; lee, yang & kim, 2022). social media platforms have been used as powerful tools by politicians, marketers, brands, companies, and even individuals to achieve their goals. after the technological revolution dominated the world and changed our lifestyle and way of exchanging knowledge, social media became the most significant influence on public opinion. a person’s awareness, personality, and thinking pattern are shaped by what they acquire from the behaviours and information present in their surrounding environment (lee, yang & global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 15 kim, 2022). that environment includes: family, friends, school, places of worship, religious practices, and any other place or means where they can interact with and learn from others. that can happen through face-to-face communication or through any cultural or artistic forms, such as books, music or movies (dong et al., 2018; pinto, et al., 2019). with the advent of the internet, the social media has become a major component of the environment that constitutes and affects human awareness, inclinations, opinions, and even behaviours (pinto et al., 2019). it has also become the easiest way to communicate with different people from all over the world, access information from various sources in the easiest and fastest way, and learn the diverse ideologies of different cultures. that is how social media influences public opinion and moves the audience towards the desired behaviour. the role of social media in public opinion has been profound and evident since it started gaining attention and attracting interest years ago. in many countries, including egypt, especially after the 2011 revolution, the understanding of the importance of social media has been increasing each day (dong et al., 2018). the new generation, after that revolution, recognized that social media platforms are not just made for entertainment; they also have a crucial role in helping in the uprising of social movements, leading them to achieve their goals and changing political views (dong et al., 2018). this has forced people with authority to also believe in the power of the double-edged sword which social media is. social networks are tools used to reach and influence the public sphere. however, with the advent of social media, it has become an invaluable addition, if not the perfect replacement for the traditional platforms. social movements were always an effective weapon that people used on a national and international level all around the world to restructure the past, reshape the present, and change the future of society (pinto, et al., 2019). through the social media, communication among the public sphere has been a lot easier. also, considering the billions of people browsing the internet and including social media in their lifestyle, those social movements became able to reach larger audiences. this has changed the idea behind a public sphere, as it wasn’t exclusive to the citizens of a specific country. now, social movements can reach everyone through facebook, twitter, or any other platform, making social movements an international matter in which everyone can participate (lee, yang & kim, 2022). social media is one of the most influential contemporary tools for the manipulation of international, regional, and local public opinion. through it, cases are made and one side can be biased at the expense of another, global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 16 achieved through what is known as a “trend”. social media are used politically to disseminate both true and false information to help win victory for certain political parties (abdelmalak, 2022). the social media has been significant in the springing up of many social movements. it was used as a channel by many social groups to launch their own brand of campaigns on social issues. this represents a general orientation towards a topic on social media sites that is crystallized within the framework of a group of publications. people adopting such trends can be personally acquainted with each other or they can be distant from each other (abdelmalak, 2022). but the danger of this method, which affects public opinion and leads it in certain directions, is ignorance of the source of the topic raised, ignorance of the identity of the participants raising the topic, and ignorance of the topic’s objectives. social media sites are used by many as tools for influencing public opinion to achieve different goals, including creating a collective mindset through which the public can be led to take up unified positions on social or political issues, which amounts to creating social movements (abdelmalak, 2022). brief on president tinubu’s “let the poor breathe” comment and its controversy president tinubu made the “let the poor breathe” comment during his inaugural speech, after being sworn in as president, on may 29, 2023. this statement became what sounded like an impressive sound-bite which tended to give the impression that he would be a people-friendly leader. president tinubu was seen on a viral video saying: “let the poor breathe, don’t suffocate them” (odeleke, 2023). he announced the final removal of petrol subsidy right there at the inauguration venue. his government also announced the floating of the naira, an exchange rate mechanism that eliminates the practice of fixing naira’s exchange rate, thereby allowing the forces of demand and supply to determine the local currency’s rate within the forex market (tijani, 2023). these two economic policies led to inflation and fall in standard of living, thereby giving the impression that the president was saying one thing while his government was doing a different thing. analysts were of the opinion that tinubu was not sincere with his comment about the poor as his policies were in no way helping the poor to breathe. some analysts felt he did not understand who the poor in nigeria are. according to amadi (2023), when we discuss about the poor in nigeria, we are not just discussing about the more than 93million citizens who are formally global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 17 captured as living below official poverty lines. we are not talking only about the 134million citizens who do not have access to the barest basics of health, education, and recreational facilities in rural and urban nigeria, or the additional 7.1million nigerians that the world bank predicts will fall into deeper poverty because of government’s removal of subsidy and spikes in energy costs. when we discuss about the poor in nigeria, it includes the millions who, though officially not poor, are continually exposed to plenty risks of such nature that if any of them crystallizes, they are flung into deep poverty. poverty in nigeria is not just numbers; it is pervasive vulnerabilities and incapacities. analysts argue that successive nigerian governments have paid lip service to the question of acute poverty and inequality because, in the eyes of an irresponsible state, poverty is basically a personal problem for millions left behind (odeleke, 2023). even the poor themselves do not seem to begrudge society as is done in other societies where increasing poverty often leads to violent conflicts. it seems that the nigerian poor are a more charitable lot. but despite the social psychology of poverty in nigeria, it remains a real threat to national prosperity and survival. nigeria’s future is partly tied to her ability to drastically reduce poverty (odeleke, 2023; amadi, 2023). for decades, the elite have held nigeria down and sabotaged every reform effort. it is to their credit that the poor in the country are going through the worst moment of their lives (odeleke, 2023). among the downtrodden, things have fallen apart and it has become increasingly difficult for the poor to earn a living. every right-thinking nigerian, including president bola ahmed tinubu, agrees that it is time the poor breathed (odeleke, 2023). analysts suggest that the president should go beyond mere words to put other things in place for the poor to truly breathe as he said. for the poor to breathe, the fuel subsidy must go as the president told the nation during his inauguration. this is because fuel subsidy is the channel through which the corrupt elite enriched themselves, claiming subsidies on products they never supplied, or inflated or directed to neighbouring benin republic, niger, chad and cameroon. for the poor to breathe, the education system needs surgery (odeleke, 2023). for the poor to breathe, nigeria’s security situations have to change. farmlands from owo to mubi to eket to okigwe have to be safe for the farmers. kidnappings and banditry have to stop. for the poor to breathe, the nation’s health system must begin to work, among other suggestions by analysts (odeleke, 2023). it is based on the effects of the policies of tinubu’s government and the hardship that nigerians are passing through that this study seeks to ascertain the global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 18 perception of residents of awka on whether the president is truly keeping to his words which went viral in the social media that he wants the poor to breathe. brief look at two economic policies: fuel subsidy removal and floating of naira floating of naira: nigeria floated the naira on june 14, 2023; this weakened the currency by over 70 percent compared to the n460 per usd level it traded before the reform. the currency now trades at almost n850 per usd in the parallel (black) market though in a fluctuating manner. floating the naira presents a complex decision for the nigerian government though this policy can enhance export competitiveness, attract investment, and signal economic reforms but also carries risks such as increased exchange rate volatility and potential inflationary pressures. over the years, the nigerian government has employed various measures to manage its currency, the naira, including pegging it at a specific exchange rate. this naturally created two exchange rates, the official and the black market (tijani, 2023; eromosele, 2023). the disparity between the two provided an avenue for people with access to dollars to buy at the official rate and resell at the black market. many millionaires and a few billionaires were created through this distorted system. floating the exchange rate is meant to solve this problem. the idea of floating the naira has, however, remained a subject of debate as it is viewed by experts to have both potential advantages and risks which can affect the standard of living (eromosele, 2023). floating a country’s currency, also known as a floating exchange rate, refers to a monetary system where the value of a nation’s currency is determined by market forces such as supply and demand. in this system, the currency’s exchange rate fluctuates freely in response to various economic factors, including inflation, interest rates, trade balances, and capital flows (tijani, 2023). this means that the naira’s value would fluctuate in response to economic factors, including inflation, interest rates, and foreign investment. while this volatility can be unsettling in the short term, it can also help promote economic adjustments and improve competitiveness in the long run. the central bank of nigeria would need to implement effective monetary policies, such as interest rate adjustments and tight fiscal measures to manage inflation and maintain price stability (eromosele, 2023). removal of fuel subsidy: on monday 29th may, 2023, in his inaugural speech, president bola tinubu said that nigeria’s fuel subsidies would be global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 19 scrapped, citing budgetary concerns. the decision led to a steep rise in fuel prices and widespread panic-buying of fuel. some bus companies have been unable to refuel their vehicles, leaving many people stranded. barely two days after the announcement, the state oil company, nnpc limited, reviewed the pump price of petrol from n189 per litre to between n480 and n570 per litre – more than 200 per cent increase (yusuf, 2023). officials of nnpc argued that the adjustment in petrol prices with market rates will promote competition and efficiency in the oil market and drop prices naturally as prices would continue to fluctuate to reflect market dynamics (yusuf, 2023). this policy has led to price increase of various products in the country and is adversely affecting the people. businesses were eventually affected as this policy led to rise in the prices of goods and services across the country. it has to be noted that the price of fuel is still on continuous rise even to the tone of n670. methodology this study adopted the focus group discussion (fgd) method. the population of this study was made up of civil servants working for anambra state. the study focused on civil servants working in ministries at the state’s secretariat. the total population is 3162 (source: office of the head of service of the state). the ministries are information, health, housing and urban development, judiciary, education and science and technology. since this is an exploratory study, the researcher randomly selected 72 civil servants from the six state’s ministries. the selection was based on the researcher’s discretion and convenience. the purposive sampling technique was used to select the 72 civil servants who agreed to be part of the study. this figure was then used as the sample size. six (6) fgd sessions were held altogether, one each for the six (6) ministries that were randomly selected from the state ministries. only those who saw the “let the poor breathe” videos circulated on social media which showed president tinubu making the comment during his inauguration in abuja were selected for the study. the fgd sessions lasted for an average of 50 minutes per session with a distribution of 12 participants in each session. the fgd sessions took place between the hours of 12noon and 4pm on week days within the period of research. the choice of timing was so designed to fit into the break periods of the workers and the time they said they could take excuse from their offices to be part of the study. an interview question guide was used for the study. data presentation and analysis research question one: what is the frequency of exposure to tinubu’s “let the poor breathe” video on social media by global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 20 respondents in awka? during this session, all the respondents agreed that they watched the video very often on their social media platforms. they also said that they shared the video to friends on social media. according to madam chinwe, one of the participants from ministry of housing and urban development, “i watched the video several times because i found it very funny. just that i started feeling that tinubu was not sincere with the comment when he removed subsidy and things got worse.” her position was corroborated by other participants in the various fgd sessions who said they were frequently exposed to the video on let the poor breathe’ which was said by president tinubu. majority of the participants said they were exposed to the video frequently as several friends shared the video on social media where you could see it more than once. research question two: what is the source of exposure to tinubu’s “let the poor breathe” video by respondents in awka? most of the participants, during this session, said they mostly saw tinubu’s “let the poor breathe” video on facebook, twitter and whatsapp platforms. these were the top three platforms through which the participants saw the video. very few mentioned tiktok as the platform they first saw the video. according to nnamdi, one of the participants from ministry of information, “i saw it several times on facebook. a lot of my friends on facebook posted it on their walls.” another participant, grace from the ministry of education said she saw it on twitter and a lot of her friends watched it on twitter with her. she said, “i saw it on twitter and my friends watched it with me on twitter. at a point that video was trending on twitter”. many other participants said they saw it on whatsapp and shared it to friends on whatsapp. from the discussions it was clear that most participants saw the video of tinubu’s “let the poor breathe” comment on facebook, twitter and whatsapp. research question three: what is the respondents’ perception of tinubu’s “let the poor breathe” comment? most of the participants saw it as a mockery of the poor in nigeria. though some of them said initially they thought tinubu was being sincere with the comment, but immediately he announced the removal of subsidy and the effects started biting hard on the country they knew he was not sincere about letting the poor breathe. one participant identified as alex, with the ministry of housing and urban development, said, “i had always known that he was not serious with the comment because of his antecedents as a politician who made promises in the past, especially global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 21 during his party’s campaign for ex-president buhari’s election, but they never fulfilled their promises. so i knew he was joking; in fact, he was mocking the poor”. another participant from the ministry of education said, “how could anyone have believed what tinubu said about the poor? well, you can see for yourself that it was an insincere comment”. other participants corroborated this view by saying that tinubu’s comment was insincere and the usual rhetoric of politicians. research question four: what is the respondents’ perception of tinubu’s economic policies in relation to his ‘let the poor breathe’ comment? during this session, participants said that they were not confident about the seriousness of president tinubu as regards his economic policies, especially fuel subsidy removal and floating of the naira which had led to untold hardship on nigerians. there was a consensus among participants on a negative perception of tinubu’s economic policies, especially as it has to do with his sincerity of purpose. they said that a man who removed subsidy and floated the naira without first putting in place measures to address the hardship is not really serious about letting the poor breathe, as he said in the viral video. one of the participants from the ministry of justice, emmanuel, said, “i don’t believe he is serious about letting the poor breathe. his economic policies do not show that he has the poor at heart.” another participant from the ministry of science and technology, madam ifunanya said, “his policies are against the people. it does not show he has any feeling for what the people are suffering. his policies do not show he has the interest to let the poor breathe.” other participants corroborated the view that tinubu’s economic policies are not favourable to nigerians and that he does not have the interest of the poor at heart, although very few participants also mentioned that it might be too early to condemn the president’s economic policies as it was necessary to give him time to see whether the policies would yield positive results. in summary, the participants had a negative perception of president tinubu’s economic policies, especially in relation to his “let the poor breathe” comment. discussion of findings the first research objective which is to ascertain the frequency of exposure to tinubu’s “let the poor breathe” video on social media by respondents in awka. data revealed that respondents were well exposed to tinubu’s “let the poor breathe” video on social media. most of the respondents watched the video very often. from the findings, it could be seen that most of the respondents watched or heard the messages very often. this agrees with the findings of shadrack & apuke (2020) which states that the mass global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 22 media are the primary sources of information for voters, enabling them to monitor politicians and to use this information in their voting decisions. the study also agrees with studies that suggest that social media are one of the major sources of information on politics for users (duru, 2019; aslan, et al., 2021, ikegbunam & obiakor, 2021; obiakor, ikegbunam & ezeaso, 2023). after a study, aslan, et al. (2021) observed that social networking is used for effectively and efficiently interacting with the electorate, especially during election processes, through campaign activities. the second research objective is to ascertain the source of exposure to tinubu’s “let the poor breathe” video by respondents in awka. the result showed that most of the participants saw the video on facebook, twitter and whatsapp. these are the three social media platforms which came tops as the platforms that the participants exposed themselves to “let the poor breathe” video by tinubu. this finding also supports the assertion by ahad & lim (2014) that there is anecdotal evidence of social media platforms such as whatsapp playing a central role in civic as well as political engagement. similarly, shadrach (2017) says that social media platforms such as facebook, twitter and whatsapp are gaining popularity among citizens because they pass information freely without control of government, powerful politicians and advertisers as well as free of conventional professional bottlenecks like gate-keeping. popular platforms, according to ahad & lim (2014), are facebook, twitter, youtube and whatsapp, in that order. whatsapp users, for instance, get news outside the domain of family and friends and from a variety of topics, which enables them to meet their different information needs (ahmadi, & wohn, 2018). some studies have demonstrated how the sense of collective or social identity motivate the use of whatsapp and other instant messaging platforms for activism (treré, 2018). similarly, obiakor (2022) discovered after a study that twitter platform is more preferred and enjoyed by the users than the whatsapp platform especially for exposure to security information; the study concluded that more people get exposed to such information basically through the new media platforms than through the traditional media. the third research objective seeks to ascertain the respondents’ perception of tinubu’s “let the poor breathe” comment. result shows that many participants had a negative perception of the comment as they saw it as a mockery of the poor and an insincere comment from tinubu who has a political background that is not credible. this is supported by studies which established that the media’s coverage on politics influences people’s political attitudes, and this includes university students (hamad, ichtiat & zulham, 2001). similarly, kraus & davis (1978) had found that the media global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 23 played a significant role in shaping the political attitude of voters. mcnair (1995) also shows that the media do mould the audience’s political knowledge and attitudes. this also supports the perception theory which says the audiences engage in selective exposure, interpretation and retention of information they are exposed to in the media (folarin, 1998; baran, 2002). the participants in this study were exposed to the tinubu’s video on “let the poor breathe” and interpreted it based on their experiences. the fourth research objective sought to discover the respondents’ perception of tinubu’s economic policies in relation to his “let the poor breathe” comment. this result showed a negative perception of his economic policies which the participants said did not show that he was sincere about his comment that the poor should breathe. this is supported by studies which establish that the media play significant role in the public perception of government policies (green-pedersen 2019; grossman, 2022). as agbanu (2013) pointed out, the media set the public agenda and act as the gatekeeper of public issues. the findings also support the reception theory which stipulates that audiences interpret information they are exposed to in the media according to existing trends in the society (idakwo & oloruntola, 2020). people who analyze the media using the reception theory pay attention to the experience of the audience members exposed to the media, including understanding how the experience shapes the meaning being created (aminudin, 2018). in relation to this study, participants interpreted the “let the poor breathe” comment of tinubu in relation to his economic policies which are causing hardship to the poor he was referring to. conclusion this study investigated the exposure to tinubu’s “let the poor breathe” viral video on social media and its influence on perception of his economic policies. the study focused on civil servants working for anambra state government, especially those in the state secretariat located in awka, the capital city. the researcher chose to focus on civil servants in awka based on discretion and convenience. four objectives were formulated for the study. the focus group discussion (fgd) method was adopted for the study. data revealed that participants were exposed to tinubu’s “let the poor breathe” viral video on social media. it was also found that respondents saw the video on facebook, twitter and whatsaapp more often than on other social media platforms. the participants had negative perception of tinubu’s “let the poor breathe” comment as they saw it as a mockery of the poor and an insincere comment from the president. the participants also had a negative perception of tinubu’s economic policies global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 24 in relation to his comment on “let the poor breathe”. these findings were analyzed showing how they supported the reception and perception theories, including their relationship to other researches done in this area of study. recommendations based on the findings of this study the following recommendations are put forward: 1. political office holders in nigeria should stand true to their words and make sure their actions and policies are a reflection of the comments they make in the media as this affects public support for their policies. 2. political office holders should utilize the social media in advocating for public support for their policies since these media play essential roles in shaping public perception of government policy acceptance by the people. 3. government administrations at state and federal levels should combine both mainstream and social media in projecting policies and programmes to the public with a view to gaining support for such policies. this also includes use of both private and government owned media. 4. the researcher recommends further studies in this area of study, especially in other states in the country to check the perception of the people in other states regarding tinubu’s “let the poor breathe” comment and its relationship to his economic policies. references abdelmalak, k. 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(2023, june 11). analysis: as fuel subsidy goes, nigerian government must cut cost of governance. premium times. retrieved 23-06-2023 from: https://www.premiumtimesng.com/ news/603753-603753.html global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 31 author information: dr casmir u. obiakor is a lecturer in the department of mass communication, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, igbariam campus, anambra state, nigeria. email: casfranklin @ymail.com dr chinonso c. adikuru is a lecturer in the department of mass communication, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, igbariam campus, anambra state, nigeria. email: cc.adikuru@coou.edu.ng apa obiakor, c. u., & adikuru, c. c. (2024). exposure to tinubu’s ‘let the poor breathe’ viral video on social media and its influence on audience perception of his economic policies. global online journal of academic research (gojar), 3(2), 7-31. https://klamidas.com/gojar-v3n2-2024-01/. mla obiakor, casmir u. and adikuru, chinonso c. “exposure to tinubu’s ‘let the poor breathe’ viral video on social media and its influence on audience perception of his economic policies”. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2, 2024, pp. 7-31. https://klamidas.com/gojar-v3n2-2024-01/. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 51 counterterrorism and counterinsurgency and socioeconomic development in nigeria by livinus nwaugha abstract peace and security are required for sustainable socio-economic development of any country; in some parts of nigeria, these are disrupted by terrorist and insurgent activities, hence the nigerian government’s long-drawn deployment of its military in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations. the military is saddled with the task of combating armed groups, such as the boko haram insurgents in the north-eastern part of the country and niger delta militants, among many others engaged in criminal activities that threaten the security of lives and properties and sabotage economic activities. most of the previous studies conducted on the nature and operations of the terrorist groups and insurgencies in nigeria have focused on their atrocities and their disruptive impact on society. this study reviews the various aspects of the crisis with a view to highlighting how the protracted counterterrorism and counterinsurgency offensives have resulted in diversion of public funds and gulped up huge resources that could have been used for the socio-economic development of the country. based on available data, the study concludes that although fighting terrorism and insurgency is a necessary duty, the corruptive and ineffective manner in which it has been done in nigeria has further aggravated the plight of the people and impeded socio-economic development. keywords: counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, nigeria, threats, socio-economic development introduction socio-economic development and a peaceful and stable polity are prerequisites for the attainment of prosperity in any country, and these fundamental requirements are threatened in many countries by violence unleashed by terrorists and insurgents. this is why, wherever there is a prevalence of terrorism and insurgency, states have adopted several strategies to deal with the menace. as nigeria’s experience has shown, attacks by terrorist and insurgent groups are generally unconventional in nature and are highly unpredictable. diverse approaches are required to deal with the problem, particularly where the operations of the group spill global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 52 over national borders or form alliances with international terrorist organizations. terrorism and insurgency appear to have assumed greater global dimension since the end of the cold war in the late 1990s (william, s. lind et al, 2008) but it was the september 11, 2001 terrorist attack at new york’s world trade centre that reinforced the utmost importance of counterterrorist and counterinsurgent operations (gingell, 2021). that attack, in which 2,996 people lost their lives (washington post, 2013), was preceded by the 1993 world trade centre bombing. in nigeria, militant groups in the niger delta and the boko haram insurgency in the north-eastern part of the country, among others, currently pose serious security threats. according to a 2024 figure released by the global centre for the responsibility to protect, “more than 35,000 people are estimated to have been killed as a result of boko haram attacks between 2009 and 2020”. thousands of people have also been killed by other insurgent groups operating in the northeast, such as isis-wa and ansaru. all of these, and the fact that conventional military strategies are often ineffective in dealing with terrorists, have led to the formation of counterterrorism (ct) and counterinsurgency (coin) joint taskforces in nigeria and elsewhere in the world. the faceless, multi-faceted and international nature of many terrorist and insurgent operations makes inter-agency collaboration crucial and also necessitates international partnerships and cooperation. the cost implication of countering the atrocities of terrorist and insurgent groups, and of managing the human, economic and environmental emergencies caused by them is enormous, and has in no small measure affected the socio-economic development of not only the affected areas but of the country as a whole. objective and methodology of the study diverse studies have been conducted on the nature, operations, and negative impact of the terrorist groups and insurgencies in nigeria. each of these studies mostly focused on some dimension of the problems – such as disruption of communal life, violence, kidnapping, human rights violation, forced recruitment and banditry – caused by these gangs and the nigerian military’s war against them. the current study reviews the various aspects of the crisis with a view to highlighting how the protracted counterterrorism and counterinsurgency offensives against terrorist and dissident groups have gulped up huge resources that could have been used for the socio-economic development of the country and how failure by the nigerian government to quickly and roundly win the war against terror could further stunt nigeria’s stability and economic growth. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 53 the methodology adopted for this study was secondary source of data collection, as it provided a convenient and broad-based access to the mass of information needed for a holistic view of terrorism and insurgency in nigeria and the operations being conducted by the military to counter their massive disruption of social life and economic activities. data-collection sources utilized in this study included news reports, books, previous research conducted on the topic, and authoritative websites that captured and recorded the activities of insurgents and terrorists in nigeria. data collected were subjected to qualitative analysis to arrive at the findings and conclusion of the study. definition of key terms the key terms of this study that need to be defined in order to understand the issues discussed are terrorism, insurgency, counterterrorism, and counterinsurgency. not all terror is terrorism and not all forms of militant agitation can be termed insurgency. terrorism and insurgency have assumed global dimensions and so a generally-acceptable definition is required to aid our understanding of the nature of each of these terms and why both forms of militant oppression should be countered and censored by every orderly and democratic society as well as by the international community. although there are different definitions of terrorism, some of them ideologically motivated, this study’s use of the term would be based on two standard definitions quoted by gingell (2021) that defined terrorism as “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against non-combatant targets” and as “the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives”. while “insurgency” as a term may share all or some of these attributes, it is different from “terrorism” in the sense that it is targeted at gaining control of a territory and its resources. this is why the us department of homeland security defined insurgency as a “protracted political-military struggle directed towards subverting or displacing the legitimacy of a constituted government or occupying power and completely or partially controlling the resources of a territory through the use of irregular military forces and illegal political organizations” (gingell, 2021). counterterrorism and counterinsurgency, therefore, are approaches and operations geared towards opposing, responding to and counteracting terrorism and insurgency. these approaches may be enemy-centric, population-centric or authoritarian-centric (bala & tar, 2019). scott (2007) described counterterrorism and counterinsurgency as the totality of political, economic, social and security measures put in place to end armed global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 54 violence while promoting political stability. scott, however, like most commentators, offered no suggestion on how to end violent agitation where injustice, mounting unemployment and marginalization are the order of the day in a country so blessed in natural and human resources, such as nigeria. theoretical framework the theoretical framework adopted by this study to explore the issue of counterterrorism and counterinsurgency and their impact on socioeconomic development in nigeria consists of maslow’s needs theory, and related peace-enhancing viewpoints, and todaro’s development theory. maslow’s needs theory and related concepts maslow’s needs theory and similar viewpoints generally affirm that humans have certain needs and that when these needs are not met, they would create feelings of frustration and anger. however, as diverse as human needs are, there is no time they would all be met, as they are ever evolving. the endless nature of human needs makes it difficult to reach a point where human beings would cease to have needs. the insatiability of human needs make conflict inevitable. this is because human needs vary from basic or essential needs to complex personal or group desires that change as human beings and societies develop or evolve. though human needs are not static but dynamic, there are certain basic things universally needed by all human beings for their survival and wellbeing. they are food, water, clothing, shelter, security and justice; when these are absent, they may trigger terrorist or insurgent activities. there are different needs theories but, generally, they make the following assumptions: (i) that because human needs are insatiable, competition is inevitable; (ii) that because there is competition, conflict will always arise. as maslow’s hierarchy of needs extrapolates, human needs are highly insatiable: as soon as one need is met, another need arises. maslow’s pyramid of needs categorises needs in terms of their order of importance, beginning with basic needs, such as food, shelter and clothing, to essential needs, such as the need for self-actualization and self-fulfillment (maslow, 1973). danesh (2006) sees the issue of justice as a fundamental human need. for him, the matter of distributive justice is a primary human need for lack of it usually leads to series of agitations and conflicts, especially in countries and communities where social exclusion is the rule rather than the exception. some people believe that unrealised justice and inclusion needs are the root causes of terrorism and insurgency, as inability to meet these needs lead to frustration and anger. hertnon (2005), in his global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 55 categorization of needs, places survival and betterment needs as the most basic universal needs individuals and groups do not play with, as any action or inaction which tends to undermine these basic needs may lead to violence. critics of these needs theories opine that since human needs change over time, it is difficult to ascertain which needs are so important that failure to meet them would lead to violent conflicts. they argue that it is only when needs are static that their evaluation and analysis can be carried out in relation to prevailing circumstances. these criticisms notwithstanding, the needs theories offer valuable insight into wide scale occurrence of terrorism and insurgency in nigeria and, probably, elsewhere in the world. todaro’s development theory todaro’s development theory and similar theories are relevant frameworks in this study because some people are of the view that the root cause of terrorism and insurgency in nigeria is lack of socio-economic development. although the concept of development has evolved over time, it still constitutes a significant benchmark by which the progress of any country is measured. due to its fluid nature and various usages over time, it is now rather difficult to come up with a concise meaning of development, more so because the concept appears virtually in all disciplines with different meanings. however, development on a general note connotes an elevation of people’s life towards a better condition (egonmwan & ibodje, 2001). the fact that the things that constitute better life vary in accordance with people’s needs and expectations means that there is no one-size-fits-all definition of development, as it is an on-going phenomenon (adetula, 2013:308). however, according to todaro (1981): development must represent the entire gamut or change by which an entire social system tuned to the diverse needs and desire of individuals and social group within that system move away from a condition of life widely perceived as unsatisfactory and toward a situation or condition of life regarded as materially and spiritually better (todaro, 1981:70). development, pertaining to self-esteem, refers to an individual’s degree of self-respect, accommodation and tolerance (todaro, 1981:71). in the view of goulet (1992), development is a multidimensional concept which can be seen in three areas. they are life sustenance, self-esteem and freedom. at these three levels what constitute development varies from food, shelter to protection. the extent to which these attributes are available in a society determines its level of development. basically, what global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 56 causes some level of dissatisfaction is when people are uncertain about when the next meal would be available, and when their protection is uncertain or in abeyance. these values mark how advanced people are. where there is incessant altercation and infighting development would be elusive, but at times these altercations drive development; this is why goulet (1992) generalizes that development is a two-edged sword which can be used to build or to destroy. according to egonmwan & ibodje (2001), the whole essence of development is to eradicate poverty through the enhancement of the living condition of the people. at various times, since nigeria’s independence in 1960, several conscious steps have been taken to chart the nation’s development. immediately after independence, a five-year development plan (1960-65) was drawn to drive the country’s development. from 1970 to the 1980s, several developmental steps were taken; but towards the mid 1980s onwards, due to maladministration and corruption, the nation was plunged into economic mess which culminated in its adoption of structural adjustment programme (sap) in 1986. the period of the 1970s registered appreciable development indicators both in savings and purchasing power with the naira being stronger than the us dollar, but beyond this period a general distortion characterized the entire system. as ayorinde and uga (1999) captured succinctly, “the tapping of the country’s endowment of various resources has not culminated in improved living condition for the majority of the people”. by 2001, during the presentation of the appropriation bill to the national assembly, president olusegun obasanjo was emphatic when he said publicly that nigerians have not sufficiently improved since its hard-won democracy (taiwo, 2001). improvement must be judged by the welfare of the people, not by mere statistics; the questions to be asked, according to sear (1969), are: what has been happening to poverty? what has been happening to unemployment? what has been happening to inequality? if all three of these have declined from high levels, then beyond doubt this has been a period of development for the country concerned. if one or two of these central problems have been going worse, especially if all three exists, it would be strange to call the result development even if per-capita income doubled (seer.1969:3). counterterrorism and counterinsurgency: the nigerian experience since the return of democratic rule in nigeria in 1999, and its accompanying cry of marginalization, sectional politics, mounting global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 57 unemployment and increasing poverty in the midst of plenty, terrorism and insurgency and related activities have continued to hinder the provision of social goods to the citizenry. this necessitated the formation of civilian and military joint task forces (hamza & sawab, 2013; bala & tar, 2019) to deal with the problem. in nigeria, counterterrorism and counterinsurgency has borne different names – from operation restore order (oro) 1, 2, and 3, operation zaman lafiya, operation python dance, operation lafiya dole, to operation thunder strike, to mention but a few. the combative nature of most of these names reflects the operatives’ awareness of the heavy arms and ammunitions at the disposal of the terrorists and insurgents and the danger they pose to the socio-economic development of the nigerian state. in an atmosphere where life has become “short and brutish”, no visible and calculated development can thrive. since it is their constitutional mandate to quell insurrection of any kind and restore socio-economic activity, the military swung into action to counter the terrorists and insurgents in collaboration with civilians in the affected communities. the local communities, using an assortment of local weapons such as knives, swords, dane-guns, bows and arrows (olugbode, 2013; bala & tar, 2019), formed vigilante groups to enhance their fight against violent-non-state actors (vnsas). the use of vigilante groups is very old and predates nigeria’s independence in 1960 (icg, 2022:6). before independence, vigilante groups constituted the vanguard of the communities that protected and secured lives and properties. mainly able-bodied men, grouped according the age, constituted these groups. most essentially, vigilante groups provided security for the local communities; in some cases, where there were conflicts amongst communities, the vigilante group mediated to enthrone peace. when there are conflicts of roles and functions amongst the vigilante groups, it is settled by the traditional authority of their community (ogbezor, 2016:1). arguably, the vigilante groups also played important roles in the provision of socio-economic goods, especially as they constituted the work groups that cleared, planted and harvested crops. moreover, they ensued that justice was maintained in their communities. in recent times, especially since 2000, vigilante groups have been integrated into the mainstream of counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations in nigeria, largely due to the overwhelming of the mainstream security architecture by the terrorists and insurgents who use their better understanding of their local terrain to inflict incalculable damage on the military operatives. by 2000, the number of vigilante groups in nigeria has greatly increased; they bear different code names, such as niger state global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 58 people congress (nspc) in niger state, neighborhood security committee (nsc) in akwa ibom state, edo vigilante service (evs) in edo state, hasbah corps in kano state, yan-sakai in katsina state, yan komiti in bauchi state, amotikun in the southwestern zone, and ebubeagu, which was formed by the state governors of the southeastern zone of nigeria. the synergy between the civilian taskforce and military force became necessary owing to the fact that members of vigilante groups are versed in the knowledge of their rural areas where the insurgents and terrorists operate. it is necessary to make this explanation or clarification here. terrorism and insurgency are not limited to local or rural areas as their activities have equally been registered in major cities and towns in nigeria, including abuja, nigeria’s capital, owerri, the capital of imo state, makurdi in benue state, jos in plateau state, katsina in katisna state, maiduguri in borno state, minna and suleja in niger state, and damaturu in yobe state. there are misgivings in some quarters that the synergy between the civilian and military operatives is a mere marriage of convenience, and that the military has always treated the civilian populace with disdain whenever it suits them. bala and tar (2019) assert that for counterinsurgency operation to be effective and possible the local populace should be separated from the insurgents and terrorists. there are records of incidents where the military joint taskforce left the insurgents to attack the local communities, accusing them of shielding the insurgents and the terrorists. the military joint taskforce has also been accused of unlawful arrests, extra-judicial killings, rape, looting and destruction of properties belonging to some communities. this is why some scholars assert that counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations in nigeria are politically motivated and aimed at disintegrating the already disenchanted local communities. amnesty international, in a report cited in omilusi (2016), said the military were better trained and equipped to enforce counterinsurgency and counterterrorism, and need not integrate the civilian populace so as to reduce the number of casualties. transparency international has described nigerian counterterrorism and counterinsurgency military operatives as barbaric, especially after their 6th of january, 2019 activities at the offices of the daily trust newspaper in maiduguri and abuja. some people are of the opinion that terrorists and insurgents have infiltrated into the corridors of power, and some terrorists and insurgents have even openly named the nigerian government as their major sponsors. in this regard, the late general sani abacha is reported to have said that global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 59 terrorism and insurgency cannot last 24 hours if the hands of government are not in it. the case of boko haram appears to support this claim. according to shehu (2024), boko haram was formed in 2002 and assumed a terrorist dimension in 2009; but it took nearly five years (2014) for the government to proscribe it and to declare it a terrorist organization. all these agitate the minds of nigerians who find it difficult to understand why the war against terrorism and insurgency in nigeria, after so many years, is yet to be won. how counterterrorism and counterinsurgency undermine socio economic development in nigeria bala and tar (2019) see counterterrorism and counterinsurgency as veritable moves needed for the restoration of normalcy so that socioeconomic development can thrive. this study, however, considers many aspects of nigeria’s counterterrorism and counterinsurgency initiative as a drain on the country’s resources, especially given the fact that the nation has not seen the end of terrorism and insurgency after so much has been spent on countering them. apparently, a lot of the money has been diverted. for instance, former national security adviser (nso) to president goodluck jonathan, col. sambo dasuki, was alleged to have embezzled 2 billion us dollars, money that would have been used to fight terrorism and insurgency. till date, nothing more is heard about that case. according to usman (2024), “the military is deployed virtually to every part of the country in order to bring respite at great cost to the country, including misappropriation of colossal amounts of funds voted for logistics and personnel welfare”. a table of nigeria’s security budgetary allocation (2009 to 2019) is presented below, as it would help us to understand the “colossal” nature of spending on security in the country. security budgetary allocation in nigeria (2009-2019) year budgetary allocation 2009 261 billion naira 2010 264 billion naira 2011 348 billion naira 2012 921.91 billion naira 2013 923 billion naira 2014 937.8 billion naira 2015 964.7 billion naira 2016 1,005 trillion naira 2017 1,117 trillion naira 2018-2019 1,176 trillion naira source: dan-azumi (2018) as modified by the author global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 60 the statistics above buttress our argument that counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations in the country have depleted the nation’s resources, without overwhelming the militants and creating an atmosphere conducive for the socio-economic development of nigeria. as at 2012 when the security budgetary allocation was 921.91 billion naira, unemployment rate was 30.30% and in 2015, when the security budgetary allocation rose to 964.7 billion naira, the unemployment rate was 38.38% while the poverty rate was 76.3%. in 2017, when the security budgetary allocation was 1117 trillion naira, the rate of unemployment was 43.34% while poverty rate was 74.70% (dan-azumi, 2018). life expectancy in nigeria was 52.40 in 2014, 52.84 in 2015, 53.29 in 2016, 53.73 in 2017, 54.18 in 2918, and 54.49 in 2019. as noted by unicef (2018), in 2015 37% of nigeria’s health facilities were closed down while 40% and 44% were closed down in 2017 and 2018 respectively. conclusion having examined counterterrorism and counterinsurgency in the context of ending terrorism and insurgency in nigeria to facilitate socio-economic development, the findings of this study indicate that both operations have, instead, hindered socio-economic development. while acknowledging the necessity of countering terrorism and insurgency, this paper notes that the corruptive and ineffective manner in which this has been done in nigeria has further aggravated the plight of the people, as resources which could have been used to alleviate the sufferings of the masses were unaccountably poured into the operations while other critical areas of social and economic concern were starved of funds. references adetula, v.a.o. (november-december, 2012). expanding women’s option for effective political participation in nigeria; nigerian forum. a journal of opinion on world affairs, vol.33 no 11-12, 364-374. ayorinde, f.o and uga. (1999). resource mobilization and management in african country: the case of nigeria in fajingbesi, a. et al (ed) resource mobilization and management for development. ncema, ibadan. bala, b. & tar, u. a. (2019). insurgency and counterinsurgency in nigeria: perspective on nigerian army operation against boko haram. nigerian defense academy press. egonmwan, j.a. & ibodji, s.w.e. (2001). developing administration: theory and practice. resyin nig co. ltd, benin city. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 61 gingell, thomas. (spring 2021). counterinsurgency and counterterrorism: the replicability of best practice. undergraduate journal of political science, 5(1), 123-139. goulet, d. (fall, 1992). development indicators: a research problem, a policy problem. the journal of socio-economic research, 21:3, 245-269. hamza, i. & sawab, i. (2013). civilian jtf hunts boko haram in borno, daily trust, nigeria. hertnon, s. (2005). http://universal/humane.wordpress.com/relevantresearch/simon-human needs/ accessed december 2022. https://www.globalr2p.org/countries/nigeria/#:~:text=in%202015%20the% 20african%20union,attacks%20between%202009%20and%20202 0. mashow a.h. the farther reaches of human nature: harmonds work u.k: penguin book 1973 new world encydopedia. http://www.newworldencydopedia.org/entryconflicttheory. accessed december,2009 olugbode, m. (2013). civilian jtf : a brewing disaster nipping in the bud. thisday, nigeria. omulusi, m. (2016). insurgency and terrorism in nigeria, perspectives, phases and consequences. olugbenga press and publishers, adoekiti. plumer, b. (september 11, 2013). nine facts about terrorism in the united states since 9/11. the washington post. https:www.washing tonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/09/11/nine-facts-about-terror ism-in-the-united-states-since-911 scott, r.m. (2007). the basics of counterinsurgency. small war journal. retrieved 7 november 2022 from http:/www.small war journal.com/ document/ moorcom paper, pdf. sear, d. (1969). the meaning of development. eleventh world conference of the society for international development, new york pantheon. shehu, a.y. (2024). boko haram and other security challenges in nigeria. national open university of nigeria, abuja. taiwo, i .o. (2001). review and appraisal of the year 2000 federal government budget performance. a paper presented at the cbn/nes seminar on the 2001 federal government, lagos january 25 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 62 todaro, m. (1981). the economic development in the third world (2nd ed). london, longman. unicef (2018). wash as a cornerstone for conquering the 2017 cholera outbreak in borno state, north-east. usman, b. (2024). review of the book boko haram and other security challenges in nigeria presented at the shehu musa yar’adua conference centre, abuja, on april 19, 2024. william, s.l, keith, n., john, f.s., joseph,w.s. & gary, i.w. (2008) the changing face of war: into the fourth generation. routledge, new york. author information: dr livinus nwaugha is a lecturer in the department of political science and international relations, caleb university, imota, lagos state, nigeria. email: livinus.nwaugha@calebuniversity.edu.ng apa nwaugha, l.. (2024). counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency and socio-economic development in nigeria. global online journal of academic research (gojar), 3(2), 51-62. https://klamidas.com/gojar-v3n2-2024-03/. mla nwaugha, livinus. “counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency and socio-economic development in nigeria”. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2, 2024, pp. 51-62. https://klamidas.com/gojar-v3n2-2024-03/. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 7 protective roles of quercetin, vitamin c and pyridoxine on lead neurotoxicity via enhanced haematopoietic and antioxidants components by nnachi ifenna salvator, elizabeth finbarrs-bello, ozor ignatius ikemefuna, mba christian ejuiwa, & vivian ugwu abstract background: the harmful effects of lead exposure, especially its effect on the nervous system, raise serious concerns worldwide. this study is aimed at evaluating the effect of quercetin, vitamin c and pyridoxine on haematology, biochemical and histology of the cerebral cortex on lead induced neurotoxicity using adult wistar rat models. materials and methods: forty male wistar albino rats were divided into five groups: control, lead only, lead + quercetin, lead + pyridoxine, lead and vitamin c. 100mg/kg/bw of lead was used to induce-toxicity for 7 days and treated with the following: quercetin, pyridoxine and vitamin c were administrated orally respectively for 14 days. hematological and biochemical samples were collected in three phases. the cerebral cortex was examined under light microscopy after h&e staining. results: lead decreased all hematological parameters (pcv, wbc, rbc, hb and platelets) examined and in the biochemical parameters, decreased slightly sod, increased mda and reduced significantly (p values) gsh. quercetin, vitamin c and pyridoxine had strong curative effects on both hematological and biochemical parameters. on the histology, lead revealed mild glial cell infiltration. all treatment groups showed normal neuronal cells. conclusion: quercetin, vitamin c and pyridoxine showed neuroprotective effects against lead-induced neurotoxicity; therefore, they can be used as routine supplements against lead toxicity in endemic communities. keywords: quercetin, pyridoxine, lead, ascorbic acid, neurotoxicity, lipid peroxidation introduction lead (pb) is one of the most widely used heavy metals, especially in batteries, paint pigments, and plastics. this heavy use has produced local and global contamination of the air, soil, and water originating from lead-based pipes. the effect of exposure to pb vary from mild to severe, depending on the degree of exposure, and is referred to as lead toxicity (raymond, 2011). the nervous system (central and peripheral components) is the primary target of lead poisoning or toxicity (brent, 2006; bellinger, 2004). pb toxicity is also known to induce a broad range of hematological, biochemical, and histomorphological global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 8 dysfunctions in lab animals and humans (hsu & guo, 2002; pande & flora 2002). this is characterized by persistent vomiting, anemia, encephalopathy, lethargy, delirium, convulsions and coma, and death in extreme cases (flora et al., 2006; pearce, 2007). one of the possible mechanisms underlying pbinduced toxicity or poisoning is its ability to induce oxidative stress in blood and other tissues, which contributes to the pathogenesis of poisoning by interfering with the delicate prooxidant/antioxidant balance that exists within the mammalian cells. several investigators suggest a possible involvement of reactive oxygen species (ros) in pb-induced toxicity (adonaylo & oteiza, 1999; pande & flora, 2002; hsu & guo, 2002) where pb increased lipid peroxidation indicator the malondialdehyde (mda) and decreased the activities of antioxidants enzymes: glutathione peroxidase (gpx), and superoxide dismutase (sod) in the rat brains (kuhad & chopra, 2007). antioxidants have been identified to protect the neurons against various experimental neurode generative conditions (kuhad & chopra, 2007). vitamin c, vitamins e and b6, zinc, and selenium are antioxidants used to reverse pbmediated toxicity by ameliorating oxidative stress status (hsu & guo, 2002). flavonoids have now become a topic of interest due to their beneficial effects on different diseases. quercetin is a natural flavonoid, ubiquitously found in common fruits and vegetables such as onions, broccoli, and apples (sriraksa et al., 2016). studies have reported that quercetin exhibits substantial antioxidants property, has the ability to scavenge free radicals, and aids many biological processes involved in oxidative stress (formica et al., 1995). this study, therefore, evaluates the hematological, biochemical, and histomorphological effects of quercetin, vitamin c and pyridoxine on lead-induced neurotoxicity in adult wistar rats. materials and methods procurement of compounds, chemical and drugs 5g of quercetin was procured from zigma, aldrich usa. lead (pb) weight of 5.2g was procured from registered chemical store at ogbete main market enugu metropolis, nigeria. 5g of vitamin c (ascorbic acid) and pyridoxine (vitamin b6) were procured from omaryon group of companies enugu metropolis, nigeria. animal handling forty (40) wistar rats weighing between 150 250g were purchased from the animal house of the university of nigeria, nsukka, enugu state, nigeria. the rats were housed at the animal facility of the college of medicine, enugu state university of science and technology enugu nigeria. the rats were housed for a period of 4 weeks to attain desired weights and to get them acclimatized global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 9 in their new environment. the rats were fed pelleted rat chow (vital, nig. ltd.) and allowed water ad libitum. thereafter, the rats were grouped into five (5) groups; each group had eight rats housed in two different cages 2 (n=4) per group. the rats were kept in ventilated cages at optimum temperature 28oc with 12 hours light/dark cycle, and humidity of 60%. the study was reviewed and approved by the faculty ethics and research committee. induction of lead toxicity the used dose for lead induction was adopted from highab et al., (2018), 100 mg /kg/bw of lead was administered orally for 7days across groups. thereafter, quercetin was administered as modified using methods of tian et al., 2019, at 50mg /kg / bw). vitamin c and pyridoxine (vitamin b6) were used as standard drug for the experiment, the doses were adopted from razmkon et al., (2011) at dosage 500 mg /kg /bw for vitamin c and 100 mg/ kg/ bwt for pyridoxine (vitamin b6).all treatment were administered via oral gavage for 14 days. experimental design hematological and biochemical evaluations blood samples were collected from all the rats thrice to form a baseline, after induction and after treatment as well as parameter for post induction. materials used for collection of samples are; capillary tubes and plain edta bottles. the following were evaluated; pcv, wbc, rbc, hb, and platelets for hematological studies using standard protocols. while serum superoxide dismutase (sod), malondialdehyde (mda) & glutathione (gsh) antioxidant marker enzyme were determined using the respective kit in accordance with manufacturers recommended protocols (fortress diagnostic limited uk). measurement of malondialdehyde (mda), a prototype of the thiobarbituric reactive substances (tbars) as a biomarker of lipid peroxidation and oxidative stress using modified thiobarbituric acid method (todorova et al., 2005).the ibm spss package (ibm corp., ibm spss statistics for windows, version 25.0, armonk, ny, usa),was used to analyze the data. descriptive statistics was evaluated for hematological and antioxidative markers and presented as means and standard deviations. an analysis of variance test (oneway anova) was used for comparison of the means for the hematological, and antioxidant enzymes. the p values for comparing means were considered global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 10 significant at p ≥ 0.05. termination of study and tissue collection on the 15th day (day one post treatment), the rats in all groups were sacrificed under light etherand the brains were harvested. the brains were fixed in 10% neutral formal saline for 48hrs. thereafter the cerebrum were isolated for routine paraffin processing and stained with haematoxylin and eosin. representative photomicrographs were captured after the interpretation. results hematological analysis figure 1: shows pcv test results across groups. the pcv values for the baseline study, the post induction study (2nd study) and post treatment study (3rd study) were distinguished. in group e (lead only), the pcv values regressed with continuous administration. treatment groups b, c and d was observed to have increased pcv values after treatment which is similar when compared to observations in control group a. however, pcv values were not significant (p > 0.05) in paired sample correlations across groups in 2nd and 3rd study. a b c d e baseline 48 64.33 51.33 52.66 64.6 pis 57.33 41.33 41.66 41.33 41.66 treatment 63.66 46.33 51.66 49.66 35 0 20 40 60 80 p c v p er c en ta g e groups pcv (%) baseline pis treatment global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 11 figure 2: shows wbc test results across groups. the wbc values for the baseline study, the post induction study (2nd study) and post treatment study (3rd study) were distinguished. in group e (lead only), the wbc count was significantly lower (p < 0.05) compared to the control group a and treatment groups b, c and d. wbc values was observed to increase after treatment across treatment groups. wbc count was also significant (p < 0.05) in paired sample correlations across groups in 2nd and 3rd studies respectively. figure 3: rbc test results across groups. the rbc values for the baseline study, the post induction study (2nd study) and post treatment study (3rd study) were distinguished. rbc values was reduced in the post induction study (2nd study) and increased at the treatment study across treatment groups (b, c & d) in comparison to lead only (e) group, which registered steady decline in rbc values. paired sample correlates across groups in 2nd study and 3rd study groups also showed no significant difference (p > 0.05). a b c d e baseline 9.3 8.1 7.43 7.3 9.33 pis 9.33 4 4 3.966 5.3 treatment 11.1 4.86 5.433 4.6 3.66 0 5 10 15 w b c c o u n t groups wbc (x10) baseline pis treatment a b c d e baseline 3.7 4.73 4.166 5.233 3.93 pis 5.266 3.03 3.43 3.7 3.56 treatment 5.8 4 4.433 4.8 2.233 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 r b c c o u n t groups rbc (x12) baseline pis treatment global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 12 figure 4: the figure above shows hb test results across groups. the hb values for the baseline study, the post induction study (2nd study) and post treatment study (3rd study) were distinguished. hemoglobin values was lower with continuous administration in group e (lead only group), in comparison to control group a and treatment group b, c and d. however, hb values was seen to reduce in the post induction study results and increase in the treatment study result across treatment groups. hemoglobin was significant (p < 0.05) in paired sample correlation across groups in post induction (2nd study) and post treatment (3rd study) groups. figure 5: platelets test results across groups. the platelets values for the baseline study, the post induction study (2nd study) and post treatment study (3rd study) were distinguished. platelets values were continuously decreased in group e (lead only) but there was no difference between treatment groups c, a b c d e baseline 16.366 19.96 15.36 17.16 18.33 pis 20.4 10.6 11.56 11.23 12.96 treatment 21.8 11.5 12.49 12.13 9.99 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 h b c o u n t groups hb (g/dl) baseline pis treatment a b c d e baseline 261.33 230.33 245.66 250 270.33 pis 267.66 173.66 170 183 163 treatment 266 195.66 191.66 200.6 143 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 p la te le ts c o u n t groups platelets (x10) baseline pis treatment global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 13 d and b. platelet values were reduced in post induction study and increased in treatment group across treatment groups in comparison to control group a. however, paired sample correlations were significant (p < 0.05) across groups. biochemical: antioxidant evaluation figure 6; shows sod test results across groups. the sod values for the baseline study, the post induction study (2nd study) and post treatment study (3rd study) were distinguished. there was no significant difference (p> 0.05) in sod values across all groups. also consistent with paired sample correlation of 2nd and 3rd study. figure 7; shows mda test results across groups. the mda values for the baseline study, the post induction study (2nd study) and post treatment study (3rd study) were distinguished. in group e (lead only), mda values increased at continuous induction of lead in comparison to control group a, treatment group b (lead and pyridoxine), c (lead and quercetin) and d (lead and ascorbic acid) where values were reduced after treatment. values were significant at p< 0.05 across groups. also consistent with findings from paired sample correlation. 1 1 .5 6 1 1 .6 3 1 0 .6 0 6 1 0 .4 4 1 1 .2 9 7 .7 9 .1 3 3 8 .9 6 6 7 .8 5 3 1 2 .9 1 2 .6 2 1 1 1 1 .0 4 1 1 .3 1 1 1 .8 3 a b c d e groups sod (u/l) 1st study 2nd study 3rd study 0 .5 1 0 .5 0 3 3 0 .3 8 3 3 0 .4 1 6 7 0 .1 7 6 0 .3 5 4 .5 5 4 .8 9 3 .6 7 4 .8 2 6 0 .2 9 3 3 .1 9 3 .8 3 3 3 .1 1 3 4 .8 7 a b c d e groups mda (mg/dl) 1st study 2nd study 3rd study global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 14 figure 8: shows gsh test results across groups. the gsh values for the baseline study, the post induction study (2nd study) and post treatment study (3rd study) were distinguished. gsh values continuously decreased in lead only group (group e), while there was notable increase in gsh values of treatment groups. there was significant difference (p> 0.05) in gsh post treatment values when compared with results of the baseline studies across group. 2 .6 6 4 .5 2 3 3 .4 2 2 .4 2 3 3 .3 74 .6 2 3 3 2 .5 2 3 .0 5 1 .7 6 2 .6 5 4 .7 4 .2 9 3 .9 2 .7 8 6 2 .4 5 a b c d e groups gsh (mg/dl) 1st study 2nd study 3rd study global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 15 histomorphological analysis figure 9; sections of temporal cortices: (a) control rat (normal saline only)neuronal cells (arrow). cytoarchitecture appears normal. (b). lead and pyridoxine treated the cytoarchitecture appears normal with neuronal cells (arrow) (c) lead and vitamin c the cytoarchitecture appears normal with neuronal cells (arrow) (d) lead and quercetin treated the cytoarchitecture appears normal with neuronal cells (arrow) (e ) lead only distortion of the cytoarchitecture (arrow) with mild glial cell infiltration. h&e. x200. discussion lead poisoning is known to cause iron deficiency which in turn is a strong contributing factor in the etiology of anemia (staudinger & roth, 1998). anemia is classified as macrocytic, normocytic, or microcytic based on the size of red blood cells and the amount of hemoglobin (sarma, 1990). a low level of hemoglobin reflects reduced pcv value, which is defined as the ratio of the rbc volume to the total blood volume (beutler & waalen, 2003). additionally, anemia can be hypochromic when the mchc value is low.in this study, lead toxicity was evident owing to the slightly decreased pcv and rbc values (fig 1 & 3) across treatment groups. this is consistent with the findings of mahdi et al., (2013) in a clinical study on lead-exposed workers. also, wbc, hb, and platelets count greatly decreased after induction of lead across all treatment groups (fig 2, 4 & 5).this is consistent with the findings of previous studies (omotayo et al.,2022; mahdi et al., 2013; nabil et al., 2012; mugahi et al.,2003). vitamin c was also observed to show curative effects by increasing pcv, rbc, wbc, hb and platelets count after observed reduction by lead global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 16 administration.this was attributed to its functional ability to donate reducing equivalents to prevent the formation of reactive oxygen that damage the rbc. this finding is in line with ozor, (2020). in another study, ascorbic acid demonstrated a substantial rise in rbc, and wbc in ascorbic acid therapy (masar et al., 2021). pyridoxine also exhibited a similar effect as vitamin c on the pcv, rbc, wbc, hb, and platelets counts. this is in line with the findings of boleslaw et al., (2019). quercetin enhanced all the blood parameters evaluated: pcv, rbc, wbc, hb, and platelets count. this is suggestive of haematopoietic enhancing property and affirms reports supporting quercetin supplementation enhanced rbc, wbc hb, pcv and platelets count (yahaya et al., 2020; kasmi et al., 2018; keskin et al.,2016; selvakumar et al., 2013; mahmoud et al., 2013). antioxidants play a vital role in mitigating the effect of oxidative stress on tissues and observations in this study showed sod values after induction of lead were reduced but not significant across groups. other studies have earlier reported similar outcomes (jin et al., 2006; ahmed et al., 2008). however, significant a increases in sod activity has been reported in lead-exposed workers (kasperczyk et al., 2009; rendon-ramirez et al., 2014). lead toxicity level is evident as an increased level of mda recorded in this study. thus is consistent with several studies which found mda levels to be significantly higher in lead-exposed groups(tenchova et al., 1997; ye et al., 1999, yucebilgiç et al., 2003, gurer-orhan et al., 2004, kasperczyk et al., 2013, oktem et al. 2004, patil et al., 2006; garçon et al., 2007; ergurhan-ilhan et al., 2008; khan et al., 2008, mohammad et al., 2008, grover et al., 2010, permpongpaiboon et al., 2011; singh et al,, 2013). further findings from this study also showed a significant decrease in gsh values on exposure to lead and several studies also identified a reduction in gsh levels in lead-exposed group (mohammad et al., 2008; feksa et al, 2012; kasperczyk et al, 2013). however, few studies identified increased gsh levels in lead exposed group (gurer-orhan et al., 2004; conterato et al., 2013). evident from our findings quercetin considerably reduced mda levels and increased sod and gsh levels, thereby reaffirming its already described antioxidant properties (yagmurca et al.,2015) and confirming the protective properties of quercetin via the regulation of antioxidant and lip peroxidation entities (polat et al., 2006; ikizler et al., (2017). vitamin c reduced leadinduced oxidative stress by decreasing mda levels while increasing sod and gsh levels. vitamin c has the tendency to ameliorate oxidative stress levels (bailey et al., 2011; ozor, 2021). vollaard et al, (2005) also posited that vitamin c supplementation decreased serum mda in exercise-induced oxidative stress. pyridoxine also improved antioxidant markers. pyridoxine supplementation exerted antioxidant and lipid profiles oflead-induced global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 17 neurotoxicity (tas et al., 2017). histological observations revealed normal cytoarchitecture of the temporal cortices of the treated groups but not lead which revealed mild glial infiltrations. this was attributed to the lead effect on the cortex.lead acetate caused mild histomorphological alterations in the brain (jarrar et al., 2012) and dosedependant cellular degenerative changes (highab et al., 2018). thus, lead exhibited a neurotoxic effect while the treatment quercetin, vitamin c, and pyridoxine exerted neuroprotective potential. this result was consistent with previous studies which reported the protective and antioxidant roles of quercetin, vitamin c, and pyridoxine (vollard et al, 2005; ikizler et al, 2017; amanda et al, 2019; ozor, 2021). quercetin, particularly, enhances the survival of neuronal cells in the cerebral cortex (khan et al, 2018). conclusion lead-induced oxidative stress consequently altered hematological parameters and temporal cerebral microstructure. the treatments with quercetin, ascorbic acid, and pyridoxine mitigated the adverse effect of lead via hematopoietic, antioxidant, and neuroprotective mechanisms. conflict of interest the authors declared that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationship that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. acknowledgement we thank the staff of the histology laboratory for providing the technical assistance. author contributions fbe: conception and design and supervised the research; mec: wrote the draft; assembled and analyzed the histology; nis and vu: performed the study, contributed to the discussion, reviewed; oii: review literature and edited the draft. all authors read and approved the manuscript. references adonaylo, a., and p. oteiza (1999). lead intoxication: antioxidant and oxidative damage in rat brain. toxicology. 135: 77. al-kurdy, m. 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(2003). effects of lead on na + -k + atpase and ca +2 atpase activities and lipid peroxidation in blood of workers. int j toxicol 22:95–97 author information: nnachi ifenna salvator is of the department of anatomy, faculty of basic medical sciences, enugu state university of science and technology, parklane, enugu state, nigeria. email (correspondence author): nnachiifenna@gmail.com dr (mrs) elizabeth finbarrs-bello is a lecturer at the department of anatomy, faculty of basic medical sciences, enugu state university of science and technology, parklane, enugu state, nigeria. email: elizabeth.finbarrs-bello@esut.edu.ng ozor ignatius ikemefuna is of the department of anatomy, faculty of basic medical sciences, enugu state university of science and technology, parklane, enugu state, nigeria. mba christian ejuiwa is affiliated to the department of anatomy, faculty of basic medical sciences, enugu state university of science and technology, parklane, enugu state, nigeria. vivian ugwu is affiliated to the department of anatomy, faculty of basic medical sciences, enugu state university of science and technology, parklane, enugu state, nigeria. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 50 multidisciplinary consciousness: a spur for intellectual creativity and collaboration by duve nakolisa abstract the objective of this research paper is to provoke renewed interest in multidisciplinary research and collaboration among academic researchers. the paper is in seven parts, with the first being introductory remarks. next is a brief discussion of the critical terms of the study which is followed by analytical insights on why academic specialization should be conducted in a manner that makes room for multidisciplinary collaboration. other topics explored by the study include the root of scholarly insularity and the need to ensure that learning at the universities is carried out in a focused and inclusive way. the last two parts of the study draw upon concrete disciplinary linkages and examples to underscore the fact that academic researchers, via multidisciplinary collaboration, can benefit from the inter-related and interdependent nature of scholarly research. the paper is an expanded and updated version of a short commentary on the subject earlier written by the author. keywords: multidisciplinary, academic research, collaboration, specialization introduction the twenty-first century demands that scholars should have a broad understanding of what is happening in disciplines other than theirs. although this need has always been there, it is now critically important due to the unprecedented developments in various fields that have altogether expanded the frontiers of knowledge, in theoretical and applied terms, beyond the traditional boundaries of many academic disciplines. the main triggers of this phenomenon include not only scientific and technological innovations but also the invasive force of ict, especially the internet, and the complex nature of contemporary social issues that demand collaborative multidisciplinary approaches before they could be adequately understood, managed or solved. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 51 while the intricacy and interwoven nature of our 21st-century world may necessitate some reform in the way courses are taught in our universities in order to promote cross-disciplinary learning among the students, it also demands that university teachers should develop the habit of peering into developments in other fields of study. there is need for acquisition of a multidisciplinary mindset – the capacity to see, appreciate or be open to enquiries that pertain to other relevant aspects of a matter. such a multidisciplinary interest, even if occasionally indulged in, can broaden research perspectives, open fresh vistas of collaboration and, perhaps, throw up unexpected solutions to some supposedly discipline-specific challenges. definition of terms in strictly definitive terms, multidisciplinarity is distinct from interdisciplinarity. according to choi and pak (2006), “multidisciplinarity draws on knowledge from different disciplines but stays within their boundaries. interdisciplinarity analyzes, synthesizes and harmonizes links between disciplines into a coordinated and coherent whole.” the prefix, “multi”, in our context here, is used to unify both terms as each of them involves links between two or more disciplines. multidisciplinary consciousness is required to initiate such linkages or multidisciplinary collaborations. ajakaye & ogunniyi (2021) have explained some aspects of this view of multidisciplinary collaboration: multidisciplinary approaches involve drawing appropriately from multiple disciplines to redefine problems outside of normal boundaries and arrive at solutions based on a new understanding of complex situations. multidisciplinary can also be defined as a particular relationship existing between disciplines or collaboration of a few disciplines around the joint theme. therefore, it is where two or more academic disciplines collaborate for a specific purpose, for instance, when computer scientists, psychologists and sociologists cooperate in the design of human/computer interfaces, use of skills and knowledge from the disciplines mentioned. in practice, multidisciplinary research engagements often cross boundaries and may result to holistic integrations and outcomes. this is why this paper uses the term “multidisciplinary”, in a rather broad sense, to include interdisciplinary and even transdisciplinary (that is, beyond disciplinary) interests and approaches. balancing specialization and multidisciplinarity although the university system offers each programme of study as a distinct course, the prefix “uni“ (meaning “single” or “one”) appears to support a narrow pursuit of a singular course of study or skill set. while a university is global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 52 set up to produce people knowledgeable and skillful in their chosen fields of endeavour, many a disciplinary content is conceptually too restrictive or too narrow in its approaches to solve some complex academic or real-life problems. of course, specialization in a focused area of study has undeniable benefits, especially in terms of the competence in or mastery of a given field it delivers. however, implicit and explicit in that focus is the exclusion of other precincts of knowledge, conceptualizations and approaches. the root of scholarly insularity there are insufficient cases of multidisciplinary cooperation in our universities, and this is largely due to the restrictively inward-looking way courses and academic enquiries are constructed and conducted and also due to students’ shallow or erroneous preconception of the courses they are admitted to read. as a result of these, among other institutional reasons, many people who graduate and choose an academic career do so without a deep understanding of the fact that although “every discipline constructs, organizes, and communicates knowledge differently” (stoller & stansel, 2021), there are areas in which many disciplines overlap. this means that though disciplinary perceptions and methodologies are bound to be different even when tackling the same problem, a number of research objectives can still benefit from multidisciplinary collaboration – a need seldom felt and met in our universities because of the way many lecturers cocoon themselves in their departmental chambers. while multidisciplinary exertion may or may not enhance an academic’s titular climb, it holds an invaluable key that could open remarkable doors of creative thinking, paradigm shifts, innovations, and game-changing solutions to thorny life issues. sometimes, multidisciplinary understanding and applications can even extend the edge of a scholar’s initial discipline or throw them, with pioneering eminence, into the frontier of new field of study. enhancing broadminded academic pursuits while retaining the necessity of taking university students through the corridors of compartmentalized learning, it is important to cross-ventilate them with some basic understanding of what is happening in other fields of study, including artistic, scientific and technological fields. the compound word, university (uni+versity) possesses an interpretative scope adequate enough to accommodate multidisciplinary cooperation. conceptualized as “single”, we have in “uni“ the student’s unit of primary concern – their major course, if you like. however, when “uni“ is interpreted as “one”, this linguistic element becomes somewhat expansive as it merges etymologically with the root word ūniversus (latin for “whole”) to include the various points of general interest, acquirable as concepts or tools, that could augment the student’s navigational capacity in the real world. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 53 in essence, every university degree should be a focused area of study that accommodates real-life-enhancing understanding of other vital areas. cohered in ūniversus is the idea of “universal”, especially in its usage as wholeness of separate but connected things or ideas. in this sense, therefore, a university ideally should be a universe of ideas constantly tested for veracity or practical relevance by systematic research and/or experimentation. it is often in pursuit of this academic or problem-solving enquiry that academic researchers usually see the need for conceptual linkages and applied connections across disciplines that would enable them to gain creative insights, drive innovation and development and, possibly, achieve utilitarian results. being impassioned to solve a real-life problem can ignite, in search of solution to that problem, a scholar’s interest in multidisciplinary collaboration and this, in turn, can fertilize a scholar’s ideas or unleash their creativity in new directions. awareness of what is happening in other fields broadens a scholar’s mindset or vision beyond the narrow zone of their primary academic concern. it boosts the hatching of fresh insight, widens the circumference of one’s points of reference, thereby enlarging and deepening understanding. no course is an island adapting john donne’s ageless quote, “no man is an island” (donne, 1624), one can assert that no course of study or academic enquiry is an island. in spite of differences in subject area, focus, methodology, and categorical frames of reference, connections exist among various academic fields. the humanities, for instance, cover areas such as language and literary studies, linguistics, philosophy, history, fine and applied arts, mass communication, theatre arts, filmmaking, music, academic study of religion, media studies, cultural studies, and culinary art. each of these seemingly distinct areas share affinities with each other and with disciplines traditionally placed in other categories, such as education, medicine, technology and the social or physical sciences. hence, we speak of food technology, medicinal diets, the political science of teaching and learning, socio-linguistics, media communication technologies, the philosophy of science, and the cultural studies of science, which, according to rouse (2015), is a multidisciplinary field drawing from history, anthropology, feminist theory, sociology, and philosophy of science, treats scientific practices as historically situated, meaningful patterns of interaction with the world. although language studies are classified as arts, conceptions of meaning and meaning-articulation (rouse, 2015) cut across all disciplines. the social and management sciences, because of their contextual complexity, may be deemed more subjective than the medical, engineering, environmental global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 54 and physical sciences but they all share certain processes and analytical tools. their datasets can be connected because they commonly use qualitative and quantitative research that may entail the deployment of statistical models. although the physical and applied sciences rely more on causal and diagnostic research, there abound linkages between them and the social sciences. weidlich (1991) has explored the synergy between physics and the social sciences. in his book, physics and social science — the approach of synergetics, universally applicable methods originating in statistical physics and synergetics are combined with concepts from social science in order to set up and to apply a model construction concept for the quantitative description of a broad class of collective dynamical phenomena within society. his “systematic approach to mathematical modeling in the social sciences” presented “a general concept…which allows of setting up mathematical models for stochastic and quasi deterministic dynamic processes in social systems” (weidlich, 2000). as we can see, there are various ways in which certain topics or areas of research can be connected across different disciplines. examples of multidisciplinary interventions and outcomes one good thing about having a multidisciplinary consciousness is that it could lead the academic researcher to draw inspirations from unexpected or seemingly remote quarters. a cynic may ask, “what benefit can a postgraduate student of english derive from reading a paper on statistical methods?” the answer to this question is now history. in the 1930s, statistics enabled gray and leary to locate and measure variables of writing style (danielson, 1987). their effort produced a prescriptive procedure. inspired, rudolph flesch did further research that resulted into his 1943 phd thesis, marks of readable style. aided by statistics, flesch reduced his findings to numerical data and made them formulaically applicable. that marriage of language and statistics, known to have improved reading ease by up to 60%, became so popular that microsoft, years later, adopted it and is now using it to calculate the readability scores of ms word documents. great scientists and thinkers have identified culture – macrocosmic culture – as the common source of all knowledge. in 1937, albert einstein said in an essay he wrote on moral decay, quoted by skorton (2018): all religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. all these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man’s life, lifting it from the global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 55 sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom. students of each of these branches can learn a lot by occasionally tasting the fruits of each other’s research. after all, the fundamental difference between artists and scientists is not in either group’s aversion of the truth but, rather, in their preferred approaches to the determination of the truth. whereas those in the arts proceed from the imagination, scientists largely begin their quest by taking the empirical route. even these two approaches need not be mutually exclusive. empiricism, creatively employed, can make the work of the arts scholar more predictable without necessarily sacrificing its unique flavour. in the same vein, the scientist’s fortuitous acquaintance with an artistic research can spur him to attain some height of epiphanic imagination. “every great advance in science,” according to dewey (1929), “has issued from a new audacity of the imagination.” this view is supported by the father of quantum theory, max planck, who insists that the ground-breaking scientist must possess “a vivid intuitive imagination, for new ideas are not generated by deduction, but by artistically creative imagination.” a good example of this is website technology’s use and popularization of the word, “breadcrumb”, a term derived from folklore. as explained by smashingmagazine.com (2009), a “breadcrumb” (or “breadcrumb trail”) is a type of secondary navigation scheme that reveals the user’s location in a website or web application. the term comes from the hansel and gretel fairy tale in which the two title children drop breadcrumbs to form a trail back to their home. just like in the tale, breadcrumbs in real-world applications offer users a way to trace the path back to their original landing point. indeed, many scientific discoveries were made serendipitously. a good example was the discovery of penicillin by the scottish scientist, sir alexander fleming. in the 1920s, his attention was drawn to some fungi sullying the bacteria he was culturing, and ultimately killing them. that observation radicalized approaches to the study of microbiology and led to the discovery of penicillin, the first antibiotic, in 1928. according to adkins, rock & morris (2018), fleming’s discovery resulted from “the intersection of science and art”. according to them, “most microbiologists would have overlooked” the fungal growth “as a commonplace laboratory annoyance”. why did fleming not overlook it? adkins et al: throughout his scientific career, fleming entertained himself by fusing his painter’s techniques and his microbiology skills in the creation of agar art. in his lab, instead of using watercolors on canvas, he would paint global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 56 with colored microbes on petri dishes. the microbes would grow from a dilute invisible ink to vibrant pigment-expressing biofilms after a few days, creating living microbial masterpieces. his creativeness and visual acuity is thought to have driven his investigation of contamination he might have otherwise thrown out. fleming later used a more controlled microbial painting technique – cross-streaking experiments – to verify the lethality of penicillin against a variety of disease-causing bacteria. the above and other examples of cross-disciplinary interfaces indicate that some of the academic boundaries we construct may be more imaginary than real. as scholars, let us stretch our minds, even if some of the time, beyond the boundaries of our departments and faculties. we may be delighted to see, as fleming once said, that “one sometimes finds what one is not looking for”. references adkins, s., rock, r., & morris, j. (2018). the art of microbiology. https://blog.oup.com/2018/04/art-of-microbiology/ ajakaye, j. e., ogunniyi, s. o. (2021). 21st-century multidisciplinary collaboration in research in library. library philosophy and practice (ejournal). 6228. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/6228 choi, b. c. k. & pak, a. w. p. (2006). multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity in health research, services, education and policy: 1. definitions, objectives, and evidence of effectiveness. pmid, 29(6):351-64. danielson, k. e. (1987). readability formulas: a necessary evil?. reading horizons: a journal of literacy and language arts, 27 (3). retrieved from https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/reading_horizons/vol27/iss3/4 dewey, j. (1929). the quest for certainty, a study of the relation of knowledge and action. gifford lectures. london: george allen & unwin ltd. donne, john. meditation xvii. devotions upon emergent occasions. flesch, r. (1943). marks of readable style. new york: bureau of publications. https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/03/breadcrumbs-in-web-designexamples-and-best-practices/#:~:text=a%20%e2%80%9cbreadcrumb% e2%80%9d%20(or%20%e2%80%9c,trail%20back%20to%20their%20 home. rouse, j. (2015). international encyclopedia of the social & behavioral sciences. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 57 skorton, d. j. (2018). branches from the same tree report. national academy of sciences. https://www.si.edu/sites/default/files/about/djs-branches-release-57-18.pdf stoller, a. & stansel, s. (2021). why we need to teach students how to think about disciplines. https://www.aacu.org/liberaleducation/articles/whywe-need-to-teach-students-how-to-think-about-disciplines#:~:text=a%20basic %20understanding%20of%20the,knowledge%20for%20their%20own%20 lives. weidlich, w. (1991). physics and social science — the approach of synergetics. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/037015 739 190024g weidlich, w. (2000). sociodynamics: a systematic approach to mathematical modelling in the social sciences. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ physics-and-social-science-%e2%80%94-the-approach-of-weidlich/79485c1 b3a3c2a1e77 f0b4db019aeafc3e141733 author information: duve nakolisa is the general editor, klamidas books, abuja, nigeria. email: klamidasbooks@gmail.com. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 71 folklore and history as twin rivers of world heritage: a personal narrative by bukar usman abstract this paper, originally presented at an international conference on folklore, national integration and development, held in nigeria, appraises tatsuniya (hausa word for “folktale”) as a richly-endowed form of folkloric expression in many african and nonafrican societies. it reveals that comparative study of the folklore of the babur-bura in north-eastern nigeria and those of other countries, including the u.s, uk, croatia, jamaica, china and sri lanka, shows that folklore is a worldwide tradition whose roots could be empirically traced in history. current studies in oral literature – or what the ugandan scholar, pio zirimu, termed orature – have underscored the fundamental role folktales play as the earliest school of the child in many african communities. tatsuniya is told both for its thrilling entertainment worth and for its educational values that further enrich the child’s appreciation of the culture and history of his community and those of others. this study presents folklore as a treasured world tradition that ought to be explored with the same vigour and interest archeologists and historians employ in digging deep into our distant past. after all, the often inseparable linkages between folklore and history tend to suggest that both are twin rivers that flow into the same sea. keywords: folklore, history, culture, heritage, babur-bura, tatsuniya introduction let me begin this presentation which i deliberately titled, folklore and history: twin rivers of world heritage, with a personal confession. i am a firm believer in the truism that just as droplets of water form streams so global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 72 also do the collective actions of humans, either as individuals or groups, constitute the thread in human history. being an enthusiast of african folkloric tradition, i opted to devote time, energy and resources in researching deeply into the rich field of my native babur-bura folkloric tradition. in the course of this presentation, therefore, you will notice, at some points, that the arguments i advance are embellished with accounts from my personal experiences gathered from years of folklore research and publishing. it was in 2005, voices in a choir and my other publications on public administrative matters had been published and i had just handed in for publication the manuscript of hatching hopes, my autobiography. duve nakolisa, my publisher, himself a writer of note, then asked me, “why not turn your attention to folktales in your area?” i reflected on the question and remembered what i had experienced at home as a child and similar events that took place during my initial years of western education in the early 1950s. i recalled the tales by moonlight narrated mainly by my mother and the introductory literature books in hausa we had read in class. i called to mind books like dare dubu da daya (one thousand and one nights) and several others written by abubakar imam. i then resolved to go into the field and chose my babur/bura community as my principal research ground. it was in the course of my research that i luckily met former vice chancellor of bayero university, prof. (ambassador) dandatti abdulkadir. an expert in the field, he gave me very useful guidance on how to go about my assignment. i am immensely grateful to him for ensuring, through the careful review of the dedicated staff of buk centre for the study of nigerian languages, that all my manuscripts written in hausa were in accordance with standard hausa language rules. the books in hausa were published in two batches. the first batch of six books (marainiya da wasu labarai, jarumin sarki, yarima da labbi, tsurondi, sandar arziki, and dankutungayya were published in 2005. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 73 the second, comprising eight books (gwaidayara, dan agwai, tsohuwa da `yan mata uku, dankucaka, al’ajabi, ‘yargata, duguli dan bajinta, and muguwar kishiya) were published in 2009. the publishing house was gidan dabino publishers, kano. the books are all in circulation within and outside the country. within nigeria, in kano, capital primary school has included books 1-5 in their curricula. the books have attracted the attention of a german ngo, irene sahel, which sought my permission, which i gave, to publish the stories in “boko” and “ajami” as a way of educating the girl-child in niger republic’s qur’anic schools. so far, scholarly use is being made of the books outside the country at the following centres of learning: hamburg university, department of african languages and ethiopian studies germany; school for oriental and african studies (sos), london; warsaw university poland, department of african studies; unesco institute for lifelong learning (uil) harmburg; abdul mumini university, niamey; irene sahel (ngo)-germany; mainz university department of african languages, cologne germany; institute of research studies, dept of african languages, cairo university, egypt. the use of indigenous languages in teaching is an initiative which unesco is vigorously propagating in its current programmes worldwide. today, i can humbly say of the fruits of our collective achievement that i have written four short story books in english and fifteen in hausa, all of them containing stories derived from our folklore. the fifteenth is the compendium of the fourteen books written in hausa my kano-based publisher has put them together as a readily available reference material. twin rivers of world heritage the history of africa, which includes the forceful enslavement and shipment to foreign countries of a huge number of its population, helped greatly in transporting and transplanting african tales to foreign shores. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 74 because the tales were spread by word of mouth, many scholars have observed, little variations in the storylines have occurred but without altering the essence of the tales. its unique folktales, thus, constitute a very rich and fertile legacy that africa bequeathed to many parts of the world, especially north america, south america, and the west indies. in the vast continent of africa and other continents, folktales and myths serve as a means of handing down traditions and customs from one generation to another. in africa, especially, the storytelling tradition, used to prepare young people for life, has continued to thrive over the ages. although oral tradition is declining with the emergence of modern forms of communication, the invention of the printing press fortunately facilitated the documentation of tales in written form and their preservation and circulation on a wider scale. duve nakolisa believes that some tales are historical and that such historical folktales tell the history of some ethnic groups. according to him (nakolisa in usman, 2006), in many parts of africa, tales, generally speaking, are the history of the ethnic group and the ethnic portrayal of social interactions within the environment of that history. (folktales) belong to the latter… (they) are not part of the grand tales of the origin of the people of the area, nor part of the revered exploits of any great ancestor. they do not belong to the canon of myths and legends, usually associated with dynasties and illustrious genealogies. those ones belong to history, even where some of them sound somewhat like folktales. indeed, under open and unbiased examination, many of such “histories” share canonical qualities with the simplest tale. that is why i assert that mythologies are generally the grandest form of the folktale tradition of any society, and the inspirational springboard for the ordinary tale. to buttress nakolisa’s thesis which, as my research confirms, is also applicable to non-african societies, khalid imam (2010) further stresses that although most tales may have themes of universal concerns, a close study of some could reveal that such tales may well be telling the histories of some ethnic nationalities. he cites the popular story of global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 75 bayajidda as a good example of a “grand tale” that lays claim to being the authentic origin of one particular group of people. imam could have easily cited further examples from nigeria where almost every ethnic group – and there are more than 250 of them – lays claim to one mythic origin or the other. the most celebrated of such “grand tale” histories includes the “ogiso” story of the binis which has the contentious twist of a bini prince being the pioneering ooni of ife. key yoruba scholars believe the more popular version, namely, that oduduwa is the progenitor of the yoruba race. similar “grand tales” from nigeria are no less controversial. for instance, depending on the person telling the story, the igala kingship is variously linked to the yoruba, nupe, benin and jukun. my own community of biu has various versions of the origin of yamtarawala, our own progenitor, equivalent to other legendary figures such as oduduwa and bayajidda. in all these and similar stories across the world, what is the dividing line between history and folktale? judging from the foregoing, it seems reasonable to say that history and folklore, in narrative origins, are two rivers which meet at the confluence of the communal imagination. comparative study of folktale traditions following the encouragement and guidance i received from my publisher and the likes of prof dandatti abdulkadir, i decided to dig deeper into the subject of folktales. i forayed into existing literature on the subject, seeking to have a comparative understanding of the place of folktales in global literature. i relied mostly on books i could lay my hands on. on the few occasions i travelled out of the country, my first attraction was the nearest bookshop where i went to in search of books related to folktales. i did that during my visits to the us, jamaica, uk, croatia, sri lanka and china, and i made some useful purchases. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 76 according to gerda charles (1976), the egyptians were rendering folktales on papyrus and inscribing them on stone as far back as 1300 bc. the greeks later came out with aesop’s fables which contained stories akin to that of the hindus. the hindus, like the egyptians, had also written their stories, in sanskrit. these were later commented upon and amplified by the iranians or persians. the arabians also adapted some and turned others into the famous arabian nights stories, some of which were embodied in the one thousand and one nights story book. it was the invention of the printing press in germany which made it possible for folktales, such as the arabian stories, to be reproduced and circulated in written form. short stories derived from folktales were not the preserve of one nation. towards the end of the 19th century, the english came up with pickwick papers by the great writer, charles dickens. some of shakespeare’s stories were rooted in folklore. the germans, the italians, the japanese and the russians have their own folktales. in the united states, charles colcock jones jr. (1831-1893) came up with gullah folktales from the georgia coast (1888). also known as “negro myths from georgia coast”, it was told as vernacular tales he heard black servants exchange on his family’s rice and cotton plantation. the tales ranged from the humorous to the instructional and included stories of the “sperits”, daddy jupiter’s “vision”, a dying bullfrog’s last wish and others about how “buh rabbit gained sense” and “why the turkey won’t eat crabs.” the tales were rendered in gullah, the language of the african americans on the east coast, which is akin to what is popularly known as pidgin english in west africa. susan millar williams, who commented on the book, observed that the stories of 1888 were similar to west african stories and that they were imported into america by slaves taken to the americas from that part of africa. to the best of her knowledge, that was about the first book she knew on folktales in the us. the stories in the book used ghosts, foxes, global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 77 hares, squirrel, lions, leopards, land monitor (lizard /african alligators), hyenas, rats, elephants, and other animals commonly found in africa, as characters. the stories were also laced with animals and insects found in the eastern parts of the usa. back home, prof. d. waterman, who had done a lot of work in the field of folktales, found that f. edgar and a.j.n. tremaerne and rudolf prietze were reputed to have written books on hausa folktales in 1904, 1910 and 1911. the only indigenous scholar who had similarly done tremendous work in that field was prof. ibrahim yaro yahaya who wrote tatsuniyoyi da wasanni books 1-6 in 1972. before then, north regional literature agency (norla) published tatsuniyoyin zamani titled almara in 1952, although the publication was not attributed to any individual as its author. albert helser (1923), the american who was among the foreign pioneer missionaries who brought christianity to my babur/bura community of borno state in north-east nigeria, published 55 folktales gathered from the area. in the preface, he remarked that: a sincere attempt to understand native culture is the only fair and effective approach to the native mind. from the first day i set foot in lagos, nigeria, british west africa, in 1922 i have been making honest effort to appreciate the native view of life...while the bura people had no written language, we found that they had an unusually full system of culture embodied in their folktales. he noted the role of stories in ensuring that the heritage of shared values was transferred from one generation to another. his observation: it was a surprise to learn that quite small boys and girls had a rather clear idea of the socially desirable ends which had been set up by the bura tribe. these ends had been taught and emphasised through the folktales which had been passed on by word of mouth. the most respected women of each community had assumed the responsibility of passing on the culture of the tribe by telling stories to the younger children in the evening time. the older children carried on by reciting the stories to one another. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 78 he was describing the society in which i grew up and it is a mark of the sustenance of that tradition that i was able to gather several folktales in less than one year of research effort. franz boas in the foreword to helser’s book (helser, 1923, p. 7) threw some light on the universality of the folktales phenomenon. he stated that: the collection of bura tales by mr. helser adds another one interesting collection from africa that have appeared from time to time... early attention has been called to the wealth of african folktales by bleek’s “renard the fox in africa”, a series of interesting animal tales. materials from all parts of africa, so far as they are available, illustrate the power of imagination of the negro. they also show the interesting relations between all parts of africa, and the migrations of tales from one part of the continent to the other. they also prove that many of our folktales and much of the homely wisdom laid down in proverbs is common property of africa, europe, and asia. many of the african tales have a particular interest for us because their equivalents are found among our american negroes, for instance in the well-known uncle remus tales. commenting further, franz boas said: folktales from all parts of the world are of particular interest because they illustrate with great clarity the mode of thought, the homely wisdom, and the ethical concepts of the people. in africa, more than among other socalled primitive tribes, many a tale illustrates a proverb relating to the proper everyday behaviour. the negro is fond of moralising by means of moralising tales. i can confidently confirm from the annotations at the end of each of the folktales in my publications that there are indeed many morals in the stories. not only that, the stories are as varied as there are literary categorizations: you have the comic, the tragic and the tragi-comic; then there are the horror or terror stories. and the characters are imbued with diverse qualities: some exhibit wisdom, cleverness, bravery, strength and nobility whereas others are global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 79 characters of cruelty, foolishness, selfishness, cunning, and sluggishness. the clash of the contradictory qualities of the characters in a folktale is geared towards moulding the character of the child during his or her early education in the informal setting. nelson mandela (2010), former president of south africa, attests to this when he recalled that: after supper we would listen enthralled to my mother and sometimes my aunt telling us stories, legends, myths and fables which have come down from countless generations, and all of which contained some valuable moral lessons. as i look back to those days, i am inclined to believe that the type of life i led at my home, my experiences in the veldt where we worked and played together in groups, introduced me at an early age to the ideas of collective effort. the little progress i made in this regard was later undermined by the type of formal education i received which tended to stress individual more than collective values. nevertheless, in the mid1940s when i was drawn into the political struggle, i could adjust myself to discipline without difficulty, perhaps because of my early upbringing. historical significance of folktales while skinner (1980) categorizes folktales by themes and characters, duve nakolisa (2006) draws attention to the historical dimension and includes in his categorization historical tales which narrate social interactions. the historical relevance has earlier been underlined by harward (musaeus-higgins, 1910) who remarked that: all children love a story...though there are many stories which may fairly be considered to belong to all races and all countries, there are folktales which only come home to the people of a particular race or country. to the latter class belong the tales by which a child gains its first notions of the history of its own land and people. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 80 the following dialogue (musaeus-higgins, 1910) between a teacher (referred to as ‘mother’) and one of her students (‘somarawattie’) further illustrates the place of history in folktales: “please mother, about what year are we now in history?” “king manavamma died 726 ad,” answered mother, “and i am sorry i have to tell you some more sad things, before we come to another great king.” “oh, i don’t think the stories now are half as nice as they were at first,” called out an impudent little somarawattie. “at first you told us about golden boats and beautiful asoka-mala, and now! well, they are not so interesting.” “well, my little girl, how do you think i can tell you interesting stories, when no interesting things have happened? look here! i am telling you stories from history, i don’t make up the stories and so you will have to be satisfied with what i can tell you.” somarawattie felt a little ashamed when she received that answer and she saw that she was wrong. she came up to the mother and said pleadingly: “please excuse me, dear mother; i will try to remember that you are not making the stories from ceylon history but that you tell us what has happened in our country long ago. i am sure we are learning something from all the stories you tell us, even if they are not as pretty as some of the former ones. to further underscore the historical significance of folktales, ratnatunga (2010), author of tales from sri lanka: folk and history, said in the preface that “it is of utmost importance that the record of the island’s folktales is preserved for the day when we are sane again; when we can remember what was before terrorism and tsunami.” the blurb is even more explicit: sri lanka, one of the most beautiful islands in the world, has a rich cultural history of more than 2,000 years. tales from sri lanka is an attempt by manel ratnatunga to preserve the fast-dying, oral literature and traditions of the country and to make people aware of their national heritage. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 81 through these tales, manel ratnatunga has succeeded in reminding people about their glorious past which has been handed down from generation to generation. the general appeal of the stories as well as their historical relevance is also emphasized: the fascinating stories, retold in a lucid and simple style, will succeed in keeping readers of all ages spellbound. a blending of folklore and history make the tales more interesting and lively. this collection gives a rare glimpse into the captivating culture and history of sri lanka. the future of folktales research some critics distinguish between “creative” literature and folktales. of course, value should be placed on new thinking as that is one of the ways the society develops. it is necessary, however, to consolidate achievements made and one way by which this could be done is to dig into the past, preserve and pass on the findings to generations to come. archaeologists and social scientists are doing so. mankind is currently making some breakthroughs in technology which in future will be subject of study as to how we reached this far. as miners dig into the ground in search of precious mineral resources; so, it could be argued that similar effort needs to be made in digging into folktales to find the hidden treasures. the field is unlimited. one such effort was made by parker (2003) who published five hundred and nineteen tales of ceylon in three bound volumes with a total of 1,243 pages. that was for ceylon, now sri lanka, a country of 21,513,990 people (2010) with two principal ethnic groups, the sinhalese and the tamils. for nigeria, which has a population of about 140,431,790 million people (2006 census) with over 250 ethnic groups, it will be a full time job for anyone to compile as many of their folktales as possible. abela publishing (jacobs, 2009) which reprinted 43 english folktales first published by david nutt (1890) dedicates the book thus: “to the global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 82 teachers and story tellers who keep folklore and history alive through the telling and re-telling of these tales.” abela went on to invite readers to: take some time out and travel back to a period before television and radio, a time when families would gather around a crackling and spitting hearth and granddad or grandma or uncle or auntie would delight and captivate the gathering with stories passed on to them from their parents and grandparents from time immemorial. as i found out in the course of gathering the folktales in my community, this beautiful picture painted by abela no longer exists today and the fairly old people, who are the repositories of oral literature, are fast disappearing. folktales narrated by such people, therefore, need to be reduced into writing. the following five goals of klamidas classic folktales series (usman, 2005, pp. 11-12), to which i have added the last two objectives, are some of the aspirations which motivated me to delve into folktale research and publishing:  to present through multimedia the best folktales around the world for the enjoyment of everyone, thereby promoting cross-cultural understanding and respect for story-telling and other traditions of the world’s diverse peoples.  to revive the age-old practice of telling children instructive tales by preserving in writing many of the stories which are believed to be fast disappearing as their human repositories pass on.  to encourage the younger generations to appreciate, through the story-writing workshop (to which a segment of some of the books in the series might be dedicated), the educative and artistic qualities of the folktales of every culture.  to inculcate in the students, through theory and practice, the art of short-story writing. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 83  to contribute, through the morals drawn from the tales, to the moral upbringing of children as well as the moral regeneration of the larger society, thereby reinforcing the need for the pursuit of worthwhile goals.  to provide additional pleasurable reading materials for the young and old in their leisure hours.  to provide reading materials with illustrations from familiar environments to supplant or complement foreign publications. chuma nwokolo (sunday trust, october 30, 2011), legal practitioner and author of diaries of a dead african, has stressed the importance of preserving african traditions: we must have constant conversations between our past and our future, which should tell us how to live in the present...once the basic needs – food, shelter – have been sorted out, the next imperative is...identity... i visited the british national archives in kew gardens and was struck by the overwhelming number of elderly folk researching their ancestry. because, in africa, our elderly folk are the best custodians of our folklore, the folklore researcher is, therefore, racing against time. while one should not over romanticize the olden days, it must be recognized that folklore, particularly orature, has assumed new importance as a field of study. it promotes oral traditions, including the desirable art of storytelling and the shared values and enduring wisdom that emanate from it. besides, folktales are universal and can be used to unite mankind more remotely than sports or the internet is currently doing. every country has got its own share of folktales which its people can share with others, thereby demonstrating the oneness of mankind. says jacobs (2009): “up to 1870, it was said equally of france and of italy that they possessed no folktales. yet, within 15 years from that date, over 1000 tales had been collected in each country.” the harvest from nigeria is even more amazing. in my small community of biu, which has a population of 452,304 (2006 census), i collected over global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 84 1000 folktales within two years. helser (1969, p. 8) had collected over 800 tales in the same community in the 1920s. the potential in nigeria for gathering folktales is, therefore, quite enormous. retaining a folktale’s original flavour while rendering the folktales i derived from my babur/bura cultural setting in hausa language, i consciously tried to retain the flavour of the original tales. i chose the hausa language for wider circulation within and outside nigeria while bearing in mind the current unesco emphasis on writing in the vernacular for purposes of language preservation and ease of learning by the child. chinyere obi-obasi, one of nigeria’s budding authors, may somewhat be right in her assertion that folktales “can be retold in any fanciful way as nobody has copyright over them” (national mirror, august 5, 2011). however, she is not absolutely right because folktales belong to the community of their origin and there is a limit to which they can be acceptably altered. i have, in the case of my tales rendered in hausa, tried as much as possible to maintain the form and content of the original babur/bura folktales. i was guided by rev. albert d. helser (1969, p. 11) who researched 55 bura folktales which he published in a book way back in the 1920s. he remarked in his preface: at first i translated the stories as i heard them and wrote them in english. after i had completed a number in this way i found that i was losing the native flavour of the stories, so i burned them. i started again... i have tried to preserve the indigenous spirit of the stories. my translation is as literal as it was expedient to make it. indeed, he said it was unusual to tell tales in the daytime. “the spell of the dark is necessary to the full appreciation of the stories,” he emphasized. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 85 re-creating the original tale i would like to re-visit the dichotomy between “creative” writing, on the one hand, and oral folktales captured in writing, on the other. let me begin by noting that there are four major ways of capturing an oral folktale in writing; they are: transliteration, translation, modification, and adaptation. to transliterate an oral tale means representing its letters or words using equivalent letters or words of another alphabet. for instance, the hausa warning, “ba shiga” strictly transliterated into english would read, “no enter,” or “no entrance” if loosely transliterated. to translate an oral tale means rendering it using the words and idioms of a new language to make it textually meaningful to the hearer or reader of the new language. translation is not necessarily a word-for-word exercise. the above simple example, “ba shiga”, could in translation into english be rendered as “no road”, “no passage”, “no thoroughfare” or even, loosely, “go back.” modification, in the sense in which the word is used here, means changing key elements of the original tale in order to infuse into it fresh elements, such as new characters or sub-plot. modification usually takes place when there is need to amplify or modernize the folktale and build a bigger story out of it without losing the essence of the original tale. it is in the process of modification that the short-story writer, deriving his material from folklore, has a great deal of creative latitude. indeed, modifying an oral tale from its oral source and re-telling it in writing in another language is as creative as any short-story writing effort can be. modification is not mere translation. it is translation enhanced by additional information and the re-ordering of key elements of the original tale. modification is an exercise in creative writing. many of the stories in my three short-story anthologies published in english, namely, the bride without scars, the stick of fortune, and girls in search of global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 86 husbands were modified versions of oral tales. but the reader of these stories would easily see that the modified versions written in english (and it could have been any other language) are more elaborate than their comparatively shorter and simpler oral versions, especially in terms of plot and characterization. as for literary devices, modified and written forms of oral tales are stylistically very similar to the modern short story; in fact, they are modern short stories with traditional roots. we move now to the fourth method – adaptation. the traditional meaning of adapting a work of art to new uses is intended here, except that apart from being a change from one genre to another (e.g., from a folktale to a radio play), it is also, in this context, a change from the original language of the folktale to a new language (e.g., adapting a biu folktale to a radio play in english). evidently, a combination of two or more of the four methods i have identified above is very possible. the creative writer inspired by folklore, one may conclude, can only be limited by his own imagination. his creativity, rather than being hindered by tradition, can be enhanced by it. conclusion it is an established fact that folklore and history are among the two most treasured world traditions. they are so vital that objects and monuments whose relevance are essentially folkloric and historic in nature are designated around the world as “cultural heritage” by the unesco “convention concerning the protection of the world cultural and natural heritage” of 1972. going by the facts which emerged from the comparative study detailed above, folklore and history really share some vital things in common. they maintain a symbiotic relationship. folklore tells tales and some of the tales tell the history of communities and of mankind. it is in the light of the above postulation that this paper is advocating that scholars, students and researchers should focus serious attention on the global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 87 study of folklore with the same vigour archeologists and anthropologists employ while digging deep into our distant past. maybe i should add, in closing, that i have conducted research in the folklore and history of my native biu area, in north-eastern nigeria, and that i have, hence, experienced and observed the close affinities between these two aspects of a people’s cultural evolution. indeed, the often inseparable linkages between history and folklore tend to suggest that they are twin rivers that flow into the same sea. works cited helser, albert d. african stories. new york: revell, 1923. _____ education of primitive people. new york: negro university press, 1969. jacobs, joseph, english fairy tales. london: abela, 2009. mandela, nelson, conversations with myself. london: macmillan, 2010. ratnatunga, manel. tales from sri lanka, folk and history. vijitha yapa publications, 2010. musaeus-higgins, marie. stories from the history of ceylon for children, 1910. nakolisa, duve. “introduction” in usman, bukar, girls in search of husbands and other stories. abuja: klamidas, 2006. national mirror, august 5, 2011. parker, h.. village folk-tales of ceylon vol.1-3, new delhi: aes, 2003. sunday trust, october 30, 2011, p. 30. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 3 may-june 2023 88 usman, bukar, the bride without scars and other stories. abuja: klamidas, 2005. ______ the bride without scars and other stories. abuja: klamidas, 2005. _____ taskar tatsuniyoyi. kano: gidan dabino publishers, 2012. author information: dr bukar usman is the president of nigerian folklore society. email: bukarusman@gmail.com. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 27 peace, unity and nation building: the role of individuals and other stakeholders by bukar usman abstract this paper is on the subject of peace, unity and nation building in nigeria and the rest of africa, with special focus on the role of individuals and other stakeholders. it was originally delivered at a conference organised in abuja by the standtall africa initiative. the topic, as considered in this paper, is treated under the following headings: constitutional provisions on role of individuals and stakeholders, responsibilities of government and other authorities, environmental impact on conduct of individuals and groups, and the need for skills development and modernity. other dimensions of the topic discussed include: diversity, aggregation of interests and development of national consciousness; pillars of national stability and political neutrality; empowerment of youths and women; constitutional development; population explosion and sources of conflict; information communication technology and the media; and common problems of african countries. keywords: peace, unity, nation building, individuals, nigeria, africa introduction it is my singular honor and pleasure to deliver the keynote address for this allimportant conference on peace, unity and nation building with specific reference to nigeria and the african continent1. the conference organizers, standtall africa initiative (stai), have itemized six vital areas for discussion. they include:  developing the nigeria and africa economy via peaceful co-existence and crisis free society  youth empowerment  qualities of leadership  place of religion in nation building  role of women  role of individuals and other stakeholders global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 28 i have been asked by stai to focus my address on the sixth point – the role of individuals and other stakeholders. presumably, the other resource persons will attend to the rest. i hasten to say that stakeholders in nation building include almost every individual or group, and so cover all of us attending this conference. individuals invariably belong to one group or another. they have their stakes, some of which find expression in the group. individuals have a role to play in the group, with some assigned positions of leadership to promote both individual and group interests. constitutional provisions on role of individuals and stakeholders like some of the earlier constitutions, the 1999 constitution2 provides the duties of the individual citizen to include: i. to abide by the constitution, respect its ideals and institutions, the national flag, the national anthem, and legitimate and properly constituted authorities; ii. to protect and preserve public property, and fight against misappropriation and squandering of public funds; iii. to help enhance the power, prestige and good name of the country and defend the country and render national service as may be required; iv. to respect the dignity and religion of other citizens and their rights and the legitimate interests of others and to live in unity and harmony and in the spirit of common brotherhood; v. to make positive and useful contributions to the advancement, progress and well-being of the community where he resides; vi. to work conscientiously in his lawful and chosen occupation and to abstain from any activity detrimental to the general welfare of other citizens; vii. to ensure the proper upbringing of his children; viii. to participate in and defend all democratic processes and practices; ix. to render assistance to appropriate and lawful agencies in the maintenance of law and order; and x. to declare his income honestly to appropriate and lawful agencies and to pay his tax. additional duties of the citizen have been embodied in the national anthem and the national pledge. in the national anthem, the citizen is called upon, among others, to:  serve our fatherland with love and strength and faith (stanza 1, lines 2 and 3)  serve with heart and might (line 6); and  build a nation where peace and justice shall reign (stanza 2, line 7). global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 29 these provisions are complemented by the national pledge which appeals to the citizen “to be faithful, loyal and honest… to defend (nigeria’s) unity and uphold her honour and glory”. but, really, how far does the citizen know and perform all these? it would be safe to say that given the low-level literacy prevailing in the country, the generality of the citizens hardly know and appreciate their role in this regard. often, we recite those provisions without giving deep thoughts to them, let alone endeavour to respond as expected of us. responsibilities of government and other authorities on the other hand, the nigerian constitution 1999 spell out the duties and responsibilities of all organs of government and of all authorities and persons exercising legislative, executive and judicial powers, all of whom are required to conform to and observe the provisions of the constitution3. their responsibilities are specifically declared to include:  provision of security and welfare as primary functions of government  ensuring the participation of the people in their governance  conduct of the affairs of governance in a manner that reflects the federal character and  the need to promote national unity and command loyalty the provisions, which extend to governance at the state levels, enjoin the states to recognize the diversity of the people and the need to promote a sense of belonging and loyalty among all the people of the federation. aside from the above provisions, the oaths of office, the code of conduct and other legislations spell out how public officers should conduct themselves in running the affairs of government. it is quite apparent that were the citizens and government to observe the letter and spirits of the provisions of our constitution and subsidiary legislations, nation building will greatly be facilitated in an atmosphere of relative peace, tranquility and harmony. unfortunately, human failings and frailties create difficulties and cause disenchantment among the citizenry. success in the attainment of all of the above goals emphasizes the importance of leadership at all levels and in all spheres of life. leadership should, among others, be averse to evils of corruption, greed, selfishness and mismanagement of public funds. environmental impact on conduct of individuals and groups global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 30 all things being equal, it is expected that the interests of individuals subsumed in the group interests would be pursued and projected peacefully. however, an individual’s conduct, and also that of a group, is influenced by their immediate environment. different environments breed peculiar interests. nation building, therefore, requires the aggregation of those interests and the working out of suitable programmes, in the short and long term, towards the attainment of the common good as set out by a nation. the programmes so outlined demand constant review by the leadership to ensure that group and individual interests are protected and projected in a manner which gives them hope, makes life worth living and empowers them to live it well with all the basic necessities, such as food, shelter, health and education, provided. skills development and modernity as identified above, the individual standing alone, or as a member of a group, has a role to play. individual capacity to stand alone or contribute to the group interests could be enhanced by developing oneself. this could come about by the acquisition of the necessary skills for whatever role the individual plays in a traditional or modern setting. of greater relevance today is the modern setting which itself is fast changing. the individual must therefore strive to keep up with the developments in order to sustain himself and his role. one obvious way is to acquire the necessary education and skill. this emphasizes the importance of education to the individual who is expected to contribute more meaningfully to the society. diversity, aggregation of interests and development of national consciousness having understood, so far, the place of the individual in the society, what role is expected of the nigerian whose aggregate interests as well as the modalities for their attainment are embodied in the constitution and other documents and programmes? in view of her great diversity4, nigeria is faced with enormous difficulties in forging unanimity and national consciousness as each and every individual or group strives to maximize their interests. it is this disposition and drive that account for misunderstandings among groups, and this presents the greatest challenge in nation building. stakeholders agitating, without much success, to draw the attention of government to their plight, in desperation lose patience and resort to violence, thereby becoming a threat to peace and security and making it even more difficult to achieve their group and individual interests and the common good. the question often arises as to why the individual should be called upon to perform their duty when the nation fails in its duties towards them as spelt out global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 31 in the above provisions. this also leads to the proverbial debate about the chicken and egg, which comes first? the answer is not an easy one. therefore, there is need for mutual understanding. be that as it may, government has a responsibility to provide the required environment for individuals to realize their full potential and contribute maximally to nation building. pillars of national stability and political neutrality in emphasizing the role of individuals and other stakeholders, it is strongly advocated that nigeria, being a country of great diversity, should have pillars of stability that should be consciously nurtured to insulate them from political partisanship, especially in the face of increasingly unbridled quest for power in our polity. such pillars exist, and they consist of the security agencies, the judiciary, traditional rulers and religious institutions. these pillars must be seen to demonstrate political neutrality in their actions and utterances. it is only then that they would continue to occupy moral high ground and command the respect of all. such disposition should also condition and moderate the conduct of their staff or followers. empowerment of youths and women while not playing down the role and needs of other stakeholders, youth and women have been identified as important segments of the society whose needs should be attended to so as to enhance their roles in nation building. it is quite apparent that current efforts need to be redoubled to engage them more productively in nation-building and avert the adverse effects the continuous neglect of these critical segments of our society would have on our phenomenally growing population. nigeria has over 250 ethnic groups and 500 languages. from a population of about 50 million in the 1960s, it has grown to become not only the most populous country and the largest economy in africa but the one with the largest youth population in the world, next to india and china. we must fully engage our youth and women to sustain this growth. constitutional development efforts at nation building in nigeria arguably started since 1914 following the amalgamation of the northern and southern protectorates by the british colonial government. several constitutions were brought into being with a view to providing a structure of government and security machinery to create an atmosphere conducive for individual pursuits and for government to prosecute its national development programmes. to date, there have been eight constitutions (see tables 1 and 2). global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 32 table 1: pre-independence constitutions constitution date the clifford constitution 1922 the richards constitution 1947 the macpherson constitution 1952 the lyttleton constitution 1954 table 2: post-independence constitutions & systems of government constitution system of government date the independence constitution parliamentary 1960 the republican constitution parliamentary 1963 the 1979 constitution presidential 1979 the 1999 constitution presidential 1999 restructuring the land area of nigeria since her creation has remained virtually the same after the 1962 plebiscite which excised southern cameroon and the recent ceding of bakassi peninsula to the republic of cameroun. however, administration is becoming more and more complex. to satisfy the aspirations of the people, nigerian territory has been restructured several times with the creation of states and local governments (see tables 3 and 4 and appendix ii). the nation has also fought a civil war (1967-1970) while governance since independence in 1960 has changed hands several times between civilian and military administrations (see table 5). table 3: creation of states existing number of states additional states administration date of creation 12 gen. yakubu gowon may 27, 1967 19 7 gen. murtala mohammed feb. 3, 1976 21 2 gen. ibrahim babangida sept. 23, 1987 30 9 gen. ibrahim babangida aug. 27, 1991 36 6 gen. sani abacha oct. 1, 1996 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 33 table 4: creation of local governments/area councils5 number of l.gs/ area councils additional lgs administration year of creation 301 gen. murtala mohammed 1976 449 148 gen. ibrahim babangida 1989 500 51 gen. ibrahim babangida 1990 589 89 gen. ibrahim babangida 1991 768 179 gen. sani abacha 1996 768 6 area councils 6 area councils for federal capital territory gen. abdulsalami abubakar 1999 table 5: periods of civil and military administrations since 1960 administration date civilian administration 1960 1966 military administration 1966 1979 civilian administration 1979 1983 military administration 1983 1993 military administration 1993 1999 civilian administration 1999 date population explosion and sources of conflict it can be seen that nation building in nigeria is ongoing. as the land area remains the same in the face of increasing population and demand for security and welfare, it should be anticipated that conflicts will continue so long as agriculture remains the main source of livelihood. there will be more and more scramble for land, scarce resources, and political clout; and poverty, joblessness and corruption, all of which are driving pauperized citizens and extremists to commit horrendous atrocities against fellow citizens, would continue to be major challenges. there are discordant voices about acceptability of the existing constitution. others are craving for the creation of more states and local governments, even though the existing ones are yet to be satisfactorily consolidated. all these require good governance and sound leadership to avert or mitigate their unwholesome effects on nation building. individual and group appreciation of the realities and positive contributions towards solving these challenges will be most desirable. information communication technology (ict) and the media development in information communication technology (ict) which drives the current digital era is a double-edged sword. information is transmitted faster and on a wider scale. negative and sensational information make global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 34 headlines just as the positive ones. for the purpose of this address, focus is on the dangers of disseminating negative information without restraint. while the traditional media is relatively well controlled editorially, much of social media does not receive similar treatment. there lies the danger of what is currently described as fake news which, when disseminated through the web with little or no regard to societal sensitivities, cause upheavals liable to jeopardize national stability and nation building. for nigeria, the fault lines are many and easily exploited, thereby making it much more difficult to maintain societal harmony. thus, disinformation, insinuations, innuendoes, misrepresentations and so-called conspiracy theories being spread in social media, whether deliberately or unwittingly, must be guarded against as they have become the tools of modern warfare and social destabilization. they are now more frequently used than tanks, missiles and battalions. good governance and policy consultations in dealing with societal problems, nigeria has experienced both limited and wide policy consultations under civilian and military administrations. given the enormity and complexity of the problems, there is no alternative but to intensify good governance and policy options that involve interactions and consultations with stakeholders and relevant experts because to every problem there is a solution. influences on policies include the organized labor, students, the media, political parties and environmental impact organizations. not to be discounted are also external interests. leadership at all levels on the part of operators should be able to meet societal aspirations on a progressive and sustainable basis. common problems of african countries what applies to nigeria largely applies to other countries in africa, although what obtains in those countries may not be identical to ours. however, every country requires peace and security for individuals and groups to contribute their quota to the goal of achieving the common good. unfortunately, only very few countries in africa have gotten their electoral systems right. therefore, to stabilize democracy as a primary condition for security and national development in a country of great diversity, which is the typical country in most parts of africa, decision makers in positions of leadership at all levels should strive for a workable formula, known by whatever name, that ensures an inclusive system of governance. it is particularly imperative that such arrangements which require great individual and group sacrifice remain firmly planted in their minds whether or not it is constitutionally provided. many countries have set up oversight organs to ensure financial probity and social justice. however, performances of some of such organs have fallen short of public expectations. what must be admitted in the case of nigeria is that whatever measures governments have so far taken to generate employment in the country require redoubling those actions to quicken the realization of the objectives. critical infrastructure such as power supply for public consumption and industrial production, better means of transportation, increased agricultural activities and mass education require immediate attention as we are in serious deficit. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 35 while leadership can alter the course of a country’s security and national development, globalization has made national borders politically and socially porous. hence convulsive events in one country can spill over into another and impede her security and the well-being of her citizens. it is common knowledge though that there are scores of countries on the continent facing serious security challenges almost all arising from the struggle by individuals and groups to maximize their takes from resources available in their countries. this has led to the creation of several regional and continental organizations to enable them face common problems and borrow a leaf from the successes recorded by one country or another. the challenge here is to make those organizations achieve the desired end within the earliest possible time. security situations must not be allowed to deteriorate to a stage of despair and helplessness whereby people would resign their fate to divine intervention for their salvation. conclusion it is hereby emphasized that there is serious relationship between security and national development. peace is required for human activities to thrive. while development may not guarantee peace, it would certainly mitigate human excesses arising from deprivations. resources which should otherwise be required for national development, in times of social upheavals, are often diverted from other areas towards ensuring the security of lives and property, thereby retarding national development. aside from the resources required towards the restoration of peace, no serious production or activity could be undertaken by individuals and groups in any serious security situation, more so if such a situation is prolonged and widespread. finally, let me thank stai for sparing time and resources to create this important forum. i wish stai every success in its continuing effort to promote leadership development, education and entrepreneurship in nigeria and the african continent. endnotes 1. this paper was originally a keynote address delivered by the author at a 2day conference on peace, unity and nation building organized by standtall africa initiative at a-class park & event, abuja, july 21-22, 2021. 2. see section 24 (a)-(j) of the nigerian constitution 1999. 3. see sections 14 and 15 of the nigerian constitution 1999. 4. nigeria is the most populated country in africa; it is known to have over 250 ethnic groups and more than 350 indigenous languages. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 36 5. the 768 local governments listed in part 1 plus 6 area councils for the federal capital territory listed in part 11 of the first schedule of the 1999 constitution make up the total of 774 local governments in nigeria. author information: dr bukar usman is the president of nigerian folklore society. email: bukarusman@gmail.com. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 63 religion and political culture in nigeria by christian osemuyi oseghale abstract the political environment of nigeria, including the manner of government, the creation of public policies, and the electoral process, have all been significantly influenced by religion. it cannot be overstated that religion has always played a significant role in nigerian politics, particularly since the country won its independence. no matter how one feels about religion, it is a well-known fact that in nigeria, politics and religion are closely related, despite the circularity of the nigerian state in line with the constitution. this paper, therefore, examines the impact of religion on nigerian politics, focusing on how it has influenced the political culture of the people positively and negatively since the advent of the fourth republic in 1999. this study suggests that people of all religions should get involved in politics, starting with local elections in our small towns and moving on to presidential campaigns and elections. to achieve national cohesion and development, politics in nigeria needs to be practised, religious morals followed, and freedom of religion protected by the nigerian constitution. the paper concludes that religion should shape our personality to reflect the characteristics of whoever our creator is and use those characteristics to improve our society's political space. each of us should strive to become a member of the nigerian dream team that will advance the nation and rethink the concept of modern governance to better serve the needs of as many people as possible. keywords: culture, governmental policy, religion, political culture, politics, nigeria introduction nigeria is one of the world's most religiously and ethnically divided countries, with extensive socioeconomic cleavages. these have grown increasingly significant because of the following: the three major ethnic groups have nothing in common politically, socially, or historically. most nigerians speak a "home language" and learn english, but not the other main local languages. religion is not as significant in the south. muslims in yoruba, for example, behave politically as yorubas rather than global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 64 muslims. in contrast, in the north, it is difficult to separate religion from ethnicity. religion has been in existence since the creation story, from the biblical perspective; it has no generally accepted definition, but salient points from available definitions expressly emphasize religion as a channel or means through which mankind reaches or interacts with whoever he/she believes or accepts as his/her creator. so whichever religion one finds himself or herself in, there is the realization and consciousness of salvation, which makes the adherent to desire to do always what is acceptable to one’s creator in order not to be sanctioned. according to durkheim (1912), cited in taves (2009), "a religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden, beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a church, all those who adhere to them." max lynn stackhouse, according to nelson (2010), said religion is “a comprehensive worldview or ‘metaphysical moral vision' that is accepted as binding because it is held to be in itself true and just even if all dimensions of it cannot be either fully confirmed or refuted." in 1871, edward burnett taylor coined the term "religion" to describe "the belief in spiritual beings." he argued that limiting the definition to include "belief in a supreme deity," "judgment after death," "idolatry," and other similar concepts would exclude a large number of individuals from the category of religious people and "has the fault of identifying religion rather with particular developments than with the deeper motive which underlies them. “additionally, he argued that all known societies hold spiritual beliefs. the truth about religion is that certainly religion is a beaming light and an unassailable tower for the protection and welfare of the peoples of the world, for the fear of god encourages those who truly believe in him to hold fast to that which is good and turn away from all evil acts. once the lamp of religion is hidden, confusion and misunderstanding will follow, and the lights of fairness and justice, tranquillity and peace will cease to shine. unto this every one of true understanding will bear witness (baha'u'llah, 2018). “political” is referring to politics, which is an act or process of governance or, put differently, a settled pattern of administration. the merriamwebster online dictionary defines political as “referring or relating to government, a government, or the conduct of government, relating to, or concerned with the making as distinguished from the administration of governmental policy and relating to, involving, or involved in politics and especially party politics.” in his book, the sociology of religion, thomas f. o'dea (1970) said, "religion, like culture, is a symbolic transformation of experience." global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 65 culture rules virtually every aspect of an individual’s life, which is why it is commonly referred to as a way of life of the people. culture is dynamic because it allows its members to function through relating with each other without the need to discuss the implications of being together at every moment. culture is learned and unwittingly expressed, so regardless of its importance we are generally unconscious of its effect on how we perceive the world and interact within it (global affairs canada, 2014). anthropologist e.b. taylor referred to culture as “that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by a man as a member of society," a definition which griswold notes is the “anthropological definition of culture” (griswold, 2012). a diagnosis of these three concepts, namely, religion, politics and culture, reveals that, in the context of this study’s topic, they are bound in a strong, interwoven relationship in the sense that religion can bond and inspire individuals in the direction of a mutual goal or common belief system; this set of common beliefs can influence their worldview, attitudes and social behavior (culture), which in turn, might become a prism through which they assess social options and make leadership decisions as to how their society is governed (politics). in generating this string of relationships, religion appears to exert a force greater than what no political factor could generally accomplish. culture, as a concept, is all-embracing, in the sense that it is a way of life of a people in terms of their collectivist orientation that manifests in their individual or group social expressions. when we talk of religion and political culture in nigeria, therefore, we are referring to the manner in which religion influences the political viewpoints, attitudes and choices of nigerians as seen in their involvement in politics, especially party politics, and in their political affiliations and choices. this is a very broad issue we cannot exhaustively discuss within the scope of this paper, and so we will narrow our attention, in this study, to the question, “in what ways does region affect political culture in nigeria?” theoretical framework the three concepts, religion, politics and culture, are discussed in this paper under the conceptual framework of structural functionalism theory. structural functionalism sees society as an interrelated part. the functionalist's approach was first obvious in the thought of august comte who stressed the need for cohesion after the social malaise of the french revolution. it was later presented in the work of emile durkheim, in his study of how societies can maintain social unity. in 1963, in their book titled, the civic culture: political attitude and democracy in five nations (almond &verba, 1963), two political scientists, gabriel almond global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 66 and sydney verba, who were strongly influenced by sociological structural functionalism, published a study of the political cultures associated with five democratic countries – germany, italy, mexico, the united kingdom, and the united states. according to almond and verba, there are three basic types of political culture which can be used to explain why people do or do not participate in political processes; they are: parochial political culture, subject political culture, and participant political culture. parochial political culture exists where citizens are mostly uninformed and unaware of their government and take little interest in the political process. subject political culture refers to where citizens are somewhat informed and aware of their government and occasionally participate in the political process, while participant political culture is what we see in a polity where citizens are informed and actively participate in the political process. it is based on these three types of political culture identified by almond and verba that the direction of the political culture that religion has helped to shape is determined. talcott parsons (1902–1979), who was heavily influenced by émile durkheim and max weber, and who developed the idea of roles into collective roles (parsons, 1966), says that for society to enjoy some acceptable level of solidarity and stability, institutions saddled with the responsibility of social functioning in the society (economics, education, legal and even gender-based) should complement each other in fulfilling societal functional needs for it to run smoothly. he believes that once this is allowed in every society the social contract between the ruler and the ruled will be beneficial to the ruled; this can encourage those persons on parochial and subjective side to navigate toward the direction of participant political culture. although numerous critics have pointed out parsons' emphasis on political and monetary struggle, his position has continued to gain popularity as it concerns stability and order in society. methodology data for this study were collected from secondary sources like books, articles, newspapers, libraries, resource centres and online sources. all of them helped in the explanation of the concepts and in understanding how religion affects political culture. collected data were analyzed using monolog descriptive mechanism to extract points made by different authors that argue for or against the ways religion affects political culture. what is political culture? having discussed above the word “political” (as used in this study’s title), we need to also explain the term “political culture.” according to the global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 67 international encyclopedia of the social sciences, political culture is the combination of attitudes, beliefs and sentiments that give order and meaning to a political process and which make available the fundamental expectations and rules that govern behaviour in the political system. the aforementioned encompasses both the political ideals and operating norms of a polity. people behave in ways that are consistent with their fundamental views in terms of politics, the economy, and society, according to robert swierenga, cited in wald & calhoun-brown (2018). the god or gods they place at the centre of their being determine their values, morals, and behaviours in the workplace, at home, and in the voting booth (wald & calhoun-brown, 2018). political culture is a concept used in political science to describe a population's shared opinions and normative judgments about its political system. this concept does not refer to attitudes toward particular political figures, such as presidents or prime ministers, but rather to how people perceive the political system as a whole and their confidence in its legitimacy. political culture was defined by american political scientist lucian pye as the collection of fundamental beliefs, sentiments, and knowledge that form the basis of the political system. therefore, the attitudes that people have toward their system of governance serve as the foundation of political culture (morlino, 2017; winkler, 2022). gabriel almond defines it as "the particular pattern of orientations toward political actions in which every political system is embedded". according to lópez gonzález (2017), maría eugenia vázquez semadeni defines political culture as "the set of discourses and symbolic practices through which both individuals and groups articulate their power relationship, elaborate their political demands and put them at stake." political culture, simply put, talks about what people believe and feel about government, and how they think people should act in the direction of government. comprehending the relationship of a government to its people, and how those people are going to act towards that government and others, is at the core of political culture which, according to swedlow (2013), is the shared values and beliefs of a group or society regarding political relationships and public policy and in answering the question of how human beings are going to live together. that is, political culture answers the question of who gets to do what, with whom and under what conditions. political culture also answers the question of who decides, who has authority, and who has power in a group, organization, institution, or other social unit in society. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 68 how religion affects political culture religion is a collection of ideas, practices, values, and stories that are all entrenched in culture. just as religion cannot be understood in isolation from its cultural and political contexts, it is practically impossible to understand a culture without considering its religious dimensions. just as race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and socio-economic class are always factors in cultural interpretation and understanding, so too is religion (harvard divinity school, 2018). according to cuba (2015), religion, like other closely-held opinions/beliefs/thoughts, affects political culture in the following ways; firstly it creates voting blocks, it does not however guarantees that everyone who identifies with religion x or denomination y or group z will vote the same way but in practice we see this happening. secondly, political cultures have an emotional impact on how laws/executive orders are made, by having individuals in positions of power and by having legislators who have no direct affiliation with a religious group and who can, at least, stop and consider their response to any specific legislation or position. and thirdly, political culture causes issues to be discussed. there might not always be agreement on those issues but at least they are discussed. didonato (2018) maintains that as much as secular governments strive for a clean break between religion and politics, the two do in actuality mix in multifaceted ways. on the political end, religion can powerfully influence which party a person votes for, and even campaigns for, and on the religious end, political views can play a major role in religious conversion – in other words, people do not commonly change religions or denominations to find a fit for their political beliefs. the nature of religious states religion is more than just a way of life in some countries; it is the basic constitutional law of some countries. states like saudi arabia, iran, afghanistan, and the vatican are religious, not secular, states. religious concepts and codes dictate the affairs of such countries. theocracy, not full-scale democracy, is practised in such countries where the supreme leaders are invariable religious leaders. according to boyer (2017), ‘if religion is the opiate of the masses, these countries know how to get high.’ emphasizing further, she said; according to data from the 2017 best countries rankings, a representation of 80 countries centered on a survey of more than 21,000 global citizens, saudi arabia is observed to be the most religious country in the world. with theocratic monarchy and a legal system based on islamic sharia law, her citizens can receive harsh punishments, including death, for apostasy and blasphemy. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 69 the vatican city, also called the holy see, is the only place in the world where we have a full theocratic monarchy based on christian religion. although within a geographic state (italy), the vatican functions as an independent state, with the pope functioning as its king and head of government. under international law, the holy see is allowed to enter into certain international agreements; however, it does not operate under civil laws since it is not a civil state but an absolute monarchy in control of the roman catholic church, ruling according to the apostolic constitution of 1967 (encyclopedia of nations, 2018). relationship between religion and politics religion is one of the most overlooked topics in the study of world politics. this is because of a long-standing bias against the study of religion, the impact of classical liberal principles that emphasize the separation of church and state on social scientists, and the difficulty of quantifying religion, among other reasons. the westphalia treaty, which was signed in 1648, established political and religious separation. however, religion has always had an impact on how government decisions are made and how policies are developed. according to fox (2001), religion has three impacts on global politics: (1) it affects the context in which decision-makers act as well as the worldviews of many of them and the people who elect them. (2) religious beliefs and practices serve as justification for political decisions and actions. (3) religious conflicts frequently span national boundaries and have global implications. equally important are international religious movements like political islam and fundamentalist groups, as well as the foreign policy of theocratic nations and other governments that are affected by religion. the global campaign to protect religious freedom is the centre of attention in the light of the world's growing interdependence. this illustrates how important religion is to comprehending world politics. the interaction between religion and politics today is complex and constantly shifting. the religious beliefs of a population have an impact on the leaders and lawmakers of a nation, and this influence cannot be isolated from the governance of a state (fox, 2001; mandaville, & hamid, 2018). the relationship between religion and politics continues in the direction of being an important theme in political philosophy, despite the developing consensus among political theorists and the cordial management of both in practical political contexts, such as the united nations. there is a need for some kind of separation between church and state and also the right to freedom of conscience. a unique reason for the importance of this topic is global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 70 that religion over and over again makes strong claims on people’s allegiance, and universal religion makes these claims on all people, rather than just a particular community. for instance, islam has traditionally held that all people owe obedience to allah’s will. consequently, it is probably inevitable that religious commitments will sometimes come into conflict with the demands of politics. nonetheless, religious beliefs and practices also hypothetically support politics in many ways (iep, 2018; lane, 1992). the influence of religion on world politics is complex. it is abundantly obvious that the leaders and foreign policies of theocratic countries like iran and afghanistan are influenced by their religious doctrines. they routinely spring up international challenges and conditions that cannot be detached from their domestic and foreign policies. the role of religion as a source of public legitimacy is highlighted by the importance of moral pleas made by religious figures like the dalai lama and the pope (fox, 2001; golan, & martini, 2020). politics and religion both function as "living" systems, which means they may evolve and adapt to their surroundings just like people do. when combined, the two have a profound impact on people, neighbourhoods, nations, and even the entire world. politics and religion coexist in a symbiotic connection with the capacity to both help and hurt the other. every group in human society has a set of beliefs that it has developed with the aid of religious principles (ivy panda, 2022). these beliefs frequently influence how people behave politically within a given political system. the media will always assess a politician's life in light of specific religious ideas. these values are based on religious morality and convictions. here in nigeria, a candidate for office is classified as either a christian or a muslim. the number of votes a political figure might garner in an election depends on their religion. politicians in the united states identify with christianity since the majority of voters are christians. a political figure in the arab world must identify with islam because it is the predominant religion in the area. before a political leader is chosen, the religious factions must also be made apparent. in some nations, religion plays a significant role in every election year. certain religious affiliations are seen to be connected to cultural values that influence how well leaders operate in any political system. when it was reported that obama was a muslim, the question of religion became more prominent in the united states. obama almost lost the election due to concerns that he might promote muslim interests, if elected. the president allayed concerns, though, by affirming that he was a christian (fox, 2001; golan & martini, 2020; ivy panda, 2022). religious politics in nigeria in nigeria, religious politics is a well-known phenomenon. religion has global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 71 been a significant factor in political expression in nigeria; it influences the style of governance, policy formulation, and the electoral process. religion's influence on politics in nigeria may be both beneficial and detrimental. according to umeanolue (2019), just as religion boosts national development, it also has the potential to hinder it. in the nigerian society, there is a clear connection between politics and religion. the connection between religion and politics has been established for a long time, even though the actual role religion plays in politics is still up for debate. in nigeria, people are not seen as being good or bad because of their religion; rather, religion is exploited by politicians to deceive, divide, and oppress the people. the majority of nigerians are aware of this oppression but appear to have accepted it as their fate, an attitude exacerbated by poverty, illiteracy, and lack of political education (falana, 2010). religion has always played a big role in politics in nigeria, especially since the country gained independence. no matter how religion is viewed, its connection to politics in nigeria cannot be denied. there are numerous competing religions for relevance and recognition in addition to the three major religions—christianity, islam, and traditional religion. despite this fact, nigeria remains, theoretically, a secular state. since independence, this has been stated in the constitution. the latin word "secularism," which means temporal, is the root of the word "secular". it is understood to refer to "worldly, as opposed to sacred things or having no particular religious affinities". as a philosophy, secularism rejects religion. it asserts that civil rules should not be influenced by religion and that religion should not have any place in civil affairs. in this manner, a common state is a state where strict religious networks play no perceived part in legislative issues and no conventional connection to the state. this is not the case in a religious or theocratic state, where religion dictates policy. “the government of the federation shall not adopt any religion as state religion," reads section 10 of the 1999 federal republic of nigeria constitution (bibinu, et al., 2020; golan & martini, 2020). the section further states that: any religion cannot be officially adopted as the state or the federation's religion. alternatively, section 38(1) states that: every person shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, including the freedom to change his (sic) religion or belief, and (either alone or in community with others, and in public or in private) to manifest and propagate his (sic) religion or belief through worship, teaching, practice, and observance. additionally, section 275(1) of the nigerian constitution recognized nigerians' right to shari'a law, stating: "there must be for any state that requires it a shari'a court of appeal for that state." additionally, section 260(1) states that abuja would house the global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 72 federal capital territory's shari'a court of appeal. the nigerian constitution has always been influenced by religion directly or indirectly. political parties since 1999, at the advent of the fourth republic, has tried to play the religious game in politics by projecting candidates who represent the two major religions, islam and christianity, for election at the national and, in most cases, sub-national levels. regarding presidential elections, in 1999 all the presidential candidates of the political parties either has a christian presidential candidate and a muslim vice presidential candidate or vice versa. this trend has been consistent, as witnessed in 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015, and 2019 presidential elections in nigeria. however, that of 2023 was different as a political party, the all progressive party (apc), projected a muslim-muslim joint presidential ticket. that action generated a series of reactions; some saw it as a threat to the peaceful coexistence of both religions while others saw it as a way of discouraging nigerians from judging candidates by their religious orientations. these reactions and counter-reactions are similar to those of 1993 in the aborted third republic, where the then social democratic party (sdp) also had a muslim-muslim ticket; the controversy ended with the annulment of that election. according to akinwunmi (2022), bola tinubu and kashim shettima, who were the apc presidential and vice-presidential candidates in the 2023 election, have consistently defended themselves thus: we are not coming into government to represent the muslim or christian faith. the sultan of sokoto and the can president are competent to represent their faiths. we are the nigerian dream team that will catapult the country to a higher pedestal and we will redefine the concept of modern governance. the christians have nothing to fear and there is no cause for alarm because we are one people with a common destiny. since political culture is expressed in how the electorates perceive the political parties and their candidates, the outcome of the 2023 presidential election and the performance of the tinubu-shettima administration would, in a significant way, affect the way nigerians view the religious coloration of joint presidential candidates in the future, thus opening a new vista of the interwoven relationship between religion and politics in nigeria. discussion political socialisation is value-laden in the quest for an equal society. nigerians form political opinions and attitudes through socialisation agents such as the family, schools, interest organisations, the media, and global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 73 government-sponsored events. political socialisation in affluent nations takes place through relatively stable institutions. nigerians, on the other hand, grow up in a political environment that is continuously changing. the upheaval of urbanisation, along with the impact of recurring economic downturns, complicates political socialisation even more. nigeria's political and economic leaders constitute a bourgeois class whose income is directly or indirectly derived from the state. the elites frequently utilise their positions for personal benefit, preserving their fortune during both civilian and military rules. because of its bigger population and leadership positions within the armed forces, the north produced the bulk of nigeria's chief executives, both civilian and military. goodluck jonathan was an exception, serving as the first president from a minority ethnic group, the ijaw. whether obvious or implied, religion or religious influence on political culture can be discerned from most social or historical experiences. that was why thomas hobbes (1588-1679) argued that religion was vital for politics as “religion drives people to obedience, makes them familiar with laws and how to live in a peaceful society. alluding to hobbes position, montesquieu (1689-1755) also had a firm belief that religion should be part of politics as “religion provides unity, harmony and social stability for society”. therefore, it can be categorically said that religion affects political culture. this view is supported by available literature that indicates that over many centuries religion has proved to be a very powerful concept that commands total devotion and partly or totally influences the political choices of its adherents. religion fills such an important vacuum in the life of an individual that, sometimes, someone who had stopped believing in one particular religion may be pulled, like the people of athens that apostle paul referred to who were “worshipping the unknown god” (acts17:23), towards relying on another form of faith. this could be why machiavelli believed that “religion was the foundation of state and society”. this may also, remotely, explain why, in nigeria, religion and political culture appear inseparable. conclusion from the foregoing, it is clear that in spite of efforts to separate religion from politics, both spheres of activities usually meet, formerly or informally. as to whether religion or religious influence on political culture is positive or negative, available information indicates that it could be either or both, depending on how a given society manages the relationship. many so-called secular ideas have roots in religious beliefs. for example, political theorists have recently emphasized the ways that different explanations of secularism have been overwhelmingly formed by diverse normative assumptions about christianity. this single illustration global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 74 of a fundamental shift in political theory is challenging the legitimacy of the long-lasting contention that religion can be and should be restricted to a private sphere and separated from political influence. those who insist that religion, christianity or islam, should be completely separated from political culture were advised by john gladwin in his book, god’s people in god’s world, that they should have a rethink because from creation the plan of god for mankind is to be in the world and become the light and salt of their various societies so that social phenomena, such as politics and governance, will be in perfect order. according to harvard school of divinity, the ongoing global influences of religions in the political life of a people during the course of time and period became pronounced in the aftermath of the iranian revolution in 1979, the fall of the berlin wall in 1989, and the 9/11 attack of september 11, 2001; since these events, political theorists in the west began to recognize the highly challenging ways that religions and religious influences have been disregarded. this study concludes by providing an illustrative response to the question posed in the introductory section, namely, “in what ways does region affect political culture in nigeria?” in nigeria, the southern part dominated by christians appears to see politics as a dirty game that good christians should not be part of, a view which engenders political apathy, while the northern part dominated by muslims sees politics as a normal game – in fact, to them, islam encourages it; and so enthusiasm about politics and political calculations is higher in that part of the country. the type of political leadership this kind of system throws up is difficult to separate from religious influence. recommendation this study recommends that since religion cannot be totally separated from politics and one’s religious believes cannot immune them from the adverse effects of negative political choices and decisions, everyone, irrespective of their religion, should play active part in politics. they should deploy the virtues taught in their religious doctrines to play ethical politics and help in sanitizing nigerian politics and stabilizing the polity. irrespective of any one’s religion, age or sex, they should be involved in politics, even if their involvement only goes as far as simply educating themselves on who is who or why this person, and not that person, should be elected. references akinwunmi k. 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(2019). religious influences on politics in nigeria: implications for national development. ogirisi: a new journal of african studies, 15(1), 139-157. wald, k. d., & calhoun-brown, a. (2018). religion and politics in the united states. row-man & littlefield. winkler, j. r. (2022, november 5). political culture. encyclopedia britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/political-culture author information: dr christian osemuyi oseghale is a lecturer in caleb university, imota lagos, nigeria. email: trustnigent1@gmail.com. orchid id: 0009-00010276-0607 apa oseghale, c. o. (2024). religion and political culture in nigeria. global online journal of academic research (gojar), 3(2), 63-77. https://klamidas.com/gojar-v3n2-2024-04/. mla oseghale, christian osemuyi. “religion and political culture in nigeria”. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2, 2024, pp. 63-77. https://klamidas.com/gojar-v3n22024-04/. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 37 the nexus between igbo traditional belief system and masquerade act: a pragmatic analysis by innocent ngangah abstract this paper explores the proposition that the traditional belief-system and masquerade act of the igbo of south-eastern nigeria is a demonstration of charles peirce’s pragmatism. pragmatism’s central theme is that only practice or action can validate the veracity or meaningfulness of any thought or concept. in like manner, masquerade act or practice in igbo land is, in many respects, a manifestation of the traditional belief system of the igbo (also known as ndi-igbo). in other words, masquerade act in igbo land correlates with and validates a key concept communally shared by ndi-igbo, thus fulfilling the ultimate goal of peirce’s pragmatism and the pragmatic maxim, namely, that the actual or potential consequence of a concept is the only true proof or validity of that concept. keywords: charles peirce, pragmatism, igbo, masquerade act, belief system, culture 1. introduction charles sanders peirce’s pragmatism posits that a theory is a concept which has a practical effect or the possibility of a would-be practical effect. in other words, it stresses that there is a fundamental connection between thought and action. this paper explores the proposition that the traditional belief-system and masquerade act of ndi-igbo is a demonstration of charles peirce’s pragmatism. we need to note, in this introductory section, why a scholarly study of aspects of a people’s culture, such as the one we are conducting here, is a worthy and profitable enquiry. culture is worth studying because it represents the soul of any given society, which includes its values, lores and mores. all of these influence a society’s sense of what is right or wrong, good or bad, and how the individuals in the society socialize, learn and develop, and how the society itself is organized. these make a culture-based analysis, especially one utilizing a philosophical tool of enquiry, very rewarding. this study is about how the cultural thoughts of the igbo produce and sustain their masquerade act – how such intangible thoughts connect to a tangible act. and in this paper, we are using the tenets of charles peirce’s pragmatism to establish this nexus. pragmatism is suitable for this role because its central theme states that only practice or action can validate the veracity or meaningfulness of any thought or concept. as such, it will be deployed to show that igbo masquerade act or practice is, in many respects, a manifestation of the traditional belief system of ndi-igbo. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 38 masquerade act in igbo land correlates with and validates a key concept communally shared by ndi-igbo, thus fulfilling the ultimate goal of peirce’s pragmatism and the pragmatic maxim, namely, that the actual or potential consequence of a concept is the only true proof or validity of that concept. our analysis, in this paper, shall be conducted within this pragmatic framework. the paper is in five sections, the first being the introduction. because this is essentially a pragmatic discussion, section 2 gives an overview of charles peirce’s pragmatism, the technical tool of our enquiry. our discussion shifts, in section 3, to the igbo traditional belief system and masquerade act. in section 4, we discuss the pragmatic connotations of igbo masquerade act. and in section 5, the conclusion, we would summarize our main points and draw the significance of this research. 2. peirce’s pragmatism: an overview charles sanders peirce (1839 – 1913) is generally acknowledged as the father of pragmatism because he was the first to formulate it as a tool of philosophical enquiry and explanation of meaning. peirce was a man of various scientific and technological endowments who brought his broad-based background in the sciences, mathematics and his scholarly interest in the arts into philosophy, enriching it with his pioneering works in the classification of metaphysical systems, the philosophy of mind and self, logic, semiotics, and pragmatism. our concern in this paper will restrict us to the latter. pragmatism was first proposed by peirce as a principle and account of meaning in 1870 via his paper, “how to make your ideas clear”. this paper and other related papers of peirce, published in the collected papers of charles sanders peirce (abbreviated cp) shall constitute our reference text in this section. in line with the scholarly convention, the volume number and paragraph number of quotations from the collected papers shall be noted. the summary of peirce’s pragmatic thesis is that action validates concept – there must be a practical end to any statement or concept before it can become meaningful. otherwise, it is meaningless. in other words, the extent to which a proposition or ideology can satisfactorily work in practice is the extent of its theoretical validity. in effect, impractical ideas should not be accepted as valid ideas. peirce’s thesis spurned a cross-continental movement after his more visible contemporary and harvard professor, william james, took the idea to the centre stage of scholarly discourse in an address he delivered at the university of california, berkeley, in 1894. in that paper, james became the first person to use the term “pragmatism” in print but ethically insisted that the term had been coined decades earlier by his close friend and reclusive philosopher, charles peirce. beyond crediting peirce with coining the term, “pragmatism”, james identified peirce’s work, “how to make your ideas clear”, as the inspirational global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 39 bible of the concept. ironically, peirce frowned at much of what james and other scholars who identified with his pragmatism, such as john dewey and f.c.s schiller, propagated in the name of his thesis. in later life, peirce, in frustration and partly to incorporate his expansion of the thesis to include what he called “would-bes”, rechristened his idea “pragmaticism”. peirce identified alexander bain as his major source of influence. this is important because understanding what bain had said, which peirce found so influential, is critical in understanding peirce’s “pragmatic maxim”, which we will discuss later in this paper. the key cornerstone of peirce’s pragmatism is that belief is a disposition to act. this idea came from bain. charles peirce: in particular, he [nicholas st. john green] often urged the importance of applying bain's definition of belief, as "that upon which a man is prepared to act." from this definition, pragmatism is scarce more than a corollary; so that i am disposed to think of him as the grandfather of pragmatism. (c.p 5.12, 1907) before bain and peirce, belief was deemed to be a merely “occurent” thing – something that occurs in the mind without a necessary relationship with or validation in reality. hume, for instance, defined belief, in the words of engel (2004), as “the particular vividness of an idea in the mind”. cardinal newman (1870) also saw belief as mere mental affirmation. this 14th century view remained dominant even in peirce’s time. however, in 1859, alexander bain, peirce’s foremost influence, sowed the seed of correlation between thought and action. drawing from his background in physiology and psychology, he asserted that it will be readily admitted that the state of mind called belief is, in many cases, a concomittant of our activity. but i mean to go farther than this, and to affirm that belief has no meaning except in reference to our actions; the essence, or import of it is such as to place it under the region of the will. (bain 1859, p. 568) this was the idea peirce, breaking reality into grades of consciousness, formulated as pragmatism in 1873. in “how to make your ideas clear”, peirce identified three grades of clarity which are discussed below. peirce was fond of triadic divisions. some of his triadic characterizations include the three phenomenological categories – categories of firstness, secondness, and thirdness. his best known triadic formulation, however, is the semiotic one – that of icon, index, and symbol. the “trichotomy” which concerns us here is that of his three stages of clarity which culminated in the formulation of the pragmatic maxim. peirce’s first grade of clarity about a concept is to have a non-contemplative awareness or understanding of it. the proclivity of an adult citizen to register to vote in an election, for example, demonstrates his awareness of his global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 40 democratic right to vote. no meditation was required before he reached this awareness. for this citizen to advance to peirce’s second grade of clarity, he should be able to define the concept of democracy. the second grade of reality is the ability to clarify in a definitive way ones grasp of a given experience or concept. we may want to note in passing that the first two grades of clarity identified by peirce bear clear influences by earlier nominalist philosophers, such as kant, leibniz, and decartes. to fully demonstrate his understanding of the concept of reality, our hypothetical citizen must raise his understanding of reality to the level reflected in peirce’s third grade of reality, which is formulated as follows: consider what effects, which might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. then the whole of our conception of those effects is the whole of our conception of the object. (peirce 1878/1992, p. 132) this third grade of clarity is peirce’s pragmatic maxim. what the maxim purports is that one’s understanding of a concept must go beyond his familiarization with it and his ability to state or define it to a practical demonstration of the consequences or effects of holding that belief or concept. it is important to note that there is not simply a causal relationship between belief and consequence but an actual one. peirce later revised the pragmatic maxim, taking its import beyond the actuality of proven effects to the “wouldbe” consequences of provable effects. by incorporating “would-bees”, peirce imbued the maxim with the architectonic capacity to accommodate his own brand of metaphysics and other positive strands from earlier philosophers. so, although the pragmatic maxim was conceived as a criterion of philosophical enquiry and as “a filter against empty metaphysical statements” (atkin 2005), it is, as noted in peirce's personal interleaved copy of the century dictionary, “a method of reflexion, having for its purpose to render ideas clear” (cp 5.13 n. 1, c. 1902) – not to abolish, as the logical positivists would wish, all forms of metaphysics. so, there is room for practicable metaphysics within the armpit of pragmatism. peirce’s later formulation of his maxim ensured this. at his harvard lectures on pragmatism in the early 1900s, charles peirce revised the original version of the pragmatic maxim to “allow any flight of imagination provided this imagination ultimately alights upon a possible practical effect”. in the highly empirical earlier version of 1878, he had defined the “practical effects” of a belief or concept as “effects...upon our senses” (peirce 1994). he had simply emphasized actual or immediate effects. but in the later formulation, he expanded the maxim to also include possible or “would-be” events. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 41 some philosophers, notably quine, are critical of peirce’s revision of the pragmatic maxim. quine’s criticism of the maxim rests upon his claim that the maxim is open to plural interpretation: peirce does not lend himself readily to single-minded interpretation. we had to interpret his pragmatic maxim sometimes in terms of dispositions to actions and sometimes in terms of confirmatory experiences. (quine 1981) engel (2004), however, thinks the earlier and latter versions of the pragmatic maxim are not that irreconcilable. he says that both versions serve the same purpose, namely, to formulate “the pragmatic meaning of concepts (or statements)”. the only difference is that while the earlier version does that in terms of “indicative conditionals”, the latter version prescribes the use of “subjunctive conditionals”. the “indicative conditional” of the earlier pragmatic maxim points out what will happen when certain concept-driven tests are carried out. but the later “subjunctive conditional” of the maxim projects into the future – it essentially hinges around what would happen if certain concept-driven events or tests take place, thereby expanding the logic to accommodate metaphysical propositions which bear the possibility of being scientifically investigated and validated. to conclude this section, it is important to note that the ultimate end of peirce’s pragmatism and the pragmatic maxim is to locate “the truth”. in line with our current enquiry, one might ask, “how is igbo masquerade act a pragmatic reflection of igbo traditional belief system?” and on a series of enquiries and findings, at what point would one say he has arrived at the truth? peirce gives us a clue on how to locate or identify the pragmatic truth: the opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all that who investigate is what we mean by the truth, and the object represented in this opinion is the real. (capps, 2019) and what should qualify for pragmatic investigation? should pragmatism be concerned with the cosmological belief of the igbos, a significant off-shoot of which is igbo masquerade act? we think it should because, according to peirce, pragmatism is a method of “ascertaining the meanings of hard words and…abstract concepts” with a view to establishing the relationship, if any, between belief and action. and our objective, here, is to see if there is a linkage between igbo belief system and its masquerade act, a method peirce considers “nothing but a particular application of an older logical rule, ‘by their fruits ye shall know them’. (ep 2:400-401, 1907) 3. igbo traditional belief system and masquerade act the igbo people’s traditional belief-system is embodied in “odinani” (isichei 1997). the odinani comprises their traditional religion and cultural practices. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 42 in igbo mythology, which is part of their ancient religion, the supreme god is called chukwu ("great spirit"); chukwu created the world and everything in it and is associated with all things on earth. chukwu is a solar deity. to the ancient igbo, the cosmos was divided into four complex parts: creation, known as okike; supernatural forces or deities called alusi; mmuo, which are spirits; and uwa, the world. chukwu is the supreme deity in odinani as he is the creator in their pantheon and the igbo people believe that all things come from him and that everything on earth, heaven and the rest of the spiritual world is under his control (basden 1912, onwuejeogwu 1975). the igbo believe that there is a link between supernatural and natural forces, between uwa and mmuo. hence, there is no independent existence in the igbo traditional belief-system. the living and the unborn are inextricably connected to the dead. this is reinforced by the igbo belief in reincarnation and the igbo practice of ancestral worship. just as some christians believe in the intercessory powers of saints, the igbo, through ancestral worship, appease the ancestors and seek their intervention in the affairs of the living and the unborn. some children are believed to be reincarnated spirits of dead members of the family or extended family. for the traditional igbo, existence is essentially cyclical across the realms of the dead, the living and the unborn. and these three realms are connected in an active living sense. indeed, it is believed that continuous spiritual exchanges daily take place among these realms, with the dead communing with the living who, in turn, commune with the unborn who, when need be, can directly commune with the dead. (see illustration below) global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 43 in the above diagram, each of the rectangles represents a realm of existence. in igbo cosmology, there are three realms of existence – those of the unborn, the living, and the dead – and none of them is obsolete. each co-exists side by side with the others, relating with and reinforcing each other. at the beginning of time, all things, animate and inanimate, were “unborn”, in the sense that they were in the “womb” of god, the creator, who then created all things by causing them to exist in the world. so, in absolute sense, out of the unborn emerged the first living human beings (that is why the arrow is pointing from “the unborn” to “the living”); the living then took up the task of replenishing the earth through the procreative process.. the earth is the plane of living human beings who pass on from this realm to the plane of “the dead”. the latter are only considered dead in terms of their being physically absent in the physical realm of the living but are believed to be actually alive in the existential realm of the ancestral dead. the plane of “the dead” is active and “living” as it is in constant contact with the planes of the living and the unborn. the so-called dead visit and interact with the living as “the living dead” (symbolized by masquerades) and intermingle with the unborn, the visible result of such intermingling being the cyclic return of some dead relatives in the form of new-born babies. so, in igbo belief system, the unborn, the living and the dead share a cyclical existence in which they pass from one realm to another within the framework of an existential continuum. a crucial point of this paper is that the igbo masquerade act re-enacts and reinforces the igbo cyclical concept of existence. in the traditional igbo setting, the masquerade is so called because it symbolically masks the spirit of the dead in the land of the living, the living and the dead themselves being cyclically linked to the unborn. this is the critical connection, even though the entertainment value of some festival masquerades tends to play down this core cultural essence. no matter the nature of the masquerade, no matter its cultural purpose or function, be it for entertainment, religious ritual, burial rites, ceremonial display, public announcement, satirical show, acrobatic display, social criticism, secret society rite, rites of passage induction, nocturnal invocation, or sheer theatrical performance, every masquerade in igbo land symbolizes the spirit of the dead interfacing between the living and the unborn. for instance, a purely entertainment masquerade like the agbogho mmuo (maiden-like masquerade) “represent the spirits of deceased maidens and their mothers with masks symbolizing beauty”. (picton 2008) how can this communion between the dead and the living, which masquerades symbolize, be explained, and why is it necessary? onyeneke (1987) expantiates: the living-dead are what these masquerade/spirits embody. igbo people believe that the dead never actually die; rather they remain in a global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 44 "personal immortal state". they reside somewhere between the earthly world and the spiritual world. these living-dead are believed to be closely related to those of the village. since men are masqueraders, they are buried within their homes so their spirits may be close to their families…the living-dead then return to the earthly world from time to time to offer spiritual advice. it is the living-dead, who the masquerade portrays. the disposition to enact a masquerade act in igbo land springs directly from the igbo people’s belief that the masquerade symbolizes the spirit of ancestors. a masquerade act is a habit of belief. it is a practical demonstration of the igbo people’s worldview regarding the nature of man as a being with an unbroken tripartite linkage. the masquerade act gives the spirit of the dead a practical expression by masking their presence in a bodily living way. this is in line with peirce’s description of pragmatism as “a sort of instinctive attraction for living facts”. (cp 5.64, 1903) two things need to be pragmatically clarified here. one, we must distinguish the masquerade of the igbo from any other kind of masquerade, such as the halloween masquerades of the united states and the carnival masquerades of the brazilians and sundry theatrical troupes across the world. two, the masquerade act of the igbo qualifies as a subject of this discussion because it is a direct consequence of the igbo people’s belief in the concept of the cyclical nature of existence as expressed in the unbroken communion between the living, the dead, and the unborn in the traditional igbo community. applying the pragmatic maxim, discussed in the first part of this paper, a masquerade, from the igbo perspective, can be clarified and distinguished from any other as follows: if, in igbo land or anywhere else, an igbo person imagines or sees a being robed to the extent that all or part of its body is covered with clothing or some other form of coverings, attachments, and/or enhancements aimed at alienating the being from the form or normal appearance or look of humans; and if this being wears a mask in public appearance or performance to create the effect of a non-human or spirit being invoking in the mind of the viewer the igbo triadic concept of the unborn, the living and the dead even as this being remains mute, makes utterances, ritualises, entertains, frightens, arouses awe or some other emotion in the onlooker, the being in question is a masquerade. any other masquerade outside the one distinguished above is not the subject of this paper as it is not a masquerade which results from the igbo triadic concept of existence. this distinction remains valid in spite of the fact that this concept is not unique to the traditional igbo society. it is a central theme in african traditional religions but not all african traditional societies conceptualize their masquerade act as the igbo uniquely do. apart from identifying and distinguishing the igbo masquerade, as we have done above, the second point regarding the masquerade act of the igbo being a global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 45 direct consequence of the igbo cyclical notion of existence needs further clarification. we are treating this notion as a concept because from the pragmatic viewpoint that is what it is. as peirce technically explained (brackets and italics in the quote being our emphases): a concept is something having the mode of being of a general type which is, or may be made, the rational part of the purport of a word. a more precise or fuller definition cannot here be attempted... the method prescribed in the (pragmatic) maxim is to trace out (as we did in the above definition of the igbo masquerade) in the imagination the conceivable practical consequences – that is, the consequences for deliberate, self-controlled conduct – of the affirmation or denial of the concept; and the assertion of the maxim is that herein lies the whole of the purport of the word, the entire concept. (cp 8.191, c. 1904) the masquerade act for the igbo is a concept-based habit of behaviour and what distinguishes a concept-driven behavioural habit from other habits is that it is active in the imagination. the igbo masquerade act as a habit of belief enacts, in peirce’s word, “an inseparable connection between rational cognition and rational purpose” (woell 2012). the relationship between masquerades and the spirits they relate to is a perspective in pragmatic realism. unlike the nominalists who hold that only individuals are real, the pragmatic realist believes that relations are as real as the individuals or beings they objectify. and this brings us to peirce’s concept of the pragmatic truth, which he describes as: the opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all ... who investigate, is what we mean by the truth, and the object represented in this opinion is the real (engel 2004). below, in the concluding part of this paper, we will draw some interesting connections between igbo masquerade act as a conceptual habit and key elements of peirce’s pragmatist thesis. 4. the pragmatic connotations of igbo masquerade act the first pragmatic connotation of igbo masquerade act is its demonstration of the pragmatist view that theory precedes and directs observation or action. it is only within the igbo concept of the communion between the unborn, the living, and the dead that igbo masquerade act makes fundamental meaning. this is precisely why masquerades are considered spirits, not human beings, and they are able to perform their sacred functions because of this perception. secondly, igbo masquerade act exemplifies the place of practice in the validation of a word, thought, or concept which is the major goal of peirce’s pragmatic maxim (in its early and later forms). the igbo, through their masquerade act, emphasize praxis, which is the desirable end of peirce’s global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 46 pragmatic enquiry. igbo masquerades objectify peirce’s view that beliefs are rules for action. thirdly, and as we have indicated in this paper, peirce’s pragmatism is helpful in the utilitarian conceptualization of igbo masquerade experience. according to kant’s popular dictum, “intuitions without concepts are blind” (gasdaglis 2014); peirce would add, concepts without practice are meaningless. igbo masquerade act is not self-justifying. epistemic enquiry into the cultural import of masquerade acts is necessarily mediated by appropriate concepts and worldviews, one of which – the cyclical concept of existence of the igbo – we have mentioned in this paper. and this researcher has found appropriate the investigation of igbo masquerade act within the ambience of the pragmatism’s concept of “use value”. fourthly, igbo masquerade act, in reflecting the cosmological viewpoint, instantiates pragmatism’s nullification of the dualism between theory and practice. the act thus becomes a living concept: the concept gives birth to the act which becomes its symbolic reality. the masquerade performer, being a knower of the concept of the igbo cyclical concept of existence, becomes at the same time an agent of what he knows through his masquerade act. the masquerade performer is an agent as well as a participant-observer of the communal ethos his act and art symbolize. experimentally, he is a custodian of the culture but also the provoker of communally acceptable change of aspects of that same culture within the context of the experimental theory of knowledge (as opposed to the spectator theory of knowledge favoured by peirce’s pragmatism. igbo masquerade actors are, in this sense, explorers of the cultural landscape, not mere canvasses on which that world is reproduced. they mirror the image of the culture that gave them relevance while at the same time, with the passage of time, altering that same image by the evolutionary impact of their creative and innovative expressions. 5. conclusion from the foregoing, it is apparent that there is a nexus between igbo traditional belief system and its masquerade act, and that this link is pragmatic in nature. we set out in the introductory part of this paper to posit that the traditional belief-system and masquerade act of the igbo is a demonstration of the veracity of charles peirce’s pragmatic theory. although peirce pragmatism was not conceived specifically as a tool of cultural analysis, this study has shown that the pragmatic framework has an inclusive application and interpretation. our review of peirce’s pragmatism in the second section of the paper indicated one key aspect of the theory which makes it readily applicable to diverse areas of scholarly enquiry – its stance that a proposition or statement, no matter how beautifully or emotionally framed, cannot be considered true as global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 47 long as it has no practical relevance. and the pragmatic maxim is the heuristic peirce formulated as a universal tool for testing declarative statements. in the third section, we surveyed the subject of igbo belief system and masquerade act and noted that the latter arose from the former. we have established that the nexus is not a simple matter of cause and effect but is, rather, a pragmatic one in that the igbo masquerade is a generational expression of a deep-seated belief of the igbo people in the unbroken nature of existence in which the unborn, the living and the dead are in continuous communion. and in the fourth section, we looked at the pragmatic connotations of the igbo masquerade all of which reinforce peirce’s point that the relevance of any theory lies in the action it systematically provokes, a yardstick met in the correspondence of igbo masquerade act with the igbo belief system. in this section also, we drew attention to the significance of this research, some of which include (i) its exemplification of the core place of practice in the validation of concept, (ii) its instantiation of pragmatism’s goal of nullifying the dualism between theory and practice, and (iii) its apparent illustration that some philosophical principles, such as pragmatism, can be adapted as methodical tools for cultural analysis. and there could be, generally speaking, wider significance of the study as well. mcdermid (2004) hints at such a wider philosophic import when he advised that since culture is not “a static edifice but…an on-going conversation”, the philosopher’s job should change from “foundation-layer to interpreter”. he frowns at the practice of externalizing cultural practices while assessing them for representational accuracy: philosophy can only explore our practices and vocabularies from within…post-epistemological philosophy accordingly becomes the art of understanding; it explores the ways in which those voices which constitute that mutable conversation we call our culture—the voices of science, art, morality, religion, and the like—are related. this study has explored and established from within the connection between igbo cultural beliefs and practice but has done so by utilizing peirce’s pragmatism as a theory of meaning and tool of philosophical enquiry, thereby reinforcing its universal use-value. works cited albert atkin, university of sheffield, iep, april 20, 2005 basden, g.t. among the ibos of nigeria. nonsuch, 2006 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 48 capps, john, "the pragmatic theory of truth", the stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (summer 2019 edition), edward n. zalta (ed.), url = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2019/entries/truth-pragmatic/>. dewey, john, “the pragmatism of peirce.” the journal of philosophy, psychology and scientific methods, vol. 13, no. 26 (dec. 21, 1916) p. 710 engel, pascal, “belief as a disposal to act: variations on a pragmatist theme”, université paris iv sorbonne, colloque pragmatism, san paulo, 2004. gasdaglis, kathrine. “intuition in kant's theoretical epistemology: content, skepticism, and idealism”. https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10. 7916/d86h4fhp doi: https://doi.org/10.7916/d86h4fhp hartshorne, charles, and weiss, paul (eds). the collected papers of charles sanders peirce, vols. i-vi. cambridge, ma: harvard university press, 19311935, vols. vii-viii (ed. arthur w. burks (same publisher, 1958). isichei, elizabeth allo (1997). a history of african societies to 1870. cambridge university press cambridge, uk. p. 512. james, william. “philosophical conceptions and practical results”. university of california, berkeley 1894. james, william, “the pragmatic method,” the journal of philosophy, psychology and scientific methods, vol. 1, no. 25 (dec. 8, 1904), p. 673 james, william. a new name for some old ways of thinking, (new york: longmans, green & co., 1922), p. 140 mcdermid, douglas, iep. retrieved 2004. onyeneke, augustine. the dead among the living: masquerades in igbo society. province of nigeria: holy ghost congregation, 1987. onwuejeogwu, m. angulu (1975). the social anthropology of africa: an introduction (illustrated ed.). heinemann. p. 179 peirce, charles s. "how to make our ideas clear" in popular science monthly, v. 12, (1878), pp. 286–302; collected papers of charles sanders peirce (cp) v. 5, paragraphs 388–410.) global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 49 peirce, c.s. “a draft of a review of herbert nichols's 'a treatise on cosmology'”, harvard lectures on pragmatism, cp 8.191, c. 1904 peirce, charles s. “what pragmatism is” the monist, vol. xv. no. 2. (april, 1905), p. 163 picton, john (2008). "art, african". west africa, igbo: britannica online encyclopedia. quine, w.v. "the pragmatists’ place in empiricism," in r. j. mulvaney & p. m. zeltner (eds.), pragmatism: its sources and prospects. (columbia: university of south carolina press, 1981), pp. 21–39. woell, john w. peirce, james, a pragmatic philosophy of religion. continuum international publishing group, 2012, p. 111 author information: prof. innocent ngangah is of the department of philosophy, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, igbariam, anambra state, nigeria. email: ic.ngangah@coou.edu.ng global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 73 relationship between housing management and housing conditions in imo state housing corporation estates in owerri, nigeria nnanyere n. chukwu, chukwunonso o. umeora & charles c. munonye abstract housing conditions are acknowledged as important factors that determine the habitability of buildings. this was why this study investigated the relationship between housing management and housing conditions in imo state housing corporation (imshc) estates in owerri capital territory, imo state, nigeria, with a view to obtaining vital feedback which can be used for gauging and improving housing conditions in the study area. a survey design method was applied with a focus on five imshc estates randomly selected from the research population following a stratification based on housing type. three hundred and five occupied housing units were randomly sampled from the selected estates. data were collected from these using questionnaires. the variables, ‘flaking/peeling wall finish’ and ‘availability of procedures for maintenance operations’, representing housing condition and housing management system respectively, were selected for this analysis. the two variables are of nominal variable category; therefore, the chisquare test of independence analysis tool was applied towards examining the significance of the relationship. it was established that there is a significant relationship between flaking/peeling wall finish’ and ‘availability of procedures for maintenance operations’ in the study area. it is recommended that for prompt maintenance of facilities in buildings, the residents should undertake it. for maintenance of facilities in the neighbourhood, imshc should undertake that. moreover, there should be a legal provision to enable residents of imshc estates to enforce maintenance activities in the environment. the time taken to respond to residents’ complaints should be improved upon by ensuring prompt response to grievances. keywords: buildings, habitability, housing conditions, housing management, maintenance global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 74 introduction before the colonisation of nigeria, there was no need for housing estates because residential buildings were constructed mainly to quarter family members who dwelt in huts within the family compound. umeora (2018) noted that the colonial masters introduced housing estates to house their employees near their places of work in cities. when nigeria gained independence, government and other organised bodies continued with this urban housing development and expanded the number of housing estates all over the country. the management and maintenance of these estates have come under scrutiny by professionals in the housing sector. developing countries such as nigeria have witnessed high rates of urbanisation but these have not been accompanied by adequate increases in the rate of economic development. this fast but inadequately managed urbanisation has created a huge demand for urban housing which could not be met by the government and the organised formal sector in major nigerian cities. as a result, 20 to 35 percent of urban housing in nigerian cities is either dilapidated or in dire need of major repairs due to the poor housing conditions in the various housing programmes (bello & egresi, 2017; muhammad & bichi, 2014). owerri, the capital territory of imo state, is not left out in urbanisation and population growth. from 2006 to 2016, owerri has experienced an average population growth rate of 4.04% (united nations, 2022). the resultant effect of this population growth are evident in the urban housing crisis which has affected the housing conditions as the supply of housing stock manifestly lags behind the needs of the populace. this was corroborated by aotearoa (2009) as cited in umeora (2020a). housing condition is a vital influential factor of the habitability of buildings as it shows the level of resident’s well-being. isma’il et. al. (2015) posited that there are severe housing shortages in urban centres caused by poor housing conditions. this manifests in the high number of people living in public quarters that lack basic physical and social amenities. housing conditions refer to the sum of external effects (natural and man-made) that make the housing units comfortable for the inhabitants. they play a major role in the health status of occupants as they impact the physical, social, economic, and mental well-being of occupants (turunen et. al, 2010). the world health organisation (who) also stated that housing should be able to minimise the following for the occupants: physical injury, protracted diseases, as well as reduce psychological and social stresses to the barest minimum. the imo state housing corporation (imshc) was established under section 3 edict no. 14 of 1976. imshc has the mandate to design and supervise the construction of houses, the acquisition of houses, the management of housing global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 75 estates, rental to the members of the public, maintenance of buildings, and other infrastructure needed for the proper functioning of the estates (imo state housing corporation). some of the imshc estates in owerri were developed over 30 years ago, and it seems the management agency that has the responsibility of monitoring and supervising the activities of the estates has not lived up to its expectations. the managers of the estates, judged by their primary duty of ensuring that the building units in the estates and the facilities do not deteriorate, have fallen short of expectation. the dwelling units lack maintenance operations, and this has resulted to evident decay in quality of the various housing estates. when housing estates are poorly or inadequately managed, tragic consequences, such as ill-maintained buildings, poor sanitation, and various environmental health hazards could emanate. okoye et al. (2018) affirmed that management of waste in the environment is crucial for healthy living. ibem et al. (2013) noted that housing enables occupants to carry out different activities – work, rest, leisure, fitness and social interactions in the neighbourhood. muoghalu (1987), as cited in umeora (2018), posited that of all the dimensions of housing, management is the most crucial in explaining level of satisfaction of residents. maintenance level, empathy, responsiveness and strictness were identified as the major components of managerial competence. therefore, proper housing management is indispensable for keeping the buildings and amenities in serviceable conditions to ensure residents’ satisfaction and good housing conditions (hui, 2005). the owerri capital territory has, over the years, witnessed the migration of people from different parts of nigeria. consequently, some housing estates have been put under pressure. some of these estates lack basic amenities such as electricity, water drainages, potable water, proper waste disposal systems, and good roads; instead, what one sees there are bad roads, defaced facades, and broken roofs, among other signs of inadequate maintenance. the lack and inadequacy of these affect the housing conditions. additionally, poor housing conditions and quality are associated with health conditions such as respiratory diseases, depression, nausea, allergic symptoms, hypothermia, and physical injury. some human activities in imo state housing corporation estates, such as poor drainage planning, building along the drainage profile and blocking of drainage channels, and lack of coordinated maintenance management activities have also contributed to poor housing conditions. some poor housing conditions in the estates are manifest in surface dampness on the walls, peeling of paints, and algae growth on the walls, and runoff of surface water causing erosion in the environment. salleh et al. (2012) identified some management issues which have impact on housing conditions and residents’ global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 76 level of satisfaction in housing; they include the following: occupants’ selection procedures, laws implementation, time taken to respond to residents’ complaints, environmental security and overall quality of maintenance carried out by the management. this study was part of a wider research that sought to examine the effect of housing conditions on housing quality in imo housing corporation estates in owerri capital territory to provide guidelines for improving housing conditions in the study area. for this particular study, the objective was to investigate the relationship between housing management and housing conditions in imo state housing corporation estates in owerri, nigeria. a null hypothesis was put forward which sought to establish the significant relationship between housing management system and housing conditions in the estates. it stated that there is no significant relationship between housing management and housing conditions in imo state housing corporation estates in owerri, nigeria. area of study the area of study, owerri capital territory, is situated in imo state, nigeria. owerri is the capital of imo state, nigeria. it was created by the military administration of general murtala ramat muhammed on february 3rd 1976. nigeria is a country in west africa that is situated in the northern latitudes between 4o and 14o and between 3o and 15o of the eastern longitudes. it borders niger in the north, chad in the northeast, cameroon in the east, and benin in the west. nigeria covers an area of 923,769 square kilometres, with a population of over 211 million (national population commission, 2006). figure 1 shows the map of nigeria showing 36 states and the study area. figure 1: map of nigeria showing imo state and the study area (owerri capital territory) source: chukwu (2024) global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 77 owerri capital territory is approximately 100 square kilometres in area. it is located along the crossroad of major commercial routes in southeast nigeria, which are onitsha-owerri express road, owerri-port harcourt express road, owerri-umuahia road and owerri-aba road. owerri capital territory comprises the following local governments in imo state: owerri municipal, owerri west, owerri north and parts of mbaitoli, aboh mbaise, ngor okpala, ohaji/egbema and ikeduru local government areas. owerri capital territory is located between latitudes 05˚25’ and 05˚32’ north and longitudes 06˚57’ and 07˚07’. rainfall is the greatest climatic variable with an annual total mean of 2190mm (chukwuocha, ngah, & chukwuocha, 2017). other climatic data of the study area include an average annual high temperature of 32°c (89.96°f ), an annual low temperature of 23.19°c (73.74°f), average annual precipitation of 229.07cm and humidity of 74.78% (nigerian climatic classification, 2023). weather parameters are paramount in this era of climate change. also, relative humidity, amount of sunshine and wind speed, among others, are weather parameters which play a role in determining the amount of rainfall received in an area. literature review there is a consensus that management/institutional framework plays a key role in housing policy formulation and implementation (ibem, 2011). management is usually inspired by the need to be cautious in the usage of assets and judicious in the usage of time in attaining pre-stated objectives. obodoh (2009) defined management as the scheduling, coordination, and control of the essential resources for the achievement of stated goals. the relationship between the management system of housing and the residents exerts a great impact on housing quality. if there is a cordial relationship between them, matters of maintenance of infrastructure will be addressed timely to reduce dilapidation. issues under management variables are the type and quality of services rendered by the managers, time taken by the managers in treating residents’ complaints and ensuring environmental sanitation. the imo housing corporation has the mandate to control and manage the development of housing units and perform such other functions as the commissioner of housing and urban development may direct. those functions may also include to design and supervise housing programmes for the state government; award contracts for the development of housing estates, assess infrastructure needed in layouts of housing estates owned or managed by the corporation; oversee the maintenance of buildings, roads, footways, bridges, drains, sewers and water courses for or in connection with housing estate owned or managed by the corporation (imo state housing corporation, n.d.). global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 78 to assist the harmonisation between residents in running some of the shared facilities of housing, a certain level of organisation from the management is necessary. although there is mounting interest in research examining the effects of management on housing performance, few works have looked at the correlation between housing management systems and housing condition (aotearoa, 2009). given that most housing schemes are constructed to stipulated standards, the buildings and facilities in the estates generally perform optimally at that new state, until they start to deteriorate when subjected to inhabitation and usage. therefore, appropriate maintenance and management of amenities in the housing estates are crucial for keeping the amenities in functional conditions to ensure residents’ satisfaction (hui, 2005). some of the stipulated standards of housing condition address: aesthetics, sanitation, drainage, age of the building, access to basic housing facilities, burglary, spatial adequacy, noise level within the neighbourhood, sewage and waste disposal, air pollution and ease of movement, among others. lanrewaju (2012) noted poor housing condition in public housing programmes in maintenance of facilities within the estate as well as poor management approach towards residents’ problems in the estate. salleh, yosuf, salleh and johari (2012) identified management issues which have impacted housing conditions in housing estates, including the sociability of the managers, residents’ selection procedures, implementation of bye-laws, time taken to respond to residents’ complaints, security of the neighbourhood and quality of maintenance works done by the managers. methodology the research design for this study was survey design, and it was accomplished through the use of a questionnaire to collect data from respondents in the study area. the research population was the completed imshc estates within owerri capital territory, built and inhabited between 1976 and 2016 when the last housing estate was completed. stratified sampling of the estates based on building type was adopted as the sampling method for this study. in the first stage, the list of the 14 estates completed and occupied in the study area was generated as shown in table 1. table 1: list of imo state housing corporation estates in owerri capital territory s/n name of estate 1 aladimma 2 prefab 3 prefab extension i 4 prefab extension ii global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 79 5 uratta road 6 trans-egbu 7 umuguma area ‘s’ 8 umuguma area ‘x’ 9 umuguma area ‘xa’ 10 tavron prefab estate 11 city garden estate mcc road 12 redemption housing estate 1 avu/obinze 13 exclusive garden estate phase i&ii nekede 14 oforola housing estate oforola source: imo state housing corporation, n.d in the second stage, the categorisation of the estates based on building type was done. the categorisation of the estates is 1 bungalows; 2 bungalows and duplexes; 3 bungalows and 3-storey blocks of flats. table 2 describes the categorisation based on the above-stated criteria. table 2: list of imo state housing corporation estates in owerri categorised by house type in the estates s/n bungalow bungalow and duplex bungalow and 3 storey block of flats 1 redemption estate prefab estate trans-egbu estate 2 aladimma estate umugwuma estate 3 uratta road estate oforola estate 4 tavros estate city garden estate 5 nekede exclusive garden estate source: fieldwork, 2022 following the categorisation, random sampling by balloting was carried out and the following were picked to represent the various building types: i. bungalows: aladimma estate and uratta road housing estate ii. bungalows and duplex combined: prefab estate and city garden estate iii. bungalow and 3 storey block of flats: trans-egbu. sampling size was derived using the cochran formula for finite population: from kothari (2004) n = z2 x σ2 p x n (n-1) e2 + z2 x σ 2 p where n = size of sample for finite population; n = research population = 1484 housing units; σp = standard deviation of population assumed = 0.5; e global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 80 = significance level (precision/acceptable error) chosen = 0.05; z = standard variate at a given confidence level = 1.96 for a confidence level of 95%. a sample size of 305 respondents was derived and distributed to the estates in ratio to their contribution as shown in table 3. table 3: respondents population in sampled estates aladimma estate uratta road prefab city garden trans-egbu housing units 556 310 267 10 341 sampled 114 64 55 2 70 source: fieldwork, 2022 a systematic random sampling was used in the selection of housing units in each street of the housing estates. after the first house, every fourth house was surveyed. in each house, in the case of a multi-family unit, one household would be administered the questionnaire. pearson's product moment correlation analysis was used to test the significant relationship between the two interval variables selected from the research data using statistical package for social sciences. results and discussion analysis of aggregated data on the availability of procedures for maintenance operations in the estate from the data gathered, 90.2% of the respondents indicated that there was no available procedure for maintenance operations in the estates. this could be part of the reasons why there was a decline in the housing quality in the area (see table 4). table 4: aggregated data on availability of procedures for maintenance operations in the estate value label frequency valid percent cumulative percent yes 28 9.8 9.8 no 259 90.2 100.0 total 287 100.0 source: fieldwork, 2023 analysis of aggregated data of management of maintenance of facilities in the estate the data analysed revealed that most of the respondents pointed out that management of maintenance of facilities in the estates was handled by the global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 81 residents while 7% showed that imshc managed the facilities. see table 5 for details. table 5: aggregated data on management of maintenance of facilities in the estate value label frequency valid percent cumulative percent imshc 2 .7 .7 residents 270 94.1 94.8 both parties 15 5.2 100.0 total 287 100.0 source: fieldwork (2023) analysis of aggregated data of communication channels in the estate the results collected indicated that most of the respondents communicated with the housing corporation by visiting the office. a few of the respondents stated that they communicated with the imshc either by phone calls or sms. table 6 shows this. table 6: aggregated data on communication channels in the estate value label frequency valid percent cumulative percent sms 1 .3 .3 phone calls 16 5.6 5.9 visit to office 241 84.0 89.9 internet 1 .3 90.2 all of the above 28 9.8 100.0 total 287 100.0 source: fieldwork (2023) analysis of aggregated data of duration to react to resident’s complaints in the estate the data analysed indicated that it took between 4-6 days to react to resident’s complaints as noted by the majority of the respondents. 36.9% of the respondents agreed that it took more than six (6) days for imshc to react to their complaints. table 7 shows this. table 7: aggregated data on duration to react to resident’s complaints in the estate value label frequency valid percent cumulative percent 1-3 days 17 5.9 5.9 4-6 days 164 57.1 63.1 more than 6 days 106 36.9 100.0 total 287 100.0 source: fieldwork (2023) global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 82 analysis of aggregated data on the regularity of corporation visits to the estate from the data gathered, it could be seen that most of the respondents (35.9%) confirmed that the regularity of the corporation's visit to the estate was twice a year while 31.0% agreed that the regularity of the corporation's visit to the estate was quarterly and 18.8% of the respondents accepted once a year. this is illustrated in table 8. table 8: aggregated data on regularity of corporation visits to the estate value label frequency valid percent cumulative percent monthly 10 3.5 3.5 bi-monthly 24 8.4 11.8 quarterly 89 31.0 42.9 twice a year 103 35.9 78.7 once a year 54 18.8 97.6 others 7 2.4 100.0 total 287 100.0 source: fieldwork (2023) analysis of aggregated data on the availability of security in the estate the investigation revealed that 57.1% of the respondents confirmed the availability of security measures in the estates within the study area as shown in table 9. table 9: aggregated data on availability of security in the estate value label frequency valid percent cumulative percent yes 164 57.1 57.1 no 123 42.9 100.0 total 287 100.0 source: fieldwork (2023) analysis of aggregated data of arrangement of security in the estate it could be observed that the majority of the respondents indicated that the arrangement of security in the estate was handled by residents (individuals). few of the respondents noted that security arrangement was done centrally by the estate (see table 10). table 10: aggregated data on arrangement of security in the estate value label frequency valid percent cumulative percent estate central 56 19.5 19.5 individual 209 72.8 92.3 both 22 7.7 100.0 total 287 100.0 source: fieldwork (2023) global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 83 analysis of aggregated data of management of central security in the estate the data collected showed that the majority of the respondents stated that management of central security in the estate was done by the residents. a few of the respondents stated that imshc managed security in the estates while a minute percentage (1.7%) stated that the government managed security arrangements. table 11 shows this. table 11: aggregated data on management of central security in the estate value label frequency valid percent cumulative percent imshc 6 2.1 2.1 estate residents 276 96.2 98.3 government 5 1.7 100.0 total 287 100.0 source: fieldwork (2023) analysis of aggregated data on the state of repair of external walls the state of repair of walls was examined and the results showed that a greater percentage (41.5%) of the external walls were in a bad state of repair while the external walls in a good state of repair were less at 38.3%. table 12 shows the details. this means that the buildings in a bad state of external wall repairs were in a poor state, and they were not fit for human inhabitation. table 12: aggregated data on the state of repair of external walls in the buildings value label frequency valid percent cumulative percent very good 15 5.2 5.2 good 110 38.3 43.6 not sure 30 10.5 54.0 bad 119 41.5 95.5 very bad 13 4.5 100.0 total 287 100.0 source: fieldwork (2023) analysis of aggregated data on the state of repair of the roof from the data gathered and analysed, roofs in bad state of repair were greater in number with 47.7% of the respondents indicating so while the ones in good state of repair were 34.1%. this implies that most of the roofs were in a bad state and needed urgent repairs and improvement. figure 2 illustrates this. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 84 figure 2: aggregated data on the state of repair of roofs in the buildings source: fieldwork (2023) aggregated data analysis of waste disposal facilities in the estates from the analysis, there was a high level of inadequate waste disposal facilities in the estate, as reported by 31.7% of the respondents; 21.3% of the respondents reported that waste disposal facilities were adequate. table 13 displays the result. table 13: aggregated data on waste disposal facilities in the estate value label frequency valid percent cumulative percent very inadequate 19 6.6 6.6 inadequate 91 31.7 38.3 undecided 106 36.9 75.3 adequate 61 21.3 96.5 very adequate 10 3.5 100.0 total 287 100.0 source: fieldwork (2023) analysis of aggregated data of state of repair of buildings it can be observed from table 14 that most of the respondents stated that the buildings in the estates were in a bad state of repair and 26.8% of the respondents stated that the buildings were in a good state of repair. this revealed that most of the buildings were in poor condition and unfit for human dwelling. table 14: aggregated data on the state of repair of building in the buildings value label frequency valid percent cumulative percent very good 14 4.9 4.9 good 77 26.8 31.7 7.3, 7% 34.1, 34% 7, 7% 47.7, 48% 3.8, 4% very good good not sure bad very bad global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 85 not sure 69 24.0 55.7 bad 115 40.1 95.8 very bad 12 4.2 100.0 total 287 100.0 source: fieldwork 2023 analysis of aggregated data of flaking/peeling wall finish used in the housing estates most of the respondents indicated that the paint on the internal walls was peeling off. this implies that a greater proportion of the buildings have their paint peeling off as shown in figure 3. it implies that most of the buildings need to be repainted to improve their aesthetic appearance. figure 3: data on flaking/peeling wall finish used in the housing estates. source: fieldwork (2023) test of hypothesis the variables ‘flaking/peeling wall finish’ (pwf) and ‘availability of procedures for maintenance operations’ (apmo) were selected for this analysis. the two variables are of nominal variable category; therefore, the chi-square test of independence analysis tool was applied towards examining the significance of the relationship. the result from the analysis carried out showed 0.776 as the chi-square value, with a df value of 1 and a p-value of 0.038 as presented in table 15. this p-value of 0.038 is less than the chosen α-value (i.e., acceptable significance level) of 0.050 for this research, implying therefore that it is accepted as significant. it is established, hence, that the relationship that exists between the two investigated variables can be stated to be statistically significant for this study. the alternate hypothesis, which states that ‘there is significant relationship between flaking/peeling off wall finish and ‘availability of procedures for maintenance operations in imo state housing global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 86 corporation (imshc) estates in owerri capital territory’, is thus accepted. table 1: result of chi-square test of independence analysis of relationship between pwf and apmo availability of procedures for maintenance operations flaking/peeling wall finish chi-square 0.776a df 1 p-value .038 source: fieldwork (2023) conclusion and recommendations the study showed that the housing management affects housing condition in imo state housing corporation (imshc) estates in owerri capital territory. obodoh (2009) stated that the relationship between managers of housing estates and the residents exerts a great impact on housing quality. if there is an amiable relationship between them, issues of maintenance will be addressed timely to reduce dilapidation. hui (2005) stated that a proper management system is essential for keeping the housing in serviceable conditions to ensure good quality at all times. no system can function adequately without a proper management system, housing estates inclusive. the management can be made up of administrative and technical staff. the latter, which should be made up of professionals in the building industry, should be included in the planning and design of the estates. the former should see to the running of the estates by ensuring that the guidelines established are kept to by residents. they should carry out supervisory roles in conjunction with technical staff to get feedback from the residents. while investigating the management systems and housing conditions in the area of study, it was proven that there is significant relationship between flaking/peeling off of wall finish and the availability of procedures for maintenance operations in imo state housing corporation. it is also noted that the availability of procedures for maintenance operations had significant correlation with the state of repair of external walls. therefore, it is recommended that: i. for prompt maintenance of facilities in buildings the residents should undertake it. for maintenance of facilities in the neighbourhood, imshc should undertake that. there should be a legal provision to enable the residents to enforce maintenance activities in the environment by imshc. to lessen abuse of the residents, there should be a provision to enable the residents to withhold rent or annual development fee paid to compensate for maintenance executed by them in the event of delays by the estate managers. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 87 ii. the time taken to respond to residents’ complaints should be improved upon by ensuring prompt response to complaints. from the analysis done, it was evident that it takes more than a week to respond to residents’ complaints. this situation should be reversed by taking into consideration other means by which the imshc could attend to various complaints by the residents. this may be by having a liaison office within the estate where residents can also drop comments and suggestions. leveraging on this, the feedback system is guaranteed, leading to a working partnership between imshc and the residents, which is useful. these recommendations, if implemented, could lead to an increased level of housing quality in the imshc estates. references aotearoa, t. 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(2010). evaluating housing quality, health and safety using an internet-based data collection and response system: a crosssectional study. environ health. umeora, c.o (2018). housing management and residents’ satisfaction in housing estates in enugu metropolis, nigeria: case study of central bank of nigeria quarters, enugu. african journal of environmental global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 89 research. 1(2), 52-63 umeora, c.o. (2020). examination of state of repair of buildings in private housing estates in enugu metropolis, enugu state nigeria. journal of environmental sciences and resources management, 12(1), 52-66. united nations. (2022). world population prospects 2022. new york: united nations department of economic and social affairs/population division. author information: nnanyere n. chukwu works at tertiary education trust fund (tetfund) south-east zonal office, enugu, nigeria. email: emekacnn@gmail. com chukwunonso o. umeora is of department of architecture, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, anambra state, nigeria. email: coumeora@gmail.com charles c. munonye is of department of architecture, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, anambra state, nigeria. apa chukwu, n. n., umeora, c. o., & munonye, c. c. (2025). relationship between housing management and housing conditions in imo state housing corporation estates in owerri, nigeria. global online journal of academic research (gojar), 4(1), 73-89. https://klamidas.com/gojar-v4n1-2025-05/. mla chukwu, nnanyere n., umeora, chukwunonso o. & munonye, charles c. “relationship between housing management and housing conditions in imo state housing corporation estates in owerri, nigeria”. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1, 2025, pp. 73-89. https://klamidas.com/gojarv4n1-2025-05/. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 104 appraising landscaping in chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, uli campus, anambra state, nigeria by chukwunonso o. umeora, boniface s.a okoye, oluchi c. ifebi & chijioke c. onwuzuligbo abstract amid the growing benefits for proper landscaping design and planning, there is the need for man to be in a decent, well-organised and aesthetically pleasing environment. this could add value to concentration of staff and students in the campus as well as provide relaxation points within the campus. the landscaping quality of uli campus of chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university deserves attention in view of its state. the objectives of this paper are to appraise the quality of the present status of landscaping in the campus and assess the perception of people on the quality of present landscape in the campus environment. this is with a view to providing a feedback for improved landscape management of the university campus environment. the methodology adopted for this research was survey design. the focus was on academic staff of the faculty of environmental science of the university randomly selected from the research population. this selection was premised on their assumed knowledge of the subject matter. data was collected from primary sources using questionnaires and observation schedules. data analysis was done at the univariate level using statistical package for social sciences (spss). the outcomes show that the landscape environment within the campus is not in a good state. some contributing factors to this were attributed to inadequate maintenance operations, inadequate provision of funds and inadequate equipment for maintenance operations, among others. the study recommends involving professionals in the built environment in the physical planning unit and works department of the institution to handle landscaping concerns within the campus, provision of enough funds for landscape improvement and maintenance operations, incorporating man-made features such as trash cans, street lights, sculpture, defined pedestrian walkways, paving and other road furnishings incorporated into the landscape. the university management may revive an existing landscape committee that would liaise with the horticulture unit of the faculty of agriculture and have adequate as well as regular supply of new plants for possible replacement of dead plants and/or planting of new ones where they are desired. a redesign of the general landscape of the campus is desirable. keywords: assessment, campus, landscaping, maintenance, university global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 105 introduction through designed landscapes, people can attain personal consciousness and responsibilities for the environment while letting go the pressures of everyday life. as such, landscaping plays a vital role in the quality of the environment as well as the physical and psychological wellbeing of the people. there have been tremendous changes in the building professions over time, as new advances brought new challenges that generate opportunities on the one hand, and present the probability of displacing those not prepared for it, on the other hand (ogeye, senibi & akinboboye, 2019). landscaping refers to any activity that modifies the visible features of an area including the living elements, natural elements and man-made elements, while the landscape is everything one can see looking across an area of land. landscape design can be seen as the art of designing and management of the components of landscape (i.e. landforms, water bodies, vegetation and man-made features) to make good outdoor spaces for aesthetic purposes, useful, healthy and enjoyable purposes through application of cultural and scientific knowledge with concern for resources preservation (adekunle & basorun, 2016). landscape practices comprise of the designing, installation and maintenance of the landscape design. ayeni, olotuah and adedeji, (2013) noted that landscape design compliments architecture and provides the opportunity to contribute to the aesthetics of an area in order to improve the built environment. in addition, the principle of landscape design is to fuse the buildings with the environment, to achieve a well-planned environment. landscape design, as a separate discipline and business, is becoming conspicuous in the architecture profession in nigeria. landscaping practices constitute a form of trade, which can be a veritable source of livelihood while serving the function of beautifying the physical environment. this prospect is yet to be fully realized in the country. university campuses are expected to be distinguished in landscaping. a key way of achieving this is the use of well-defined landscapes, and these could be a means of attracting people to visit and to study. good landscape design can, therefore, play a vital role in the enhancement of universities’ environments and open spaces, by creating a nexus between aesthetics and open space management (adekunle & basorun, 2016). in pursuance of this, university campuses ought to denote landmarks as spaces which indicate attractive spaces that represent campus identity, thus creating impressions of the campus environment as an exceptionally global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 106 distinct institution. unfortunately, poor attention has been given to the outdoor spaces around buildings in different university campuses in nigeria. it can be shown that if considerable attention is given to the surroundings of the building structures, there will be in an improvement in the environment. observations of the landscapes of university campus reveal such problems as the lack of outdoor landmark spaces, poor landscape design and poor landscape management. this situation naturally, negatively affects the associated academic and residential activities within the campus. for that reason, this study seeks to appraise the state of existing landscape in the campus, with a view to providing a framework/feedback for improving and sustaining the landscape management of the university campus environment. the objectives are to appraise the quality of the present landscaping in the campus and assess the perception of people on the quality of present landscape in the campus environment of chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, uli campus anambra state. literature review wisegeek (2012) as cited in ayeni, olotuah and adedeji, (2013) stated that landscape architecture is a branch of architecture that deals with planning and design of land and its relation to the building around it. wright, (2008) defined landscape design as an art with the function of creating and preserving the beauty in the surroundings of human habitations as well as broader natural scenery of the country. architecture ought to transcend the designing of buildings, and incorporate the transformation of the physical environment through proper design. this will improve the quality of the environment, as the combination of hard and soft landscape elements makes the environment ecofriendly. the art of landscape practice pulls together elements to create an aesthetically pleasing extension of interior to outdoor living spaces (asiedu, buah, & blankson, 2010). hard landscape elements are nonliving hard materials used by landscape designers to develop landscape designs. examples of these are: rocks, stones, paving, gravel, steps, garden furniture and other man-made components of landscape. soft landscape elements refer to living things brought into the landscape. examples of these are plant materials such as: lawn, borders created with trees, flowers and shrubs (ogunsote, adedeji, & prucnal-ogunsote, 2011). global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 107 landscaping entails some of the following activitiesgrowing/installation of plants, planning beautiful gardens, mow lawns, prune shrubs, erect fences (as enclosures), among others. elf, (1996) as cited in adekunle and basorun, (2016) noted that a well-designed landscape helps to reduce erosion and global warming as well as prevent pollution of the environment. this is achieved since soft landscape elements used for landscape designs can improve air quality. amongst several factors, landscaping, as an aspect of campus development and beautification needs to gradually gain acceptance and be transformed into a culture, which would gradually influence the university campus environment. most of the plants that could be found on the university campus are native to the local environment, and could thus aid in the modification of the microclimate of the environment. good landscape management involves right plants selection, appropriate timing of plantings and plant maintenance techniques, maintenance of hardscapes when broken, among others. these are important towards realizing an attractive environment. principally, the selections should be based on the functional roles the elements would play in the landscape (ayeni & adedeji, 2014). maintenance involves the care and upkeep of the landscape after installation. since landscapes change appearance and size over time, different types of maintenance works are required. these may include: weeding in lawns, replacement of dead plants, spraying of insecticides for insects and disease control, mowing of lawn, irrigation of lawn, repairing of paved surfaces, pruning of trees/shrubs, cleaning of fountains, repainting of outdoor furnishings and preventive maintenance on the equipment. also of great importance is the quality of maintenance tools and equipment used in carrying out the exercise. some of the tools/equipment used in the maintenance can be grouped into sophisticated and simple equipment. examples include hand trowel, shears, shovel, crosscut saw, rake, wheel barrow, transplanting hoe, mower, sprinkler, hedge trimmer, shears, and cutlass. study area chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, uli campus, is situated in uli, ihiala local government area of anambra state. it is located on latitude 5˚46'11"n and longitude 6˚50'10"e. the university was established in year 2000 by the anambra state government with the name anambra state university. the university was renamed to the current name in the year 2014. chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university has three-campus arrangement – igbariam (which is the seat of administration), uli and awka. there are six faculties in the uli global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 108 campus and they are: engineering, natural sciences, physical sciences, environmental sciences, basic medical sciences and education. the uli campus has lecture halls/classrooms, laboratories, library, offices, hostel, chaplaincy, banks and other businesses. methodology the sources of data for this study were primary and secondary. the primary data were obtained through the administration of questionnaires and observation schedule. the secondary data were obtained from documents and research materials on staff strength and university campus master plan. the target population for this study are academic staff of the faculty of environmental science of the university. this selection was premised on their assumed knowledge of the subject matter. samples would be taken from each of the departments that make up the faculty. owolabi, ogunsajo, bodunde and olubode (2020) stated that landscaping is greatly valued by people with education of the environment based on their knowledge of elements used and the important roles they play in man’s environment. table 1 shows the numbers of academic staff of faculty of environmental science obtained from the university. 30% of this research population was chosen as the sample size. in sampling ratio, st. olaf college (2023) noted that for populations under 1,000, a minimum ratio of 30% is advisable to ensure representativeness of the sample. this gives a figure of 12, so 12 copies of questionnaire were randomly administered across the lecturers across the four (4) departments in the faculty. findings and discussion types of landscape elements dominant on campus global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 109 the results shown in table 1 indicate that 41.7% of the respondents stated that softscape elements were dominant on campus, 25% stated that hardscape elements were dominant on campus while 33.3% stated that both hardscape and softscape elements are balanced on campus. quality of landscaping perception on campus the data obtained show that bulk of the respondents (58.3%) rated the quality of landscaping on campus as poor, 33.3% rated it as very poor. also, a small percentage (8.3%) of the respondents rated it as good. these are illustrated in table 2. factors influencing the quality of landscaping on campus data analysis on the factors influencing the quality of landscaping on campus and the perception of the respondents vary. majority of them (58.3%) are of the opinion that inadequate provision of funds affects the quality, 25% attributed the quality to lack of capacity to carry out landscaping maintenance operations. 16.7% opined that the factor affecting the landscaping quality is poor maintenance culture as shown in figure 1. akin to this, 75% of the respondents noted that there are no landscape maintenance operations done on campus while 25% stated that landscape maintenance operations done as need arises. this finding is global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 110 consistent with the opinions of forbes and kindle (2013) which stated that landscape should be properly maintained to sustain its quality. similarly, 83.3% suggested that both man-made elements and plant materials be incorporated into the landscaping to improve the beauty of the campus. 16.7% were of the view that only man-made elements are needed to improve the beauty of the campus. the usage of softscape and hardscape elements can aid in regulating the microclimate around buildings and outdoor environment within the campus. the use of these softscape elements – trees and shrubs – is important in providing shades, wind breaking, improving air quality and adding to the beauty of the environment. the use of hardscape elements with less maintenance cost are important in order to prevent threats of floods and soil erosion as well as define car path within the campus. type of equipment predominantly used in maintenance operations on campus the results from the analysis on type of equipment predominantly used in maintenance operations on campus show that majority (91.7%) of the respondents stated that simple equipment are used in the maintenance operations. 8.3% of the respondents stated that sophisticated equipment are used in the maintenance operations as shown in figure 2. the simple equipment identified are machete/cutlass, hand shears and hoe are used in maintenance operations. the sophisticated equipment identified normally used is the riding mower. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 111 conclusion and recommendation proper landscaping practices have great potentials to uplift aesthetic status of campuses. there is the general acknowledgement of good landscaping as a suitable tool for improving environmental value of uli campus, coou. this can be achieved by devising a feasible idea to change the existing campus environment by the introduction of landscape features for good microclimate within the campus, neatness of the environment and for aesthetic purposes. spaces that are not built up within the campus need to be designed and planned; structured management will entail proper maintenance practices. the maintenance routine practices should be reviewed so there could be improvement in the state of the landscape within the campus. this can be achieved by involving professionals in the built environment in the physical planning unit and works department of the institution to handle landscaping concerns within the campus. the professionals should draft a programme chart of landscaping features for the improvement and sustenance of the beauty of the campus. the university administration may need to allocate more resources (human and funds) towards improvement of the campus. they can plan the release of funds in tranches based on the planned chart. the equipment such as bush cutter, pruning shear, sprinkler, and hedge trimmer can be incorporated to the existing equipment in use for better output. man-made features such as trash cans, street lights, road benches for sit-out, sculpture, defined pedestrian walkways, controls/ barriers global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 112 created to direct flow of movement, paving, road signs, etc can be incorporated into the landscape. similarly, plant materials such as trees of diverse species, flowers of different colours, lawns should be improved upon to advance the aesthetic appeal of the campus. from the environmental point of view, these elements can serve as wind breakers; inhibit soil erosion and control ponding during the rainy season; as well as help to regulate the effect of global warming by maintaining in the atmosphere in the campus. since landscaping practices constitute a form of trade, which can be a source of income, the university management may consider opening horticulture unit where plants can be grown in the nursery and sold to members of the public. references adekunle, o.j. & basorun, j.o. (2016). the evolving roles of landscaping in campus space management: ekiti state uni versity, ado-ekiti, nigeria in focus. journal of environmental protection, 7, 1380-1388. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/jep. 2016. 710119 asiedu, j.b.k.; buah, j.n. & blankson, j.e. (2010). the landscape industry and practice in ghana. proceedings of the international horticultural congress on science and horticulture for people on advances in ornamentals landscape and urban horticulture, 5(38), 1023-1032 ayeni, d.a. & adedeji, y.m.d. (2014) controlling urban sprawl through sustainable landscaping in nigeria. in: fadamiro, j.a., olujimi, j.a.b. and okedele, o. eds., urban environmental sustainability: livable cities. urban design research team (udrt), department of architecture, school of environmental technology, federal university of technology, akure, nigeria. ayeni, d.a.; olotuah, a.o. & adedeji, y.m.d (2013). appraising landscape design education in architecture departments in nigerian universities. international journal of education and research, 1(5), 1-10 elf, d. (1996) enhancing our environment through landscaping. vce publication, 429-721. forbes, s. and kendle, t. (2013) urban nature conservation; landscape management in urban area, london, uk. e and fn spon and imprint of thompson professional, 2-6. ogeye, o.o.; senibi, j.g & akinboboye, o.o (2019). the miseducation of the nigerian architect, arts and design studies, 76, 56-61 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 1, jan-feb 2023 113 ogunsote, o.o., adedeji, y.m.d. & prucnal-ogunsote, b.p. (2011). combating environmental degradation through sustainable land scaping in emerging mega cities: a case study of lagos,nigeria. in: cox, l., ed., proceedings of the 24th world congress of architecture “uia2011 tokyo”, 25 september-october 1 2011, 16-21. owolabi, c.o., ogunsajo, o.o, bodunde, j.g., olubode, o.o (2020). assessment of designed landscapes and their management practices in selected capital cities in nigeria. ornamental horticulture. 26(1), 95-108 st.olaf college (2023). sample sizeinstitutional effectiveness and assessment. retrieved from www.stolaf.edu/iea/sample-size accessed on 12/2/23. wisegeek (2012). what is landscape architecture? retrieved from www.wisegeek.com/what-is-landscape-architecture.htm accessed on 12/11/12. wright, r.t. (2008) environmental science: toward a sustainable future. phi learning, new delhi. author information: chukwunonso o. umeora is of the department of architecture, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, anambra state, nigeria. email: co.umeora@coou.edu.ng boniface s.a okoye is affiliated to the department of architecture, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, anambra state, nigeria. oluchi c. ifebi is affiliated to the department of architecture, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, anambra state, nigeria. chijioke c. onwuzuligbo is of the department of architecture, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, anambra state, nigeria. http://www.stolaf.edu/iea/sample-size http://www.wisegeek.com/whatglobal online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 32 messianism and zionism in jewish nationalism: a panacea for nation-building in nigeria by aponorie simeon iruo-oghene & iyanda abel olatoye abstract some of the notable liberating mechanisms and advocating organs recognizable in the jewish national history are messianism and zionism. while messianism is a religious ideology, zionism remains the political organ that expresses the messianic ideology towards the re-building and development of the jewish nation. previous scholars had interpreted these concepts to express different ideas ranging from the liberation of the oppressed to the advent of an eschatological utopian state, yet adequate attention has not been paid to how the messianic concept gave impetus to the zionists to re-gather and re-build the jewish nation. adopting historical-critical and contextual methods, this paper analyses a few selected messianic texts in the old testament in the context of messianism and zionism. these texts are selected because they were historically instrumental in sustaining the jewish faith towards the fulfilment of their national dreams. findings revealed that the jews experienced exile and travails in history yet they sustained the messianic ideology through didactic devices and literature, which eventually helped the zionists in actualising their national goal. data were subjected to exegetical analysis of the selected biblical texts. similarly, available jewish documents were explored. the paper recommends that nigerians and their leaders should learn from the jews’ dispositions towards the messianic ideology and the patriotic move of the zionists. it concludes that the messianic ideology and the zionist patriotism could serve as impetus and veritable templates for re-building any given nation into an enviable status. keywords: messianism, zionism, jewish nationalism, nation-building, nigerian context global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 33 introduction in human history, the idea of deliverance and restoration of mankind has found its expressions in various contexts. a very prominent one in the old testament is messianism. messianism is a concept that is epitomised in the prophecies about the re-gathering and re-establishment of the israelites into a nation. previous scholarship widely expressed the phenomenon as an organ for political movements that demand a radical transformation of society1, re-establishment of nationhood2 and re-gathering of the exile into utopian state.3 historically, the messianic concept began when the first man lost his world and yahweh promised thereafter to raise a messiah in the person of the ֶזַרע zera‘(seed); to whom the tanakh (hebrew scripture) refers as: ֶזַרעָהִאיַשה, zera‘ ha-ishah “the seed of the woman” (gen.3:15). but later, the concept became so prominent with technical usage; and it developed beyond its root meaning. according to klausner, the concept developed into a singular focus, which forms according to events and circumstances; but always at the base of one great longing, which is to redeem israel from servitude into freedom and restoration.4 being a progressive concept with different interpretations in the israelite prophetic tradition; the messianic prophecies become so prominent in the old testament, particularly, in the prophetic books of isaiah, jeremiah, ezekiel, zephaniah and zechariah. these books typically set the hopes of re-gathering of the exiles from diaspora, re-establishing them to their homeland and re-building their public life and system. keying into these hope and aspiration, a political organ that sued for rebuilding of the jewish nation grasped these biblical prophecies and promises of national restoration and re-establishment. it approached and achieved her vision and mission through political means. thus, this paper views the historical events around the jews’ aspiration for deliverance and restoration into nationhood in the light of the old testament messianic prophecies. it infers that their processes of freedom from diaspora and re-establishment in their homeland were through the religious interpretation and political efforts of the zionists. it explores how the zionist movement eventually ushered in a utopian state, invested in nation-building and brought about good governance in the jewish nation. consequently, the paper recommends that nigerian citizens should learn from the jews’ dispositions to the messianic ideology, be patriotic like the zionists and intensify efforts in re-building the nation if they wish to actualise the nigeria of their dreams. it concludes that the jewish messianic ideology was a modality for freedom, re-gathering and reglobal online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 34 establishment for the jewish people, and that though nigeria is a multireligious nation with cultural diversities, yet her citizens can garner modality from the messianic faith and the zionist mission to re-build her wholeness. conceptual meaning of messianism and zionism etymologically, the term “messianism” comes from the word “messiah”.5 it is derived from the hebrew word mashiach “to anoint”, or the anointment of some individuals such as priests, prophets and kings for divine assignments. it is also traditionally used in biblical history for deliverers or redeemers of god’s people, who would also establish them in his kingdom.6 zionism, on the other hand, is the socio-political group that has been canvassing and promoting the re-settlement of the jews in their ancestral homeland, and the re-establishment of hebrew language as a national language throughout eastern europe. the movement is collectively known as ַציֹוןִאוַהִבי “lovers of zion”. it is derived from the noun “zion”, that is, the historic reference to the holy city of jerusalem.7 modern israel actualised the declaration and inauguration of the modern nationhood by the influence and pressure of zionism. jews in the russian empire established the zionist movement (sect) in the late 19th century. the movement politically canvassed for the establishment of territorial jewish state seeing the afflictions and persecutions their people were going through. they were zealous promoters of the jewish re-settlement8 who keyed into the biblical prophecies and promises of re-gathering and re-settlement of the jewish people (israelites) into their homeland. the development of messianism in the jewish tradition the works carried out by a class of scholars with a peculiar reference to the work of blocks on messianism in the old testament give a common submission that the concept is too broad and complex to be reduced to single word-study.9 the implication of this is that the old testament messianic concept cannot adequately be discussed by restricting it to its concept of anointment or the anointed with its elements of redemption and restoration.10 historically, the messianic ideology takes a progression in the old testament. the concept began with the first dominion of the first man over the world of his time, who fell when the dominion was influenced by satan. as a result, the book, genesis, records a consolatory prophecy, holding that the dominion of sin and the evil arising from sin, shall not last forever, but rather, the ֶזַרעָהִאיַשה, zera‘ ha-ishah “the seed of the woman” shall, at some future time, overthrow their dreaded conquerors and global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 35 reinstate humanity into its permanent abode.11 in the era of abraham, the messianic concept received a fresh interpretation. according to nadler, abraham was saved from the midst of idolatrous people, and as well promised a great nation.12 this promise of the great nation to abraham and his descendants set the hope of the jews towards the realisation of the promised land (nation) through a messianic figure. the first nation, however, got lost in slavery in the land of egypt, and had messianic deliverance, in-gathering (restoration) under the leadership of moses and joshua. after this freedom, israel was again deported to assyria in 722 b.c, where she lost her national identity and religious dignity; and later the southern kingdom (judah) was exiled to babylon in 586 b.c where a nation of honour became a laughing stock. at this dawn of frustration, the old testament prophets began to give prophecies and hope of re-gathering and re-establishment. some israelites (jews) took these prophecies metaphorically, but god set a messiah for them in the person of king cyrus the great who liberated the jewish exiles, gave them freedom to return to their homeland, and got reestablished as a nation. however, with the destruction of jerusalem in 70 ad by the romans, the jews were scattered all over the world again and suffered in the hands of their captors. but they kept their faith alive through didactic devices and literature. they held firm to the messianic prophecies that ensured their return and re-gathering as a nation where they would live in peace, safety and in prosperity, trading with nations under a godly anointed prince (ezekiel 34:24; 38:12). predicating on this religious faith by the zionists in modern judaism, the concept receives a fresh interpretation; jettisoning the idea of the supernatural figure(s), it is interpreted as a galvanised political ideology and intellectual philosophy for the liberation of the downtrodden and the re-gathering of the dispersed people.13 selected messianic prophecies as bases for zionism in the biblical texts according to bimyom, a common fact about messianism regarding its restoration concept in the jewish perception and writings is that most of the books of the old testament are virtually messianic in nature14, as they express the shevutekh15 (the hope of good welfare and governance for the people of god). this faith became the major prophetic element of the prophets of yahweh in the era, which robustly addressed the return and reestablishment of the people of god.16 in the pentateuch, the record of the deuteronomist gave consolation to the global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 36 house of israel about her eschatological hopes of return, re-gathering and nationhood in the word: then the lord your god will restore your fortunes and show you mercy. he will gather you again from all peoples, where he has scattered you. if your out-casts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there the lord your god will gather you, and from there he will fetch you; and the lord your god will bring you into the land which your fathers possessed that you may possess it, and he will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers (deut. 30:3-5 niv). prophet isaiah while giving the hope of restoration to the house of israel who were suffering slavery in assyria under the political hegemony of sargon ii (740—698 bce) said, in that day, the lord will extend his hand yet a second time to recover the remnant which is left of his people from assyria, from egypt, from pathros, from ethiopia, from elam, from shinar, from hamata, and from the coastal land of the sea (isa. 11:11, niv). moreover, zephaniah (641—612 bce), who also prophesied at the time when israel was scattered all over the territory of the assyrians, revealed thus: at that time, i will re-gather you home, at the time when i gather you together, yes, i will make you renowned and among the people of the earth, when i restore your fortunes…’, says the lord. (zeph.3:20 rsv). dramatically, god gave ezekiel a vision of the valley full of dry bones and prophecy of restoration between 590—570 bce. according to the record in ezekiel 37:11, god told the prophet, son of man, these bones are the whole house of israel. the text is crystal clear that the resurrection of the dry bones was a reference to the restoration of the house of israel. the prophecy came in a clear term after the dramatic scene put as: then say to them, “thus says the lord god: “surely, i will re-gather the children of israel from among the nations, wherever they have gone, and will gather them from everywhere and side and assemble them into their own land (ezekiel 37:21 niv). specifically, jeremiah, the judaean prophet who began his prophetic ministry in 627 bce through the final deportation of the judahites to babylon in 586 bce, thereafter assured the israelites the hopes of return and re-establishment in future. he made an expressed prophecy proclaiming: i will re-build you again, o maiden israel!... i will bring them in from the northern land; gather them from the surface of the earth…in a vast throng, they shall return here. i will bring them (the jews) out of the nations and gather them from the countries, and i will bring them into their own land. i will pasture them on the mountains of israel in the ravines and in all the settlements in the land. and i will make them one nation in the land on the mountains of israel. there will be a king over all of them, and they will never again be two nations or divided into two kingdoms (jeremiah 31:4,5; 34: 13; 37:22 niv). global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 37 precisely, in 587/6 bce, the people of judah were exiled to babylon under the leadership of king zedekiah (jeremiah 52). it was an experience of torment and lamentation when people of honour became insignificant figures in the land of heathens.17 they were molested and ridiculed at the riverside of babylon that the people longed for a return and restoration into their homeland. at this time (520—518 bce), prophet zechariah came to the prophetic scene and proclaimed that: i will signal for them and gather them in, for i have redeemed them... though, i scattered them among the nations, yet in far countries, they will remember me, and with their children, they shall live and return. i will bring them home…and gather them. (zechariah10:8-10 niv). all this were biblical literature that gave the israelites hopes of restoration and re-establishment. similarly, these prophetic texts were the basic points of reference which gave impetus to the zionists in their pursuit for the jewish nationhood. messianism and zionism in the socio-political context messianism expresses its conceptual and ideological tentacles beyond its religious perspective. today, several efforts have been put in place by some individuals and groups in order to explore its socio-political phenomenon. the activities of the social group (the zionists) in this regard took paramount space in contemporary history. modern israel actualised the declaration and inauguration of the modern nationhood by the influence and pressure of zionism. the movement politically canvassed for the establishment of territorial jewish state after the jews had undergone many afflictions and persecutions without a compromise. by the end of the century, however, the remnant jews themselves became the strongest advocates of their “return” to zion, their homeland. the communal spirit of the jews at this period sprang up when they remembered the “prophecy” of theodor herlz18 who, according to history, published an influential political pamphlet called “the jewish state” in 1896. theodor herlz: a zionist and messianic vanguard herlz, being a zionist, political activist and a passionate jewish nationalist, envisioned a mass emigration of jews from diaspora, especially from europe. he advocated therein that the establishment of a jewish state was the only way of protecting the image of the jews from anti-semitism. his vision was motivated by the messianic prophecies about the return, restoration and restructuring of the israelites into a homeland, where they would enjoy socio-political and economic bliss (isaiah 11:11; zephaniah 3:20; ezekiel 31:4,5; 34: 13; 37:22; zech.10:8-10). he deemed it that the exodus of the jews would be in accordance with religious incentives global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 38 (ancient prophecies of return) to return to a homeland. he advocated that the up-building itself would bring about modern scientific and technological instruments, and a model in the social lines. below is an extract from his pamphlet: let the message be heard once again, the message of the ancient days (biblical prophecies): the jews will be given a portion of land for their state. we shall definitely live as free citizens in our land and also die at our due age peacefully in our own land. the whole world will surely benefit by our liberation. and many will come to benefit mightily from that which we seek for, for our own use.19 herlz’s call was said to have been received favourably and unfavourably among his own people, to an extent that some called him the “modern moses” or the “new moses” whose reference had been made in the pentateuch (deuteronomy 30:1-5). christians as well as jews, leaders and the masses also hailed his suggestions. based on this influence, the ideology of zionism, therefore, came to the limelight as to create for the jewish people a home in palestine with secured public space. these fourpoint plans for re-building the jewish nation were reached.20 the plans read as follows: 1. the advancement of agriculture within the colonised land by the jewish agricultural and industrial workers. this plan really helped the jews to penetrate into every nook and cranny of a larger portion of land in palestine. they seized this opportunity to procure and cultivate many pieces of land all over the palestinian territory, and thereby dominate a larger portion of land, which opened door for them to re-settle when they were finally permitted to return to home. 2. the encouragement of a united and wholesome jewry by means of appropriate and constituted institutions in both local and international bodies in accordance with the laws of each country. 3. the encouraging and fostering of sophisticated jewish national feelings and consciousness. (by these, there is sanctity of life, and every jewish soul counts and matters to the jewish nation). 4. formal and appropriate steps must be taken towards obtaining government permission for the achievement of the aims of the zionists, which include: freedom, peaceful relations, political stability and economic buoyancy). the zionists believed strongly in the homeland (nationhood) of the israelites, particularly jerusalem (zion), as a special place for and in the plan of god. the presence of the ark and the building of the temple as global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 39 god’s dwelling place in zion (jerusalem) invariably emphasised the plan and programme of god for them. moreover, in jerusalem (zion), it is believed that abraham passed the greatest test of faith and the right to be the father of the nation, israel. similarly, it is undoubted that david established his capital in jerusalem, while solomon built the lord’s temple therein. premised on these facts in the later days, the balfour declaration identified with these and recognised the right of the jewish people to national home in zion (jerusalem) with the agendum of rebuilding.21 the zionist politics towards the birth of the jewish nation history has it that all over the united states and in great britain, there was advanced agitation to censor free entrance and open immigration for the jews into palestine. to their credit, in january 1944, the united states congress gave her full support in favour of unrestricted immigration of jews to palestine and the establishment of a jewish state (nation) in the territory.22 in view of this, the british labour party was said to take a clue from the action in the united states. it thereby passed a resolution suggesting that efforts should be made to enforce the arabs to vacate palestine and make residential space for the jews to occupy. this suggestion was denounced by some sectors of the jews, who expressed their hope that zionist aims and request could still be achieved without displacing or harming the arab population. thus, the labour party reflected on the direction of labour government policy after its election to power in 1944.23 encouraged by labour political sentiments, the world zionist conference which met in london in august, 1945, approved of the jewish request as regards the jewish homeland, which the jewish agency in palestine had presented to the british government.24 according to bein,25 the petition included the following requests: 1. that a resolution to establish the palestinian land as the state of israel be taken without a delay. 2. that the jewish agency be given every necessary authority to absorb into palestine jews willing to settle therein, and to develop fully and speedily all the resources of the country, especially in agriculture and power resources. 3. that an international loan and other social assistance be rendered to the jews with regard to the transfer of thousands of jews to palestine, and for the quick economic development of the state. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 40 4. that reparation in kind and cash from germany be released to the jewish people for the re-planning of palestine, and for the resettlement and development of jews from all the european countries. 5. that international facilities be made available for the exit and transit for every jew who wished to immigrate to palestine for settlement. bein added that the nations that voted in favour of the petition were more than those that voted against it.26 the birth of the nationhood of israel (the jewish state) the israeli ‘declaration of independence’ ַהְכָרַצתָהָעצמָאּותhakheratsatha ‘atzma’ut, which was the formal declaration of the state of israel was pronounced on the 14th may, 1948 (5 iyar 5708) by david ben-gurion, the executive head of the world organization, and the chairman of the jewish agency for palestine.27 he was born as david grein in 1886 in czarist poland. but he decided to give himself a new hebrew name. he chose ben-gurion, which means “son of lion.”28 he was the man who anchored the fulfillment of the ancient prophecies via the re-establishment of the nation. with the declaration of the jewish state in eretz-israel (the land of israel), the state of israel came into effect on the termination of the british mandate in tel aviv.29 messianism and zionism in relation to nation-building it is obvious from the above discourse that messianism is a religious faith while zionism is a social organ and political mechanism for the reestablishment of the jewish nation. the various messianic organs shared utopian hopes using the prophetic framework as recorded in the texts of the bible (ezekiel 37:21). politically, the zionist sect championed the course of messianism, translating it into political mechanism basically on biblical prophecies as impetus for the pursuance of their political ambition. their longing was to regain the lost nationhood of israel and re-build the land — its citizenry, political system, economic structure, social status and religious faith in order to bring about its earthly bliss for the israelites (jews) in their homeland. all this were echoed in the maiden address of the inauguration ceremony of the state of israel in 1948; as they expressed the events, travails, suffering and persecution of jews in history together with the hope for solace and comfort in conformity with the prophetic hopes by the prophets of israel. here is an extract from the address:30 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 41 the land of israel was the birthplace of the jewish people…. exiled from the land of israel, the jewish people remained faithful to it in all the countries of their dispersions, never ceasing to pray and hope for the return and the restoration of their national freedom. …in the year 1897, the first zionist congress, inspired by theodor herlz’s vision of the jewish state, proclaimed the right of the jewish people to national revival in their own country. this right was acknowledged by the balfour declaration of november 2, 1917 and re-affirmed by the mandate of the league of nations…it is the natural right of the jewish people to be a nation, as all other nations, in its own sovereign state. accordingly, we, the members of the national council representing the jewish community in palestine, and the world zionist movement, are met together in solemn assembly today, the day of termination of the british mandate for palestine and by virtue of the natural and historic right of the jewish people and of the resolution of the general assembly of the united nations. we hereby proclaim the establishment of the jewish state in palestine, to be called madinat israel (the state of israel). we hereby declare that, as from the termination of the mandate at mid-night the 14th -15th may, 1948, and pending the setting up of the duly elected bodies of the state in accordance with a constitution. the state of israel will be open to the immigration of jews from all countries of their dispersions; …will be based on the principles of liberty, justice and peaceful co-existence as conceived by the prophets of israel… our call goes out to the jewish people all over the world to rally to our side in the task of immigration and development and to stand by us in the great struggle of the fulfilment of the dream of generations for the redemption of israel. indeed, the re-gathering of the israelites into nationhood brought about a lot of benefits and good governance to the israelite nation. a few of these include: emergence of good leaders starting with david ben-gurion (1948-53) to benjamin netanyahu (third term, 2022 to date).31 according to hagee, the jewish nation has been built as a home for some of the world’s holy sites, a start-up centre for technology, a slave-free nation, an enterprising tourism centre with strong economic facilities, an internally generated revenues nation, a nation with strong security apparatuses, a nation that offers free education facilities for citizens, especially the rabbinic family, a global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 42 nation well known for agricultural advancement and good management of natural resources, a good player of global affairs, a nation with minimal corruption tendency and a nation with judeochristian practical realities; just to mention a few.32 messianism and zionism as panacea for nation-building in the nigerian context unarguably, nigeria is a blessed nation in terms of its geographical features and natural characteristics, but it continues to grapple with the monster of bad leadership and governance, which, according to oni and excellence-oluye, have been the bane of political instability and poor state development in the country.33 consequently, these anomalies have led to the exodus of many technocrats and professionals from the country to search for greener pastures and better living elsewhere. presently, the country is sadly expressing an emigration mantra called japa, that is, ‘running away from the country to the united kingdom in search of greener pastures’. it is obvious that the socio-political system of the nation is majorly marred by blatant mal-administration, inequality, injustice, poor distribution of available resources and poor policies that are making life difficult for the masses. paradoxically, nigeria, the so-called giant of africa, wallows in socioeconomic, political and infrastructural decadence in all her services.34 moreover, as the nation is contending with factors of under-development, she is plagued by deadly insurgency, oil theft, violence, criminality, inflation and debt, inadequate power supply, problems in the communication sector, state-society gap, marginalisation, corruption, social vices, excruciating economic policies, poor human capital development, bad leadership, among other problems. this is why there is need for a new impetus which could spur the country to develop a mechanism for re-building the nation and curtailing the ills, woes and structural deformities presently afflicting the nation. in the past, various leaders have made several efforts to restructure and rebuild nigeria. ikenna,35 in an article on the topic, highlighted some of the re-building efforts of past nigerian leaders since independence. he made reference to tafawa balewa (1960-1966) who created the mid-western region from the western region under a central federal authority. general aguiyi ironsi (january 1966-june 1966) cancelled native authority policies and made the federal government to take over control of revenue. general yakubu gowon (1966-1975) created 12 states to replace the 4 regions; introduced free primary education; changed currency from pound to naira; introduced nce, nysc; took over control of schools from global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 43 private owners; and created the ministry of petroleum resources. in the short time of general murtala mohammed (1975-1976), he started the process of relocating federal capital from lagos to abuja, which was executed by general olusegun obasanjo in his first regime. obasanjo in his first regime also established the mechanism that gave nigeria a new constitution and presidential system of government; introduced free tuition in federal tertiary institutions, and established jamb and the nigerian labour congress. president shehu shagari (1979-1983), who became the first civilian head of state since 1966, introduced 6-3-3-4 educational system, and created the ministry of science and technology. major general ibrahim babagida (1985-1993) created ompadec (now nddc), broke nitel’s monopoly of the communication sector and created ncc to attract private sector investment; he also decreased the years of service before qualifying for pension from 15 years to 10 years. general sanni abacha (1993-1998) created additional 6 states and introduced value added tax. abdulsalam abubakar (1998) drafted a new constitution for nigeria by modifying the 1979 constitution, removed local government autonomy and licensed the first private university (igbinedion university, okada, benin city, nigeria). general olusegun obasanjo (2nd regime) restored 13% derivation to all oil producing areas, established efcc, and introduced 8year tenure for civil servants (directors and above). president umaru musa yar'adua (2007-2010), who became the first nigerian head of state to take over power democratically from a civilian predecessor, granted amnesty to niger delta militants and rehabilitated all militants who handed in their weapons to the federal government. dr goodluck ebele jonathan (2010-2015) took a bold step in convening a national constitution conference and became the first leader in subsaharan africa to concede to election defeat, joyfully congratulating the winner, just for the nation to be delivered, rebuilt and developed. in the tenure of general mohammadu buhari (2015-2023), there was a proposal for fuel subsidy removal and the proposal was implemented by the current president, senator bola ahmed tinubu. indeed, all these vigorous efforts were targeted at restructuring and re-building the educational, political, economic, administrative, social and regional fabric of the nation. in spite of all these, the current state of the country shows that more needs to be done before nigeria can achieve monumental transformation and development. nation-building, though imbued with diverse interpretations, suggests a true process of constructing or reshaping a nation’s institutions, infrastructure, culture, and identity to foster unity, stability and global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 44 development within a defined geographic and political territory. it often involves establishing or strengthening governance and structures, promoting a shared national identity, enhancing social cohesion and improving the overall well-being of the population. comparatively, jewish messianism occasioned a re-gathering into a utopian condition. it also brought about restructuring and re-building, hence this statement in their inaugural address: the state (nation) of israel will be open to the immigration of jews from all countries of their dispersions; …and will be based on the principles of liberty, justice, bliss and peaceful-coexistence as conceived by the prophets of israel. today, israel is making optimal use of her resources in generating income and dividends in the socio-economic and political sectors through tourism and other economic means. equally, cultivating more nation-building habits in nigeria would not only make the nation more stable politically, but would bring more agricultural advancement, national value, sanctity of life, security of lives and properties, good roads, economic progress, and encourage hard work at the federal, regional and local levels. it would equally allow every sector in the nation to develop at its own pace. nation-building is a paramount way to salvage nigeria’s fledging situation, provide national bliss, incapacitate corruption, celebrate harmonious living and give good leadership at every level. recommendations 1. for nigeria to be built into an enviable status, there is need for her leaders from all sectors to borrow a leaf from the patriotic zionists who believed in the ancient prophecies of their religious leaders and messages of hope, and developed a drive to accomplish their dreams through political means. no doubt, nigeria is a multi-religious and multi-cultural nation; it is, therefore, an obligation on all and sundry to use their religion to re-brand and build a better, peaceful and a more habitable nigeria. 2. nigerians at every level should bear in mind their fatherland, aim at building it with all their resources, work harder to reconstruct and rebrand their personalities, live as citizens of integrity, constitute a habit of hard work, and exhibit diligence and discipline every where they find themselves. by so doing, the country will take a new shape and carve for itself a better international image. conclusion the messianic phenomenon served as motivational faith that spurred the jews and their political organ(s) such as zionism into action. the jewish global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 45 leaders expressed the messianic concept beyond its religious circle and the advent of an eschatological saviour to a radical political philosophy. the zionist movement and other lovers of the jews gave the concept a political interpretation, which encapsulated in the liberation, re-gathering and reestablishment of the jews into their homeland. comparatively, though nigeria is a multi-religious and multi-cultural nation and some significant roles have been played by past leaders as attempts to build the nation, it is advocated that more commitments can still be made in order to enthrone justice, equity, security, sanctity of life, economic buoyancy, an accountable polity, rapid educational advancement, robust public services and other social amenities that enhance the overall wellbeing of all citizens. a well-built nigeria is a political and religiously stable nigeria where every area, region or zone will be able to look inwards, concentrate on the natural and other assets within its area; and research, analyse, and explore its mineral and agricultural resources with a view to harnessing them for its own good and towards developing the country’s socioeconomic standing. endnotes 1. elliot a. ratzman. “at the common altar: political messianism, practical ethics and post-jewish thought”. ph.d thesis, department of religious and jewish studies, princeton university, 2019) 89. 2. david w. tolerance and george taylor. israel, god’s servant; god’s key to the redemption of the world, (edinburgh: handsel press, 2007) 118. 3. michael staub. torn at the roots. (new york:columbia university press, 2002) 42-45. 4. joseph klausner. the messiah’s idea in israel: from its beginning to the completion of the mishnah. (new york: macmillian company. 2005), 11 from https//www.achive.org/ stream/messianic ide013825mbpdjvt.txt. (retrieved august 23, 2022), 56. 5. j h. chalesworth (ed). the messiah. (minneapolis: fortress, 2002) 37. 6. hurbury. “the messianic association of the son of man”, in journal of theological studies, vol. 36, (retrieved september 23, 2022), 3436. 7. yosef mazur. zionism, post-zionism and arab problem: a compendium of opinions about the jewish fate (bloomington: west global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 46 bow press, 2012), 89. 8. frank h. epp. whose land is palestine? (michigan: william b. eerdmans publishing company, 1989) 104. 9. blocks daniel. i, bringing back david: ezekiel’s messianic hope, (carlistle: petermoster press, 2008), 54-57. 10. markus bockmuehl and james carleton paget (eds), redemption and resistance: the messianic hopes of jews and christians in antiquity (london: t & t clack. 2007),1. 11. e.w. hengstenberg. christology of the old testament and a commentary on the messianic traditions (michigan: kregel,1996), 11. 12. sam nadler, messiah in the feast of israel (u.s.a: word of messiah ministry, 2007), 30. 13. simeon i. akponorie, messianism in the israelite prophetic tradition and its implication for the emergence of the modern state of israel. (phd thesis submitted to the university of ibadan, 2018). 14. p.m binyom (ed). a short history of the hebrews from the patriarchs to herod the great, (oxford: oxford university press,1994), 110. 15. the hebrew word of “i will restore the fortunes of my people”. 16. gary yates. “jermiah 30-33: book of consolation, promise of restoration from judgment to restoration.” http//.www.promise.of.restoration.htm. (retrieved 25th september, 2022), 33. 17. n/a president and fellows of harvard college and the pluralism project at harvard university (harvard university press, 2020), 35. 18. theodor herlz. a biography (tel aviv: jewish press, 1970), 170. 19. these points were quoted from the esco foundation for palestine, inc, palestine, arab and british policies. 12. 20. frank h. epp. 1989. whose land is palestine? michigan: william b. eerdmans publishing company. 165. 21. ronald e. clements. isaiah and the deliverance of jerusalem” journal for the study of old testament. (supp. 13, sheffield, jstot press, 1984), 28-31. 22. david. w. schmidt. 2011. partner together in this great enterprise: global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 47 the role of christian zionism in the foreign policies of britain and america in the 20th century, u.s.a: xulon press. 214-216. 23. alexander yakobson and amnon robinstein. 2009. israel and the founding of nations: the jewish nation-state and human right, new york: routledge. 12-18. 24. alexander yakobson and amnon robinstein. 2009. israel and the founding of nations: the jewish nation-state and human right, new york: routledge. 18-19. 25. yosef bein. “great britain and palestine 1915-1945 (3rd edition). information papers, no 20 of the royal institute of international affairs (gb) information department. 139-140 from http//www.book.com.google.ng. retrieved 17th february, 2017. 26. yosef bein. “great britain and palestine 1915-1945 (3rd edition). information papers, no 20 of the royal institute of international affairs (gb) information department. 139-140 from http//www.book.com.google.ng. retrieved 17th february, 2017. 27. john hagee. jerusalem countdown (u.s.a: front line company), 78. 28. john hagee. jerusalem countdown (u.s.a: front line company), 78. 29. n/a http//www.zionist-proclaim-new-state-of-israel, (new york: times, 1948). accessed on 24th august, 2023. 30. michael brenner and shalley frisch. 2003. zionism: a brief history. new york: markus wiener publishers. 184. 31. amy tikkanen. http//www.britannica.com. accessed 12th september, 2023. 32. john hagee. jerusalem countdown (u.s.a: front line company), 102. 33. a key note address presented at the 2019 annual conference of the national association for christian studies (nacs), held from 4th – 7th november 2019 at dracc conference centre new lugbe, abuja, nigeria. 34. b.t.m umaru. leadership in the nigeria state and the burden of integrity in nigerian journal of christian studies, volume 4, number 2, october 2021. 35. ukpabi unya ikenna. restructuring nigeria: issues, challenges and the global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 48 way forward. www.researchgate.net. accessed on 9th september, 2023. bibliography akponorie, simeon. messianism in the israelite prophetic tradition and its implication for the emergence of the modern state of israel. 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(michigan: william b. eerdmans publishing company, 1989). hagee, john. jerusalem countdown (u.s.a: front line company). hengstenberg, e.w. christology of the old testament and a commentary on the messianic traditions (michigan: kregel,1996). herlz, theodor. a biography (tel aviv: jewish press, 1970). hurbury, w. “the messianic association of the son of man”, in journal of theological studies, vol. 36, (retrieved september 23, 2022). ikenna, ukpabiunya ikenna. restructuring nigeria: issues, challenges and the way forward. www.researchgate.net. accessed on 9th september, 2023. klausner, joseph. the messiah’s idea in israel: from its beginning to the global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 49 completion of themishnah. (new york: macmillian company. 2005), 11 from https//www.achive.org/ stream/messianicide013825 mbpdjvt.txt. (retrieved august 23, 2022). maoz, j.l. jewish socio-religious dimensions (tel aviv: elkanim, 2021). markus bockmuehl and james carleton paget (eds), redemption and resistance: the messianic hopes of jews andchristians in antiquity (london: t & t clack. 2007). mazur, yosef. zionism, post-zionism and arab problem: a compendium of opinions about the jewish fate (bloomington: west bow press, 2012). michael brenner and shalley frisch. zionism: a brief history. (new york: markus wiener publishers, 2003). nadler, sam. messiah in the feast of israel (u.s.a: word of messiah ministry, 2007). ratzman, elliot a. “at the common altar: political messianism, practical ethics and post-jewish thought”. ph.d thesis, department of religious and jewish studies, princeton university, 2019. ronald e. clements. isaiah and the deliverance of jerusalem” journal for the study of old testament. (supp. 13, sheffield, jstot press, 1984). schimidz, david w. partner together in this great enterprise: the role of christian zionism in the foreign policies of britain and america in the 20th century, u.s.a: xulon press. staub, michael. torn at the roots. (new york:columbia university press, 2002). umaru, b.t.m. leadership in the nigeria state and the burden of integrity in nigerian journal of christian studies, volume 4, number 2, october 2021. yates, gary. “jeremiah 30-33: book of consolation, promise of restoration from judgment to restoration.” http//www.promise. of.restoration.htm. (retrieved 25th september, 2022). global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2 april 2024 50 author information: dr akponorie simeon iruooghene is of archbishop vining college of theology, akure, ondo state, nigeria. email: akponoriesimeon @gmail.com dr iyanda abel olatoye is of department of religious studies, adeyemi federal university of education, ondo, ondo state, nigeria. email: iyandaolat@gmail.com apa iruo-oghene, a. s., & olatoye, i. a. (2024). messianism and zionism in jewish nationalism: a panacea for nation-building in nigeria. global online journal of academic research (gojar), 3(2), 32-50. https://klamidas.com/gojar-v3n2-2024-02/. mla iruo-oghene, akponorie simeon and olatoye, iyanda abel. “messianism and zionism in jewish nationalism: a panacea for nation-building in nigeria”. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 2, 2024, pp. 32-50. https://klamidas.com/gojar-v3n2-2024-02/. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 16 a study on the cadaveric anatomical dimensions of the pterion in a nigerian population: an important landmark guide in lateral approach surgeries by ozor ii, nkwerem spu, iroegbu-emeruem l, nnachi si, asimadu in, aroh ve, elisa fi abstract background: the pterion is a craniometric point near the sphenoid fontanelle of the skull. it is a crucial intraoperative landmark in surgical approaches. in neurosurgery, pterional approaches are used in various operative interventions and treatments. the aim of this study is to determine the cadaveric anatomical features of the pterion in a nigerian population and compare with those of different populations. materials and method: this is an observational study carried out in the human anatomy departments of enugu state university college of medicine, university of nigeria college of medicine, nnamdi azikiwe university college of health sciences, ebonyi state university college of medicine and chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university college of medicine, nigeria, using fifty cadaveric skulls of both sexes. oral approval was gotten from the various departments on presentation of letter of introduction from the department of anatomy, enugu state university of science and technology, enugu. results: the sphenoparietal type of pterion was found to be the most common type (78%) on the right and (74%) on the left, followed by frontotemporal which is (14%) on the right and (18%) on the left, the least common types of pterion is stellate and epipteric with (4%) on the right and the left. conclusion: despite the significant variation between the left and right sides of the pterion, the pterions found in cadaveric skulls of nigerian origin are similar to those of other population. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 17 introduction the pterion is a craniometric point near the sphenoid fontanelle of the skull. it is a point of convergence of the sutures between the frontal, sphenoid, parietal, and squamous temporal bones (ilknur, mustafa, & sinan, 2009). there are varied patterns of articulation of these bones and sometimes a small epipteric bone may be present. there are four types of sutural pattern: murphy described four types of pterions namely sphenoparietal, frontotemporal, stellate, and epipteric (murphy, 1956). the pterion is located superior to the zygomatic arch and posterior to the frontozygomatic suture. this area is known as the weakest part of the skull, yet it overlies the course of the anterior division of the middle meningeal artery (ilknur, mustafa, & sinan, 2009), thus making it vulnerable to rupture, leading to extradural hematoma in the event of a blunt trauma to the side of the head (lama, mottolese, et al, 2000). in addition, it acts as an important landmark for locating the broca’s motor speech area, anterior pole of the insula, and middle cerebral artery (apinhasmit, chaisuksunt, et al, 2011). intradural pterional approach is used as surgical approach to optic nerve sheath meningioma, whereas extradural pterional approach is used for optic nerve decompressions as well as for tumor resections and biopsies (quinones-hinojosa & schmidek, 2012). this study is an attempt to determine the cadaveric anatomical features of the pterion in a nigerian population and compare with those of different populations. figure 1: skeletal pictures of the types of pterions global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 18 materials and methods this is an observational study carried out in the human anatomy departments of enugu state university college of medicine, university of nigeria college of medicine, nnamdi azikiwe university college of health sciences, ebonyi state university college of medicine and chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university college of medicine. oral approval was gotten from the various departments on presentation of letter of introduction from the department of anatomy, enugu state university of science and technology, enugu. cadaveric skulls irrespective of males and females with intact calvaria and well-defined sutures were included in the study, while damaged skulls and very old skulls with obliterated sutures were excluded. study was conducted on fifty human unsexed adult skulls. dry skulls are taken up for the study as there is paucity of cadavers. pteria was classified based on murphy’s classification. measurements were taken on both sides of the skull from the center of the pterion to the midpoint of zygoma, tip of the mastoid process, bregma and to the fronto-zygomatic suture using vernier calipers. each of the measurements were taken twice then averaged so as to minimize bias errors. relevant findings regarding various types of pterions and position of pterion were noted. values were recorded separately on right and left sides and compared. values were also compared with previous studies for their statistical significance. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 19 the measurement of pterion this was done in the laboratory, the data collected in this study were statistically analyzed using descriptive statistics like the percentages, mean and standard deviation. to compare between right and left sides, oneway anova (analysis of variance) was used. results in the present study, we found sphenoparietal type of pterion to be the most common type (78%) on the right and (74%) on the left, followed by frontotemporal which is (14%) on the right and (18%) on the left, the least common types of pterion are stellate and epipteric with (4%) on the right and the left. table 1: the percentage distribution of various types of pterions is shown in the table below. types of pterions right percentage (%) left percentage (%) sphenoparietal 39 78 37 74 frontotemporal 7 14 9 18 stellate 2 4 2 4 epipteric 2 4 2 4 total 50 100 50 100 the table below is a comparison of left and right sides using standard deviation. table 2a (right side) standard deviation s for the right =17.8 table 2b (left side) type right x x-x (x-x)2 sphenoparietal 39 26.5 702.25 frontotemporal 7 -5.5 30.25 epipteric 2 -10.5 110.25 stellate 2 -10.5 110.25 total 50 953 type left x x-x (x-x)2 sphenoparietal 37 24.5 600.25 frontotemporal 9 -3.5 12.5 epipteric 2 -10.5 110.25 stellate 2 -10.5 110.25 total 50 833 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 20 standard deviation s for the left = 16. table 3: anova table sources of variation sum of square degree of freedom mean square fraction treatment(α) 1782 (p-1) 594 594 error(e) 4 (p-1)4 1 total 1786 7 the critical region is f>f (0.5) (3, 4) =f>6.59 since the calculated f~ ratio (594) is greater than the critical value (6.59) we reject the h0 at α = 0.05 and concluded that the varietal difference is significant. (note this result is also significant at α = 0.01). table 4: comparing the distance from the pterion to mid-point of zygomatic arch(p-za), frontozygomatic(p-fzs), mastoid process (pmp) with that of other populations. discussion the predominant pterion found in the present study is the sphenoparietal type (78%) on the right and (74%) on the left, and this is similar to all other studies summarized in table 4. in the asians, the sphenoparietal pterion frequency ranged between 72% and 93.55%. the japanese has the highest frequency with (93.5%) followed by the indians with (7277%). the greeks has the lowest frequency (58.4%) followed by the kenyans (66%). the high frequency of sphenoparietal pterion could be as a result of evolution (lui yh, et al 1999), given that it is the commonest type in primates (ashleymontagu m. 1933). in the present study, the vertical distance from pterion to zygomatic arch global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 21 is found to be slightly more on the right side compared to the left side, while the pterion to frontozygomatic suture was slightly more on the left compared to the right. according to measurement pterion was lying approximately 4.53cm above the arcus zygomaticus on the right side, 4.39cm on the left side and 3.32cm behind the frontozygomatic suture on the right and 3.40cm on the left. a study done in greek by k.natsis et al (2019) shows the distance from the pterion to the zygomatic arch to be 4.13cm on the right and 4.09cm on the left, while the distance from the pterion to the frontozygomatic is 3.47cm on the right and 3.52cm on the left. in another study done in india by bhargavi et al (2011) recorded the distance from the pterion to the zygomatic arch to 4.52cm on the right and 4.45cm on the left, while the distance from the pterion frontozygomatic suture is 3.93cm on the right and 3.8cm on the left. another study done in anatolia by iiknur et al (2009) shows the distance from the pterion to the zygomatic arch to be 4.05cm on the right and 3.85cm on the left, while the distance from the pterion to the frontozygomatic suture is 3.3cm on the right and 3.44cm on the left. comparing the result from the present study to that of the result gotten from other studies done in different populations it shows that the distance from the pterion to zygomatic arch is found to be slightly more on the right side compared to the left side, while the pterion to frontozygomatic suture is slightly more on the left compared to the right. conclusion the pterions found in cadaveric skulls of nigerian origin have the following features when compared to those of other population; distance from the center of the pterion to mid zygomatic arch and mastoid process was found to be more on the right than the left, from the pterion to the frontozygomatic arch was found to be more on the left than the right and bregma is equal on both sides. references adejuwon, s., olopade, f., & bolaji, m. (2013). study of location and morphology of pterion in adult nigerian skulls. isrn anatomy, 14. bhargavi, c., saralaya, v., & kishan, k. (2011). pterion: a site for neurosurgical approach. int j biomed res, 2(12):588-594. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 22 bhargavi, c., saralaya, v., & kishan, k. (2011). pterion: a site for neurosurgical approach. int j biomed res, 2(12):588-594. eboh, d., &obaroefe, m. (2014). morphometric study of pterion in dry human skull bones of nigerians. int j morphol, 32(1):208-13. escosa-bage´, m., sola, r. g., liberal-gonza´lez, r., &caniego, j. l.-c. (2002). fusiform aneurysm of the middle cerebral artery. revista de neurologia, 655–658. hussain, s., mavishetter, g., thomas, s., prasanna, l., muralidhar, & magi, p. (2011). a study of sutural morphology of the pterion and asterion among human indian skulls. biomed res, 22:73 5. hussain-saheb, s., haseena, s., & prasanna, l. (2010). pterion – three case reports. journal of biomedical science and research, 2(2): 108–110. ilknur, a., mustafa, k. i., & sinan, b. (2009). a comparative study of variation of the pterion of human skulls from 13th and 20th century anatolia. international journal of morphology, 1291–1298. kaan, c., ilhan, o., & mehmet, c. (2019). pterion types in anatolian adult skulls. rev arg de anat clin, 11 (1): 8-17. lang, j. (1984). the pterion region and its clinically important distance to the optic nerve. 2. pterion region, distance to the optic nerve, dimensions and shape of the recess or the temporal pole. neurochirurgia (stuttg), 27(2):31-5. ma, s., baillie, l., & stringer, m. (2012). reappreaising the surface anatomy of the pterion and its relationship to the middle meningeal artery. clin anat., 25:330-339. matsumura, g., kida, k., & ichikawa, r. (1991). pterion and epipteric bones in japanese adults and fetuses, with special reference to their formation and variations. kaibogakuzasshi, 66(5):462-71. mennan, e., cem, k., mehmet, t., ufuk, c., & ahmet, h. (2010). localization of pterion in neonatal cadavers: a morphological study;surg.radiolanat, 32: 545-550. murphy, t. (1956). the pterion in the australian aboriginal. am j phys anthropol, 14:225 44. mwachaka, p., hassanali, j., & odula, p. (2008). anatomic position of the pterion among kenyans for lateral skull approaches. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 23 int.j.morphol , 26(4): 931-933. oguz, o., sani, s., bozkir, m., & soames, r. (2004). the pterion in turkish male skulls. surg radiolanat, 26:220 4. satheesha, n., & sowmya, k. (2008). unusual sutural bones at pterion. international journal of anatomical variations, 1: 19-20. sowmya, s., meenakshi, b., & ranganath, p. (2017). study of pterion: its clinical and morphological aspects. indian journal of clinical anatomy and physiology., 4(2):247-9. sucharitha, & roshni, b. (2016). study of anatomic position of pterion in dry human skulls in karnataka. scholars journal of applied medical sciences, 4(9b):3272-3276. w. apinhasmit, s., chaisuksunt, v., thi-raphatthanavong, p., & phasukdee, n. (2011). anatomical consideration of pterion and its related references in thai dry skulls for pterional surgical approach. journal of the medical association of thailand, 205–214. wandee, a., supin, c., vipavadee, c., paphaphat, t., & noppadol, p. (2011). anatomical consideration of pterion and its related references in thai dry skulls for pterional surgical approach. j med assoc thai, (2); 205-214. williams, p., bannister, l., berry, m., collins, p., dyson, m., & dussek, j. (2006). gray’s anatomy. 40th edition. in c. livingstone. yasargil, m., & fox, j. (1975). the microsurgical approach to intracranial aneurysms. surg neurol, 7 – 14. yuvaraj, m., & sankaran, p. (2017). a morphometric study on different shapes of pterion and its clinical significance. int j pharm bio sc, 8(2):999-1003. zalawadia, a., vadgama, j., ruparelia, s., patel, s., rathod, s., & patel, s. (2010). morphometric study of pterion in dry skull gujarat region. njirm, 1:25 9. author information: ozor ii is affiliated to neurosurgery unit, department of surgery, college of medicine, enugu state university of science and technology and department of anatomy, college of medicine, enugu state university of science and technology, enugu. email: ikemozor@yahoo.com global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 24 nkwerem spu is of neurosurgery unit, department of surgery, college of health sciences, nnamdi azikiwe university teaching hospital. iroegbu-emeruem l is of department of surgery, faculty of clinical sciences, college of medical sciences, rivers state university, port-harcourt. nnachi si is of department of anatomy, college of medicine, enugu state university of science and technology, enugu. asimadu in is of department of ophthalmology, enugu state university of science and technology, enugu. aroh ve is of department of surgery, federal university teaching hospital, abakaliki. elisa fi is of department of anatomy, college of medicine, enugu state university of science and technology, enugu. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 40 perceived organisational support: a panacea for work commitment among employees in private universities in south-east nigeria by chukwujekwu charles onwuka, emmanuel echezona nwokolo & sunday chike achebe abstract organisational support is one of the cardinal factors that influences employees’ work commitment within cooperate organisations. when employees perceive that their organisation cares and provides them all the support they require, they are more likely to commit to the achievement of their organisation’s goals, which would also translate to organisational efficiency and productivity. however, the relationship between perceived organisational support and work commitment has not been significantly investigated particularly within the context of employees in private universities within the southeast. this study therefore aimed at investigating the influence of perceived organisational support on employees work commitment in selected private universities in the southeast nigeria. the study employed the descriptive crosssectional survey research design. the sample size for the study was 250 employees who voluntarily participated in the study through the google form web-based questionnaire administration. data collected from the survey were processed using the spss software package. data analysis was performed using descriptive statistics and the simple linear regression model in order to determine the influence of perceived organisational support on work commitment of employees. findings of the study revealed that the respondents expressed negative perceptions regarding organisational support in the private universities. it was equally found that majority of employees in the private universities were not committed to their jobs and this was found to be statistically associated with their perception about organisational support. the study recommended the need for the management of private universities in the southeast nigeria to incorporate democratic principles that could encourage employees’ engagement and openness in expressing their concerns and difficulties. keywords: employees, commitment, organisational, support, perceived global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 41 introduction rganisational support is one of the cardinal factors that influences employees’ work commitment within cooperate organisations. in fact, many scholars have noted that organisational support offers a lot of morale to the employees, which ultimately enhances job commitment and overall productivity of the employees (krishnan & mary, 2012). perceived organisational support (pos) reflects the degree of employees’ perception that their work organisation values their contributions and cares about their wellbeing (eisenberger, 1986, as cited in pan, shen, liu, yang & wang, 2015). it relates to the degree to which employees perceive that their work organisation values their contributions and cares about them (allen et al., 2008). when employees perceive that their organisation cares and provides them all the support they require, they are more likely to commit to the achievement of their organisation’s goals, which would also translate to organisational efficiency and productivity. the concept of organisational support has been studies variously in relation with various dependent variables and within various organisational contexts (li, zhang, yan, wen & zhang, 2020; liu, 2009; tuzun & kalemci, 2012; sharif, bolt, ahadzadeh, turner & nia, 2021). however, the concept of pos in relation to the work commitment has not gained popularity especially within local empirical researches. work commitment has been defined as the feeling of responsibility that a person has towards the mission and goals of an organization (gigli, n.d), or put differently, the level of enthusiasm which an employee has towards his/her tasks assigned at a workplace. it is the overall feeling of responsibility that a person expresses towards the goals, mission, and vision of his or her organization. job commitment has also been conceptualised in three dimensions including affective commitment – which refers to how a person feels about their organisation, continuance commitment – which refers to extent to which a person perceives it would be desirable or undesirable to leave the organisation, and normative commitment – which refers to a person’s moral orientation to the organisation and the sense of responsibility or obligation to the organisation (allen & meyer, 1990). o global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 42 it is believed that when an individual has work commitment, he or she is more likely to perform tasks and responsibilities that will help an organization achieve a goal. contrariwise, when employees are not committed to their work, they tend to use their time at work to perform unproductive activities such as internet surfing for pleasure, playing games, gossiping, sleeping and other antiproductive work behaviours. however, job commitment cannot be analysed in a vacuum. in other words, certain independent variables have been used as covariates of job commitment (adekeye, 2011; lee & chen, 2013; rathi & saeed, 2022). however, there seems to be a dearth of empirical research on the relationship between perceived organisational support and job commitment particularly within the context of private tertiary institutions in nigeria. this is therefore a research gap which this present study intends to fill. specific objectives 1. to examine employees’ perception of their organisational support in the selected private universities. 2. to determine the level of employees’ commitment to work in the selected private tertiary institutions. 3. to investigate the relationship between perceived organisational support and employees work commitment in the selected private tertiary institutions. hypothesis employees’ perceived organisational support significantly influences their work commitment in the selected private tertiary institutions. literature review concept of perceived organisational support perceived organisational support (pos) reflects the degree of employees’ perception that their work organisation values their contributions and cares about their well-being (eisenberger, 1986, as cited in pan, shen, liu, yang & wang, 2015). pos is significant to increasing the employees` affective attachment to the organisation and their expectations that greater efforts towards meeting organisational goals will be rewarded. as an important global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 43 concept in organisational theory, pos has been acknowledged to be positively related to job satisfaction, job performance, organisational justice, affective commitment and job satisfaction (guan, sun, hou, zhao, lau & fan, 2014). perceived organisational support connotes the degree to which the organisation values employees’ contributions and cares about them (allen et al., 2008). rhoades and eisenberger (2002) also added that pos is considered as an assurance that the organisation will provide financial and emotional support to employees when needed to face the challenges presented by their job. in this view, the authors argued that employees associate their favourable or unfavourable treatment by supervisors (the representatives of the organisation), as an indication that the organisation either favours or disfavours them. hence, pos is one of the dimensions of organisational work behaviour which is hypothesised in this study to have a significant influence on university employees’ work commitment. theoretical framework organisational support theory (ost) this theory was propounded by eisenberger, huntington, hutchinson and sowa (1986). the theory assumes that in order to meet socio-emotional needs and to assess the benefits of increased work effort, employees form a general perception concerning the extent to which the organisation values their contributions and cares about their well-being. such perceived organisational support (pos) would increase employees’ felt obligation to help the organisation reach its objectives, their affective commitment to the organisation, and their expectation that improved performance would be rewarded (eisenberger, huntington, hutchison & sowa, 1986). behavioural outcomes of pos would include increases in in-role and extra-role performance and decreases in stress and withdrawal behaviours such as absenteeism and turnover. according to organisational support theory, employees tend to assign humanlike characteristics to organisation and thus encourage the development of pos (eisenberger et al., 1986). agents acting on behalf of the organisations are global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 44 often perceived as acting on organisation’s intentions rather than their personal motives (levinson, 1965). this personification of the organisation is enhanced by the organisation’s legal, moral, and financial responsibility for the actions of its agents; by organisational policies, norms, and culture that provide continuity and prescribe role behaviours; and by the power the organisation’s agents exert over individual employees. equally, due to this personification of organisations, employees base their judgments of their perceived value to the organisation on how favourably the organisation treats them. when the organisation gives resources to employees in a voluntary manner rather than under circumstances beyond their control, employees will view such aid as being genuinely valued and respected by the organisation (cotterell, eisenberger, & speicher, 1992). based on this principle, pos will be more effectively enhanced if employees view organisational rewards and favourable job conditions such as pay, promotions, job enrichment, and influence over organisational policies as voluntary behaviours of organisations (eisenberger et al., 1986). a summary of the tenet of this theory is that, in return for a high level of organisational support, employees show commitment to help their organisation reach its goals (aselage & eisenberger, 2003), because organisational support has a significant effect on organisational commitment (rhoades & eisenberger, 2002; riggle, edmondson & hansen, 2009). in view of the assumptions of this theory, it was hypothesised in this study that employees’ perception of the support given to them by their university management, would determine the level commitment they would likely exhibit in their work places. in other words, perceived organisational support may have a significant influence on the work commitment of employees in the selected private universities in southeast nigeria. methods this study was conducted among employees of selected private universities in the southeast nigeria. this study adopted the descriptive cross-sectional survey research design. according to ihudiebube-splendor and chikeme global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 45 (2020), descriptive cross-sectional survey research design is that which provides data for describing the status or characteristics of a phenomena or relationship among phenomena, at a specific point in time. this research design was also considered appropriate for this study due its flexibility in helping gather data at a specific point in time for a defined population. based on statistical determination of appropriate sample using the yamane (1967) formula, a sample of 250 respondents was determined for the study. the respondents were selected through an online-survey approach. considering the fact that data collection was online-based, participation was voluntary. besides the growing popularity of on-line based researches in the contemporary social research, the online survey approach was considered more flexible, convenient, cost-effective, easy in reaching a large number of respondents within a target time frame. the online automated generation of data that saves time and energy that could have been used in manual data coding, was another important benefit considered for using online survey approach, notwithstanding its deficiencies. the online-survey approach involved the use of google form survey administration software package in designing questionnaire measuring “employees’ perception of organisational support and work commitment”. through the help of insiders within the selected private universities, the webbased questionnaire link was forwarded to different social network groups for the employees through whatsapp and telegram. the administrators of the social network groups helped to instil confidence to the respondents about the authenticity of the questionnaire link and equally explained the reason for the research to the respondents. prior to the period of questionnaire administration, a timeline of three weeks was set for link sharing and collation of data. this implies that the respondents were given a window of three weeks to respond to the questionnaire, after which, any other data entry was discarded. at the end of the set timeline, more than 250 entries were obtained, which is higher than the initial sample size determine for the study. consequently, only the first 250 data entries obtained within the open window period were used for data analysis. the data obtained originally through excel spreadsheet were global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 46 transformed into statistical package for social sciences (spss) software package version 26, which was used in processing all the relevant statistical data. analysis of data involved both descriptive and inferential analysis. while the descriptive aspect involved frequency count and percentage, the inferential aspect involved regression analysis to test the influence of perceived organisational support on employees’ work commitment. findings table 1. distribution of respondents’ socio-demographic variables description of variables frequency percent sex male 96 38.2 female 155 61.8 total 250 100.0 age categories 27 36 years 33 13.2 37 46 years 50 20.1 47 56 years 91 36.5 57 66 years 61 24.4 67 yrs & above 15 5.8 total 250 100.0 marital status single 69 27.6 married 146 58.4 widowed 26 10.3 separated/divorced 9 3.7 total 100 100.0 job category academic staff 68 27.2 non-academic staff 156 62.4 casual staff 26 10.4 total 250 100.0 official rank junior staff 62 24.9 intermediate 109 43.4 senior 79 31.7 total 250 100.0 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 47 table 1 contains information on the analysis conducted in relation to the sociodemographic characteristics of the respondents. the table showed that more than half (61.8%) of the respondents were female employees compared to relatively lower proportion (38.8%) male employees within the selected private tertiary institutions. for the age distribution of the respondents, the largest proportion (36.5%) of the respondents aged between 47 – 56 years old, while the least proportion (5.8%) were those who aged above 67 years old. these findings imply that the majority of employees within the selected private tertiary institutions were mid-adult individuals. this equally justifies why majority (58.3%) of them were married compare to about a quarter proportion (27.6%) of them who were single. in terms of the analysis on the job categories of the respondents, it was found that more than half (62.4%) of them were nonacademic staff category compared to 27.2% of them who were in the academic staff category, while the least proportion (10.4%) of them were under the casual staff category. with regards to the official rank of the employees, data analysis showed that majority (43.4%) of them was at the intermediate level. this was followed by the senior staff who comprised of 31.7% of the respondents, while 24.9% of them were the junior employees. employees’ perceived organisational support table 2. analysis of respondents’ perception of organisational support global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 48 as observed from the item by item analysis presented in table 2, the largest proportion (36.4%) of the respondents went for the option ‘low extent’ in the first items – implying that they perceive their supervisors’ support to their work activities as less optimal. in the second item, it was equally observed that the largest proportion (39.6%) of the respondents rated their ‘to a low extent’, in relation to the view that their university management cares so much about their welfare. similar patterns of responses were observed in relation to items iii to vi, which suggests that the respondents perceived organisational support in their universities as less optimal. these data were summed together in order to present a general analysis of respondents’ perception of organisational support within the selected universities. result of the analysis was presented in figure 1. figure 1. summary of employees’ perception of organisational support data contained in figure 1 confirmed that the largest proportion (37.5%) of the respondents perceived their organisational support as been only at a low extent. this was followed by 25.9% of them who chose the option ‘never’ – implying that they perceived that their organisations do not support them at all. while 21.7% of them were neutral in this regard, only a very lower proportion (9.9%) of them gave a fair rating about their organisational support. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 49 employees’ work commitment table 3. respondents’ ratings on their work commitment from the item by item analysis as presented in table 3, it could be seen that the modal frequencies occurred between the responses options ‘disagree’ and ‘strongly disagree’, compared to the other response options. in other to have a clearer picture on the responses, the data were summed together, analysed and presented in figure 2. figure 2. summary of respondents’ work commitment global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 50 as shown in figure 2, majority (37.8%) of the respondents disagreed with the items in the questionnaire which measured their work commitment in the selected private universities. this was equally followed by about a quarter proportions (28.8%) of them who went for the option ‘strongly agree’. these suggest that there was a seemingly lack of employees’ commitment to their works in the selected private universities. this study was equally interested in determining whether or not employees’ work commitment was associated with their perception of organisational support in their various universities. to ascertain this, items measuring perceived organisational support and work commitment were summed up to form discrete variables required for parametric test. thus, the outcome variable (work commitment) was regressed unto the independent variable (perceived organisational support) as presented in table 4. table 4. summary of linear regression model showing the relationship between pos and work commitment consistent with the initially stated alternate hypothesis, result of the regression analysis showed an evidence to accept the hypothesis, r2 = .019, f(1, 249) = 4.886, p = .028. this implies that work commitment of employees in the selected private universities could be statistically predicted using perceived organisational support. this implies that employees would more likely be committed to their works when they perceived that their organisations support them. this equally reiterates the importance of organisational support to the global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 51 workability and commitment of employees to the achievement of organisational productivity. conclusion/recommendations commitment of employees to their work is a major factor that influences organisational productivity in cooperate organisations. however, employees’ work commitment is dependent on major factors of which perceived organisational support is one of the most important factors. having analysed all the relevant data in this study, it is concluded that the research questions raised in this study has been answered in such a manner that majority of employees in the private universities within the southeast nigeria have negative perceptions regarding the organisational support in their various work places. it could also be concluded that the employees of private universities in the southeast nigeria are less committed to their works, and this was found to be associated with their perceptions about their organisational support systems. these have serious implications to the growth, productivity and quality of educational outputs in the private universities in the southeast nigeria. consequently, the following are recommended for way forward: 1. the management of private universities in the southeast nigeria should incorporate democratic principles that could encourage employees’ engagement and openness in expressing their concerns and difficulties. 2. there is equally the need for private universities in the southeast nigeria to initiate employee support programs that could promptly address employees’ challenges and equally encourage them to work better. 3. the management of private universities should equally develop clear communication and feedback systems that could help employees perform their works in relaxed atmosphere rather than in tight time limits. references adekeye, d. s. (2011). gender differences and work commitment in selected federal universities in nigeria. university of ilorin, ilorin, nigeria, 16(1), 6178. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 52 allen, m. w., armstrong, d. j., reid, m. f., & riemenschneider, c. k. (2008). factors impacting the perceived organisational support of it employees. information & management, 45, 556-563. allen, n.j., & meyer, j.p. (1990). the measurement and antecedents of affective, continuance and normative commitment to the organization. journal of occupational psychology, 63, 1-18. aselage, j., & eisenberger, r. (2003). perceived organisational support and psychological contracts: a theoretical integration. journal of organisational behaviour, 24(5), 491-509. cotterell, n., eisenberger, r., & speicher, h. (1992). inhibiting effects of reciprocation wariness on interpersonal relationships. journal of personality and social psychology, 62(4), 658–668. eisenberger, r., huntington, r., hutchison, s., & sowa, d. (1986). perceived organisational support. journal of applied psychology, 71(3), 500–507. gigli, m. (2012). job commitment: definition and overview. available at https://study.com/academy/lesson/job-commitment-definition-lessonquiz.html#:~:text=job%20commitment%20is%20the%20feeling,an%20organi zation%20achieve%20a%20goal. guan, x., sun, t., hou, y., zhao, l., luan, y. z., & fan, l.h. (2014).the relationship between job performance and perceived organisational support in faculty members at chinese universities: a questionnaire survey.biomed central medical education, 14, 50–59. ihudiebube-splendor, c. n., & chikeme, p. c. (2020). a descriptive crosssectional study: practical and feasible design in investigating health care– seeking behaviours of undergraduates. in sage research methods cases. https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/97815 29742862 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 53 krishnan, j., & mary, v. s. (2012). perceived organisational support – an overview on its antecedents and consequences. international journal of multidisciplinary research, 2(4), 1-13. lee, c., & chen, c. (2013). the relationship between employee commitment and job attitude and its effect on service quality in the tourism industry. american journal of industrial and business management, 3(2). doi:10.4236/ajibm.2013.32025 levinson, h. (1965). reciprocation: the relationship between man and organisation. administrative science quarterly, 9, 370-390. li, x., zhang, y., yan, d., wen, f., & zhang, y. (2020). nurses' intention to stay: the impact of perceived organizational support, job control and job satisfaction. journal of advanced nursing, 76(5), 1141–1150. 10.1111/jan.14305 liu, y. (2009). perceived organizational support and expatriate organizational citizenship behaviour: the mediating role of affective commitment towards the parent company. personnel review. pan, b., shen, x., liu, l., yang, y., & wang, l. (2015). factors associated with job satisfaction among university teachers in north-eastern region of china: a cross sectional study. international journal of environmental resources and public health, 12, 12761-12775. doi:10.3390/ijerph121012761 rathi, n. s., & saeed, m. a. h. (2022). determinants of organizational commitment: the case of national dairy and food industry in yemen. international journal in management and social science, 10(09), 5981. rhoades, l., & eisenberger, r. (2002). perceived organisational support: a review of the literature. journal of applied psychology, 87(4), 698-714. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 54 riggle, r.j., edmondson, d. r., & hansen, j. d. (2009). a meta-analysis of the relationship between perceived organisational support and job outcomes: 20 years of research. journal of business research, 62(10), 1027-1030. sharif, s. p., bolt, e. e. t., ahadzadeh, a. s., turner, j. j., & nia, h. s. (2021). organisational support and turnover intentions: a moderated mediation approach. nursing open, 8(6), 3606-2615. tuzun, i. k., & kalemci, r. a. (2012). organizational and supervisory support in relation to employee turnover intentions. journal of managerial psychology, 27(5), 518–534. 10.1108/02683941211235418 yamane, t. (1967). statistics: an introductory analysis, (2nd ed). new york: harper and row. author information: dr chukwujekwu charles onwuka is a lecturer in the department of sociology, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, anambra state, nigeria. email: cc.onwuka@coou.edu.ng. dr emmanuel echezona nwokolo is a lecturer in the department of psychology, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, anambra state, nigeria. email: ee.nwokolo@coou.edu.ng. sunday chike achebe is affiliated to the department of psychology, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, anambra state, nigeria. email: revachebe@yahoo.com. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 7 the impact of multiple taxation on the efficiency of selected smes in enugu state, nigeria by anthonia onyinye ilodigwe abstract small and medium-sized enterprises (smes) are entities that contribute to the overall growth and economic development of a country. however, multiple taxation has been found to hinder the production activities as well as the efficiency of smes. this study investigated the impact of multiple taxation on the efficiency of selected smes in enugu state, nigeria. the study was based on three objectives and two hypotheses. the study is a survey and made use of questionnaire schedule. the population of the study was 17,498 registered smes from which 204 were selected as sample using taro yamane statistical formula. statistical package for social sciences (spss) was used to process the data collected for the study. data analysis was done using descriptive statistics (frequency tables and chi-square inferential statistics were used to test the study hypotheses). result from the study showed that multiple taxation makes it difficult for smes to carry out their production activities; it also reduces smes production and service-rendering capacity. the study also found that multiple taxation makes management of smes more difficult. based on the findings of the study, it was recommended that government adopting a single tax system that levy smes based on how they earn and using the taxes for the benefit of smes will reduce the problems of multiple taxation that affect the production and management efficiency of smes in enugu state. keywords: smes, taxation, multiple taxation, efficiency introduction tax is a levy which is a source of income to governments of various countries. tax is levied on the citizens of a country, their possessions or businesses mainly for the country or state to generate income for government expenditures and the economic and social development of that country or state (mieseigha & ihenyen, 2014). multiple taxation refers to the situation where the same income or economic activity is subject to taxation by multiple taxing authorities or at global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 8 various stages of production and distribution (oseni, 2014). the history of multiple taxation is a complex one, with various forms of taxation emerging and evolving over centuries. in ancient civilizations, such as egypt, greece, and rome, taxes were levied on land, trade, and individuals. multiple taxes were common even then, with different rulers and regions imposing their own taxes. also, during the feudal era, landowners often imposed multiple taxes on peasants. these taxes included rent, tithes to the church, and various feudal obligations, leading to a heavy burden on the common people (nigamaev, gapsalamov, akhmetshin, pavlyuk, prodanova & savchenkova, 2018). during the colonial period, european colonial powers imposed various taxes on their colonies, leading to multiple forms of taxation. these included trade tariffs, export duties, and taxes on indigenous populations. the rise of industry in the 18th and 19th centuries also led to the introduction of new forms of taxation, such as income taxes. multiple taxes on income, property, and goods emerged in many countries (bush & maltby, 2004; cseh &varga, 2020). in the 20th century, especially with the expansion of the welfare state and globalization, tax systems have become even more intricate as multiple layers of government (local, state, federal) often impose taxes on income, property, sales, and more. additionally, international taxation treaties and agreements have also added complexity to taxation. also, the rise of the digital economy and multinational corporations has created challenges in terms of taxation and multiple jurisdictions seek to tax digital services and global profits, leading to debates about fair and effective taxation. the exact beginning of different taxes in nigeria is somewhat dark. notwithstanding, izedonmi (2010) noticed that numerous tax assessments turned out to be more articulated and pervasive in the last part of the 1980s, which coincided with the period when incomes accruable to both the state and local governments from the central federal authority began to continuously decline. that development drove a few state legislatures and numerous local legislatures to look for ways of generating revenues internally, which made a great deal of them to resort to intoducing a variety of taxes (oboh, yeye and filibus, 2013). multiple taxation has permeated various businesses and industries in nigeria and smes, which make up most of the business endeavours in the nigerian economy, are not exempted. small and medium-sized enterprises (smes) are businesses that fall within a certain range in terms of their employee count, revenue, or assets (agwu, 2014). the specific criteria for classifying a business as an sme can vary by country and industry but, generally, they are smaller than large corporations but larger than micro-enterprises. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 9 smes play a significant role in many economies, contributing to job creation and economic growth. in fact, smes are the major contributors to the world's economic growth because they are numerous and can be found in almost every corner of many countries and states. despite their contributions, smes are often faced with unique challenges, the kind of problems larger businesses may not be confronted with. in enugu state, smes abound and are known to encounter lots of difficulties, including financial, political and social ones. however, multiple taxation is a factor that has been found to affect smes across many countries in the world, nigeria inclusive, and this study aims to find out the impact of multiple taxation on the efficiency of selected smes in enugu state. statement of the problem it is in acknowledgment of the vital role of smes in the growth of nigeria’s economy that various administrations have been offering incentives to boost sme activities in the country. these notwithstanding, there still remain impediments to the development of smes across the country as many of them fold up within the first three years of their start up (lawal & aduku, 2016). momoh (2017) observed that over 75% of smes in nigeria die in infancy, not surviving beyond their 4th anniversary due to myriad of challenges that cannot be remedied by the operations in the sector. recognizing one of these key difficulties, kaigama (2016) found that various duty forced on smes is a main cause of the early collapse of these organizations in nigeria as taxes, both legal and illegal, continue to take a large chunk of their earnings. paying multiple tax and other levies dwindle earnings by smes, and this adversely affects the general activities of smes as income gained by smes largely account for the day-to-day running of their business; it determines their ability to carry out customer demands as well as maintain or expand their production and service rendering capacity. these are some of the problems associated with multiple taxation facing smes that necessitated this study’s enquiry into the impact of multiple taxation on the efficiency of selected smes in enugu state. research questions the following research questions were asked to guide this study. 1. what are the various forms of taxes paid by smes in enugu state? 2. what is the impact of multiple taxation on the production efficiency of smes in enugu state? 3. what is the impact of multiple taxation on management efficiency of smes in enugu state? 4. how can multiple taxation problems of smes be curbed in enugu state? global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 10 research objectives the general objective of this study is to investigate the impact of multiple taxation on the efficiency of selected smes in enugu. specifically, the study aims to 1. find out the various forms of taxes paid by smes in enugu state. 2. investigate the impact of multiple taxation on the production capacity of smes in enugu state. 3. ascertain the impact of multiple taxation on management efficiency of smes in enugu state. 4. find out how multiple taxation problems of smes can be curbed in enugu state. research hypotheses the following hypotheses were stated and tested in this study. 1. there is no significant relationship between multiple taxation and production efficiency of smes in enugu state. 2. there is no significant relationship between multiple taxation and management efficiency in enugu state. literature review review of conceptual literature concept of smes the definition of smes varies in contexts, according to authors and by countries where these smes are found. in britain for instance, smes are defined as enterprises with annual turnover of 2 million pounds or less with fewer than 200 paid employees. in japan smes are seen as businesses with 100 million yen paid up capital and 300 employees (ekpeyong & nyong, 1992). in nigeria, smes are defined by the central bank of nigeria (cbn) as those businesses with small number of employees of between 1-100 for small sized businesses and up to 500 or more for medium sized companies. the cbn also defined smes as businesses with turnover of less than n100 million per annum and/or less than 300 employees and having capital investment not exceeding n2 million (excluding the cost of land) or a minimum of n5 million naira (ilemona, nwite and oyedokun, 2019). concept of multiple taxation in simple terms, multiple taxation refers to a situation where an individual, business entity or organisation is levied more than once on their income. according to folayin (2015), multiple taxation is a situation where a tax payer global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 11 is forced by two or more levels of government to pay either the same or similar taxes in a desperate bid to increase their revenue base. abiola (2016) further define multiple taxation as a situation where the same level of government imposes two or more taxes on the same base while adum (2018) described multiple taxation as a case where profit or wealth of an individual, enterprise or corporate body is levied more than once. according to izedonmi (2010), multiple taxation is said to have occurred when the same income is subjected to more than one tax payment. multiple taxation may not necessarily be by a single body, agency or government but the major characteristic of multiple taxation is that a particular income is taxed more than once. problems associated with multiple taxation of smes multiple taxation of smes can significantly affect their efficiency and competitiveness. there have been issues associated with multiple taxation pointed out by scholars on smes and these problems have affected their viability and overall contribution to national economic growth and development. smes often have limited resources, and dealing with multiple taxes at different levels of government (local, state, and national) can be administratively burdensome. this diverts their time and resources away from core business activities (ademola and ene, 2009). also, as a result of multiple taxation, smes must allocate a significant portion of their budget to comply with various tax regulations and this can reduce their overall efficiency and profitability (momoh, 2017). in another vein, fatai (2015) opined that multiple taxation systems can lead to cash flow challenges for smes as they may need to pay various taxes at different times, affecting their ability to manage working capital effectively. thus, high tax burdens can discourage smes from making investments in their businesses. this can impede their growth and expansion, limiting their potential to create jobs and contribute to economic development (okolo et. al. 2016). theoretical framework ability to pay theory ability to pay theory was propounded by pigou (1877–1958). the main assumption of the theory is that taxpayers in a country should pay taxes based on their ability (onyeukwu, ihendinihu, & nwachukwu, 2021). this theory seems to be just and equitable as it considers the potential capacity of an individual taxpayer before a tax is levied. this theory is closely linked to the global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 12 principles of fairness and equity in taxation. the ability to pay theory supports progressive taxation systems where individuals and organization with higher incomes pay a larger percentage of their income in taxes and those with lower income pays a lower percentage of their income in taxes. this approach aims to distribute economic resources and the tax burden more equitably, with those who can afford to contribute more doing so. overall, the "ability to pay" theory aims to create a tax system that takes into account an individual's or entity's financial capacity to contribute to the common good while promoting economic fairness and social stability. as regards the effect of multiple taxations on the efficiency of smes, this theory is relevant as it creates a balance between the taxation of large enterprises and smes. it implies that tax levied on both smes and large businesses should vary and be based on the ability to pay. on the other hand, if smes are taxed on multiple occasions and unfairly, they would find it difficult to pay, and their enterprise will suffer, which may lead to inefficiency and closures (okolo et al, 2016). empirical literatures okolo, okpalaojiego and okolo (2016) examined the effect of multiple taxation on investments in smes. the study used survey design with sme population of 80. questionnaire was used to collect data. simple percentages/frequencies were used to analyze the data and the research hypotheses were tested with anova. it was found that smes in enugu pay taxes to more than three agencies. the study also found that multiple taxation has negative effect on smes investment. furthermore, the relationship between smes investment and its ability to pay tax is significant. the researcher recommends that government should develop a tax policy that considers the enhancement of smes’ capital allowance when imposing taxes. government should also consider a tax policy that encourages investment in smes by consolidating all taxes in one slot and latter disseminate to various government purses rather than having many closely related but different taxes at the same time. keywords – investments, multiple taxation, small and medium enterprises. adewara, et. al. (2023) examined the effect of multiple taxations on the financial performance of smes in ekiti state, nigeria. the study used a survey research method and analyzed it with correlation coupled with multiple regression analysis. the population comprises all registered and functional smes located in ado ekiti, nigeria, that have been in existence for over 5 years with valid proof of tax payment. the results found that multiple tax burdens and multiple tax administrations exhibited a significant negative relationship with the financial performance of smes in ekiti state, nigeria, global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 13 while the ability to pay tax revealed a significant positive relationship. from the aforementioned results, it was concluded that multiple taxes served as a worm that deeply reduced the investment potential of smes and invariably affected the chunk of revenue generated by the sector in the state. it was therefore suggested that the joint tax board in the state and other institutions responsible for multiple tax management should awaken to their functions and harmonize all government revenue to prevent the occurrence of multiple taxes from causing a burden and hindering the survival of smes in the state. adeniyi and imade (2018) looked at the implication of multiple taxations in achieving sustainable development among the small enterprises domiciled in lagos state, nigeria. the study looked at the burdens of multiple taxes and the administrative influence of multiple taxes on small-scale enterprises’ performance. questionnaires distributed among target smes in lagos state were employed using percentages and anova techniques. the outcome of the findings revealed that both burdens of multiple taxes and the administrative influence of multiple taxes significantly influence small-scale enterprises’ performance in lagos state, nigeria. ocheni and gemade (2015) carried out a study that investigated the effects of multiple taxation on the performance of small and medium scale business enterprises in benue state. the study also examined the effect of multiple taxation on smes’ survival. the study involves a survey research design with a population of 91. the researchers derived their sample size to arrive at 74 and a self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data. this data was quantitatively analyzed with simple percentages and the research hypotheses were tested with anova. findings revealed that multiple taxation has negative effect on smes’ survival and the relationship between smes’ size and its ability to pay taxes is significant. the research, therefore, recommends that government should come up with uniform tax policies that will favour the development of smes in nigeria and government should put into consideration the size of smes when formulating tax policies. aluko et al. (2022) assessed the effect of tax incentives on the liquidity performance of quoted manufacturing firms in the nigeria exchange group. the study used an expo-facto research design, and the population of the study comprised 18 industrial goods firms listed in the nigeria exchange group from 2012 to 2021. the sample size of 10 firms was selected through a purposive sampling technique. the data for the study was obtained from secondary sources through the published financial statements of the companies. data were analyzed through descriptive and inferential statistics. the result from the analysis of data revealed that tax savings had a significant and positive effect on the liquidity performance of companies. the findings from the study also global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 14 revealed that tax holiday has a negative and insignificant effect on companies' liquidity performance. using selected firms that engaged in hospitality services in abia state, onyeukwu et al. (2021) looked at how their financial performance is being affected by multiple taxations. its study aimed at analyzing whether multiple taxes hinder the survival and growth of selected firms in the state. data were gathered through a questionnaire and analyzed with multiple regression estimation techniques. the findings revealed that multiple taxations represented by non-statutory fees significantly influence the performance of the firm. nyong (2021) investigated the outcome of multiple taxations on the growing status of smes in nigeria. secondary data were obtained from selected smes of the state and analyzed with regression analysis estimation techniques. it was discovered that tenement rate, refuse disposal, business permit fee, signpost/advert fee, and development levy did not influence the growth prospect of smes in nigeria. methodology research design this study is a survey research design. survey research design is a research design that makes use of primary method for data collection to gather information needed for a study from a sample of a given population (avedian, 2014). this study thus made use of quantitative instrument (questionnaire) in collecting data from the population of the study. area of study the area of the study is enugu state. enugu state is located in south eastern nigeria. it is located at 6°30′n 7°30′e of the equator. the state is bordered on the north by benue and kogi states, bordered on the east by ebonyi state, bothered by abia state on the south, and anambra state to the west. enugu is known for the production of agricultural products such as yam, cocoyam, groundnuts, palm oil, maize, beans, and cassava, among others. the state also hosts lots of manufacturing and service rendering firms – large, medium and small. the presence of many smes in the area made it suitable for the present study. population of the study according to national bureau of statistics (nbs) and small and medium enterprises development agency of nigeria (smedan, 2013), there are seventeen thousand four hundred and ninety-eight (17,498) registered smes in global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 15 enugu state. sample size the sample size for the study was estimated using taro yamane statistical formula. the formula is stated thus: where n = sample size sought n= population size 1= constant e = degree of error (0.07) therefore, n = 17498 1+17498(0.07)2 n = 17498 1+17498(0.0049) n = 17498 85.7451 n = 204.06 (approx. 204). this study was conducted using 204 registered smes across various local government areas in the state. the population for the study was made up of 204 managers and ceos of the 204 selected smes. method of data analysis statistical package for the social sciences (spss) was used to process the data collected from the field. the data collected for the study were analysed using descriptive statistics and presented in frequency tables, chart and graphs. the stated hypotheses were tested using chi-square inferential statistics at 0.05 level of significance. data presentation and analysis in this section, the data gotten from the field were analysed and presented. the research questions and objectives were first analysed after which the study hypotheses were tested. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 16 research question 1: what are the various forms of taxes paid by smes in enugu state? table 1: taxes paid by smes in enugu state table 1 shows that there are several taxes paid by smes in enugu state. and these include corporate tax, value added tax, stamp duty, industrial trading fund tax, capital gain tax and other taxes and levy. however, the major taxes paid by majority of the smes are corporate tax (69.1%), capital gain tax (52.9%), company income tax (50%) and other taxes (57.8%). table 2: number of agencies smes pay tax to in enugu state source: spss version 25 table 2 shows the responses given by respondents when asked the number of agencies they pay taxes to. data from the table shows that 17.16% of the respondents indicated more than three agencies, 32.64% of the respondents indicated three, 45.59% of the respondents indicated two while 4.41% indicated one. this result means that majority of smes in enugu pay tax to three or more agencies. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 17 research question 2: what is the impact of multiple taxation on the production efficiency of smes in enugu state? table 3: respondents' levels of agreement on whether multiple taxation makes it difficult to carry out production activities source: spss version 25 table 3 shows that 50.00% of the respondents strongly agreed that multiple taxation makes it difficult for their enterprise to carry out production activities and 35.78% of the respondents agreed that multiple taxation makes it difficult for their enterprise to carry out production activities. on the other hand, 4.91% of the respondents disagreed that multiple taxation makes it difficult to carry out production activities while 9.31% of the respondents strongly disagreed that multiple taxation makes it difficult to carry out production activities. this result implies that majority of the respondents strongly agreed that multiple taxation makes it difficult for smes to carry out their production activities. table 4: respondents' levels of agreement on whether multiple taxation affects the quality of products and services source: spss version 25 table 4 shows that 16.18% of the study respondents strongly agreed that multiple taxation affects the quality of their products and services and 20.09% agreed that multiple taxation affects the quality of products and services. on the other hand, 19.12% of the respondents disagreed that multiple taxation affects the quality of products and services while 44.61% of the respondents which is the majority strongly disagreed that multiple taxation affects the quality of products and services. this implies that majority of smes’ products and services quality in enugu state is not affected by multiple taxation. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 18 table 5: respondents' levels of agreement on whether multiple taxation reduces production and service rendering capacity of smes source: spss version 25 table 5 shows that 29.90% of the respondents strongly agreed that multiple taxation reduces their enterprise production and service rendering capacity, 47.06% agreed that multiple taxation reduces their enterprise production and service rendering capacity, 15.69% disagreed that multiple taxation reduces their enterprise production and service rendering capacity while 7.35% of the respondents strongly disagreed that multiple taxation reduces their enterprise production and service rendering capacity. the result in table 5 implies that majority of the respondents agreed that smes production and service rendering capacity is reduced by multiple taxation in enugu state. table 6: respondents' views on the production efficiency of their enterprise table 6 shows the responses given by respondents on the efficiency of their enterprise. data presented in the table show that 38.25% of the respondents indicated that their enterprise is very efficient, 45.10% of the respondents indicated that their enterprise is efficient while 16.66% of the respondents indicated that their enterprise is not efficient. the result in table 6 shows that majority of the respondent agreed that their enterprise is efficient with regards to production. research question 3: what is the impact of multiple taxation on management efficiency of smes in enugu state? global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 19 table 7: respondents' level of agreement to whether multiple taxation affects the day-to-day coordination of smes source: spss version 25 table 7 shows that 10.78% of the respondents strongly agreed that multiple taxation affects the day-to-day coordination of smes, 13.73% of the respondents agreed that multiple taxation affects the day-to-day coordination of smes, 46.08% of the respondents disagreed that multiple taxation affects the day-to-day coordination of smes while 25.49% of the respondent strongly disagreed that multiple taxation affects the day-to-day coordination of smes. data in table 7 shows a high level of disagreement by respondents which is an indication that multiple taxation does not affect the day-to-day coordination of smes in enugu state. table 8: respondents' views on whether multiple taxation makes management of enterprise more difficult source: spss version 25 data in table 8 show that 49.02% of the respondents strongly agreed that multiple taxation makes management of their enterprise more difficult and 16.66% of the respondents agreed that multiple taxation makes management of their enterprise more difficult. on the other hand, 21.08% of the respondents disagreed that multiple taxation makes management of their enterprise more difficult while 13.24% of the respondents strongly disagreed that multiple taxation makes management of their enterprise more difficult. data presented in table 8 show that there is strong level of agreement among the study respondents that multiple taxation makes management of smes more difficult in enugu state. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 20 table 9: respondents' views on the management efficiency of their enterprise source: spss version 25 table 9 shows the level of efficiency among smes in enugu state. data in the table show that 75.00% of the respondents indicated that their management is very efficient, 14.22% indicated that their management is efficient while 10.78% of the respondents indicated that the management of their enterprise is not efficient. by implication, majority of the respondents agreed that the management of their enterprise is efficient. research question 4: how can multiple taxation problems of smes be curbed in enugu state? table 10: respondents' levels of agreement on whether adopting single tax system can curb smes multiple taxation problems source: spss version 25 table 10 shows that 35.78% of the respondents strongly agreed that adopting single tax system can curb smes multiple taxation problems, 50.00% of the respondents agreed that adopting single tax system can curb smes multiple taxation problems, 9.80% of the respondents disagreed that adopting single tax system can curb smes multiple taxation problems while 4.41% of the respondents strongly disagreed that adopting single tax system can curb smes multiple taxation problems. data in table 10 show that there is a strong agreement among respondents that adopting single tax system can curb smes multiple taxation problems. table 11: respondents' levels of agreement on whether taxing smes as they earn can curb multiple taxation problems global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 21 table 11 shows respondents’ level of agreement when asked whether taxing smes as they earn can curb multiple taxation problems. data from the table shows that 44.61% of the respondents strongly agreed that taxing smes as they earn can curb multiple taxation problems while 39.22% of the respondents agreed that taxing smes as they earn can curb multiple taxation problems. on the other hand, 7.35% of the respondents disagreed that taxing smes as they earn can curb multiple taxation problems while 8.82% of the respondents strongly disagreed that taxing smes as they earn can curb multiple taxation problems. the implication of data presented in table 11 shows that majority of the respondents are in agreement that taxing smes as they earn can curb multiple taxation problems. table 12: respondents’ level of agreement on whether putting taxes to good use to benefit smes can eradicate multiple taxation problems source: spss version 25 table 12 shows the responses given by respondents when asked whether putting taxes to good use to benefit smes can eradicate multiple taxation problems. data from the table show that 49.02% of the respondents indicated strongly agree, 28.43% of the respondents indicated agree, 16.18% indicated disagree while 6.37% of the respondents indicated strongly disagree. this result implies that majority of the respondents strongly agreed that putting taxes to good use to benefit smes can eradicate multiple taxation problems. test of hypotheses the hypotheses stated in this study were tested using chi-square inferential statistics with a level of significance of 0.05. hypothesis 1: there is no significant relationship between multiple taxation and production efficiency of smes in enugu state. data in tables 2 and 6 were crossed to test the first research hypothesis. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 22 table 13: test of relationship between multiple taxation and production efficiency x² = 9.164, df = 6, p = .165 data in table 13 show an x² value of 9.164, degree of freedom (df) of 6 and an asymptotic value of .165. since the asymptotic value is greater that the level of significance (0.05), it is an indication that the alternative hypothesis is rejected. this implies that there is no significant relationship between multiple taxation and production efficiency of smes in enugu state. it can be concluded that paying multiple tax does not have impact on the production efficiency of smes in enugu state. hypothesis 2: there is no significant relationship between multiple taxation and management efficiency in enugu state. data in tables 2 and 9 were crossed to test the second research hypothesis. table 14: test of relationship between multiple taxation and management efficiency global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 23 x² = 3.170, df = 6, p = .787 data in table 14 show an x² value of 3.170, degree of freedom (df) of 6 and an asymptotic value of .787. since the asymptotic value is greater that the level of significance (0.05), it is an indication that the alternative hypothesis is rejected. this implies that there is no significant relationship between multiple taxation and management efficiency of smes in enugu state. it can be concluded that paying multiple tax does not have impact on the management efficiency of smes in enugu state. discussion of findings from the analysis of the first research question, it was found that there are several taxes paid by smes in enugu state; major taxes paid by majority of the smes are corporate tax, capital gain tax, company income tax and other taxes. it was also found through the first research question that majority of smes pay taxes to two or more agencies in enugu state. this finding supports the finding of okolo, okpalaojiego and okolo (2016) who found that smes in enugu pay tax to more than three agencies. the second research question asked was to find out the impact of multiple taxation on the production efficiency of smes in enugu state. the analysis of the second research question showed that multiple taxation makes it difficult for smes to carry out their production activities. on the other hand, it was also found through the second research question that multiple taxation does not affect the quality of smes’ products and services in enugu state. however, it was found that smes’ production and service rendering capacity is reduced by multiple taxation in enugu state. this finding partly supports the findings of adewara, dagunduro, falana, and busayo (2023) who found that multiple taxation reduces the investment potential and earnings of smes. thus, the more production and service rendering capacity of smes are reduced, the more their income is reduced. the third research question asked was to find out the impact of multiple taxation on management efficiency of smes in enugu state. analysis of the third research question showed that multiple taxation does not affect the dayto-day coordination of smes in enugu state but makes management of smes more difficult. this finding partly supports the findings of ocheni and gemade (2015) who found that multiple taxation makes the survival of smes difficult. the fourth research question was asked to find out how multiple taxation problems of smes can be curbed in enugu state. analysis of the fourth research question showed that adopting single tax system can curb smes multiple taxation problems. the analysis also showed that taxing smes as they earn can curb multiple taxation problems. further, the analysis of the fourth global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 24 research question showed that putting taxes to good use to benefit smes can eradicate multiple taxation problems. this finding supports the finding of ocheni and gemade (2015) who found that considering sme size when taxing and also putting tax to good use help curb the adverse effect taxation may have on smes. the first hypotheses tested found no significant relationship between multiple taxation and production efficiency of smes in enugu state. the second hypothesis tested also found that paying multiple taxes does not have impact on the management efficiency of smes in enugu state. conclusion the study investigated the impact of multiple taxation on the efficiency of selected smes in enugu. from the analysis conducted, the study concluded that multiple taxation makes the production of goods and services difficult and reduces the production and service rendering capacity of smes. the study also concludes that multiple taxation also makes management of smes more difficult. recommendations based on the findings of the study, the study recommends that government adopting a single tax system that levy smes based on how they earn and using the taxes for the benefit of smes will reduce the challenges of multiple taxation problems that affect the production and management efficiency of smes in enugu state. references abiola, s. (2012) multiplicity of taxes in nigeria: issues problems and solutions. international journal of business and social sciences 3(17), 229. adewara, y., dagunduro, e., falana, g., and busayo, t., (2023). effect of multiple taxation on the financial performance of small and medium enterprises (smes) in ekiti state, nigeria. journal of economics, finance and accounting studies, 5(3), 121–129. adum, s. o (2018) burning issues in nigeria tax system and tax reforms on revenue generation: evidence from rivers state. international journal of finance and accounting, 7(2), 36-48. agwu, m. (2014). issues, challengesand prospectsof small and medium scale enterprises (smes) in port-harcourt city. european journal of sustainable development. 3. 101-114. 10.14207/ejsd.2014.v3n1p101. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 25 avedian, a. (2014). survey design: overview. harvard law school. available at: http://hnmcp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/arevikavedian-survey designpowerpoint.pdf bush, b. & maltby, j. (2004). taxation in west africa: transforming the colonial subject into the `governable person'. critical perspectives on accounting. 15. 5-34. 10.1016/s1045-2354(03)00008-x. chukwuemeka, n. (2017) multiple taxation and the operations of business enterprises in abia metropolis. pyrex journal of business and finance management research 3(6), 132-138. cseh, b. & varga, j. (2020). taxation and humans in the age of the fourth industrial revolution – financial and ethical comments. acta universitatis sapientiae, european and regional studies. 17. 103-117. 10.2478/auseur-2020-0005. ekpenyong, d.b. and nyong, m.o. (1992) small and medium-scale enterprises in nigeria. their characteristics, problems and sources of finance. african economic research consortium, nairobi. faloyin, s. k. (2015) unveiling the potentials of entrepreneurship. contemporary studies 68(6), 273-284. ilemona, s. a., nwite, s., & oyedokun, g. e. (2019). "effects of multiple taxation on the growth of small and medium enterprises in nigeria," journal of taxation and economic development, chartered institute of taxation of nigeria, 18(2), 1-8. izedonmi, f., (2010). eliminating multiple taxation in the capital market: the capital market perspective. a paper presented at the university of benin, benin city. lawal, k. s & aduku, n. r (2016) strategies for wooing investors in nigeria. paper presented at entrepreneurship conference federal polytechnic idah, may 8th–10th. mieseigha, e. g., & ihenyen, c. j. (2014). environmental cost accounting information and strategic business decision in nigeria. acta universitatis danubius. economica, 10, 18-27. momoh, u. k (2017) challenges of entrepreneurship growth and development in nigeria. multidisciplinary journal of contemporary issues, 6(4), 31 – 39. national bureau of statistics (2013). smedan and national bureau of statistics collaborative survey: selected findings (2013). (n.d.). available at: global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 4 sep-oct 2023 26 https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449 &url=https://nigerianstat.gov.ng/download/290&ved=2ahukewiqy5l xibsbaxuxvkeahbq6cjiqnoecboqaq&usg=aovvaw0slqhzyfl kwbpofyzabpofy za6n7j nigamaev, a.z., gapsalamov, a. akhmetshin, e., pavlyuk, a., prodanova, n.a., & savchenkova, d.v. (2018). transformation of the tax system during the middle ages: the case of russia. european research studies journal. 21. 242-253.10.35808/ersj/1057. oboh, c., yeye, o., & filibus, e. (2013). multiple tax practices and taxpayers' non compliance attitude in nigeria. international research journal of finance and economics. 10. ocheni, s. i. & gemade, t. i. (2015) effects of multiple taxation on the performance of small and medium scale business enterprise in benue state. international journal of academic research in business and social sciences5(3), 345-349. okolo, u. e., okpalaojiego, e. c. & okolo, c. v. (2016) the effects of multiple taxation on investment in small and medium scale enterprises in enugu state, nigeria. international journal of economics and management, 10 (1),378-385. issn 1307-6892. onyeukwu, o. o., ihendinihu, j. u., & nwachukwu, m. i. (2021). effect of multiple taxation on the financial performance of hospitality firms in abia state, nigeria. journal of research in business and management, 9(5), 1-10. oseni, m. (2014). multiple taxation as a bane of business development in nigeria. academic journal of interdisciplinary studies. 3. 10.5901/ajis.2014.v3n1p121. raigama, n.u (2016) entrepreneurship growth in nigeria: problems and prospects. journal of economic financial 6(4), 18-24. author information: anthonia onyinye ilodigwe is affiliated to the department of sociology, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, igbariam, anambra state, nigeria. email: ilodigwetonia@gmail.com global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 7 use of fenton’s reagent for pollutants removal in pharmaceutical effluent by e.i. madukasi and o.b.tojuola abstract effluent from a pharmaceutical factory producing a single chemical product was treated on a bench scale with advance oxidation process (h2o2 & fe2+). the effluent was as a result of the factory treatment of the pharmaceutical wastewater by uasb (up flow anaerobic sludge bed) and a sbr (sequencing batch reactor) process. the chromatechemical oxygen demand (codcr) range of the discharged effluent was between 8000-10,000mg/l with some residual recalcitrant compounds. the residual recalcitrant compounds which were measured by gas chromatography mass spectrometry (gc-ms) mainly consisted of alcohols, phenols and nitrogenous and sulfur compounds. the experimental variables studied include dosages of fe2+, h2o2 and mixing speed. the result showed that the oxidation by fenton’s reagent was best when concentration of iron (ii) sulfate and hydrogen peroxide were [fe2+]=1.093mmol/l; [h2o2] = 2.5mmol/l at ph = 3.0 for 30min at 80rpm; followed by conditioning with lime (1%) to ph = 8.0 where coagulation by iron hydroxide took place over 20min. under these optimal operating conditions, the maximum removal efficiency for codcr, color and the aromatic compounds were 56%, 95% and 90% respectively. keywords: fenton reagent; pharmaceutical effluent; hydrogen peroxide; ferrous salt; effluent treatment; chemical treatment introduction the process of toxicity reduction in pharmaceutical wastewater is of paramount importance due to known fact that substances synthesized in pharmaceutical industry are either toxic inhibitory compound or structurally complex organic chemicals that are resistant to biological degradation and consequent accumulation in the environment as well as possible carcinogenic and global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 8 mutagenic effect (jia et al, 2015; ronak & shweta, 2015; balcioglu & otker, 2003). this makes conventional treatment methods inadequate for the treatment of pharmaceutical wastewater. one of the possible methods for their degradation and removal is chemical oxidation, especially advanced oxidation processes (aops) using for example o3/h2o2 (peroxone); o3/h2o2/uv; o3/uv; h2o2/uv; tio2/uv and fenton reactions. these processes involve the in-situ formation of highly reactive hydroxyl radicals (•oh), which react quickly and non-selectively with almost all organic pollutants (vrushali & gawande, 2015; tijani et al., 2016; sanchis et al., 2013). one of the most important advance oxidation processes used to generate hydroxyl radicals employs the fe2+/h2o2 system where the catalyst (ferrous ions) is dissolved in water, thus being known as fenton process (yuan et al., 2013). fenton’s reaction is one of the most effective methods of oxidation of organic pollutants that are oxidatively degraded by hydroxyl radicals generated from h2o2 in the presence of fe3+ as a catalyst (hartmann et al., 2010; maezono et al., 2011). fe2+ + h2o2 ------------> fe3+ + oh + oh• equation1. when ferrous salts are used, the hydroxyl radical is produced immediately by the rapid reaction between ferrous ion and h2o2 (equqtion1). fe3+ can also be used to decompose h2o2 and to produce oxidative radicals in the fenton-like process. with ferric salts, the hydroxyl radical is produced in a two-stage process with the slow reaction between ferric ion and h2o2 (equation2) followed by the rapid reaction between the produced ferrous ion and additional hydrogen peroxide [kiwi et al.,1993]. fe3+ + h2o2------------> fe2+ +ho2 • + h+ equation 2. in most applications, it does not matter whether fe2+ or fe3+ ions are used to catalyze the reaction, although some authors (pera-titus et al., 2004; walling & amarnath, 1982) suggested that if low doses of fenton’s reagent are used ferrous ions may be preferable. the efficiency of fenton’s process depends on h2o2 and fe2+ concentrations and the ph of the reaction. according to some previous researcher’s report, ph value should range from 3 to 5 (mohammadine et al., 2014; navalon et al., 2010 and maezono et al., 2011). fenton reagent was found to be very effective in treating various industrial wastewater components, including aromatic & aliphatic compounds (barbusinski & filipek, 2001), a wide variety of dyes (hsueh et al., 2005) as well as many other substances, including pesticides (barbusïñki & filpek., 2001). in this work, we present the oxidative treatment of pharmaceutical effluent that contained some recalcitrant compounds by fenton reaction, using cod as determinand for the parameter only. this is because the pharmaceutical effluent will be subjected to critical biological treatment but effort was geared towards understanding the behavior of the effluent in a chemical treatment method hence the use of a single and most suitable global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 9 parameter for efficiency determination. material & methods wastewater: the pharmaceutical effluent is from a medium scale drug manufacturing plant situated in ota near lagos state nigeria. the presence of toxic compounds in wastewater was both due to the factory product as well as chemicals used in sterilizing the manufacturing equipment. the intermittent cleaning and disinfecting of the tanks used in the production as well as domestic utilization of the tap water make up the wastewater coming out of the plant. the plant manufacturing line is operated as batch reactor. all the characteristics of the wastewater (table1) were measured according to procedures described in standard methods (awwa, 1995) table1: pharmaceutical effluent chemical characterization parameters mean value ph bod5 (mg l-1) cod (mg l-1) suspended solids (mg l-1) total solids (mg l-1) fats and oils (mg l-1) detergents (mg l-1) odour 4,3 ± 0,3 1370 ± 260 8030 ± 800 65 ± 10 1400 ± 400 45 ± 25 100 ± 50 noticeable, peculiar, savoury experimental procedure: the following parameters of fenton’s reaction were examined and optimized; hydrogen peroxide and ferrous concentration, [fe2+]: [h2o2] ratio, and initial ph of the reaction. a liter of wastewater was added into one liter erlenmeyer flask which served as the reactor, acidified with h2so4 (fenton reaction is effective at acidic ph range). since the initial ph of the wastewater is above 5.0, the sample was acidified to the desired value in the ph range of 2.5 –4.0. after which various doses of 30% h2o2 and solid feso4.7h2o were added, the mixture was vigorously stirred for 1hour at 80rpm (oxidation process), then ph was adjusted to 8.0 with 1% lime and coagulated at 30rpm for 20min. it was allowed to sediment and chemical oxygen demand (cod) and residual h2o2 were determined in the clear solution. cod tests were made after total removal of residual h2o2. the residual h2o2 can increase the cod value since it acts as a reductant, especially in the chromate based analysis of cod determination. talinli and anderson (1992) investigated the reducing effect of h2o2 on global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 10 k2cr2o7 and they showed linear relationship between concentration of h2o2 and cod. residual h2o2 removal this was achieved by raising the ph of the solution (ph=10.5) at high temperature (45) in the presence of fe3+ with stirring at 65rpm and was sit overnight (walling & amarnath, 1982; krzysztof barbusinski, 2009). analytical methods aromatic and aliphatic compounds were analyzed by infrared spectrometer (ftir spectrometer) and confirmed with gas chromatography – mass spectrometry (gc– ms) as shown in fig1. the trace element analyses were carried out with inductive coupled plasma (optimal emission spectrometer, optima 5300dv). cod (closed reflux, trimetric method). concentration of residual h2o2 was analyzed by the kmno4 method. fig.1: gc chromatogram of the pharmaceutical effluent statistical analysis data are presented as mean ± sd of triplicate determinations and descriptive statistics was conducted using microsoft excel (2016). result and discussion effect of fe2+ concentration. it was shown that as the concentration of fe2+ increased, the cod removal increased until a point where further addition of iron becomes inefficient. the global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 11 feature of an optimal dose range for the iron catalyst is characteristics of fenton reagent although the range varies for different wastewater. typical ranges are [fe2+]:[h2o2 ] = 5– 25 (pere-titus et al., 2004). figure2 shows the effect of iron dosage on cod removal using different initial h2o2 concentrations. the result showed that the efficiency of fenton reaction depends on the concentration of fe2+ as occurs in the classical fenton reagent process. (rajesh & raman, 2013) have demonstrated that the cod removal is nearly the same using either fe2+ or fe3+ in the degradation of a textile wastewater by the fenton process. the maximum cod removal achieved in this study was between 40 – 56% depending on the hydrogen peroxide dosage. fig. 2:: effect of fe2+ concentration variation h2o2 @ 1.6m; ph = 2.5; mixing speed = 100rpm @ 30min effect of temperature and ph an initial experiment was carried out at room temperature and at 50oc, to show the effect of temperature on cod removal efficiency but no significant differences were observed in the treatment efficiency for the tested temperatures (data not shown). thus all further work was carried out at room temperature. research findings indicate that the temperature of the wastewater almost does not affect the efficiency of cod removal in fenton’s oxidation (peral et al., 2002; casero et al., 1997), although the redox reaction can be accelerated by rising the temperature as expected. the time required for the oxidation to be completed at room temperature was about 15–20 times longer than at 50oc which required several minutes (data not shown). when tested with initial ph range of 2.5 – 4.5, no significant differences in the treatment global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 12 efficiency were observed although ph 3.5 showed slightly better results. this finding is in adherence with the recent research reports that suggest that the optimum ph for fenton oxidation is between 3–5 and that it is independent of the nature of the wastewater. (tambosi et al., 2006; hsueh et al., 2005) all observed that ph affects significantly the degradation of organics by fenton reaction and acidic condition is required to produce sufficient hydroxyl radicals by the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide catalyzed by ferrous ions. in a recent study, (zhang et al., 2005) reported the optimum ph as 2.5 for the treatment of landfill leachate by fenton’s oxidation. effect of h2o2 concentration the degradation rate of organics in wastewater increases as the concentration of h2o2 increases until a critical h2o2 concentration is achieved (huseh, et al., 2005). above this critical concentration, the degradation rate of organic compounds decreases as a result of the scavenging effect, according to equation3 h2o2 + oh• ------------> ho2 • + h2o (3) fig.3 clearly shows that as the concentration of h2o2 increases, there was an increase in the cod removal efficiency up to the optimum concentration of 15ml/l. above this amount of h2o2, there was decrease in the efficiency removal. conclusion the fenton process could be applied to pharmaceutical effluent. the cod removal efficiency using oxidation was greatly affected by the initial ph of the solution. the most efficient reaction was observed at a ph of 3.0 and the optimum coagulation ph range to maximize the cod removal efficiency was between 6.0 – 8.0. for a pharmaceutical wastewater with a cod range of 8000 – 10000mg/l, average cod removal efficiency was highest when the ratio of h2o2/fe2+ was about 150–250. at 0.3m h2o2 and 0.012m the optimum cod removal efficiency of 65% was achieved. fenton reagent could be used to treat pharmaceutical wastewater that contains some constituents that are extremely toxic to biological processes hence viewed as biocides. fenton’s reaction proves to be an efficient treatment technology when biological treatment is not feasible. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 13 acknowledgements the authors wish to acknowledge the technical support given by fiiro and coou respectively. references alpha standard methods for the examination of water and wastewater, 18th edn. american public health association washington, dc, 1992. balcioglu, a. and otker,m.(2003). treatment of pharmaceutical wastewater containing antibiotics by o3 and o3/h2o2 processes, chemosphere 50: 85–95. barbusïñki, k. and filpek, k. 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(1982). oxidation of mandelic acid by fenton’s reagent. j. am. chem. soc. 104: 1185-1189. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 15 zhang, h., choi, h. j. and huang, c. p. (2005) optimization of fenton process for the treatment of landfill leachate, j. hazard. mater. 125: 66-174. author information: dr edith ifeoma madukasi is a lecturer in the department of environmental management, faculty of environmental sciences, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, uli, anambra state, nigeria. email: madify2002@gmail.com o.b.tojuola works at the federal institute of industrial research, oshodi, lagos, nigeria. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 56 music and charismatic/pentecostal worship: nigerians’ instrument of achieving peace of mind in the midst of difficulties by jude toochukwu orakwe abstract nigeria has passed through lots of social upheavals, economic difficulties and political instability ever since her independence in 1960. nigerians have suffered and continue to suffer in patience! but one can also recall that similar – if not lesser pains – experienced in some arab countries gave rise to the so-called arab spring. among the causes of the arab spring are: political corruption, human right violations, inflation, kleptocracy, unemployment and ultimately the self-immolation of one mohammed bouazizi in tunisia on 17 december 2010. in summary, the so-called arab spring affecting countries like tunisia, egypt, libya, yemen, syria, etc. was a chain of unprecedented violent revolution against the socio-political status quo. the question remains: why has nigeria not erupted in the flames of revolution given that the same causes of the arab spring – and even much more – have always remained with nigerians? why have nigerians not risen up against the oppression and insensitivity of the political/ruling class? answering this question in this paper, by analyzing nigerians’ personal experiences using hermeneutical and phenomenological theories and methods, i argue that nigerians have employed and still employ charismatic/pentecostal music as their instrument of negotiating their way through all the difficulties they go through and achieving peace of mind in the midst of these difficulties. keywords: charismatic/pentecostal movement, worship, music, negotiation, phenomenological method introduction narrative theology stands as one of the backbones or mainstay of pentecostal/charismatic christianity in nigeria. conceptually speaking, harvey defines narrative theology as a theological current that: global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 57 …examines the relationship between narrative as a literary form and theological reflection. it is a relationship derived from the basic observation that it is in reading, telling and interpretation of narratives that humans derive communal and personal identity as well as provide for meaningful activity in the world (harvey 2008, p. 598). harvey’s definition serves to show that narrative theology, among other things, embraces personal-faith stories and experiences. in this guise, one can easily observe that narrative theology influences not only the manner of preaching in nigerian churches, especially in pentecostal/charismatic prayer meetings, but also the framing of songs that are often used for worship in nigerian christian communities. my emphasis in this essay is on the aspect of composition and use of call-response gospel choruses in nigerian churches. ethnographic report before proceeding, i want to give an ethnographic account of a live church worship that i experienced on october 31, 2012 as i was preparing to embark on my doctoral dissertation research in the field of ethnomusicology. it was at the holy trinity catholic church, isashi, lagos. there was the burning of the written petitions of the church members by the priest at the end of what is known as the october devotion. as the burning was being done, there came up a most energetic outburst of praise-worship songs led by one ngozi (an igbo lady married with two children). i had never seen such a gifted chorus leader as ngozi. somebody informed me that normally, as soon as she starts singing, she goes out of herself. “a kind of entering into altered state of consciousness?” i queried myself. probably so, because during the church service, she seemed to have entered into the world of what she was singing (see titon 2008, p. 31ff) and freely manipulated the singing to and fro, tonally bending her voice with such ease and moving from one song to another. she instructed the congregation on what to do: dancing, clapping, making inyanga (exhibiting pride in a “holy way”) and the congregation obeyed in chorus with an astounding blind obsequiousness. two songs in pidgin english performed to the accompaniment of percussive instruments were especially outstanding. the first has the following lyrics: solo: why i no go make inyanga? chorus: why i no go make inyanga? solo: why i no go make shakara? chorus: why i no go make shakara? jesus na my papa, mary na my global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 58 mother, holy ghost na my director, why i no go make inyanga? (why will i not show off? why will i not be prideful? jesus is my father. mary is my mother. holy ghost is my director. why will i not show off?) the second song goes thus: solo: me i no go suffer. i no go beg for bread (x2). god of miracle, chorus: na my papa-o solo: god of miracle, chorus: na my papa-o. (i will not suffer nor beg for bread [because] god of miracle is my father.) these songs were rendered with a highly polyrhythmic and heterophonic sound of nigerian native instruments that kept the worshipping audience rocking with energetic body movement and worship dancing. the whole scenario triggered off in me a reflection that has marks of phenomenological epoche. i sensed the need to treat the religious performance of the isashi worshippers as an “important and critical data” (stone 2008, p. 165), while phenomenologically bracketing all “prejudices and schematisms” (http://www.zenit.org). dealing with prejudice previously, because of my philosophical and theological formation, i used to regard these songs as couched in vulgar and liturgically unacceptable language. i used to reason about the wrong theology inherent in the first song: why i no go make inyanga, which addresses jesus as “papa” whereas, as the second person of the blessed trinity, he is the son. one version of the song addresses the holy ghost as “my brother” which sounded to me like arrant nonsense. with regard to the second song, i saw it as expressing an irrational craze for miracle in its persistent invocation of the “god of miracle… na my papa,” especially given its insistence “me i no go suffer…” the fact that these two songs were couched in pidgin english – in my reasoning – did not help matters given that pidgin english is often regarded in nigeria as language of the illiterate and uneducated folks! however, within the particular context of the worship at holy trinity, isashi, i was struck to the depth by the sincerity and unpretentiousness with which the members of the congregation rendered and physically dramatized these songs under the musical leadership of ngozi, who seemed to wield an uncanny moral sway over the worshiping participants. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 59 it was a performance that was coming from the profundity of their experiences both as individuals and as a community. can these simple and sincere folks just be dismissed with the wave of hands just on the basis of philosophical or even theological ratiocination that deliberately fails to take into consideration their unique sitz-im-leben? this calls into focus the necessity of ethnographically appraising their culturally founded system of worship with the approach of phenomenology. phenomenologist approach ethnomusicologists have felt much drawn to “sociological phenomenology” that evolved in the literary works of alfred schutz (1971a, pp. 159-178, 1979b, pp. 179-200). musically speaking, sociological phenomenology makes two assumptions, namely: “music can be regarded as occurring within a ‘finite province of meaning.’ durée, or inner time, is the central focus of the musical experience” (stone 2008, p. 168). the first assumption implies that music occurs in a marked-off world that has its own logic apart from the logic of everyday manner of living. for example, in music, motion and time are virtual but in the world of practical everyday living, these spatio-temporal factors are real. in speaking of inner time, schutz refers to that qualitative experience of time that defies quantification. schutz’s characterization of qualitative time experience is especially, though not exclusively, true of african religious music. it is true of worship performance at holy trinity, isashi, because from my observation, the central concern of the worshipers was not how long the worship lasted but its quality. with the quality established by the singing, there was – in my opinion – a flight from the normal chronometric time into the inner qualitative time of the music such that left to the worshipers, the worship could as well last into the night. i then saw it as my duty as an ethnographer to hold on to “this qualitative time as a primary point of analysis [given that] it is here that experience is at its most intense” (stone 2008, p. 168). this flight into qualitative time is very pivotal for understanding how nigerians religiously use charismatic/pentecostal worship and religious music making as a tool of negotiating through their life difficulties. by flight into the virtual time of religious music, social problems and even the exigency to tackle these problems headlong are literally swept under the carpet or flushed into the septic tank of oblivion. towards a hermeneutic re-evaluation now, armed with the tool of phenomenology – with its emphasis on shelving off prejudices – the crucial question is: how does one interpret the global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 60 music making i experienced? how does one interpret lots of the charismatic and pentecostal music making going on in many of the mainline churches and minor denominational sects? i was in isashi lagos for more than a month, between the middle of october and late november in 2012 (because of the delay in the processing of my visa to italy) and also for a few weeks between february and march 2013 (when i came back to renew my visa) and personally experienced the difficulty of living in an area that is usually full of flood and stagnant water, riddled with the problem of epileptic supply of electricity together with the difficulty of general transportation. it then dawned on me, without much discursive reasoning, what the worshiping congregation meant as they were singing: “me i no go suffer…” or “why i no go make inyanga…?” these songs, in my calculation, constitute packages of condensed narrative theology in which the people of isashi tell the stories of their life in the midst of suffering, a life that no longer depends much on the political class that often disappoints the people in being unable to provide for their basic necessities but only on god, in whom and with whom “they make shakara.” the above understanding and explanation of my experience of the worship singing in isashi church serves to open the question of how nigerians go through their difficulties in life aided by their recourse to church worship songs. adducing the reasons for the flowering of the charismatic/pentecostal movement in nigeria and citing marshall, rosalind hackett contends that such growth has much to do with the political trajectory of nigeria, especially given the recurrence of corrupt and inept civilian government as well as illegal incursion of the military into politics. hence, “religious organizations have provided outlets for expression and action – but more cathartic and veiled, rather than of a directly critical nature.” further, she argues: “economically… nigeria [has] gone through hard times with structural adjustment programs and falls in commodity prices, whether oil or gold. 'only god can save us' is a common refrain” (hackett 1998, p. 260). the phenomenological reality is that the attitude of ‘only god can save us’ gets crystallized in various forms of call-response gospel choruses that one hears in various churches in nigeria. i will briefly discuss three genres of call-response that reflect efforts by nigerians to overlook or look beyond the various problems they encounter in their daily difficult life as nigerians. songs of praises according to bob sorge: praise is preoccupied with who god is and what he has done. it global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 61 focuses on both his incomparable character and his wondrous acts on behalf of his children. when god does something glorious for us, we love to lift high praises. and yet praise is not simply our thankful response to his provision; praise is also very fitting even when we have no specific gift of god in mind. he is worthy to be praised solely for who he is (sorge 2001, p. 2). in the charismatic/pentecostal worship of nigerians, praise songs are performed uninterruptedly at the beginning of a fellowship session, with the accompaniment provided by a guitar band on big occasions or indigenous instruments in smaller gatherings. when there are no instruments, then clapping of hands becomes the accompaniment. the singing at this point tallies with what barry liesch describes as “free flowing praise” in which “songs are often stitched together into a medley by improvisational playing and modulation to create a sense of seamlessness, of one song flowing into the next” (redman 2002, p. 35; see liesch 1996). among the praise songs that celebrate the essence of god would be pieces like (a) since i was born, but now i am getting old, i have never seen my lord changeth, brothers (sisters) have you seen him, no nonono, since i was born, i have never seen my lord changeth, (b) lift him up, higher, lift him up, higher, the lord is good i will lift him up higher, everywhere i go i will lift him up higher, (c) mmamma diri gi o chineke, mmamma diri gi o onyeoma (praise be to you, o god, praise be to you, righteous one). in pidgin english, there is also the song: jesus na you be oga, jesus na you be oga, all other gods na so so yeye, every other god na so so yeye (jesus, you are the lord [twice]. all other gods are false, every other god is false). the last song exalts jesus as the only true god and lord. note that the lyrics could be used as a veiled reference to those powerful politicians who pretend to parade themselves as if they were gods. from the perspective of what god has done, so many songs of praise abound, for example: (a) tubara ya mmamma. si ya na o meela. onye huru jisos tubara ya mmamma si ya na o meela (bless him, tell him that he has done well, whoever sees jesus should bless him and tell him that he has done so well), (b) kpo ya omemma (3x) omemma, kpo ya omemma, omemma, e omemma, e omemma, omemma,omemma (call him the doer of good), (c) o lord i am very very grateful, for all you have done for me. o lord i am very very grateful, i am saying thank you my lord, (d) mkpo aha ya, ihe ukwu ga-eme, mkpo aha ya, ihe ukwu ga-eme (if i call his name great things will happen) (e) na so so wonder jesus dey do, na so so wonder jesus dey do, eee he has done it for me (thrice), na so so wonder jesus dey do (jesus performs so many wonders, yes he has done global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 62 it for me). all the songs cited above focus on the good deeds or wonders of god. they express a conviction about what god has done, can do and is doing in the present moment. worship songs worship is really an intimate encounter between a human person and the creator. therefore, worship song can be defined as one that involves “one’s heart expression of love, adoration and praise to god with an attitude and acknowledgement of his supremacy and lordship.” it is an outpouring in song, with “awesome wonder and overpowering love”, of one’s “inner self upon the lord jesus christ in affectionate devotion” (sorge 2001, p. 64). furthermore, bob sorge (cf. 2001, pp. 68-71), an expert of pentecostal/charismatic worship, describes worship song as requiring a relationship of communion or fellowship “because worship is a two-way street, involving giving and receiving.” he also sees worship songs as a bit “more reflective and quieter,” requiring less bodily and spiritual effort than praise and characterized, as it were, “by a quiet and unassumed basking in god’s presence” (redman 2002, pp. 37-38). worship songs often give rise to an experience of altered states of consciousness or ecstasy.1 altered states of consciousness can be seen as a psychosomatic mode in which the human person is open to the irruption of his or her sensibility by the numinous power and presence of the holy spirit. with this irruption, one begins to have “decreased awareness of one’s surrounding [as well as] a decreased sense of control” (magliocco 2004, p. 160; see evans 1979, pp. 33-48 and sturm 2000). i argue that this is one of the ways by which nigerians take flight from the raw reality of social upheavals facing them due to the political mismanagement of the country by the political class. songs that are used for worship includes the following (a) thou art worthy, thou art worthy o lord to receive glory honor and power, for thou has created all things and for thy pleasure they are and were created (b) holy, holy,holy,holy, lord god almighty, as we lift up our hearts before you as a token of our love, holy, holy, holy, holy and (c) you are highly lifted up, there is no one like you, halle, halle, halleluia. spiritual warfare song in nigerian pentecostalism/charismatism, evil forces are seen as expressions of satanic power. indeed “belief in invisible spiritual forces, especially malevolent spiritual powers” is a pivotal aspect of indigenous global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 63 african religious worldviews and this cosmic perspective is deeply embedded in both the credo and praxis of african christianity (ray 1993, p. 268). nigerians conceive evil not in mere moral or abstract way but “in terms of real powers such as witches and spirits” (probst 1989, p. 482). hence, the necessity of waging constant spiritual battle against the evil and malevolent forces. a nigerian research respondent, tony chukwu, told me that spiritual warfare has to do with “spiritual battle against the enemies, the principalities and power” (interview 5/25/2013). note that these principalities and powers can in fact be conceived as operating within the political arena, what with the common belief in nigeria that many politicians and power brokers are members of satanic cults! warfare songs are therefore meant to deal with all situations of direct or indirect satanic oppression, whether this oppression is understood in a vague and general way or in a particular concrete case of individual diabolical harassment. warfare song therefore becomes a way of “reaching out to the power of the spirit in battling against the physical and social afflictions of daily life” (butticci 2013, p. 7). some good example of warfare chants are: o bu onye na-ebu agha, okpara chineke na-ebu agha, agha. umuchineke agha adawo, umu chineke na agha dara, agha, umu chineke agha adawo agha. o bu onye na-ebu agha, agha (who wages the battle, the son of god wages the battle, children of god there is war, children of god there is war, who wages the battle). another good example is the song: “when jesus says ‘yes’ nobody can say ‘no.’” there is also the popular nigerian pidgin english song: satan don fall for ground-o, macham macham.(satan has fallen to the ground, march on him, march on him). singing as an instrument of resistance with the foregoing, it is clear that gospel chorus singing in nigerian churches is not just only an element of worship and christian religious practice but are instruments of social resistance. social resistance in this case is not to be understood in terms of physical or violent response to the muddied socio-political status quo but a way of internal or attitudinal negotiation or/and renegotiation of one’s relationship to the various issues that are connected with the political malaise of nigeria as a nation. at the first level, these gospel choruses constitute a refusal to yield to the onslaught of the demonic that is believed to be afflicting nigeria. many nigerians are strongly convinced that the negative trajectory of the country reached its climax with the organization and execution of the nigerian festival of art and culture (festac) in 1977. with its profligate waste global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 64 of money, lavish showcasing of nudity-prone cultural performances and outright idolatry, the festac heralded “the beginning of nigeria's downward trend in every sphere of life,” inasmuch as by the festival, “nigeria had given an open invitation to the very kingdom of the devil to invade her and perpetuate his reign of terror” (ononyemu 1993 quoted in hackett 1998, p. 261). with this kind of belief system, nigerians’ adoption of gospel choruses – especially the spiritual warfare songs – can arguably be seen as an act of saying “no” to the prospect of domination by the devil in any aspect of their life. a practical parallel to this negation can easily be seen in the contemporary efforts being made in various enclaves of igboland to rid “the land” of evil luck bringing idols. at the next level, nigerians are telling the political class: “we don’t give a damn about what your stinking greed can do to us. with god we can make it.” nigerians are not so naïve as to be ignorant of what they suffer from the political class. indeed, it would even seem that the political class is aware of nigerians’ almost unbreakable resilience and their willingness to bear being exploited. the whole scenario is further helped or accentuated by the reality of what one would regard as the “do you feed me?” nigerian mentality. this is where the song “me i no go suffer…” falls in. nigerians do not see god as a deus otiosus – a far away god. he is always near and is immediately interested in their affairs. political stalwarts may fail them but god will never fail them. hackett notes about the pentecostal churches in nigeria that “their progressive, goal-oriented attitudes attract the youth, disillusioned with the empty moral claims of their elders and leaders” (hackett 1998:260). these attitudes found their way to the youths as subtle messages distilled through the gospel choruses such as “me i no go suffer…” and “why i no go make inyanga.” finally, nigerians see the very problems facing them as mountains that must be removed. consider the song: “it’s not by might (2 times), it’s not by power (2 times), by my spirit says the lord, this mountain shall be removed (3 times) by my spirit says the lord.” in this song, one sees nigerians’ refusal to be mastered or broken by the spates of fuel scarcity that is now becoming history with the deregulation, endless news of corruption in high places, the rising price of the dollar and household goods in the market. as if to show off that they can always thrive amidst hardship, nigerians will proudly sing: people dey ask me say, wetin dey make you fine, i just dey tell them say: na jesus dey make me fine. thus, in spite of hardships in nigeria, marriage celebration keeps being a freefor-all carnival-like fanfare; funerals remain a wild “celebration of life” while december period has not ceased being a time of opening of new houses, showcasing of new cars and other similar celebrations that serve as global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 65 evidence of “good living.” conclusion nigerians love singing. indeed, my research about singing in nigerian churches reveals that nigerians cannot conceive a church service without vibrant singing and energetic rhythmic movements of their bodies. call it dancing, if you like! but one needs to notice that apart from the spiritual significance of these songs, they constitute subtle instruments of social but internal resistance by which nigerians are able to come to terms with their daily hardships as citizens of one of the most corrupt nations on earth where, in spite of unending abundance of natural resources, ordinary nigerians in the street continue to suffer endlessly while some of their political leaders continue to batten on spoils of their political office. i argue that nigerians are not likely ready and probably will never be ready for any war – and war is, of course, not a good course to take. nor are they likely ready for any seriously violent revolution in the guise of the arab spring against their politicians, for that matter – and i do not pray for this either. however, the undeniable phenomenological reality on the ground is that they never place and have never placed much trust on the political class. their confidence is only in the god of miracles, whom they praise in songs from day to day – and they listen to hundreds of praise and worship songs that keep being produced from week to week in nigeria. this god – they believe – really so takes care of them that in him they can even make inyanga for the political class. in him, and only in him, they dey kampe. and the case remains closed. endnote 1. scientifically defined, ecstasy is a “qualitative alteration in the overall pattern of mental functioning, such that the experiencer feels his [sic] consciousness is radically different from the ‘normal’ way it functions” (tart, 1972:94 quoted in magliocco 2004:160). bibliography butticci, a. 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(2008). knowing fieldwork. in shadows in the field: new perspectives for fieldwork in ethnomusicology, edited by g. f. barz & t. j. cooley. oxford: oxford university press: 25‐41. author information: rev. fr. dr. jude toochukwu orakwe is of the department of music, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, anambra state, nigeria. email: jatomaria@gmail.com. apa orakwe, j. t. (2024). music and charismatic/pentecostal worship: nigerians’ instrument of achieving peace of mind in the midst of difficulties. global online journal of academic research (gojar), 3(3), 56-67. https://klamidas.com/gojar-v3n3-2024-04/. mla orakwe, jude toochukwu. “music and charismatic/pentecostal worship: nigerians’ instrument of achieving peace of mind in the midst of difficulties”. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3, 2024, pp. 56-67. https://klamidas.com/gojarv3n3-2024-04/. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 104 rethinking motifs in selected children’s literary texts blessing ekpe okpapi & enajite ojaruega abstract this study evaluates various motifs in selected children’s literary texts against the backdrop of exposing negative and anti-social conducts among children and members of the society. it also foregrounds the artistic merit in the use of various literary tropes by authors of children’s literature in enhancing their appeal to the audience. the primary texts for this study are james ene henshaw’s this is our chance and chinua achebe’s chike and the river. they are selected because they best exemplify the critical use of motifs in achieving the required message that this study is geared towards. the sociological approach to literature which concentrates on the extrinsic elements that examine the relationship between literature and society is applied to determine the artistic elements and motifs in the selected texts. the paper shows that the themes treated in children’s literatures are often those that children are concerned with at various stages of their life – such as heroism, adventure, risk, mischief, fantasy, love, overcoming restiveness, jealousy and so on. the paper, therefore, concludes that since heroism and adventure constitute the major fulcrum of nigerian children’s literature, authors of children’s literature should choose a principal character who is going to be the hero or heroine in their works. thus, the development of the story is the development of the hero/heroine until the end of the story where he/she overcomes the conflict. keywords: children’s literature, motifs, thematic preoccupations, literary texts introduction children’s literature, which is often illustrated, consists of all literary creations for readers and listeners in their teenage or younger years. it is literature meant and intentionally written for children in elementary/primary schools as well as those in junior secondary schools to read and understand. the children, through their encounter with the texts, get involved with the events, setting, actions, intrigues, characters and ideas in the books. in other words, children literature offers the young ones the opportunity to explore global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 105 situations and feelings in literary texts they may have not yet encountered in real life. although critics of children’s literature believe that the characteristics of children’s literature are its short length, limited characters, action, condensation of plot and incident, linear story-line and simple language style, the most important and endearing aspect of children’s literature is its photo illustrations. children’s literature is important because it provides pupils with opportunities to respond to literature. it makes them appreciate their own cultural heritage as well as those of others. it helps develop emotional intelligence and creativity. it nurtures growth and development of their personality and social skills; and it transmits important literature and themes from one generation to the next. various forms of children’s literature abound. they range from biographies, children’s poetry, children’s stories, fables, fairy tales, fantasy, to science fiction, among others. these various forms are well propagated in books, vcds and animated film stations. since one of the functions of children’s literature is to promote morality in children, children’s books usually feature well-illustrated pictures relevant to the text to broaden the children’s knowledge and sensitize them on current socio-political and scientific issues. in this regard, books with themes of greed, dishonesty, injustice, hunger, industry and heroism are well illustrated to portray negative and positive traits that the children should imbibe or discard. the graphic illustrations play a great role in books intended for young readers – texts some critics refer to as “beginner’s books”, especially when they are written for pre-literate children between ages 0-5. these illustrated pictures remain in the memory of the children for a long time. according to lesnik-oberstein (1994, p.6), “even after children attain sufficient levels of literacy to enjoy the story without illustrations, they continue to appreciate the occasional drawings found in chapter books”. nigerian children’s literature are fictional narratives that treat various themes that revolve around heroism, adventure, bravery as well as others that are meant for the edification of the young ones. however, acholonu (2012, p.23) raises concern about the overriding exploitation of the themes of crime and violence in some so-called children’s books with the portraiture of young children involved in criminal acts. this, to acholonu, is inappropriate because it makes a child or the reader of these texts, relive the harrowing experiences that the protagonist goes through. in essence, themes of violence and crime in children’s literature should be toned down. to this end, acholonu, in discussing the use of motifs, primarily focuses on language and its appropriateness, while recommending positive themes, such as heroism, the use of images and various literary devices that enhance the message and aesthetic quality of children’s books. furthermore, while some of the existing scholarship on nigerian global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 106 children’s literature have contributed to the understanding of moral aspects of children’s literature, little studies have been done in the area of heroism and the artistry inherent in creative works that constitute nigerian children’s literature, which is what this essay sets out to investigate. in order to achieve this, the paper focuses on james ene henshaw’s this is our chance and chinua achebe’s chike and the river. the choice of these texts derives from the fact that they best exemplify the themes of heroism, bravery, adventure, etc. which constitute the pedagogical fulcrum of this paper. diverse themes in achebe’s chike and the river and henshaw’s this is our chance multiple themes are explored in the two texts selected for investigation in this essay. they include the themes of heroism/bravery, love, and adventure. other favoured themes are jealousy and hatred. these themes are significant because they express the general experience of children in relation to the environment and human society. children’s literature, therefore, comments on both the positive and negative aspects of society, with the aim of orientating the children to learn from the experiences of persons portrayed in the stories. the theme of heroism is a favoured one in the genre of children’s literature in africa. according to dandatti abdulkadir (1981, p.31), the term ‘hero’ in africa is used to describe “courage and endurance man exhibits in his struggle for survival, or in his pursuit of honour”. he states further that “these actions involve great risk and are considered heroic by the conventions and values of his community”. with specific reference to children’s literature which thrives on the children’s quest for adventure, the thematic orientation foregrounds elements of valour and bravery. the children in their quest to achieve certain goals encounter various ordeals (physical, supernatural and metaphysical) which are also reflected in the texts. these themes are utilized by writers of children’s literature in ways that make their books interesting. chinua achebe’s chike and the river, for instance, explores the themes of heroism/bravery. in the text, chike, as an 11-year old child, had never left his village, umuofia. then, one day, his mother told him that he would be going to onitsha to live with his uncle. this gives him a sense of joy as he had earlier received from his uncle’s servant, michael, highlights of the good things that he is sure to encounter in onitsha. “he was tired of living in a bush village and wanted to see a big city” (p.1). with this mindset, chike is poised for adventure in this new city. at the point of departure, we find the young chike hesitant to leave home. however, chike embarks on his adventure into the city, where he soon finds out that the city may indeed glitter, but it is not all gold. firstly, the child-hero is exposed to the values of the village before embracing the city and all its challenges. but chike soon global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 107 makes friends and is forced to mature quickly in an intimidating metropolis where all manner of dangers lurks. rather than destroy his innocent disposition, the events help in propelling him towards an intriguing adventure that is set ahead of him. for instance, his first challenge which eventually constitutes the conflict in the story revolves around his quest to cross the river niger through ferry to asaba. this ambition made him to pass through various ordeals especially his curiosity to survive among his new classmates and friends in onitsha. his brave quest to cross the river niger to asaba is to show to his friends that he has achieved a feat which in the estimation of his friends is the hallmark of a city boy. as the writer puts it, “anyhow, chike was happy about one thing. he could now talk like the rest of his companions” (p.56). it should be well stated here that chike’s adventure to cross the river niger constitutes an act of heroism, a feat he must achieve in order to be accepted into the fold of his companions. during the journey chike felt as proud as mungo park when he finally reached the niger. here at last was the great river niger. chike stuck out his chest as though he owned the river, and drew a deep breath. the air smelt clean and fresh (p.54). as a proud hero, he added this feat to his name as part of his achievement as a young boy. the writer says – it was all like a dream. chike wondered whether it was actually happening. ‘so this is me’, he thought. ‘chike anene, alias chiks the boy, of umuofia, mbaino district, onitsha province, eastern nigeria, nigeria, west africa, africa, world, universe.’ this was how he wrote his name (p.53). chike’s bravery is also manifested when he exposes the night-watchman and the thieves who stole from a shop in the market. chike is brave despite the man’s aggression towards him. he refuses to be cowed in the face of intimidation by the night watchman who threatened to harm him should he expose him. as a little boy, he is alone in a strange land. his safety is at stake. should anything happen to him, he will be alone at the mercy of fate. but as a brave boy, he needs to show that he has fully imbibed all the morals he received from his mother – especially the one that says, truth is golden and falsehood leads to disgrace. at the end, he becomes a hero in the process of the recovery of the stolen goods. this is why bowra (1952) tells us that heroic literature “may be concerned with any action in which a man stakes his life on his ideal of what he ought to be” (p.48). chike stands his ground and is able to convince the people that the night-watchman was part of the people that stole from the shop. the narrator explains it thus: as chike told his story the night-watchman began to shake. he global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 108 covered his face with his hands to hide his tears. chike became a hero. one big man in the crowd lifted him up and placed him on his shoulders. the others applauded. they said they had never seen such bravery from such a little boy… everywhere people spoke of chike’s adventure. his photograph appeared in the local newspapers and his name was mentioned on the radio. then after the three thieves and the night-watchman had been tried and imprisoned chike got a letter from the manager of the shop. he announced that the company which owned the shop had decided to award a scholarship to chike which would take him right through secondary school (p.66). here, chike’s bravery is recreated as an example for the young reader to emulate. achebe re-imagines this role for the child-hero in a manner that chike’s success will necessarily encourage other young children to stand for the truth at all time and emulate him under similar circumstances. the letter of commendation and award of scholarship from the manager of the shop is a pointer to societal acceptation of his bravery and good deeds. by this, chike becomes a source of inspiration to all young children who aspire to become great in life. the theme of adventure in achebe’s chike and the river provides excitement for young readers because they can share in the experiences of chike who is also young. chike’s journey from his village umuofia and his ambition to cross the river niger give the text an exhilarating appeal that excites the young reader; this is because of the accidental adventure that follows after chike missed the return boat. in his desperation, chike strays by accident into a gang of armed robbers and then he is caught up in the rapidly unfolding events. the passage goes thus: when the lorry stopped the man at the back climbed out. chike opened his eyes but it was pitch dark. the three men were now talking in whispers. then the driver reversed the lorry. for a while there was silence. chike prayed that the men would move away for even one minute so that he could get down and hide. but they did not move. instead, a fourth man came and joined them. from what they said chike understood that this fourth person was the night-watchman. … then he told the driver, whose name was ignatius, to move out the benches from the back of the lorry. chike was half-dead. he heard the man let down the tail-board. but he did not come in. instead he returned to the front of the lorry to get a flash light. in the twinkling of an eye chike slipped out and began to walk away. he had no idea where he was going. it was too dark to see. but he continued walking as quietly as a cat. unfortunately, his foot kicked against a tin and made a noise. the driver shouted: ‘who dat?’ chike turned sharply to his left and ran. his eyes were now used to the darkness and he could see vaguely. he saw something like a door and walked in (p. 61-62) global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 109 the above episode underscores the scary nature of the accidental adventure that the child-hero goes through in his quest to survive in a strange land. the use of suspense and introduction of actions that make the curious reader to pray on behalf of chike that he should not be caught adumbrates the artistic significance of the text. however, the child-hero survives the scary incidents through a dint of luck and the strength of his character and when the situation affords itself for him to display his bravery, he seizes it and becomes the hero that exposes the armed gang. this episode of chike’s adventure thus provides the opportunity for revealing his inner strengths and weaknesses. chike therefore comes up at the end of the story wiser than before. what endears achebe’s chike and the river to the young reader is that it serves as a mirror of life for young children. chike, the child-hero for instance, moves from naïveté and ignorance to self-knowledge and selfdiscovery. life for the young child is like a series of well-planned events all geared towards his personal development and growth. but he succeeds through determination and constant hard work – in spite of temptations to go astray. chike stuck to the lessons he learnt from home and from his mother. he is honest, truthful, courageous, and polite and these are qualities that earn him the success at the end of the story. it is significant to note that although chike is attracted by good life, wealth, and material acquisitions, the ultimate success that achebe allows him to achieve is the prize that gives him great self-confidence and pride which is the scholarship he wins to go to school to receive a good education, the reward for exposing and turning in the criminals. this is thus the new imagination that the story encapsulates. like in achebe’s chike and the river, the theme of heroism and bravery are also explored in james ene henshaw’s this is our chance. at the beginning of the story, we encounter princess kudaro at crossroads with the customs and traditions of koloro kingdom. as the plot develops, it becomes clear that she is poised to change the rigid system of things placed on the people of koloro by their now anachronistic customs and traditions. the only way opened to her is to defiantly elope with the prince of udura (an enemy kingdom) whom she had met in her school in the city. the princess is conscious of the consequences of her action, but as it is typical with all heroic literature where the hero cares less for his/her safety, she runs out of the palace to unite with her lover. her action pits her kingdom against udura. war alarms are sounded and both kingdoms square up for a showdown. as the intrigues continue, bambula, her private teacher, who is another youth, is fingered as the one who radicalised her into taking such a step. bambula is taken to prison, awaiting his death. also, the prince of udura is global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 110 arrested and imprisoned in koloro kingdom. however, the conflict is amicably resolved when news comes from the kingdom of udura that the princess had performed a heroic act by saving the life of one of the sons of chief mboli, the king of udura. of great significance is the act of bravery and heroism displayed by the young lovers in the play. both princess kudaro and prince ndamu defy the age-long animosity between their kingdoms to get married in order to unite the kingdoms. when the young prince ndamu is brought before chief damba, he displays critical features of a hero – fearlessness, composure and wits as revealed thus: damba: (walking around him, and examining him disdainfully.) young man, you interest me, i have two questions for you. firstly, are you the young man called vitamins? secondly, where is my daughter? ndamu: (with princely dignity.) my name is ndamu, prince of the village of udura. it is true that your daughter and i tried to get away. search parties were after us, one from this village and another from my own. i, therefore, tried to hide her under a bush, but before i could find a suitable hiding-place for myself, i was caught by your men. oh i wish i knew what had happened to her: sweet, kind, gentle, obedient kudaro. oh…. (p.23). from the above conversation, the reader is exposed to the fact that king damba’s knowledge is at variance with contemporary realities. he is hooked on the past, hence he mistakes prince ndamu with the notion of vitamin which his daughter’s home teacher had espoused in his several discussions with him. however, further interrogation opens a cultural dimension to the discourse elopement is alien to african culture. but in the play, henshaw uses position as tool towards solving identified problems in the society. these problems are from all indications still the problems of our time. that is, cultural enmity which according to the author must be changed, even if it means total disregard for the old and obsolete cultural principles. of significant import is the cultural perspective that the playwright tries to advocate with the boldness of prince ndamu in defending his attempt to elope with the king’s daughter. herein lies new imagination in the text – multiculturalism can make people of diverse cultures to live together as one as well as intermarry without any hindrance. this concept is given voice in the manner in which the playwright articulates the intrigues in the play where the princess’s life is necessarily hanging in the balance should the king continue to defend traditional values against the new imagination which is global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 111 constitutive of cultural change and assimilation. similar display of bravery and heroism is shown in the action of ayi, kudaro’s young maid who defies the status of the king and questions the place of tradition over humanity. she tells the king bluntly that: ayi: but, sir, where would principles be without men to observe them? and where would men be without human heart beating within them? (p.30) when it becomes obvious that the elders of koloro kingdom will not yield to the voice of reason, as exemplified by the children, ayi confesses to the king thus: ayi: (interrupting). damba, sir, i have lived here with you to learn. but all i knew was from your good wife. i beg you, permit me to leave this village. where i will go i do not know. no matter what happens i shall always treasure the memory of your wife and her last words – “tell damba, for the children’s sake, for the women’s sake, let there be no war…” (p,32). the young maid, ayi, is brave in telling the truth to the leaders of koloro kingdom. to the children, therefore, time has changed and it has come to the point when their education has exposed them to the reality of things. they can no longer cope with primitive customs and traditions that reduce their humanity. in the restoration of the koloro kingdom from the path of selfdestruction, it is the actions of the children that represent the voice of reason and triumph over those of the elders who are brash, divisive and insensitive to reality. the elders dwell in the past and make custom and tradition a fortress that retards their progress. this is why betiang believes that henshaw’s plays, written somehow in the shavian tradition of the problem play, were and are an ‘invitation to action’ towards solving these identified problems in the society. (p.123). according to fanon, a writer from a colonized culture who writes for his people “ought to use the past with the intention of opening the future, as an invitation to action and a basis for hope” (p.187). the children become the basis of hope in the society. what the author has done with the theme of love in this play is to capture the invasion of love bred in the comfort of western education against the african traditional love arrangement. he exposes the battle facing every dare-to-break conventional rule in the pursuit of a new culture that encourages humanity and freedom of choice. as he puts it himself in the preface to the play, there is “the need to preserve good traditions, and at the same time to graft upon them,where appropriate, the best from other countries” (p.5). at the end of the play, education and modernity win against tradition and ethnocentrism. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 112 for instance, chief damba submits to the caprices of the children and accepts the fact that modernity has triumphed over mundane sentiments. he says: “but is this the price of education that our children should dislike what their fathers love, and place high values on what we loathe. perhaps it is the will of our fathers’ spirits that it must be (p.31). peter p. ekeh (1989, p.8-12) articulates this phenomenon as a conflict between the demand of the ‘primordial culture’ and that of the ‘civic culture’. the primordial culture, according to him, is kin-group specific and built around the ‘notional’ and ‘substantive’ concepts of ethnic groups. this type of culture is pre-colonial and based on tribe and carries the tribal ethos and controls. the civic culture, on the other hand, is a colonial contact culture which contains social formations, ideas, values and institutions that arise from the nigerian nation state. civic culture is, therefore, western, modern and urban based. the use of various literary motifs in achebe’s chike and the river and henshaw’s this is our chance in the articulation of the themes of heroism/bravery in henshaw’s this is our chance and achebe’s chike and the river, the writers adopt various motifs and styles with which they address contemporary issues which constitute thematic fulcrum of this essay. these motifs are examined to bring out the salient indices of bravery, fantasy, mischief, love, and others in the works. as has been noted above, the themes prevalent in many of the children’s literature relate to events in the cultural, political and economic milieu of the children. the formation of the right characters, narrative techniques, and appropriate themes in children’s literature is thus the primary concern of the writers of children’s works. in chike and the river, for instance, achebe exhibits the same simple style that is famous in his adult novels. he shows through the adventures of chike that despite the use of a single character around whom the activities revolve he could still deepen our insight and illustrate deeper levels of human nature. for example, at the beginning of the novel, the writer presents a vivid and graphic description of chike’s mood when he hears the news of his going to onitsha to stay with his uncle; the author also contrasts the village setting with that of onitsha. the story goes thus: chike was now eleven years old, and he had never left his village. then one day his mother told him that he would be going to onitsha in the new year to live with his uncle who was a clerk in one of the firms there. at first chike was full of joy. he was tired of living in a bush village and wanted to see a big city. he had heard many wonderful stories about onitsha. his uncle’s servant, michael, had told him that there was a water tap in the very compound where they lived. chike said this was impossible but michael had sworn to its global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 113 truth by wetting his first finger on his tongue and pointing it to the sky. chike was too thrilled for words. so he would no longer wake up early in the morning to go to the stream. the trouble with their village stream was that the way to it was very rough and stony, and sometimes children fell and brake their water-pots. in onitsha chike would be free from all these worries. also he would live in a house with an iron roof instead of his mother’s poor hut of mud and thatch. it all sounded so wonderful. (p. 1-2). the narrative above appeals to boys and girls because the author manages to localize the story in an identifiable environment through the use of familiar activities. this narrative motif endears the story to the young children. besides, the young reader can see the contrasting pictures of the rural and urban environments. the former lacks modern amenities, good water supply, electricity, and modern infrastructure, but it is safe and serene and had the human touch and human face. the urban centre, on the other hand, has physical structures and amenities, but life in them is relatively unsafe. there are frequent drug abuse and fraud. but the beauty of the work is that achebe is careful to show through the experiences and actions of the child-hero in the text that if a child holds on to his or her good upbringing he can survive in any environment. chike and the river is an adventure story. however, the plot revolves around chike’s ambition to cross the river niger in a boat. it is this desire that nearly makes him deviate from his good upbringing as he tries to get money through a magician known as prof. chardus who swindles him thereby depriving him of his three kobo. chike is so desperate to sail across the river that he begs his uncle for some money but the man looked so stern that he had to run from him. nevertheless, his wish is fulfilled when he goes to the riverside to wash cars for people and is rewarded with one naira. the adventure takes a different turn when chike fulfills his ambition and he is enamoured by asaba that he forgets to return to the riverside to catch the last boat to onitsha. the author contrives the story interestingly to include a patriotic act by chike who sleeps in a lorry that is used for robbery. chike helps the police in tracking down the three thieves thereby exposing a thief known as peter nwana the miserly trader. this final act is the crux of the didactic message in the novel. the author uses the message as a motif to teach the simple lesson that all good acts are rewarded. by making chike famous through his brave act, the author is encouraging other boys and girls to emulate him. this is the didactic aspect of the novel that is invaluable. however, within the story, achebe also discusses issues relating to the moral consciousness of children. he indicates this motif in the novel through chike’s abhorrence to filthy environment. in the house in which chike lives there are two latrines for about fifty people, one for adults and the other for children. both are filthy but the children’s own is worse. it swarms with flies global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 114 bigger than any chike had ever seen at umuofia. they revolt him, and so he learns that a big town is not always better than a village. the juxtaposition of onitsha, the town and umuofia, a village is used to inform the reader that a village has certain virtues that can be absent in a town. achebe is thus changing the erroneous concept that a town is filled with only the good things of life. in the same manner, the novelist tells the story of ezekiel, the spoilt child, in order to illustrate a different behaviour from that of chike which must be condemned by all good children. this juxtaposition of the two characters is important. ezekiel is an only son but due to over-pampering he “was developing into a lawless imp.” (p.15). ezekiel formulates a plan in school through which he writes to some pen-friend boys in england asking for money and promising to send them leopard skins. ezekiel has no plan to send them the leopard’s skin because he simply wants their money. his act encourages other boys to send similar letters too. the bad boys are punished when the headmaster discovers their criminal acts. most of the activities in this novel are structured to reflect the importance of good behaviours. the manner in which chike fords a river when he travels with his mates to convey the luggage of a missionary to okikpe gives him confidence. achebe uses that incident to stress that most obstacles that seem insurmountable could yield to brave confident children. this incident is juxtaposed with the incident of some boys who take brain pills to enable them pass examinations. these boys lack confidence in themselves and they break down before the day of examinations thereby losing even the little knowledge they would have been able to produce on the examination day. the most important aspect of achebe’s didacticism in chike and the river is the illustration that a town possesses several influences that could turn a child from his or her good upbringing. he therefore points out some of these problem areas thereby aiding the children in understanding what is good and also helping parents in ensuring that their children are not influenced by bad boys and girls. furthermore, the various literary motifs used by achebe in the novel make it rewarding for children. there are familiar folksongs, idioms and code mixing, humourous anecdotes, games that children play for entertainment and amusement, children’s pranks and slangs, children’s fantasies and daydreaming, children’s nicknames for each other, and children’s perceptions of the adult world, which they discuss among themselves in their peculiar types of dialogue. for example, chike’s classmate, samuel, who is a good footballer gives himself a nick name, s.m.o.g in place of his full name. the novelist puts it thus: s.m.o.g. was samuel’s nickname which he gave himself. his full name was samuel maduka obi: so his initials were s.m.o. then one global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 115 day he saw that if he added a ‘g’ to his initials he would become s.m.o.g, he immediately did so. in onitsha the letters s.m.o.g. were said to bring good luck because they stood for save me o god (p. 4). similarly, chike is called ‘chiksthe boy’ by his peers. when he eventually crosses the river niger, in excitement chike rills out his full name and includes his nickname thus: it was all like a dream. chike wondered whether it was actually happening. ‘so this is me,’ he thought. ‘chikeanene, alias chiks the boy, of umuofia, mbaino district, onitsha province, eastern nigeria, nigeria, west africa, africa, world, universe.’ this was how he wrote his name (p. 53). the use of idioms, slangs and humourous anecdotes are evident in the headmaster’s statement in front of the assembly when he scolded ezekiel and his friends who sent letters to other children in england requesting gifts from them. such idioms and slangs like scallywag and nincompoops were strange to the children and they laughed. the event is well captured thus: ‘that is what these nincompoops here have done to you.’ there was laughter again at nincompoops, another strange word (p. 15). folksongs in the novel are used to express happiness and excitement in the children. chike becomes excited when he makes the money to take the ferry boat to asaba, however, he becomes impatient when the boat seems to take long time in coming. he resorts to singing to keep himself happy. this interesting scenario is captured by the narrator, thus: chike’s dream had come true; at last he could go to asaba. he jumped up and down several times and sang ‘one more river to cross’. it was one of the songs he had learnt at the c.m.s. central school, umuofia (p. 51). all these literary motifs and aesthetic devices are used to reinforce the authenticity of the story and the reality of the children’s world created in the text. in this is our chance, henshaw uses the medium of dramatic literature to foreground the role of children as a stabilising feature in any society. here the author juxtaposes the modern vision and ideas of the children about the ever-changing society against archaic traditional disposition of the adults. the children represent modern civilization which they have acquired through western education while the adults foreground the tenets of retardation dictated by customs and traditions and abhor good neighbourliness. the morals that the author passes across to the society is that exposure through global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 116 education will open society to freedom and progress. through the characters of the young children: princess kudaro, prince ndamu and ayi, the reader is brought into the world of the powerful versus the weak. with clear and simple words, henshaw takes the reader through children’s travail in the hands of the adults who take pleasure in upholding the ancient customs and traditions which are unknown to the children. here, the author pits ayi who represents those ideals of the children against damba and ajugo who oppose them. this idea is aesthetically recreated: ayi: how would you like your daughter killed and your dead? damba: don’t trifle with my wife. ayi: i trifle not, but i must speak my mind. for long i have seen her serve and love you as never a woman has. i have seen her organise the women of this village in their farms and in their homes. i have seen her trying to do everything to make you, and the village, worthy of her. and yet as she lies dying, tortured by all that your stubbornness has brought to her, you sit here and talk of principles, of customs and traditions, and listen to the advice of a man who has no feelings at all. (looking at ajugo).(p.30) through clarity of expression, henshaw projects the nuances of the characters in the text. through the use of language, the text lends itself to the theme of oppression. from the beginning of the text to almost the end, the language use expresses the tension between the forces of retardation typified by the adults and progress represented by the children. the simple but emphatic statement by kudaro that she plans to run away and get married to ndamu already gives the reader and the story a sense of wonder as to what comes next. it brings some presence to the text itself. the statement raises many other questions and makes the reader interested in paying more attention to the text. as the plot develops, the thematic preoccupation continues to be unraveled. throughout this period, the tone of the language is high. the play, therefore, creates a frame to express the oppression of children characters. kudaro, ayi and other children in koloro kingdom who are victimized by the insensitivity of adults yearn for freedom. kudaro expresses her inner feelings to ayi thus: kudaro: (lowering her voice). ayi, my girl, i have a secret for you, it is not that i do not like my home, but i have a handsome young man in the town where i used to go to school (then she smiles as she speaks.) he promised to marry me. but how can he marry me when i am locked up in this village? (she almost weeps.) (p. 12) the children are pictured constantly in one form of discomfort. the children are not given the carefree and naïve characteristics usually associated with global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 117 children. rather, the children are portrayed as emotionally and physically strong, though disturbed. through various literary motifs, the text lends itself to an aesthetic ideal. conclusion the aim of this essay is to demonstrate that the aesthetic goal of the creators of children’s literature is to compose stories that appeal to young adults through the themes treated and literary motifs used. the analysis establishes the fact that children’s literature thematises issues of heroism, bravery, adventure, jealousy and triumphs whose appeal derives essentially from the alluring use of various motifs. thus, the peculiar use of language in the selected texts and other literary motifs are artistic tropes used by writers to make children’s literature in nigeria aesthetically appealing to the reader. references abdulkadir, d. (1981) “oral composition: a historical appraisal” oral poetry in nigeria.uchegbulam n. abalogu. et al (eds). lagos: nigeria magazine. achebe, c.(1966).chike and the river. cambridge: cambridge university press acholonu, c.o. (2012). “the female writer as a goddess” nokoko journal. no. p.20-48 betiang, liwhu (2012). “a critical survey of cultural perspectives in the drama of james ene henshaw, 1924-2003” lwati: a journal of contemporary research, 9(1), 120-133. bowra, c.m. (1966). heroic poetry. london: macmillan. ekeh, peter p. (1989). “the scope of culture in nigeria”. in peter p. ekeh and garba ashiwaju, eds. nigeria since independence: the first 25 years (culture). vii. ibadan: heinemann,1–17. fanon, frantz (1981). the wretched of the earth. harmondsworth: penguin. henshawene james (1956).this is our chanceand other plays. london: university of london press ltd. lesnik-oberstein, karin (1994). children’s literature: criticism and the fictional child. oxford: clarendon press. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 118 author information: blessing ekpe okpapi is of the department of english and literary studies, delta state university, abraka, nigeria. email: blessingekp@gmail. com prof (mrs) enajite ojaruega is of the department of english and literary studies, delta state university, abraka, nigeria. email: ojaruega@delsu.edu.ng apa okpapi, b. e. & ojaruega, e. (2025). rethinking motifs in selected children’s literary texts. global online journal of academic research (gojar), 4(1), 104-118. https://klamidas.com/gojar-v4n12025-07/. mla okpapi, blessing ekpe and ojaruega, enajite. “rethinking motifs in selected children’s literary texts”. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1, 2025, pp. 104-118. https://klamidas.com/gojar-v4n1-2025-07/. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 25 cybercrime and ritualism: the menace of “yahoo boys” and the demonization of traditional igbo religion and society by francis chuks madukasi abstract in nigerian context, “yahoo” means cybercrime committed by obtaining money on false pretense through the internet. today, the trend is that these swindlers have switched over to the use of rituals in traditional african way in order to make the potency of their evil acts to work effectively, thereby implicating traditional religion as satanic. this paper x-rays the subsisting tendency by some of the youths of nowadays, particularly among the igbo of nigeria, to manipulate every spiritual force within the traditional african cosmological field of communication to aid them in making quick money. they exploit the polar powers that reside in ekwensu, a spirit being in igbo belief system that corresponds to christendom’s satan or devil, while ignoring the positive/punitive role accorded to this being in traditional religion. for the igbo, ekwensu represents evil spiritual elements that function as agents of social control. the deployment of demonic forces by “yahoo boys” to rip off people should not be misinterpreted as traditional acts of ekwensu. on the contrary, this paper declares that ekwensu, the satanic persona within the igbo realm of cosmological communication, is fundamentally conceptualized as such based on his social control roles. the paper goes further to support the notion of ekwensu as satan in terms of his forms, status, and roles in the society, conceptualizing ekwensu, in direct opposition to the supreme god, as the main malevolent spiritual agent in igbo cosmology with defined roles. ekwensu, not traditional religion, is the sole author of all negative actions of the yahoo boys. keywords: cybercrime, satan, ekwensu, “yahoo boys”, igbo, traditional religion introduction one of the perennial concerns of human beings is the need for peace, prosperity, and harmony in society, where people can truly fulfill their god-given mission in life. in other words, there is a human desire for an global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 26 environment, where life can be honestly celebrated in its fullness even while waiting its final consummation. the african traditional believer in his search for the realization of such a noble aim and desire has often identified ritualism/sacrifice as a societal, interpersonal, human and cosmic act. ritualism and sacrifice are important to any religion, particularly igbo traditional religion. in every igbo community, ritualism and sacrifice are used as means for the individual or society to commune with spiritual beings. in igbo traditional society, we believe these beings have power to sustain and destroy; a good reciprocal relationship with them is beneficial to man. rituals and sacrifice are also used to counteract the powers of destruction and evil spirits. however, in recent times a new nomenclature of ritualism has been associated with a crop of young ones popularly known as the “yahoo boys” who have changed the narrative of rituals into a new concept that is linked with all kinds of unholy and criminal paraphernalia. thus, during one christmas holiday in one igbo community, this researcher witnessed a lot of unholy practices by “yahoo boys”, such as ritual of bathing in the river, sleeping in the burial ground, among others. one day, the researcher was going to the market and observed a man being dragged by youths to the market square. his name was obi. it was said that obi buried his female worker alive. when the spot in the shop was opened, the girl was still alive but body parts like breast, finger nails and heads were found on the spot. obi was a ritualist or a “yahoo boy”. by engaging in evil acts of this nature, these “yahoo boys” have misrepresented the igbo traditional religion as satanic. these desperate youths are bent on using ritualism, which they now tag “yahoo plus”, to get quick cash thereby making the original igbo traditional religion to look evil and demonic. the evil side of it is that this “yahoo plus” is all about using human beings for rituals; either they cut off some private parts or they make the person run mad, thereby using the igbo traditional religion to achieve their ungodly ends. the implication of this is that it will lead to the misinterpretation of the true purpose of african traditional religion. for the igbo, it will cause an ethical degrading of the people of igbo land in the sense that other neighbouring tribes will view igbo land as a place where ritual killing, criminality and crooked pursuit of money are rampant. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 27 the notion of cybercrime (“yahoo-yahoo”) cybercrime is not an old sort of crime to the world. it is defined as any criminal activity which takes place on or over the medium of computers or internet or other technology recognized by the information technology act (okeke, 2010). according to chukwujekwu (2019), insecurity in today‘s digital space is very alarming. many people, especially the youths, are getting involved day by day. they are participating actively in one form of internet fraud or the other; this is generally known in cyberspace as cybercrime, but referred to, in nigerian parlance, as “yahoo yahoo” (p. 20). cybercrime is the most prevalent crime playing a devastating role in igbo traditional society. the cyber criminals are causing enormous losses to the society and the government and are also able to conceal their identity to a great extent. there are numbers of illegal activities which are committed over the internet by technically skilled criminals. taking a wider interpretation, it can be said that cybercrime includes any illegal activity where computer or internet is either a tool or target or both (maduka, 2020). cyber criminals are made up of mainly young school leavers and undergraduates. they are technology savvy and love smart electronic gadgets. they are pathological internet addicts and particularly obsessed with the social media. they live extravagant lifestyle and hang out in clubs. they are usually fun-seekers and chronic adventurers. they belong to two categories of cyber café users that have been described as deviant routine users and deviant very important (vip) users (ndubueze, 2018). the idea of ritualism and “yahoo-plus” in igbo land the notion of “yahoo-yahoo” has become a critical case in our contemporary igbo society especially among the youths. in igbo land, “yahoo-plus” is the use of rituals and other traditional rites to enhance money-making cyber criminal activities. it can be said that “yahoo-plus” is when a “yahoo-boy” adds anything spiritual to yahoo-yahoo. it is almost impossible to scam anyone without the ritualism or spiritual influence because victims are getting wiser and more familiar with their strategies. according to onuorah (2019), “yahoo-plus” is when a “yahoo-boy” adds charm to yahoo-yahoo so that he will be getting many victims and plenty of money. nowadays, young boys are driving expensive big cars because of “yahoo-plus”. it helps them to have the kind of money that their parent cannot give them; the bad thing is that global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 28 they usually die a painful death. for example, one “yahoo-boy” bought a new sports car, but as he was driving recklessly and drinking at the same time, he had an accident and died. corroborating the above, ugwu (2018) posited that: baba the hustle is real, if you no add something, na you go carry last (don’t add any spiritual ingredient, you won’t get anything). without any help, you can’t collect one dollar from a client. let’s stop deceiving ourselves everybody you see wey dey make am dey add small jazz (that is making progress in his work is adding a little of voodoo). it is only a foolish “yahoo-boy” that will be wasting his strength trying to scam a client without spiritual help. only the person that has added ritualism (has added voodoo) will successfully win a client heart without stress. (p. 18) the use of ritualism is now rampant and hardly can you find a yahoo boy that has not added one spiritual ingredient or the other. this finding correlates with the work of okolie (2018) which states that “internet fraudsters are drifting into fusing spirituality with cybercrime to become successful”. he explained that it is difficult for yahoo boys to thrive without the addition of spiritual ingredients. mba (2019) explained that doing ritual is more than going to the native doctor as widely assumed by members of the society: anything you add to improve yahoo-yahoo in order to improve your chance of getting a client is “yahoo-plus”. whether you go to the native doctor or church or mosque or you go to india, or china, so far you have added something spiritual, it is “yahoo-plus”. “yahoo-plus” is not as bad as people paint it and it is not limited to the spiritual influence of a native doctor (eze, 2017) in umukara uzinomi the people opined that “yahoo-plus” mean the addition of any spiritual ingredient and engagement in spiritual activities for the purpose of boosting the chances of a yahoo boy in getting a client online and successfully defrauding the client. also, for an individual to practice “yahoo-plus”, he or she must be a “yahoo-boy” or yahoo girl. therefore, yahoo plus can be referred to as the advancement of yahooyahoo to the spiritual level. in differentiating “yahoo-plus” from yahooyahoo, in a personal conversation, a respondent stated that: you cannot differentiate between yahoo and yahoo plus by checking their body (mere looking for signs). it is not as if yahoo plus guys (yahoo boys) involved in yahoo plus are going around putting on rings and you can’t conclude that everyone putting on ring is a doing bubble-plus (involved in yahoo plus), none of them do carry calabash around; some, you can’t even find “ju-ju” (anything fetish in their home) and most of them don’t have incisions on their body. the only way to differentiate is the level of their money, cars and mouth (wealth accumulation), their influence and the rate at which they are paid by their “maga”. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 29 the difference between yahoo-yahoo and “yahoo-plus” can be determined by the level of wealth accumulation by those practising either of them; majority of the respondents reported that the era of rings and incisions are long gone and people have advanced. in fact, one can hardly, physically, distinguish a yahoo-boy practising ordinary yahooyahoo from those practising yahoo plus except through their financial status and their influence in the society. timothy (2013) states that the dwindling fortunes of yahoo-boys in getting victims due to the increase in awareness of some of their strategies by the police officers and cyber security operatives have pushed many of them to seeking spiritual help. theoretical framework this work revolves around ronald akers’ theory of social structure and social learning model. the model states that people develop motivation to commit crime through the people whom they associate with. it generally assumes that individuals learn criminal behaviour the way they learn other behaviours in the society. learning, akers noted, is a part of life that is inevitable in as much as people interact with others in the society. unlike other social learning theorists, such as bandura and edwin sutherland, ronald akers’ social learning theory combines and considers both psychological and sociological predictors of learning in arriving at the factors predisposing individuals to the learning of criminal behaviour (lee, akers & borg, 2004; akers, 2009). for instance, akers borrowed from burrhus frederic skinner’s behaviourism, bandura’s imitation theory, alfred schutz’s social phenomenology, edwin sutherland’s differential association theory and economics’ rational choice theory, to conclude that the learning of criminal behaviour is a product of operant conditioning, imitation, bonding, and reinforcement (positive and negative) that go on in our everyday world (akers, krohn, lanza-kaduce & radosevich, (1979); akers, 1990; holt, burruss, bossler & adam, (2012). factors promulgating youths’ involvement in yahoo-yahoo in igbo land there are two factors promulgating youths’ involvement in yahoo-yahoo in igbo land. the first is the combination of unemployment and poverty; the second factor is peer group influence. other factors are believed to be entertainment industry; igbo political, cultural and economic history; the relative acceptance of yahoo-yahoo in igbo society; the anonymity and global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 30 distance from the victims the internet provides; the minor chances of being arrested by the police; easy access to online platforms; the availability of e-mail extractor software; and, lack of knowledge of the grave consequences of internet crime. unemployment and poverty between 1960 and 2004, the poverty rate in nigeria increased from 15% to 54.4% (tade and aliyu, 2014). by 2010, it was estimated that 70% of the population lived below the poverty line (oshewolo, 2010). unemployment rate stood at 23.9% in 2011 (ibid), but increased to over 50% if youth only are counted (oshewolo, 2010). the fear of unemployment was mentioned as a crucial factor leading to the growth of yahoo-yahoo (adeniran, 2018; adomi and igun, 2018; tade and aliyu, 2019). due to the prevailing economic hardship bedeviling the country, many youths take solace in yahoo-yahoo as it is regarded as a way of keeping body and soul together just like any other economic endeavor (balancing act new update, 2003). yahoo-yahoo may not be separated from prevailing kleptomania problem that characterizes the nigerian system (ojedokun and eraye, 2012). as noted by awe (2010), even though criminal activities cannot be justified for any reason, with the prevailing economic conditions individuals may be forced to find alternatives in yahoo-yahoo. peer group influence the phrases “my friend has this; i want to get it as well”, “my friend is doing this; i want to do it as well”, “my friend has achieved this, i want to do it as well” represent a desire “to want to belong” often expressed among youths; this resonates with tade and aliyu (2018) research. commanding respects from their peers, attracting the opposite sex and extravagant lifestyle seem to be the major goals for many yahoo boys. looking at the age bracket, this behavior is perhaps not surprising when other aspects of their lives and the society around them are considered (doppelmayr, 2019). he further posited that even if a young person is not already in a group of yahoo-yahoo boys, the youths’ culture around him could be of influence. entertainment industry another worrisome trend is the rate at which entertainment and music industry normalize yahoo-yahoo and “yahoo-plus”. these musical acts, djs and night club hypemen encourage and energize youths to make them believe that internet fraud is the only way they can get rich, drive big cars and enjoy life. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 31 the social environment breeding yahoo-yahoo in igbo land decades of corruption, poverty, and unemployment has created the acceptance of the practice of yahoo as a viable source of income amongst some igbo youths; hence, wealth is glorified and questions of how it was gotten are often not asked (ozo, 2019). in some cases, yahoo-boys are perceived as legitimate business persons and/or persons who can pay a premium for goods and services (ikobi, 2018). faceless nature of the internet and its impact on the growth of yahoo-yahoo the internet is characterized by facelessness (ikem, 2018). this ensures the total possibility of having unhindered access to information communication without government or internet service provider (isp) interference. it allows users to cover their own identity and engage in spam and in sending unsolicited messages. the faceless nature of the internet allows free exchange of criminal information and activities without attacks from government or employees (ikem, 2018). in the view of okeke (2020), there are three major features of the internet which combine to turbo charge, accelerate and intensify online fraud. these are; access, affordability, and anonymity. they are jointly referred to as the “triple a engine”. the internet is reputed as the world’s largest computer network with an estimated 1.1 billion users. today, virtually anyone can access the internet with a telephone line, a computer, and a modem. as such, internet technology has created a new form of criminality, that is, cybercrime. it is very much easy for individuals to have access to a computer without leaving home, that is telecommuting, and to engage in hacking and related electronic frauds without leaving a trace. yahoo boys mostly capitalize on the anonymity offered by the internet to carry out their nefarious activities. inadequate law enforcement the regulating enactment against cyber offences is not sufficient in itself without proper measures of enactment and implementation; this represents the chronicle of the igbo society in regulating cyber offences (okafor, 2018). this situation normally encourages criminals to perpetrate illicit acts (ojekodun and eraye, 2012). studies report that yahoo boys are generally not worried about the police because they can bribe their way out when arrested (anikwe, 2019). the deficiencies in the implementation of regulating acts continue to serve as a bane to the progress recorded in the fight against cybercrime in igbo land and nigeria at large. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 32 ease of access to the internet the easy access to the internet and technology provided by internet and hypertext afford users with fast links to individuals (morah, 2018). “the ease and convenience associated with it and the internet is now being exploited to serve criminal purposes” (adomi, 2008). the internet is fast turning into a household thing for igbo societies and nigerians at large (adomi, 2015). this ease of access to the internet is now being utilized to carry out criminal activities. ignorance of the gravity of breaking internet law roberts (2017) opined that so many people underplay the severity of cyber offences. they treat it as if it is not as serious as offences committed in the “physical space” even though its impact could be far reaching in most cases. also, the distance between the perpetrators and the victims means that they often are ignorant of the consequences of their crimes and tend to underestimate its impact. societal decadence and its impact on nigerian youths’ involvement in yahoo-yahoo nigeria as a nation is a well gifted country, considering her human and natural resources among the nations of the world. unfortunately, the country is ranked among the underdeveloped nations of the world with declining human conditions over the years (adeniran, 2008). “unemployment, lack of social support and worsening extent of general deprivation has affected the youths in the country. the political, economic, education and other social institutions, reflect varying degrees of decadence caused by fraudulent acts in nigeria” (bammeke, 2005). as opined by achebe (1984), nigeria was regarded as one of the most corrupt places in the world due to political recklessness. years after this, this opinion is still being re-emphasized by the yearly corruption perception index of the transparency international in which nigeria has been occupying one of the lowest positions in africa and in the world. as it is, nigeria has been noted to be in a state of ‘normlessness’, where anything goes; there is a breakdown of law and order and people no longer feel remorse for evil committed; shameful acts are celebrated and success is given a new definition, as wealth becomes more important than the means of obtaining it (tade and olaitan, 2015). sudden wealth is normally celebrated among nigerians regardless of its source. in fact, it is mostly associated with cleverness and no punishment is melted out where necessary (adeniran, 2008). indeed, ours is a society that glorifies wealth. this attitude of glorifying global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 33 wealth by the nigerian society is further buttressed by the lifestyles of the so called ‘celebrities’. popular nigerian hiphop songs such as “maga don pay” and “operation” all glorify the yahoo boys’ lifestyle (zulu, 2008). also, music videos produced by artists such as olu maintain and kelly handsome show them driving exotic cars, drinking champagne, partying with young women and displaying large amounts of money. the general themes in both the lyrics and the music videos are the positive benefits which serve as inducements to become a yahoo boy (doppelmayr, 2013:19). in nigeria, kleptomania acts are not characteristics of only the ruling class but of leadership at all levels; in this kind of situation, values of integrity and honesty are scorned, as there is lack of compliance to laid down procedures (bammeke, 2005). “for instance, at both household and community levels in nigeria, respective agents of socialization taught the young ones to value hard work and integrity, but most often it is at variance with what they observe” (adeniran, 2008:371). technological advances, especially in information and communication technology, however, have brought major alterations to our cultures, our patterns of socialization, our social institutions, and our day-to-day social interactions. such technological innovations are, in fact, being accepted with remarkable speed by the nigerian youths, hitherto grossly unengaged at both social and economic spheres. as noted by adeniran (2006), the internet has brought an astounding alteration in the behavioral patterns of nigerian youths. indeed, yahoo boys sub-culture has emerged from the consensual acceptance of the internet technology, especially among youths in the country. though criminality among youths in nigeria could be traced to the prevalent corrupt practices in the country, the ‘modernization of criminality’ through the electronic superhighway has been serving as the platform for the emergence and sustenance of yahoo boys sub-culture in nigeria (adeniran, 2008). ordinarily, nigerian youths are noted for being idealistic, adventurous, resourceful, inquisitive and proactive (adalemo, 1999). in the face of proper motivation, the nigerian youth is prepared to contribute to the development of the nation (mabogunje, 1998). according to adeniyi (1999), since the youths are taken as the foundation for the future growth and sustainable development of a nation, they are the key agents for social change, economic development and technological innovation. hence, the failure of leadership at all levels in nigeria to promote positive values for the youths has often translated into social incongruence. every society has norms that define acceptable behavior, and agents of socialization socially transmit such norms; but it becomes global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 34 an issue when there is a discrepancy between what is taught and what is being observed. how do we expect the nigerian youths to eschew fraud when all they see around them is fraudulent individuals wielding so much affluence and still command high respect from the society that is supposed to question the source of their wealth? ninalowo (2004) argues that in society such as nigeria with gross structural inequalities, weak sanctioning system and wide gap between the “haves” and the “havenots”, there is a tendency for the deprived to reject and embrace illegal means of achieving culturally prescribed goals. the involvement of nigerian youths in online fraudulent practices such as yahoo-yahoo, therefore, cannot be divorced from the value that the society places on wealth accumulation (adeniran, 2008). traditional view on ritualism and yahoo boys in igbo land in igbo land, many young lads have opted for cybercrime in their desperation to join the ranks of scores of their compatriots who have been making millions of dollars out of online-scams. young nigerian scammers known as ‘yahoo boys’ are resorting to the use of traditional charms and mystical powers to charm potential victims into their scams. in the traditional african religion, “yahoo” has never been an approved source of income for young lads, thus the issue of yahoo has caused a great havoc in traditional african religion whereby yahoo boys are now using the ritual rites and sacrifice that should be meant for good in doing evil and the results keep coming. thus, the use of rituals (voodoo and charms) for spiritual protection and to charm potential victims is very common among yahoo boys in umukara. there is now another level in the use of charms, which is known as yahoo plus -plus, which “involves the use of human parts and may need kidnapping other human beings for rituals, which is not necessary in ‘‘yahoo plus.’’ yahoo plus plus involves the use of things such as “victims finger nails, rings, carrying of corpses, making incision on their body, sleeping in the cemetery, citing of incantation, using of their fingers for rituals, and having sex with ghosts are common” (nwakwudo, 2011) thus, the traditional view of ritualism and its use by yahoo boys in umukara shows that yahoo has moved beyond just scamming people ordinarily/physically; it now connotes spirituality and using various means like sacrifice, performing of various rites and rituals etc. in order to victimize people and make them fall prey. the spiritual dimension to yahoo is a paradigmatic shift from the global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 35 popular yahoo which relies solely on internet dexterity to victimize people. however, the blending of the spiritual with cybercrime reveals the innovative capabilities of cybercriminals in this study area. since materialism seems to be cherished within nigerian society, young people appear to have imbibed this social value by designing strategies of accomplishing the set task. repressed in the physical space, yahoo boys migrate to cyberspace to perpetrate criminality. the delayed success rate in “yahoo” practice, the untiring clampdown of the economic and financial crimes commission on cybercriminals, group rivalry and the activities of the media in enlightening the public accounted for the search for a more speedy way of increasing cybercrime victimization. the frustrated yahoo boys innovated and imported the spiritual elements into cybercrime leading to the emergence of yahoo plus. this group relies on the spiritual capital (nwokolo, 2019) of herbalists, fetish pastors and alfas. yahoo plus fraudsters approach fetish pastors, alfas, and herbalists for successpromoting charms. some ways yahoo boys use people for rituals in igbo land via gifts in igbo land, it is worth noting that most yahoo boys use gifts in using people for ritual. from a personal experience, my sister’s classmate was used for money ritual by her boy friend by giving her lots of gift items. thus, they usually put whatever evil in it and when they use these gifts, it will spiritually attack you. now, this is a change of life. for example, they buy their parents a car, using these cars might bring about the early death of their parent. it could even be their siblings. there was the case of a chief in umukara that his son gave a car and within two days the man had accident with the car and died. by using girls material in umukara yahoo boys use girls private wears especially their pants. this has been so rampart in recent times. after using these materials belonging to girls they either go mad or bleed to death. most of the time, what they do is tear a little part of it unknowingly to these girls and whenever they use it, they are affected. this information should make girls wise and make them to avoid such boys. there is the case of my primary school classmate in the village who gave me firsthand information about the death of her sister; she said her sister was used for ritual by her boyfriend who secretly took her underwear and used it for global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 36 rituals. through partying it is said that when a yahoo boy is organizing a party and he is not eating or drinking, just know he is taking people’s destiny via the food and drinks. yahoo boys are fond of throwing parties and letting people eat such food while they reserve ‘uncontaminated’ drink for themselves. a concrete example is the case of someone in umukara; he attended a party of a rich young dude suspected to be a yahoo guy and after the party his destiny never remained the same; things became hard for him and out of frustration he committed suicide. via cash in umukara uzinomi, it is popularly known that some of these yahooboys have special money given to them and when they mix the money with others and give it to you, using this money will initiate you spiritually. the intention of ritualism and the people’s belief in ritual practices according to one mr. ugo with whom i discussed this issue, “ritual practice permeates all religion and the intention differs from religion to religion and from persons to person. majorly, the intention for rituals especially the one that involves blood sacrifice in africa religion ranges from power, wealth, and protection". he further adds that all religion perform ritual practice which includes igbo traditional religion. you must understand that ritual practices don’t limit itself to animal blood sacrifice or human sacrifice. kola nut breaking in igbo land, pouring of libation in igbo land is ritual. there is scarcely documented evidence to show that in igbo traditional religion. if the hypothesis that ndi-igbo emigrated from ancient israel is anything to go by, then ritual involving human sacrifice couldn't have been original with igbo traditional religion. traces of rituals involving human sacrifice for power, wealth, or protection is an importation from neighbouring cultures. according to mazi uwakwe, rituals are part of igbo tradition but not ones involving human blood. civilizations have made it possible that animals are sacrificed to the gods and not human beings. the notion of ritualism in igbo tradition has been misinterpreted wrongly by the evil representative of igbo tradition (native doctor or dibia). there are good native doctors in our community and killing human beings is not part of our culture. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 37 according to mazi maduka, a true native doctor who knows what he is doing cannot ask anybody to come for money ritual. after all, the person that is asking for money ritual, why is it that he didn't do it himself to become rich? why can't a dibia kill to make money himself? these native doctors aid the yahoo boys to paint our tradition black. the gods frown at injustice and so at the end there's always a repercussion for those actions. rituals help us to commune with the gods. effects of ritualism and yahoo boys in igbo land the issue of ritualism and yahoo boys cannot be over emphasized in umukara uzinomi, thus, the resultant effect of the activities of yahoo boys in umukara uzinomi has made nwakwudo (2020) to buttress that: “yahoo is a get rich quick scheme where people obtain money online from others by false pretence. thus, anything that has an advantage surely has a disadvantage” we always have ourselves to blame when we make mistakes out of ignorance and have ourselves to blame for it. life is more precious than gold, it's more precious than silver and certainly more precious than money. hence, yahoo boys go for rituals. there are times situation pushes us to make irrational decisions, there are times desperation hits the mind with evil options and alternatives. however, these ought to be the time where an individual discern and evaluate his options completely. being a ritualist or getting involved into ritual as a man or a woman is indeed seen as an evil act. more so, the original meaning of ritual isn't about blood sharing, it's more like rites, a repeated procedure. however, in the african mindset and mentality it's a total form of blood sacrifices, a rite that involves some sort of blood initiations, connecting the human world to the spirit. all these form of rituals, yahoo boys get involved for money sake. they have consequences; though ritualism in the sense of african traditional religion is not evil rather it’s a means of performing rites and sacrifices to the gods by a traditional worshipper. nevertheless the involvement of yahoo boys in rituals has opted to display that ritualism is an evil act since it’s used for evil and not for good. the following are the consequences of ritualism engaged in by yahoo boys: lack of respect: when one starts doing yahoo in umukara uzinomi and people get to know about it, the person will lose his respect in umukara global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 38 uzinomi. generally, people will not value him that much; they will have one or two bad things to say about the person. although minority of girls today are looking for yahoo boys to date, but to the people of umukara uzinomi you are just another lazy youth living off the earning of other people. even when you eventually make the money and purchase a nice house or cars, there are some people that won't give you that respect. eventually if anybody respects you it's because of the money. higher risk of going to jail: the effect and consequences of yahoo also focus on the fact that they stand a chance of jail sentence. today, yahoo boys are faced with constant attack by tech gurus working with the efcc and other security agencies. due to the knowledge of online scamming, and the means they take, companies that produce applications yahoo boys use are now creating new ways to locate these guys, and block them out. the efcc especially has taken the issue of online scamming very serious as nigerian citizens and westerners have lost over $3 billion dollars to yahoo boys. nevertheless, the nigerian police have developed the habit of searching people's phones and laptops without warrant. with the same velocity, nigerian security agencies are doing their best to tame yahoo boys. thus, the yahoo boys stand a chance of being jailed when arrested. taking hard drug: yahoo boys consume large quantities of cocaine, cigarette, marijuana, etc. which are dangerous to health. those hard drugs they take make them become insane and easily become angry in hurting their fellow human beings. hence it is a known fact that such events also take place in umukara and imo state in general. furthermore, the yahoo boys are mostly addicted to bad habits such as taking of hard drugs which make them “high”. generational curses: there is an african adage that says “what goes around comes around”; thus, what a yahoo boy might think he is enjoying right now might become a future generational curse to him and his lineage; it is clear that we live in a spiritual world. what goes around comes around. in umukara, it is a notable fact that when a young lad gets involved in any form of ritual as a yahoo boy, which involves blood sacrifices, there are generational curses tied to it. thus, the deity or gods of umukara will always come to punish the young lad or by extension will punish his family. life span reduction: “yahoo” (crime) itself is a sin and a crime in almost all religions. it is so in all villages, especially in umukara, hence it is totally preached against and frowned at as well. thus, in christianity the word of god made it clear that, the soul that "sinneth" shall die. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 39 when you get involved into yahoo, the rituals as a yahoo boy, you automatically reduce your life span. there is no two ways about it. you can cause someone death by your actions and stay long to enjoy it. god is a just god, and nature must run its full course. negative influence: immediately one starts doing “yahoo”, he will definitely have new friends who will persuade him into doing things he didn't want to do. if the (friends) didn't turn him to a smoker they will turn him into drinking alcoholic drinks from there, they may turn him into a ritualist all in the name of doubling or tripling your hustle and before he realizes it, he has become a member of a cult group. good friends don't influence you negatively, they give you the best advice but yahoo boyfriends will talk them into doing evil deeds to make quick money. adamant children: most yahoo boys think of the now and forget about the resultant effect of their action. most times when they get married and have kids the effect of their past will start playing in the lives of their children in the sense that their kids will not listen to them, basically because the deity or gods of the land is working against them to frustrate them. the reason for this is because the yahoo boys dined with the devil, they fed him blood via rituals and he must collect his price. early loss of loved ones: getting involved in rituals or becoming ritualists has made most “yahoo boys” to lose loved ones. according to an interview granted by chief nweze, a chieftain in umukara village, many yahoo boys have lost their loved ones because of various curses and rituals performed on them by their victims; sometimes, the curses will start with their loved ones in order to destroy their joy and family before hitting on them. though in most cases the death of their loved ones might not be the intentions of yahoo boys, but it's happening without their permission or consent. in another sense some lose their loved ones because they mistakenly or intentionally sacrifice their loved ones at the altar of native doctors or ritualist and that is what the devil, native doctors and ritualists are known for. once they give a little, they take in plenty, and you have no right and control over it because you have washed your hands with blood or dined with the devil. in addition, yahoo boys don’t care to kill their dad, mum, sister, brother or even their girlfriend for ritual in order to get money. if killing their close relative is not necessary, they would make sure they kill another person for ritual. they can take the child who is returning/going to school or errand. there has been a notable case of missing children at umukara, and accusations have been leveled upon yahoo boys as suspects, and the global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 40 brain behind the missing children. according to chief nweze, a chieftain and a cabinet member of the king of umukara, many youths in umukara have resorted to killing of their parents and siblings for the sake of “yahoo-plus”. he claimed that some succeeded while others did not. you might run mad: although the sweetness of yahoo is that the result is mostly quick but the after effect is terrible and unbearable. though they might be enjoying all the money and cars at the moment, and enjoying the yahoo boy names they give themselves, but they might end up running mad. this happens in three ways, according to one nwachi whom i interviewed: “it’s either you run mad when the herbalist, juju man or dibia dies or you run mad when your secret is being exposed. you might also run mad when you don't meet up to the task.” they can be killed: after past fraud they had committed are traced to them, “yahoo boys” can be killed or prosecuted. sometimes, their properties are seized. most yahoo boys have died mysteriously because of few years of pleasure, some died because they can no longer fulfill the demands of the ritualist or negative doctor, while others were killed by those the defrauded. no peace of mind: the christian holy bible says “no sinner will go on punished” therefore yahoo boys barely have peace of mind, even with themselves. the fact remains since yahoo is an illegal business or act the yahoo boys are always scared of being caught or being in trouble. in umukara there is a scenario where one yahoo boy was walking on the road with his mobile phone (wherein all his working tools/applications are), and out of nowhere, the sars approached him for questioning then he began to shiver and that was how they caught him. in a interview with me, mr. chris ilodibe maintained that: “being a yahoo boy robs you of that satisfaction, because stealing and lying to make riches is a criminal offence and as such any citizen found wanting is an irresponsible citizen even when such a person may not realize it.” solutions to the problem of ritualism and yahoo boys in igbo land job availability: it is no longer news that nigerian is one of the countries that have the highest rate of unemployment in the world. currently, lack of jobs is one of the main reasons why nigerian youths go into yahoo business although it is not good reason because there are not the only ones. there are millions of nigerian youths that create jobs for themselves without waiting for the government to help them with jobs global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 41 or any benefits from the government. if the government can help the youth by providing jobs the issue of yahoo will definitely reduce. prosecution by law enforcement agencies: the government should see the yahoo epidemic as a national emergency, the same way it sees religious extremism and banditry. they should persecute the yahoo boys or girls that are caught in the act; this will reduce the rate of yahoo boys and girls in the country because they won't want to end in jail. the government should increase the rate of efcc arrests so that it will teach other people especially those who are about enjoining the business a good lesson. narrowing it down to umukara, the village king and cabinet should set up laws that will prohibit yahoo boys from operating freely probably using their local vigilant groups to monitor the movement of suspected yahoo boys. parental training: in our society today, some negative behaviors children exhibit are the product of what was taught them by their parents. therefore in this issues of yahoo boys and ritualism, parents should train their children in the fear of the lord so that they won't get involved in illegal things, especially reaping where one did not show which is stealing from someone else’s resources. thus, in umukara families should help in teaching their children about the ethics of the lands and the fear of god should be inculcated in them; with these, good morals will easily be imbibed in the lives of the youths in umukara. according to one mr. kelechi who spoke to me, “when a child who just graduated and has no job, yet comes back home driving a car… it is the responsibility of the parents to ask questions regarding sudden wealth before accepting him. your child can not come home with an exotic car and you celebrate with him instead of asking about the source of the wealth. parents who fail to ask question are collaborating with evil. so, parents should be blamed for failing in their responsibilities.” organizing of enlightenment programmes: in today`s world, many youths are bent on making quick money; governments and ngos should organize enlightenment programmes that will help to tackle the issue of yahoo and yahoo plus in this dispensation. specifically, in umukara the governing council of the village should help to motivate the young lads of the village and keep them busy with something educative and inspirational in order to shift their minds away from the menace of yahoo. unfortunately, “yahoo plus” is not limited to male alone; ladies also have roles to perform. ladies serves as catalyst to various charms due to their spiritual and physical nature. ladies serve as partners to the yahooglobal online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 2, no. 2 mar-apr 2023 42 boys; they help the yahoo boys to pick calls, make video calls and manage their fake social media to make it look real. importantly, ladies are also involved directly in yahoo-yahoo, especially the online romance scam. public enlightenment programmes, therefore, should also cover young ladies. conclusion this paper has submitted that the technique of “yahoo-plus” is more than the usage of charms and hypnotizing clients online. due to the awareness of the activities of yahoo boys and their inability to successfully hypnotize the security operatives, yahoo plus now involves wide participation of highly skilled people and influential people who play important roles to ensure the smooth running of their fraudulent activities. these people include but are not limited to application and software developers, hackers, and pickers, gift card buyers and sellers and so on. it has been noted that the yahoo boys adopted the use of charms in order to exploit their victims perfectly without any trace. this has led to the misinterpretation of african traditional religion as satanic and evil, hence the affairs of yahoo-boys using charms and consulting various medium in order to make quick money has made african tradition religion to be seen as evil, whereas it is just a mere misinterpretation. references abdul-rasheed, s. l., lateef, i., yinusa, m.a. and abdullateef, r., (2016). 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(2005). encyclopaedia of criminology cybercrime. author information: dr francis chuks madukasi is a lecturer in the department of religion & human relations, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, igbariam, anambra state, nigeria. email: frankmakson@gmail.com global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 68 social values and symbolic characterisation in nigerian folk narratives by bukar usman abstract folk narrative characters make sense to the local audience of folktale narrators primarily because of the social and symbolic values attached to the characters by the indigenous communities whose culture and cosmology gave birth to the tales. unlike a modern short story, where the events of the story mainly determine how the character is viewed, the folktale utilizes the label placed on each given character by the culture to develop the conflict and unfold the theme or themes of the tale. this researcher undertook a study of one thousand (1000) folktales of nigeria with a view to classifying them based on how the characters are socially valued and symbolised by their local audiences. the research was necessitated by the fact that the classification classes adopted by the well-known at and atu systems were found to be functionally inadequate when applied to folktales emanating from non-western traditions, including nigerian folk narrative traditions. although there are other ways of classifying nigerian folktales, this study undertook a classification of nigerian folktales based on their character types. the result is an 8-character type classification of 1000 tales of nigeria published in the voluminous book, people, animals, spirits and objects: 1000 folk stories of nigeria. this academic paper, adapted from my introductory notes to the book, sheds light on the symbolic values of nigerian folk characters and why they can inspire a taxonomic distribution of nigerian folktales. keywords: characterisation, symbols, social values, nigerian folk narratives global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 69 introduction his exposition will briefly discuss two complementary topics. the first is the social values associated with folkloric tales while the second is symbolic characterization, a literary device which, in the arena of fictional tales, is socially mediated. one of the most enduring qualities of folktales is their social relevance. folktales convey and stabilize social values such as respect for constituted authority, respect for spiritual ordinances, hard work, good neighbourliness, honesty, patience, courage, moderation, and love for one’s family and kindred. the need to preserve stories that propagate these social values was one of the reasons the dr bukar usman foundation conducted the pan-nigerian talecollection projects which generated the tales of the treasury of nigerian tales series. people, animals, spirits and objects: 1000 folk stories of nigeria is one of the books published under the series. all the folktales i will be referring to in this paper are taken from this collection. social values in folktales folktales are vital aspects of any nation’s folklore and this fact is clearly acknowledged by emmanuel obiechina, one of nigeria’s pioneer literary critics. in the informed view of obiechina (27), folklore embodies the values and attitudes (of a people) in its proverbs and fossilised saying, its belief in myths and religion, and its consciousness of its historical life, collective outlook and ethics, in its legends, folktales and other forms of oral literature. concuring with obiechina, the literary scholar, saradashree choudhury (311), says: “the folklore in traditional african societies has a highly educative value. it imparts knowledge on the groups’ history, values of warfare, morals, wise sayings etc”. in many areas of the world, the tale is the vehicle by which these communally-generated attributes are communicated and entrenched in the consciousness of the people. in nigeria and other parts of africa where, despite the fast-fading trend, it is still orally narrated to family groups, the t global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 70 folktale reflects the social pulse of the common folk. carroll-mcquillan (1993) elaborates on this pulse: the african oral tradition embodies this pulse in an especially inclusive and expressive way. stories in africa weave music, audience participation, chants and choruses, even dance, into their fabric. storytelling in africa is an integral part of the culture. it is a common and effective means of teaching, preserving values and historical events, entertaining and is also an essential aspect of most ceremonial rituals. there is something about stories that make them appealing across all cultures, but folktales have a distinct rural flavour which makes them so fascinating. people love stories, especially stories that reflect their everyday realities; and sometimes the more removed the stories are from the common features of the immediate environment, the more charming they seem. this is one of the reasons many of us, ruraland city-dwellers, are initially attracted to folktales. reading or listening to the stories gives us concrete benefits that urge us to explore further. carroll-mcquillan (1993) explains: when we explore folk stories, we explore ourselves and our many facets as human beings. we see the reflection of humankind: its strength, flaws, fears, and hopes. the settings and characters may change but the heart and soul feelings are always there. they are timeless; they are ageless…in folk stories, we encounter a mirror in which we can see who we are and what we have been. it is a mirror charged with echoes of the past and hints of the future. characters as social mirrors writers and narrators mirror the realities of their environment through the various aspects of their story, namely theme, setting, plot and characters. but no matter how profound the theme of a narrative, how exotic its setting, and how excellent its language, it cannot succeed in delivering a competent story without a character or group of characters. characters energize stories; they awaken and sustain our interest in the plot. indeed, a story’s plot cannot unravel without characters. those actions or global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 71 inactions which make reading fiction worth it all happen around the characters in the story. a story moves from one episode to another because of the activities of its characters. the way in which an oral narrator or a writer portrays his fictional characters, and this is very important, is known as characterisation. bernardo clarifies: what does characterization do for a story? in a nutshell, it allows us to empathize with the protagonist and secondary characters, and thus feel that what is happening to these people in the story is vicariously happening to us; and it also gives us a sense of verisimilitude, or the semblance of living reality…in the best of stories, it is actually characterization that moves the story along, because a compelling character in a difficult situation creates his or her own plot. a story’s characters interest us because we see our society, if not ourselves or those we know, through them. characters are social mirrors. no matter the theme or orientation of a narrative – be that narrative a modern story or a folktale – the characters play the role of reflectors through which we see the variegated experiences of life. a character’s success in achieving this role depends on a number of factors most of which we need not dwell on here. but suffice it to note that the type of characters deployed by the storyteller is very crucial. while a major character in a modern short story tends to be round and generally realistically portrayed, the typical character we encounter in folktales tends to be flat in the sense of having one kind of personality trait. it should be stated that this apparent lack of complexity is compensated for by the stimulating symbolic nature of many folktale characters. symbolic relevance of folktale characters although they are not endowed with complex traits, many characters we meet in folktales are significant and entertaining because of their attributes as symbolic characters. a symbolic character is one who reflects or represents an idea or concrete reality. narrowed to folktale characters, this symbolic global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 72 representation is invariably socially determined, thus ensuring that such characters personify culturally-fixed concepts, virtue or vice. the symbolic nature of its characters is a major reason a folktale is set in a familiar world of people, animals, spirits or objects and why its characters are drawn from this easily recognizable terrain. for this reason, as well, folktales are characterized by formulaic plots and traditional motifs. all of these make the folktale a communally-delivered art form. symbolic attribution enables the narrator’s audience (or the reader of a written folktale) to get inside the head of a character and predict what the next move is likely to be. depending on the narrator’s manipulation of the plot, during a story-telling session, or introduction of some elements of surprise, such predictions may turn out to be true or false. the symbolic attributes of the characters are outside the prerogative of the folktale narrator. they are socially determined over several generations and involve a “sociopsychological” process which is outside the manipulative powers of the narrator. in this process, according to j.l. fischer, at least three semi-independent systems are involved: (1) the tale itself, considered as connected and rather tightly structured discourse; (2) the modal personality of the typical audience-narrator group for the tale; and (3) the social system relevant to the tale, including not only that segment of the society in which are found the active and passive participants in the tale (i.e., the "bearers" of the tale as an item of culture) but the pattern of the whole society. in the tale-bearing environment, this connection is easily established since the concerns expressed in folktales are usually the concerns of the common folk whose worldview is shaped by the collective consciousness of the community. it is this communal consciousness that had, over time, attributed symbolic meanings to the folktale’s typical characters. thus, symbolic characters, in folktales, are cultural in origin and make customary sense because they spring from the age-old “memory” of a given ethnic or linguistic group. this description of cultural symbols by carl jung (93) is very definitive: global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 73 the cultural symbols…are those that have been used to express eternal truths…they have gone through many transformations and even a long process of more or less conscious development, and have thus become collective images accepted by civilized societies. such cultural symbols nevertheless retain much of their original numinosity or spell. one is aware that they can evoke a deep emotional response in some individuals…they are important constituents of our mental make-up and vital forces in the building up of human society…. cultural symbols in the context of folktales function within a given social system which may be limited to a community or ethnic group or encompass many ethnic, linguistic or social groups. the relevance of these symbols, however, may be expanded, through migration and some other form of social integration, to wider social settings. infact, due to cultural affinities among nigerian ethnic groups and the prevalence of similar traditional motifs across folktales collected from different parts of the country, many stories of this collection have similar cultural symbols. a good number of characters the reader would be encountering through the 1000 tales featured in this book are symbolic. it is, therefore, important to briefly examine the subject of cultural symbols as they relate to characters featured n nigerian folktales. symbolic characterisation in nigerian folktales symbolic characterisation is the use of characters as symbols. this is a device employed in all fictional narratives, oral or written. in the case of folktales, including nigerian folktales, the symbolic value of the characters are culturally derived. in modern short stories, the symbolic relevance of a character usually rests on the character’s engagements within the story. unlike what obtains in the folktale, a character is not normally labeled outside the context of the contemporary short story. this is an important distinction worth exemplifying. two short stories from through laughter and tears: modern nigerian short stories can be used to illustrate this point. in helon habila’s “the embrace of the snake,” lamang, the heartless manipulator of peasants from global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 74 his own community, is the symbol of oppression whereas in wale okediran’s “just one trip,” grace, the drug courier who swallowed a wrap of cocaine now tearing her health apart, is a symbol of foolhardiness. both symbolic meanings are achieved purely by the actions of the characters within the stories, and not by any external cultural attribution. in a folktale, on the other hand, a typical character’s symbolic meaning is ascribed by the tale-bearing culture. this culturally determined label or symbolic value is so strong that presumptively the characters are portrayed in the tale in the manner dictated by the narrator-audience culture. for example, the hyena, in the stories where it featured in this book, symbolizes awkwardness, greed and foolhardiness. these are the qualities attributed to it by the story-bearing cultures of northern nigeria and this informs the narrator’s portrayal of the hyena in any tale. this stereotypical characterization of the hyena delights the audience who has been culturally raised to expect the display of these symbolic qualities from the hyena. a few examples of stories (published in usman’s people, animals, spirits and objects: 1000 folk stories of nigeria) featuring the hyena include “the rabbit, the tortoise and the hyena” (no. 241), where the rabbit and the tortoise kill the hyena; “the hyena’s offsprings and the rabbit” (no. 253), where the rabbit fool the hyena and malnourish its offsprings; and “the hyena and the ant” (no. 278), where the hyena is almost drowned by the ant’s schemes; and “the wasp and the hyena” (no. 303), where the wasp trick the hyena to drink itself to death. some other instances are “the hyena and the spider” (no. 352), where the spider defeats the hyena in a wrestling match; “the hyena’s desire to fly” (no. 436), where the hyena, on a monkey’s mischievous advice, tries to fly from a tree top but crashes down and dies; and “the boy, his pets and the hyena” (no. 649), where the hyena steals food, is killed and eaten by other animals. in all of these scenarios, the hyena was discomfited or destroyed by physically inferior opponents. the hyena’s self-destructive miscalculations above delight the audience of each of these stories because this character’s behaviour in each instance matched its symbolic mould. should the hyena behave contrary to its cultural global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 75 tag, as in “the hyena’s dawadawa” (no. 606) where the hyena displays uncharacteristic patience, the story would seem unreal and the symbol-guided audience would most likely find it uninteresting. can any group of nigerian youngsters believe or appreciate a folktale where the tortoise, the nationallyacclaimed trickster, is portrayed as honest, faithful, truthful, reliable, or selfless? not likely. these qualities are simply not in the tortoise’s symbolic character. because the tortoise’s crafty nature is culturally fixed, a narrator trying to make it behave otherwise may lose credibility with his audience. the fact is that symbolic value is ascribed to the character by the culture and the folktale narrator and his audience is customarily led to respect this. however, the narrator is expected to freshen up these characters by engaging them in interesting episodes. the narrator may even borrow episodes from two or more stories and weld them into one story. this is permissible as long as the narrator remains faithful to each character’s symbolic trait. good narrators can also introduce elements of surprise by manipulating the plot or the motifs instead of tampering with the symbolic tendencies of the characters. this is a major reason narrators have created thrilling versions of a specific tortoise story without compromising the personality of the tortoise. in fact, the tortoise has featured in far more stories than any other single character can lay claim to, and in each story it plays a major role. and the tortoise plays out its symbolic role mostly through its shell. at least 12 different stories in 1000 folk stories of nigeria are weaved around the motif of the tortoise’s patchy shell. they include the stories numbered 281, 332, 343, 366, 371, 372, 388, 396, 499, 502, 591 and 937. in all of these stories, the tortoise is characterized in accordance with its symbolic nature. symbolic values differ not only from one animal character to another but also from one narrator-audience environment to another. while the tortoise features prominently in the oral narrative of every region of nigeria, some other interesting animal characters feature mainly in tales associated with a particular linguistic or regional group. a good example is gizo, a popular character found in many folktales from northern nigeria. although the rabbit can play different symbolic roles in other areas of nigeria, for the fulani it global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 76 symbolises cleverness in a self-serving sense. all in all, there is more cultural unity than variations among nigerian groups. symbolic characters in nigerian folktales are not limited to animals. people, spirits, and even some objects are imbued with symbolic meaning. in many tales of this collection, the king is characterized as a symbol of authority and social order. in some stories, however, such as in “the king’s new robe” (no. 6), the king can diminish his dignified symbolic stature through ignoble or atrocious behaviour. among the king’s subjects, some categories of individuals are uniquely symbolically represented. they include the old woman (symbolized as a mysterious rescuer or avenger), the juju priest (the communal prophet), the hunter (usually associated with bravery and adventure), and the orphan (a symbol of the triumph of providence over adversity). the orphan’s symbolic character accounts for the reason none of the many tales featuring the orphan in this collection portrays the orphan as a villain. the orphan is almost always a victim of circumstances who ends up triumphant through some fluke of good fortune, supernatural rescue or magical transformation. women are not so uniformly characterized. while they are represented as caring mothers in some tales, they are painted as vengeful mean antagonists in other tales. the latter picture is prevalent when narrators are characterizing the jealous co-wife. generally, folktales simply reflect the roles the culture has traditionally assigned to women. the same cultural prerogative also dictates the way the menfolk are characterized in tales. male and female characters, in general, play different roles – symbolic and otherwise. even trees are characterised symbolically in many of these folktales. the iroko and baobab trees symbolise mystery, strength, or fertility. “the child from the iroko tree” (no. 878) and “oluronbi” (no. 894) illustrate the latter symbol. but in spite of the strength of the baobab tree, the soldier ant (characterized in these tales as a symbol of wisdom, industry and resilience) successfully brings down the baobab tree in “the cock, the baobab tree and the soldier ant” (no. 941) by attacking its roots. it should be re-stated here that not only characters are of symbolic significance in folktales. themes, plots and settings can also be used as symbolic tools. indeed, the formulaic pattern of some plots may serve useful global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 77 symbolic purposes; and in certain stories involving supernatural elements, the setting of the folktale can be as symbolically important as the characters. but we have dwelt on symbolic characters in this essay because of the central place of the folktale’s characters in initiating and resolving action. one can tell a story without a theme, plot or setting, although it is not likely to be interesting, but it is impossible to tell a story which does not feature at least one or two characters. a folktale is primarily about the characters. this is one of the reasons we opted to use characters in classifying the tales presented in this anthology. folktale classification systems of the best-known folktale classification systems, none can claim to be adequate enough to be applied universally. these systems are the aarne/thompson index (at index), aarne/thompson/uther index (atu index), stilth thompson’s motif index of folk literature and vladimir propp’s morphology of the folktale. indeed, none of these has captured in its system all the vital aspects of the folktale. while the first three systems listed above concentrate on theme and motif, the third concerns itself with the morphology or structure of the tale. an examination, for instance, of the classification classes adopted by the at and atu systems would indicate their limitations and the inadequacy of applying them on a global level. we have tabulated the main at and atu classes below. main thematic classes of the at and atu index aarne/thompson aarne/thompson/uther 1. animal tales 1. animal tales 2. regular folktales 2. tales of magic 3. humorous tales 3. religious tales 4. realistic tales 5. tales of the stupid ogre 6. anecdotes and jokes 7. formula tales global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 78 the atu classification, in spite of its greater thematic space, is inadequate outside the western world where it has gained some regard as an international taxonomical system. an attempt to fit the 18 classes of the collection, a selection of nigeran folktales: themes and settings (edited by usman) will display obvious inadequacies in certain areas. for instance, in which class would one place enfant-terrible tales? and what about those animal tales that make sense only within the interplay of human and animal characters, in which of the above tabulated classes will they be placed? if the at and atu analytical systems were not positioned as global taxonomies, posing the above questions would have been unnecessary. within the context of their originating western tradition, these systems (especially the atu model) are probably adequate for classifying most traditional tales from the western and, to some extent, asian worlds. elsewhere, particularly in nigeria where we have extensive research to rely on, the atu index is inadequate, and this is not surprising since tales from africa were not part of the data used in deriving its classes. and recently, two malaysian scholars (harun and jamaludin) attempted to develop a largely academic “conceptual model that envisions the connections of the three classification systems (thompson‘s motif-index of folk literature, the atu index and propp‘s morphology of the folktale), which displays their cohesive nature to operate as one classification system.” (brackets mine) while the sort of micro classification proposed by them is not our objective here, it is important to observe that in their parameters these systems are not broad enough to cover tales from every country of the world. folktale classification by character-types in classifying the 1000 tales studied by this researcher, a character-type classification deemed culturally appropriate for these tales collected from nigeria was deviced. since claude bremond’s 1966 three-type classification model, further efforts have been made to classify tales by character-type. one of such efforts is the home-grown four character-type model used by sekoni to classify yoruba folktales in 1983. sekoni’s four categories are heroic, nonheroic, anti-heroic and a-heroic character-types (sesan). global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 79 a character-type classification was used in grouping the 1000 tales analysed by this researcher. one of the reasons for using this type of classification was the need to celebrate the elements that make folktales vibrate in our memories long after they were told – the characters in the stories! the character-type classification system deplored by the study broadly classifies the 1000 tales into eight groups based on the kind of characters or combination of characters featured in them. the eight categories are as follows: 1. human tales: these are tales featuring only human characters. by “human,” we mean all human beings, including malformed ones. 2. animal tales: these are tales featuring only animal characters. by “animal,” we include all living things apart from human beings and plants. 3. human-animal tales: these are tales featuring only human and animal characters. 4. human-spirit tales: these are tales featuring only human beings and spirits as characters. by “spirits” we include ghosts, fairies, elves, mermaids, and other supernatural “beings.” living human beings are not included in this definition of “spirit.” 5. human-object tales: these are tales featuring only human beings and objects as characters. by “objects,” we mean tangible non-living things (e.g, an isolated bone, a rock or the moon) personified to play such roles as speaking or moving from one point to another. “objects” may also include non-human, non-animal living things (such as a tree) when they are personified to act like human beings. 6. animal-spirit tales: these are tales featuring only animal and spirit characters. 7. animal-object tales: these are tales featuring only animal and personifiedobject characters (“object” here is as defined above). 8. multiple-character tales: these are tales featuring characters derived from three or more character-types as classified above. it should be noted that each of the above tales classification, in being anchored on character-types, represents some basic unifying characteristics of global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 80 the character drawn from the tales in each category. for instance, all animal tales are unified by the mere fact of being animals, as defined above. also note that the emphasis here is on a set of characters (e.g, animals) rather than a specific character (e.g, tortoise). this classification, however, allows anyone who so wishes to explore the character traits of single actors (as we did, in this essay, in our earlier discussion on the deployment of the hyena and the tortoise as symbolic characters). tales distribution by character-types a total of the 1000 folktales collected from different parts of nigeria, categorized according to their character-types, are distributed into the eight sections of people, animals, spirits and objects: 1000 folk stories of nigeria, as indicated in table 1. table 1 character-type range of tales no. of tales % of the entire tales 1. human tales 1 233 233 23.3% 2. animal tales 234 563 330 33% 3. human-animal tales 564 756 193 19.3% 4. human-spirit tales 757 867 111 11.1% 5. human-object tales 868 909 42 4.2% 6. animal-spirit tales 910 938 29 2.9% 7. animal-object tales 939 953 15 1.5% 8. multiple character tales 954 1000 47 4.7% total = 1000 stories 100% from the above table, one gets the impression that human beings like using animals to portray human behaviour, especially the foibles of individuals and the inequities in the society. perhaps, this could explain why 33% of the tales (the highest for any singular character type) are animal tales. however, the global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 81 bulk of the 1000 tales (62.6%) are stories featuring human beings in interaction with human and non-human characters. conclusion as we have analysed, familiarization with the symbolic value of the characters heightens the reader’s appreciation of the tale and its import. characters play a central role in generating and developing conflicts in folktales, and conflicts are what make folk stories interesting to the audience. in whichever way conflicts are resolved, happily or unhappily, they ultimately teach some morals. these morals, no matter the cultural root of the tale, are usually universal truths. understanding the social values represented by the characters enhances the reader’s enjoyment of the story and the kind of moral truths drawn from it. works cited bernardo, karen. “characterization in literature” (http://www.storybites.com) bremond, claude. “la logique des possibles narratives”. communications, vol. 8, no. 1, 1966, pp. 60-76. carroll-mcquillan, synia. “folktales: the mirror of society”. from http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1993/2/93.02.02.x.html) choudhury, saradashree. “folklore and society in transition: a study of the palm wine drinkard and the famished road”, african journal of history and culture, vol.6, no. 1, january 2014, pp. 3-11. fischer, j.l. “the sociopsychological analysis of folktales”. current anthropology, vol. 4, no. 3, university of chicago press, june 1963, pp. 235295. habila, helon. “the embrace of the snake”. in duve nakolisa, ed. through laughter and tears: modern nigerian short stories. klamidas books, 2015. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 82 harryizman harun and zulikha jamaludin. “folktale conceptual model based on folktale classification system of type, motif, and function”. proceedings of the 4th international conference on computing and informatics, paper no. 118, universiti utara, 2013. jung, carl. man and his symbols. doubleday, 1964, p. 93. nakolisa, duve, ed. through laughter and tears: modern nigerian short stories. klamidas books, 2015. obiechina, emmanuel. culture, tradition and society in the west african novel. cambridge up, 1975, p. 27 okediran, wale. “just one trip”. in duve nakolisa, ed. through laughter and tears: modern nigerian short stories. klamidas books, 2015. propp, vladimir. morphology of the folktale, 4th ed. university of texas press, 1998. sesan, azeez akinwumi. “yoruba folktales, the new media and postmodernism”. khazar journal of humanities and social sciences, vol.17, no. 2, khazar up, 2014. thompson, stilth. motif index of folk literature, vol. 16. indiana up, 1966. usman, bukar, ed. a selection of nigerian folktales: themes and settings. klamidas books, 2016. usman, bukar, ed. people, animals, spirits and objects: 1000 folk stories of nigeria. klamidas books, 2018. author information: dr bukar usman is the president of nigerian folklore society. email: bukarusman@gmail.com. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 55 parameters for determining core cultural symbols: a philosophical analysis by innocent ngangah abstract there is need to work towards the identification of common parameters for determining core cultural symbols in philosophy of ethnic studies and other forms of cultural research. this has become cogent since scholars are increasingly utilizing the concept of symbolic transformation in various studies of cultural groups and identities. in such studies, symbols are treated as mental representations of cultural ideas, objects or realities. within this context, core symbols are those symbols which represent the central cultural beliefs of a cultural group, be it racial, ethnic or any other group. this paper would attempt to identify parameters which would guide the cultural researcher through the intricacies of identifying a cultural group’s core symbols. this is important because a given cultural group’s core values and cultural systems can only be discerned and grasped through the recognition of its core symbolic logic. keywords: signs, symbolic transformation, traditional african society, cultural philosophy 1. introduction hile the study of the culture of ethnic groups by foreign anthropologists, ethnologists and philosophers has waned, academic research on the culture of ethnic groups by scholars from those groups is believed to have risen globally. the “humanities w global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 56 indicator”, an index of the american academy of arts and science, for instance, shows that in 2014, “traditionally underrepresented racial/ethnic minorities received 17.0% of all bachelor’s degrees in philosophy (indicator ii50a)”, an increase of “eight percentage points from 1995 (the first year for which data of this kind are available)”. at the masters level, these minorities “earned 10.2% of philosophy degrees awarded in 2014, up from 6.5% in 1995 (indicator ii-50b)” while at the phd level, they “reached a high of 7.9%, a level nearly three times as great as that observed in 1995 (indicator ii-50c)”. both philosophy and their cultural backgrounds must have mutually benefited from these students’ researches. and in africa, where the primary research for this paper was conducted, there is hardly any philosophy department of any university that does not offer courses in african philosophy. at their basic level, cultural studies, including philosophical ones, are narrations about how culture and mind are related through symbols (wagoner 2009). so, a clear understanding of what “culture” and “symbols” are, especially in the context of this study, is crucial to our appreciation of the necessity of setting parameters for determining core cultural symbols. we will explain what we mean by “culture” and “symbol” in subsequent sections of this paper which uses the culture and symbols of the igbo people of south-eastern nigeria to illustrate the heuristic role universal parameters can play in identifying any given group’s core cultural symbols. the paper is in six sections, namely, the introduction, which states the importance of the topic within a backdrop of growing interest in the philosophy of cultural groups; cultural essence, a section devoted to explaining the meaning of “culture” as used in this study; signs and symbols – what they mean and the differences between them; core symbols – their relevance in mapping the core areas of any group’s culture; parameters for identifying core symbols – a set of theoretical rules and an illustration of how they can be applied; and conclusion. 2. cultural essence what sets a social group apart in terms of its worldview, social organization, and ways of carrying out social functions or activities is what we call culture. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 57 culture, therefore, accounts for a given group’s philosophy of life, ideas about existence, social relationships, work ethic, and ways of conducting transitional ceremonies (such as those associated with birth, marriage, and death) and religious rituals. culture, in determining and enforcing veritable values in a society, enables it to avert social chaos and disintegration. as reference.com puts it, “society could not function without cultural norms that assist in governing behaviour and values, and culture could not exist without societal influences to create it.” culture is the traditional beliefs and practices of a society or a group of people within a society. in this sense, culture is synonymous with tradition, customs, heritage, and mores. extending the meaning of culture even further, adian and arivia (1974) say that: culture refers to the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving. for us, here, culture consists of a cultural group’s beliefs, values, norms, language, attitudes, activities, ceremonies, and objects and the unique way of life which these entail or reflect. hence, culture provides the social platform and points of reference within which a given group organizes, interprets and makes sense of their internal and external environment. in short, culture is the traditional system around which a society is organized and by which its guiding perspectives and practices are carried on from one generation to another, and this often dates back to ancestral times. in many societies, culture is conveyed and sustained by oral tradition. a distinct social group, such as an ethnic or racial group, owes its uniqueness to a shared cultural identity founded on shared cultural values. and cultural identities can be socially and psychologically stabilizing for groups and individuals. absence of such identities can be very disorienting and is known to have been the root of deviant, counter-productive and socially divisive behaviour. such behaviour is experienced usually in those societies global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 58 where the authentic culture has been supplanted by counter-cultural forces that violate a people’s definition of who they are and how they customarily do things. it is generally agreed that culture is not an inborn trait but something that individuals and groups can learn. in other words, cultural traits are not innate but rather learned acquisition of a socially-integrating set of thoughts and actions as they were received or changed by previous generations via oral tradition. such changes are not formal amendments and rarely constitute a total break with the past. more often than not, they are little departures from past attitudes and practices or merely generational adjustments that delicately tinker with the meaning and manner of a people’s cultural references and habits. so, although culture is a continuum authenticated by roots in the distant past, it is at the same time intrinsically dynamic. in whatever form culture is manifested, symbols play a very key role in enabling it to generate meaning for members of a given cultural group. 3. signs and symbols having explained what we mean by “culture”, we now turn to “symbol”. generally, a symbol is something that refers to a given reality, be it abstract or concrete. charles peirce, the philosopher who has conducted the most elaborate study of signs, sees a symbol as a type of sign, the latter being his basic semantic category. peirce (1932) believes that all modes of thinking depend on the use of signs. for him, every act of reasoning is a function of the interpretation of signs. thus, signs mediate between the external world of objects and the internal realm of ideas. according to peirce, a symbol is a sign which refers to the object it denotes by virtue of a law. for him, a symbol is technically a sign which refers to the object that it denotes by virtue of a law, usually an association of general ideas, which operates to cause the symbol to be interpreted as referring to that object. symbols are, therefore, associative representations of objects or social realities. they are not mere representations of pictures or abstract ideas, as do global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 59 normal signs, but are deemed to be symbolic signs because there is a “semiosis” or “cooperation” between the given objects and their symbols. a symbol is different from a mere sign in the sense that it reveals a reality that is beyond what a sign would normally indicate. dukor (2006) explains: symbols are cultural realities imbued with cultural meaning and any suggestive symbol...is epistemic and thematic. it is an overt expression of the reality behind any direct act of perception and apprehension, which really possesses scientific connotation outside its normal, obvious or conventional meaning. above, dukor refers to a symbol as “an overt expression of the reality behind any direct act of perception”. this is noteworthy because reality is not independent of human consciousness but consists of symbols or objects and events as perceived by the human mind. symbols enable humans to understand and communicate their awareness and interpretation of their physical, social, spiritual, and cultural environment. a symbol makes sense within a given semiotic code. explaining this postsaussurean term, chandler (2019) says that every symbol “as part of its social use within a code” makes sense within a historical and connotative context to “members of the sign-users' culture”. this echoes saussure’s position that “language is always an inheritance from the past” (duan 2012) users are compelled to accept, a view lévi-strauss (chandler 2007, 27) also expresses when he maintains that “the sign is arbitrary a priori but ceases to be arbitrary a posteriori after the sign has come into historical existence it cannot be arbitrarily changed”. this historically fixed nature of the symbolic sign is one of the elements that imbues it with cultural relevance and stability and enables certain symbols to emerge as core symbols. 4. core symbols core symbols offer the surest guide to the identification and understanding of a cultural group’s essence, defining values, and characteristic behaviour. according to poon (2018), symbols, as cultural materials, in being used to “to global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 60 signify ideas, beliefs, actions, events or physical entities” are “instrumental for human communication and commodification”. paraphrasing hall (1996), he stresses that: the study of symbols seeks to understand symbolic forms of mediation and the mediated, and aims to critically demonstrate symbolic construction in its cultural role as meaning-makers in postmodern era. one of the first major philosophers to appreciate the meaning-making role of symbols in terms of their power to organise both thought and action is susanne langer. in her indepth study, philosophy in a new key: a study in the philosophy of reason, rite and art (1954), she says that “the human brain is constantly carrying on a process of symbolic transformation" of experience because “the main themes of our thought tend to be transposed” into symbols. core symbols are those symbols which reflect and represent the main themes that energize the belief system and customary practices of a cultural group. though this paper is not about “the logic of meaning” in a general sense, langer’s thoughts and assumptions in this regard would illuminate our basic understanding of symbolic meaning, and it is necessary to let her explain this in her own words: meaning has both a logical and a psychological aspect. psychologically, any item that is to have meaning must be employed as a sign or a symbol; that is to say, it must be a sign or a symbol to someone. logically, it must be capable of conveying a meaning, it must be the sort of item that can be thus employed… both aspects, the logical and the psychological, are always present, and their interplay produces the great variety of meaning-relations over which philosophers have puzzled and fought… (langer 1954, 42-43) langer goes on to assert that there is no quality of meaning because meaning is logically derived and logic does not deal with quality but with relations. even then, meaning may not be said to be a relation as a relation is mostly viewed as “a two-termed affair”. she prefers to see meaning as “a function of a term” because a function is “a pattern viewed with reference to global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 61 one special term round which it centers”, stressing that “this pattern emerges when we look at the given term in its total relation to the other terms about it” (44). in functional terms, therefore, we can share this view by stating that a symbol is regarded as a core symbol in terms of its total relation to the other cultural elements that contextualize its symbolic pattern. this means that there can be a shift in the core essence of a core symbol if the semantic values of the cultural elements that circumscribe its meaning change over a given period of time. this is why a core symbol’s meaning is not instinctively or infinitely fixed. its meaning can be modified, reviewed or even lost over time. cowries, for instance, used to be the core symbols of wealth when they served monetary purposes across africa. when they lost their value as means of exchange, with the emergence and dominance of bank notes and coins, they lost their long-term role as symbols of wealth. in spite of their symbolic decline, as noted above, cowries proved more resilient than some other discarded traditional symbols, such as red mud, that became mostly irrelevant after such demotion. cowries continue to function today as cultural symbols because the user communities reverted to using them for decorative, theatrical, and medicinal purposes (ngangah 2013). when cowries ceased to serve as means of exchange, they became easily available to the common folk who now use them to decorate clothings, household items, and masks. their theatrical uses are seen in custumes won by cultural troupes, masquerades, and dancers. their use in traditional medicine is chiefly in divination and fortune-telling, which are key pre-clinical tools used by traditional healers across africa to identify the spiritual cause of a serious disease. the changing fortunes of cowrie, in terms of its symbolic roles, indicate that symbolic transformations are continual and epochal in nature and that major shifts in symbolic meaning are possible within someone’s life time. symbols are not immutable. as people and societies that imbue them with meaning change in physical, spiritual and psychological terms, the symbols by which they define and explain their various shades of existence undergo alterations that moderate or alter the essence of their symbols. with the exception of few radical departures from the past, such changes are usually global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 62 gradual and cut across generations, and this make them barely discernible to most observers. thus, there would always be occasional, though infrequent, need to determine and re-determine what constitutes a given culture’s core cultural symbols. as earlier noted, this is a sine qua non for assessing a cultural group’s symbolic uniqueness, identity, and value. to avoid making the determination of the core cultural symbols of an ethic group an arbitrary, non-uniform, and unreliable exercise, a set of generally applicable parameters by which to gauge the cultural relevance of symbols needs to be put forward. this is what we would try to do and illustrate in the next section of this study. 5. parameters for identifying core symbols the word, “parameter” is loosely used here as an identifiable and measurable characteristic or distinguishing feature by which a symbol can be classified as “core” or “peripheral” within a given cultural belief system and practices. the usefulness of a parameter, in most ordinary contexts, lies in its universal or non-specific applicability. for example, if an examination board sets the pass mark at 50%, it should apply to all courses and all students for it to be a predictable and reliable determinant of whether a student has passed or failed a course. just as in the above simple example, a parameter is usually derived from the elements or attributes of the system which it is meant to gauge or quantify. for instance, in our example, the number of marks (expressed as a percentage) earned by a student is used to determine whether he has passed or failed. if his personal relationship with the teacher, rather than his performance in an examination, is used in awarding marks to him, then that yardstick cannot be considered a parameter because it is extraneous to the usual system of testing and grading students. before we go into the parameters we have identified for the purposes of determining core cultural symbols, let us briefly explain what we mean by “core” and “peripheral” symbols. every society has its cultural pillars or those elements of cultural beliefs and practices that define and sustain its key beliefs, values, institutions and essential practices. symbols which are used to represent global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 63 these elements or their respective essence are core symbols while symbols which signify other cultural elements (such as a palm wine tapper, the death of the king) or cultural events (such as the pre-marital fattening of the bride among the ibibio) are peripheral symbols because they have no direct relevance to the essential and central functions of the cultural group. having said this, we can now turn to the parameters for evaluating core cultural symbols. although what may qualify as core cultural symbols can differ from one culture to another, the under-listed set of parameters derived by this researcher in the course of his years of conducting research in the area of cultural philosophy constitutes a theoretical framework which can be applied to identify and set apart a cultural group’s core symbols from its peripheral ones. there are six parameters this researcher has used and found helpful in this regard. the parameters are used only in determining if a cultural artefact is a core symbol. by artefacts we simply mean those modes of transmitting cultural beliefs and practices that are found among all cultural groups. according to bauman et al (1972), three forms of artefacts are universally acknowledged; they include:  oral traditions (e.g. oral history, tale)  material culture (e.g. shrine, totem)  customary lore (e.g. ritual, masquerade act) an artefact would be regarded as a core symbol if at least 50% of the parameters mentioned below are applicable to it. so, it is possible that if three artefacts are tested using these parameters, one may be rated 50%, another 70%, and another 100%. because they all measured at least 50%, all would be regarded as core symbols although it is clear that their degree of cultural weight, acceptance or popularity obviously differs. this difference can be critical, as we would see later in this study, when gauging which cultural artefact should be adopted to serve a specific cultural or research purpose. all artefacts that score less than 50% when measured for degree of cultural relevance, using these parameters, should be regarded as peripheral cultural symbols. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 64 below, then, are the parameters for gauging the status of a cultural symbol, whether it is a core cultural symbol or a peripheral cultural symbol: i. a core cultural symbol should be an integral aspect of a cultural group’s controlling belief system, not an extraneous appendage. ii. it should be popularly shared across the social strata of a given cultural entity. iii. it should reflect or symbolize a core philosophic concept or worldview of the cultural group in question. iv. its symbolic value should derive from or be in alignment with a given culture’s core values, particularly its spiritual and cosmological frames of reference. v. it should be easily accessible to or popularly understood by members of a given cultural group. vi. it should be an artefact around which the people gravitate – an artefact that generally attracts or entails popular participation in a limited or massive sense. this researcher recently conducted a study among the igbo of eastern nigeria where he needed to determine which of the two key igbo symbols, ikenga (a horned deity of the igbo) and the igbo masquerade, he should use as a core cultural symbol for the research. the fact that both were common core igbo cultural symbols made it even more difficult to choose one over the other. for the purposes of the research, he needed to choose the most common core cultural symbol of the igbo. having narrowed his choice to these two igbo cultural symbols, the question was: which of them, ikenga or the igbo masquerade, is more of a core cultural symbol than the other? to answer this critical pre-research question, the six parameters were applied in comparing ikenga and the igbo masquerade and below is the result: global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 65 ikenga masquerade 1st parameter: a core cultural symbol should be an integral aspect of a cultural group’s controlling belief system, not an extraneous appendage. 2nd parameter: it should be popularly shared across the social strata of the cultural group. 3rd parameter: it should reflect or symbolize a key philosophic concept or worldview of the cultural group in question. 4th parameter: its symbolic value should derive from or be in alignment with a given culture’s core values, particularly its spiritual and cosmological frames of reference. 5th parameter: it should be popularly understood by and easily accessible to members of a given cultural group. 6th parameter: it should be an artefact around which the people gravitate – an artefact that generally attracts or entails popular participation in a limited or massive sense. as we can see, the igbo masquerade doubly outscored ikenga. the researcher, thus, adopted and regarded it as the most common core cultural symbol of the igbo. indeed, no largely non-verbal cultural expression in igbo land is as popular and widespread as the igbo masquerade act and certainly none offers as much drama, variety of music, colour, sport, and all-round fascination as much as the theatrical complements masquerades bring to enrich events and enhance audience participation. 6. conclusion let us note, as we conclude this study, that parameters mean different things to different people, depending on their area of discipline. what a parameter means in linguistics is different from what it means in engineering, global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 66 mathematics or statistics. and no matter how it is expressed (as an equation, a function, or a simple set of rules, such as the above 6-point parameters), a parameter is not a variable value (kilpatrick 1984). a parameter is a fixed value. it does not change with circumstances and is not arbitrarily altered. none of the six parameters we have identified should be altered to suit a particular cultural or research need. it is either a cultural artefact wholly satisfies the specific demand of each of these parameters or it does not. this is the spirit behind this set of rules which, it is hoped, may be of some benefit to a cultural philosopher or scholar conducting a research that necessitates the identification of a cultural group’s core cultural symbols. if this study has made some contribution towards the design and application of general parameters for determining not only the core symbols of cultural groups but those core symbols’ respective level of authenticity and relevance, then the main goal of this study would have been achieved. as langer (43) has rightly noted, “the whole purpose of general concepts is to make the distinctions between special classes clear”. works cited bauman, richard; paredes, americo, eds. toward new perspectives in folklore. trickster press, 1972 chandler, daniel. semiotics: the basics. routledge, 2007. duan, manfu. “on the arbitrary nature of linguistic sign”. theory and practice in language studies, vol. 2, no. 1, academy publisher, pp. 54-59, january 2012 doi:10.4304/tpls.2.1.54-59. dukor, maduabuchi, “theistic, panpsychic animism of african medicine”, essence, vol. 3, 2006, p.xvi global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 67 https://www.amacad.org/humanities-indicators/higher-education/racialethnicdistribution-degrees-philosophy https://www.reference.com/culture kilpatrick, james j. the writer’s art. andrews mcmeel publishing, 1984. langer, suzanne k. philosophy in a new key: a study in the philosophy of reason, rite and art. new american library, 1954 ngangah, innocent. “the epistemology of symbols in african medicine,” in open journal of philosophy, vol 03, iss 01, 2013, pp 117-121 poon, stephen. symbolic perception transformation and interpretation: the role and its impact on social narratives and social behaviours. iafor journal of the social sciences, vol. 3, march 8, 2018. trimmer, john d. response of physical systems. new york: wiley, 1950 urban, wilbur m. “symbolism in science and philosophy” philosophy of science, vol. 5, no. 3 (jul., 1938), pp. 276-299. https://www.jstor.org/stable/184835. assessed december 5, 2019. wagoner, brady. symbolic transformation: the mind in movement through culture and society. routledge, 2009 weiss, charles hartshorne paul (ed.). collected papers of charles s. peirce. harvard university press, 1932 author information: prof. innocent c. ngangah is of the department of philosophy, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, igbariam, anambra state, nigeria. email: ic.ngangah@coou.edu.ng. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 26 the calling of the twelve by jesus in matthew 4:18-22: a reflection of the concept of omo awo in yoruba traditional religion by oghenekevwe kate jibromah, ajishola omojeje, elijah rotimi ashafa & jonah olusola adeniran abstract continuity is a fundamental essence of every religion. the leadership of every religious group in the world realizes the importance of transmitting the ethics, values and norms of their belief system from one generation to another. such intergenerational transmissions rest upon the continuous zeal and devotion of the adherents of each religion. one of the important aspects of the yoruba traditional religion is the practice of initiation into the secrets of ifa divination after a period of apprenticeship during which all apprentices are known as omo awo. essentially disciples or followers, the omo awo constitute a common phenomenon that runs through religious practices of the people. omo awo are trained under the adahunse, babalawo or the onisegun. they are trained to understand the secret and practice of ifa divination which would enable them to serve as custodians of yoruba traditional religious thought and practices after their initiation. they continue as trusted custodians of affairs pertaining to the gods and attend to the people’s spiritual needs after the demise of their masters. against this background, this paper examines the calling of the twelve disciples of jesus in matthew 4:18-22 in juxtaposition with the requirements and stipulations entailed in the process of selecting the omo awo in traditional yoruba religion. the paper employed comparative, historical and contextual methods of investigation. research materials were drawn from primary and secondary sources, published and unpublished data, as well as from oral interviews conducted with identified resource persons vastly knowledgeable in the art of traditional medicine. in the light of its findings, the paper concluded that there is an urgent need to advocate for more omo awo in the practice of yoruba traditional religion. keywords: omo awo, disciples, religion, tradition, yoruba global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 27 introduction different religions across the world have sustained their beliefs and practices and ensured continuity by transmitting their ethics, values and norms from one generation to another. hence, discipleship or apprenticeship, designed to train and install devoted adherents who will carry the religious system into the future, is an integral programme of every religious order as it is the surest way of guaranteeing intergenerational survival. the paper, using historical and analytical methods of investigation, undertakes a study of the apprenticeship practices of yoruba traditional religion’s omo awo in relation to jesus’ call of his first disciples as chronicled in matthew 4:18-22. it has been noted that by examining various religious beliefs, customs, rituals, and approaches, we gain a better and deeper understanding of different religious groups and communities, thereby enhancing our appreciation of similarities and differences between diverse religious persuasions and practices. in addition, being acquainted with the ways of different religious traditions grants a useful insight into how each group has been able to create and sustain a unique worldview by which their adherents give their lives meaning and transcendental value. this is a comparative exposition that examines discipleship recruitment and practices as they relate to two different religious traditions: yoruba traditional religion’s concept of omo awo and the call of jesus’ disciples as recorded in matthew 4:18-22. this is not a theological comparison but rather an academic study of the apprenticeship approaches employed by the two belief systems. as emphasized by the encyclopedia of religion (2005): unlike theology, the academic study of religion seeks to provide accounts of the world's religions from perspectives that have no confessional (religious) ground or agenda. as an empirical pursuit, it is concerned with understanding and explaining what people actually think and do without establishing or enforcing norms for that thought and behavior" (p. 8761) lambe (2021), underscoring the importance of such relative investigation, states that “the academic study of religion is an ideal way to explore religious ideas from a variety of perspectives… researching religion means having the chance to learn how others understand existence and our purpose.” theoretical framework the conceptual framework adopted for this study is the comparative global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 28 method, as proposed by oliver freiberger (2018). in his “elements of a comparative methodology in the study of religion”, freiberger emphasized the need for a “a methodological frame of comparison that addresses both the general configuration of a comparative study—its goal, mode, scale, and scope—and the comparative process, distinguishing operations of selection, description, juxtaposition, redescription, as well as rectification and theory formation” (freiberger 2018). freiberger identified two broad goals in the study of religion, namely description and classification. he distinguishes these two goals and their corresponding modes as follows: a comparative study whose primary goal is description aims at a better understanding of a particular historical-empirical item by means of comparison. comparing that item with other items can serve a heuristic purpose by identifying aspects and facets that would otherwise be missed or neglected. it can produce insights by de-familiarizing the familiar… this goal corresponds to the illuminative mode of comparison... second, a study whose primary goal is classification uses comparison to form, apply, critically evaluate, and refine metalinguistic terminology in order to classify religious phenomena. this goal corresponds to the taxonomic mode of comparison. while it seems useful to separate these two general goals analytically, they can certainly complement each other, even within a single study (freiberger 2018). in the context of freiberger’s framework, this paper is essentially descriptive and illuminative, and the main comparative operation adopted for the study is juxtaposition. because the omo awo phenomenon, while fairly well-known in traditional yoruba communities, is not a well-known practice among non-yoruba speaking audience, this study will allocate greater scope to explaining aspects of the omo awo custom than to description of christian discipleship principles and practices. system of discipleship in christianity a disciple in christianity is a follower of christ, that is, someone who believes and practices the tenets taught by christ in the gospels and carried on, after his earthly life, by his initial disciples. discipleship in christianity continued after christ’s death and resurrection through the activities of those who had interacted with him physically, as recorded in the acts of the apostles (who were chiefly jesus’ first twelve disciples and the distinguished convert, paul) and the epistles (collection of letters written to early christian groups and communities by some apostles and pioneer christian leaders). global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 29 training was a key element jesus used in developing his followers, and the main instrument he deployed in doing so was teaching. he taught them his principles on different occasions; in matthew 5:1-2, it is on record that jesus’ “disciples came unto him: and he opened his mouth, and taught them”. william (1911) enumerated the number of times jesus was called the teacher in the gospels (that is, the record of his ministry as narrated by four of his disciples). according to williams: in the synoptic gospels the title teacher is applied to jesus thirtynine times, twelve each in mark and matthew, fifteen in luke. in the fourth gospel it is used six times to designate jesus. that is, fortyfive times in the four gospels jesus is called the teacher. in studying the above passages more closely we observe that they can be divided into three classes: first, those in which jesus is called the teacher by himself: mt. 10:24, 25; lk. 6:40; jno. 13:14 – six in all; secondly, those in which he is called the teacher by those friendly to him, including the twelve and his other followers and sympathizers. there are twenty-three instances where those friendly to him call him the teacher, ten of which are cases in which the twelve call him the teacher. (p. 63) teaching the word of god as revealed to him was a crucial tool jesus used to train his disciples; his disciples spread and continue to spread his doctrine through teaching the principles and practices of jesus and those of his earliest disciples as recorded in the bible. so, teaching and mentorship are crucial tools of discipleship in christianity. system of discipleship in yoruba traditional religion according to olupona (2022), “at the core of yorùbá religious thought and practice is the idea and practice of secrecy called awo.” the practice being referred to here, as indicated by olupona, is “ifa divination practice” whose “custodians…and masters of the sacred exoteric tradition” are the babalawo. the babalawo is someone who has been initiated into ifa after completing a minimum of five years apprenticeship under the tutelage of olúwo. during these years of training, ifa apprentices are called ọmọàwo. as a matter of fact, there will never be ọmọ-àwo without awo and babaláwo and vis-à-vis just like there will never be student without school and the teacher. therefore to get a clearer picture of who the ọmọ-àwo is, it is necessary to understand the term awo. awo is an institutionalized process that trains its students in the school of life, the philosophy, ethics, morals, science and technology of life, through global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 30 the instrumentality of ifá principles and divination system. the institution requires high moral value, maturity, discipline in words and character. babaláwo is a product of the institution called awo. the word, babaláwo, is etymologically derived from bàbà (master) in awo – institution of acquiring yorùbá body of knowledge, which ifá (the yoruba deity of wisdom) represent in totality. hence, babaláwo means master in the working knowledge of ifa, acquired in the institution called awo. there can never be a babaláwo without the institution called awo. however, it is important to know that the term babaláwo has nothing to do with being a father, but being a master in the act and knowledge that is accessible in the institution of awo. there are many young boys, who are not yet married, but are experts in the art of divination and traditional healing therapy; some have also become pharmacopoeial – highly knowledgeable about therapeutical plants and healing system. this succinctly explains the yorùbá metaphorical aphorism that, “baba ni baba yóò máa je ̣́ lo ̣́ jo ̣́ ko ̣́ jo ̣́ .” which means, “a professional will always be professional, come rain or shine.” awo is the institution which trains and imbues its students, the ọmọ awo, with the basic and deeper bodies of knowledge in the skills of writing (marking of odù on ìye ̣̀ re òsùn) and in reading, reciting, divining, philosophy, ethics, music, herbal medicine, and other yorùbá-oriented science. after such students are certified as competent in learning and character by their teacher, whom the system gives the appellation of ‘oluawo’, they are certificated with the title of ‘babaláwo’ (an expert in the art of divination and traditional healing system). during the learning process, the institution expects an ọmọ awo to be submissive and accept the knowledge passed to him or her by his master, the oluawo, without arguing. hence, the saying, "májiyàn la fi awodá", that is, knowledge is better acquired where there is absence of rancour. in the same vein, a trained and competent babaláwo is also expected to know when to talk and when not to talk. he or she must learn not to divulge the secret of his or her client, and possibly his colleagues. that is the basis of the statement, “wíwoniẹnuawo ń wo”, which means that a babaláwo should be able to keep a sealed lip on issues which concern his clients and colleagues. in addition, a trained babaláwo should not be self-centered but should help his colleagues when the need arises. refusing to act at such times, to protect the glory of the institution, will not only bring ridicule to his colleagues but will also bring the institution to disrepute in the public domain. hence, our ancestors said, “awoní ń gbé awoní ìgbo ̣̀ wọ́ , bí awokò bá gbé awoní ìgbo ̣̀ wo ̣̀ , awo ate ̣́ , awo a sì fàya. that is, united we stand but in division we fall. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 31 in summary, awo is about an institution through which diverse fields of yoruba body of knowledge are learnt by the ọmọ awo; the product of such an institution is referred to as baba aláwo which, in western parlance, could be interpreted as the father of the initiates. a babaláwo is also another name for a person who is an ifá priest. he is the one who has the knowledge of divination and can identify the 16 sets of ifa which is known as odù as well as the signatures of their sub sets which is always arranged in chapters and verses. stages and processes of ifá learning the stages of the ifá learning system could be divided into three, with each stage having a number of processes. the three stages are:  the early stage  the middle stage  the final stage the early stage of ifá learning the early stage of ifa learning is sub-divided into six processes to reflect the level or degree of knowledge acquired by the ọmọ awo in the course of his or her training. below are the six processes of this stage. 1. babaláwowíwá (finding the priest): this is the first process during which the would-be ọmọ awo would need to find a priest suitable enough to take him through the rigorous exercise of learning the ifá and its literary corpus. it usually takes a person about ten years to know and master the art of divination and be well versed in the traditional method of therapeutic healing, so it requires a lot of prayers and searching for a babalawo who is that serious as to take a man who himself must be ready to be tolerant and to persevere through the entire process of learning the traditional method of healing. 2. baba ìko ̣́fá yíyàn (choosing a mentor among the priests): there are usually many priests that have graduated from a particular babaláwo (chief priest); therefore, an omọ awo will have to choose one of them who will be guiding and mentoring him/her. 3. iná ìdáwo ̣́ tẹpo ̣́ n (first induction ceremony): after the omọ awo has found a priest who will serve as his/her mentor, the parents of the omọ awo will come around to do the induction ceremony for him/her. here, they will undergo some sacrifice that has to do with placing the hand of the new omọ awo on ifá divination tray. this is called dídá ọwo ̣́ tẹpo ̣́ n. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 32 4. àkóṣe ẹ̣́̀ ránfá (spiritual aids for ifá memorization): this is somehow spiritual in the sense that the awo will inscribe the sixteen ifá corpus, ojú odù me ̣́ rìndínlógún in the opon (ifá divination tray) and spread atare (alligator pepper) with e ̣̀ ṣe ̣́ bì (pieces of kolanut) across the corpus. then the omọ awo will have to prostrate and eat the alligator pepper and pieces of kolanut with his/her mouth after which he will gulp it down his throat with a specific local dry gin prepared for such purpose. 5. ọpo ̣́ n títe ̣̣́̀ (inscribing odù-ifá on ifá divination tray): here, the omọ awo will start learning the sign and names of the ojú odù me ̣́ rìndínlógún, the sixteen ifá literary corpus. this usually starts from èjì ogbè till ofunmeji. 6. ṣíṣí ọ̣́̀pe ̣̣́̀ le ̣̣́̀ (divine chain practice): the ọmọ awo also will have to be very familiar with how to interpret the o ̣̀ pe ̣̀ le ̣̀ (divine chain) because the opele communicates with the initiates through signs and symbols. though the divine chain could be made of o ̣̀ pe ̣̀ le ̣̀ seed or brass, the system is the same for those who are well versed in its interpretation. middle stage of ifá learning the following processes make up the middle stage of ifá learning: 1. ọ̀ ̣́pe ̣̣́̀ le ̣̣́̀ sísán & ìgbọwo ̣́ (divine chain and interpretation of odù): during this stage, the omo awo is expected to know the logic in divine chain process and proper interpretation of the kind of corpus or odù that appears during the divination system. 2. dídá ọwo ̣́ àtiètìte ̣̣́̀ ale ̣̣́̀ (how to use divine palm kernel fruit and its interpretation of signs inscribed on the ground): through deeper learning and rigorous practice, the omo awo must pay more attention to make adequate and correct interpretation of the signs and symbols which are the usual ways through which the opele communes with the initiates. 3. ifá ríránàtiifá kíkì (memorization of ifá literary corpus): the omo awo is expected to memorize and recite all the sixteen corpus of ifá off hand. such an omo awo must also be able to link the corpus to its sub sets which have unending verses. a typical example is the difference between oyeku and oyekulogbe. 4. ọ̣́̀kararaẹbọ (prescription of sacrifice for atonement): every odù has its prescribed sacrifice or ẹbọ. thus, an omọ awo is expected to know the appropriate sacrifice for the appropriate odù that appears. 5. àko ̣́ ṣe-ifá (spiritual aids prescribed to any problem). global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 33 6. ojùgbo ̣̣́̀nà imọle ̣̣́̀ (how to prepare ifá sacrifice such as how to kill ifá goat). 7. ifá ṣíṣe ̣́ (how to find divine palm kernel fruit and transform it to use for divination process). 8. ifá bíbọ (how to make sacrifice for ifá): this implies making ifá sacrifice during the annual ifá festival. final stage of ifá learning the final stage involves the following ten processes: 1. ìwe ̣̣́̀ èrìgì àlo ̣̣́̀ àtiifá fífo ̣̣́̀ (how to wash ifá divination palm kernel fruit). 2. ìkápo ̣́ njá àtiìyípo ̣́ npo (that is, the ọmọ awo should be able to memorize and recite at least two verses in each of the 256 corpus of ifá). 3. orin ifá kíkọ (ifá songs): every ifá corpus has its song. an ọmọ awo is expected to know at least two songs in each of 256 corpus of ifá and he should be able to create his own. 4. ìye ̣̣́̀re ̣̣́̀ ifá ṣíṣun (every ìye ̣̀ re ̣̀ -ifá has song but not all ifá songs have the ìye ̣̀ re ̣̀ ). 5. ìlù àtiagogo ifá (the drums and gongs of ifa). 6. ìwẹ látọpaàti èṣù gígún (establishment of the esu shrine). 7. kóókoifá tabiẹbu ifá (this refers to ifa powder). 8. ìtẹfá tàbí igbódù wíwo ̣̣́̀ (the ifa initiation proper). 9. àkọṣe ̣̣́̀ jayé tabiẹṣe ̣̣́̀ńtáyé (divination or probing into the future of the omo awo). 10. lékú awotabi ìsosùnawo (preparation of the osun powder for the omo awo). juxtaposing the concept of omo awo with the call of the first four of the twelve disciples by jesus christ jesus’ call of the first four of his twelve disciples is recorded as follows in matthew 4:18-22 (rsv): matt 4:18 as he walked by the sea of galilee, he saw two brothers, simon who is called peter and andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. matt 4:19 and he said to them, ‘follow me, and i will make you global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 34 fishers of men.’ matt 4:20 immediately they left their nets and followed him. matt 4:21 as he went from there, he saw two other brothers, james son of zebedee and his brother john, in the boat with their father zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. matt 4:22 immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him. in jesus’ calling of the first four disciples, there is a process of discernment. he most likely saw other people but chose to call peter and andrew, james and john, all of whom ended up playing great roles in his ministry. jesus discerned and called those who were worthy of being a part of the new consciousness – that is, “the kingdom of heaven”. those were retained and given spiritual sustenance (rev. ed, 2010). this also is reflected in ifa corpus. ifa decides who trains as an omo awo, for it is not just anybody that is destined to be an omo awo; there are those who are called for such purpose. the call of the disciples is rooted in the call of jesus, and this call is to change their lives forever and redirect them to a higher cause of serving others (heusel, 2017). jesus called them to follow him; he invited them to leave their ordinary life of catching fish and follow him to experience a new life of faith and a life of godly mission (triton world center). the aim or purpose of jesus’ call is to teach the disciples to be like him. the same model is reflected in the call of the omo awo – he or she is called and trained by the oluawo who teaches the omo awo to understand and practise divination like him. in the context of the book of matthew, a disciple is one who has an experience of jesus through a continuous encounter with him and who is in a position to convincingly tell others about jesus. the matthew account, therefore, attributes to the disciples a function that prefigures and alters their responsibility as co-workers in jesus’ mission of preaching and asserting the kingdom of god which he represents. awo and babalawo, which signify the institution and the product of its learning process rooted in isese yoruba dynamics of wisdom, can be said to be equivalent to the pattern of jesus’ call of his twelve disciples. just as jesus’ disciple must devote his entire life to follow the lord whom he accepts as his master, train as his student, and study his word, so the omo awo, who is apprenticed to the oluawo, must follow the precepts and examples of the oluawo during the period of apprenticeship or mentorship. eventually, the omo awo will be able to do everything the global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 35 master does and at the end becomes the master of the custom and tradition of the people. the traditional priest is an important social figure. as a result of his training, the priest becomes the repository of the customs, knowledge, taboos, theology and even history of the society. this extensive knowledge qualifies him to act as political head, judge and ritual expert. he is very prominent at the installation of kings and chiefs. traditional priests are men and women of integrity and of respectable disposition. as mbiti puts it, “they are trustworthy, devout, and obedient to the traditions of their office and to god or the divinities that they serve: friendly, kind, ‘educated’ in matters of their profession and religions”. conclusion this study has shown that in spite of differences between different religious persuasions and practices, they share certain conceptual and operational similarities. this study, to a significant extent, has shown that there is a reflection of the concept of omo awo in yoruba traditional religion in the calling of the first four of the twelve disciples by jesus, as narrated in matthew 4:18-22. in both cases, mentorship and tutorial processes are involved, as the disciple or spiritual apprentice is called to be and do like his master, and to continue his work even after he has passed on. recommendation to prolong the practice of ifa divination system, which is a cultural, spiritual and intellectual heritage of the yoruba as well as a unesco intangible cultural heritage of humanity, more youthful apprentices should be trained to carry on the work of the mostly aged persons currently sustaining the tradition by serving as babalawo. references abimbola, w. 1968. ijinle ohun enuifa apa kiini. glasgow: wim collins and co. ltd. abimbola, w. 1977. awon oju odu mereerindinlogun. london: oxford. abimbola, w. 1973. the literature of ifa cults. in biobaku, s. o. ed. 1973, sources of yoruba history. oxford: clarendon press. adeoye, c.l. 1979. asaati ise yoruba. london: oxford university press. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 36 awolalu, o. 1979. yoruba beliefs and sacrificial rites. u.k: longman groups ltd. freiberger, o. (2018). elements of a comparative methodology in the study of religion. religions 2018, 9(2), 38; https://doi.org/10.339 0/re l9020038 heusel, p. (2017). sacred space (1999-2021). jones, l., eliade, m., & charles, j. encyclopedia of religion. macmillan reference usa, detroit, 2005. lambe, e. (2021). cited in https://www.rhodes.edu/academics/majorsminors/religious-studies/why-study-religion#:~:text=the%20acade mic% 20study%20of%20religion,understand%20existence%20and %20our%20purpose. lucas, o.1948. the religion of the yoruba. lagos. naseri, c.n. (2010) discipleship in luke 19:28-40. a challenge to contemporary christians. koinonia, vol. 4 (2) 1-20. ogunranti, j. i. 2012. itanati asa yoruba. ibadan: alafas nigeria company. ogunremi, d. and adediran, b. (eds.). 1998. culture and society in yorubaland, ibadan: rex charles publication. ogunsakin, p. 1979. ondo: the people, their custom and traditions lagos: inway publishers. olupona, j.k. 1992. kingship and religion in a nigerian community: a phenomenological study of ondo yoruba festivals, ibadan: layday. olupona, j. k. (2022). awo –the nature and essence of secrecy in yorùbá religious traditions: conversations with ifá diviners 1. in h. b. urban & p. c. johnson (eds.), the routledge handbook of religion and secrecy. routledge. williams, c. b. (1911). jesus as a teacher. review & expositor, 8(1), 6375. https://doi.org/10.1177/003463731100800105. yusuf, a. k. (2019). m.facebook.m accessed 11 february, 2020. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 37 author information: dr oghenekevwe kate jibromah is a lecturer in the department of religious studies, adeyemi federal university of education, ondo, nigeria. email: jibromahok@aceondo.edu.ng. dr ajishola omojeje is a lecturer in the department of history, adeyemi federal university of education, ondo, nigeria. email: omojejeav@aceondo.edu.ng. dr elijah rotimi ashafa is a lecturer in the department of religious studies, olabisi onabanjo university, agoiwoye, ogun state, nigeria. email: ashafrotimi@gmail .com. dr jonah olusola adeniran is a lecturer in the department of religious studies, olabisi onabanjo university, ago-iwoye, ogun state, nigeria. email: soladeniran21@gmail.com. apa jibromah, o. k., omojeje, a., ashafa, e. r., & adeniran, j. o. (2024). the calling of the twelve by jesus in matthew 4:18-22: a reflection of the concept of omo awo in yoruba traditional religion. global online journal of academic research (gojar), 3(3), 26-37. https://klamidas.com/gojar-v3n3-2024-02/. mla jibromah, oghenekevwe kate, omojeje, ajishola, ashafa, elijah rotimi and adeniran, jonah olusola. “the calling of the twelve by jesus in matthew 4:18-22: a reflection of the concept of omo awo in yoruba traditional religion”. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3, 2024, pp. 26-37. https://klamidas.com/gojar-v3n3-2024-02/. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 55 aspects of nigerian myths, legends and chronicles by bukar usman abstract this is an introductory essay on nigerian myths written by the author to introduce a historic collection of hundreds of nigerian myths, legends and chronicles collected from different parts of the country and published as an aspect of his massive treasury of nigerian tales (tnt) series. the stories introduced here are all mythic in orientation and include clan or settlement chronicles, tales related to rituals and traditional religious practices, narrations about epochal historical events, origin and cosmic tales, creation tales, tales about legendary heroes and heroines, tales that explain the origin and nature of the world, and tales about the exploits of the gods. this expository essay is divided into the following parts: introduction, definition, functions and features of myth, myth and history, special audience and narrators, classification of nigerian mythic tales, and conclusion. the collected and discussed mythological tales are 213 in number. keywords: nigeria, myths, legends, chronicles 1. introduction the first two books of the treasury of nigerian tales (tnt) series are collections of fictional tales collected from all over the country under the auspices of the dr. bukar usman foundation (henceforth, the foundation). these two books, a treasury of nigerian tales: themes and settings1, and people, animals, spirits and objects: folk stories of nigeria2, contain 700 and 1000 folktales respectively. this anthology, the third book of the series, is definitively different. unlike the first two books of the series, it is a collection of historical or non-fictional tales and consists of myths, clan or settlement chronicles, tales related to rituals and traditional religious practices, narrations about epochal historical events, origin and cosmic tales, creation tales, tales about legendary heroes and heroines, tales that explain the origin and nature of the world, tales about the exploits of the gods and about the creator global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 56 himself. this category of tales is deemed to be factual even when the presumed facts seem too unfounded or too exaggerated to be considered true outside the cultural context of the tales.3 the words, “historical” and “non-fictional,” are italicized above as a way of qualifying their meaning within the scope of this discussion. no body of myths of any known group, region or race is altogether history or nonfiction. fantasy, delimited by a given cultural context, has always been an aspect of myth. this point is elaborated upon in greater detail below. another qualification worthy of note concerns the scope of this work. mythic tales included in this collection are limited to those gathered by field researchers engaged by the aforesaid foundation. no tale outside those garnered by the collectors engaged by the foundation was admitted in the two earlier-published collections of the nigerian narrative series. we strictly adhere to the same principle here. hopefully, this delimitation would give some insight into the nature of oral tales still in vogue across the country in the early decades of this century. however, because narratives selected here strictly emanated from our field research, it is likely that some tales of mythic importance, which were not narrated to our tale collectors, may not have been included here. this is why this editor makes no claim whatsoever that this collection is an exhaustive anthology of the mythology of the over 500 ethnic/language groups of nigera. this book of tales of direct or indirect mythic relevance should be seen as a subset of the outcome of a nationwide tale-collection exercise put together to stimulate interest in more exhaustive and comparative research in this area. this notwithstanding, key mythological figures of nigeria, whether captured by our tale-collection field workers or not, are liberally cited in relevant areas of this discussion. lastly, it is important to point out that the mere incidence of being selected or published here does not invest upon any tale the status of being the official or fixed version of any given myth, chronicle, or event. in the various communities where these tales were collected, the oral narrators were neither pre-selected nor prodded to tell particular tales or preferred variants thereof but were simply left to their own discretion regarding what tales they volunteered to our field researchers. and from narrator to narrator many of the tales varied. to a large extent, the versions published here remain as they were collected in the local languages and translated into english. in editing the tales, steps were taken to ensure that key elements of the transcribed versions were maintained. as a cautionary measure, readers should, however, bear in mind that for any narrative published here, another version or versions of it might exist in their taleglobal online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 57 bearing communities. it should be added that most variants only differ on matters of detail. 2. definition, functions and features of myth let’s begin our exploration of the mythic tales of this anthology by asking, “what is myth?” simply put, a myth is a traditional narrative, set in the distant past, which tells a given group of people about supernatural events and personages by which they make sense of their existence and environment or offer explanations for various natural and supernatural occurrences. as such, many mythic tales are about the origin or history of great ancestors, patriarchs, matriarchs, legends, and ancient events; and about why and how some cosmic or natural state of affairs came to be the way they are today. myth, however, embraces much more than the features highlighted above. since it is difficult to proffer an all-inclusive definition of myth, it will be helpful to look at the way other scholars have defined or explained the term. melville and frances herskovits offer a more elaborate definition: on another level, we may define myth as those narrative forms that embody a system of symbolized values which in each separate society phrase the philosophy underlying its concepts, ideals and ends, and mark off its culture from all others as a way of life. myth, in these terms, implies a social acceptance of approved symbols that, by transcending the generations, are at once the instrument of identification with the past and with the continuities of present and future. that is to say, like all manifestations of culture, myths draw their deepest sanctions from the fact that for the individual of a given society they existed before he was born, and that he carries the conviction they will continue after he is dead. herein lie both the social and psychological importance of mythic symbols.4 the excerpt below, in a simplified way, defines myth as a literary device that has significant functions. according to this viewpoint, myth is a legendary or a traditional story that usually concerns an event, or a hero, with or without using factual or real explanations, particularly one concerning demigods or deities, and describes some rites, practices and natural phenomenon. typically, a myth involves historical events and supernatural beings. there are many types of myths such as classic myths, religious myths, and modern myths… myths exist in every society, as they are basic elements of human culture. the main function of myths is to teach moral lessons and explain historical records…myths and their mythical symbols lead to creativity in literary works. we can understand a culture more deeply and in a much better way by knowing and appreciating its stories, global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 58 dreams and myths…besides literature, myths also play a great role in science, psychology and philosophy.5 you would notice that in our discussion of myths, direct or indirect reference to an identified group – be it clan, ethnic or racial group, nation – is often made. this is because a myth is the property of a given culture, not that of an individual. an author or oral narrator may freely weave a myth into his or her tail but may not impose upon that myth a symbolic meaning which varies very much from that dictated by the myth-bearing culture. a myth is a cultural expression and, as such, must be understood within the context of a given culture. the symbolic values derived from myths are not open to random or personal interpretations but are essentially culturally fixed. to understand the myth, therefore, one would need to understand the originating culture, for the myth is often the ethnographic root of the associated socio-cultural beliefs and practices. in many rural and semiurban communities in nigeria, taboos and many social acts are validated in myth. in “the story of bode-ado,” (tale no. 150), for instance, incest is discredited. “the legend of ewane, the drunkard” (no. 152) demonstrates the need to protect the role and person of the social critic. even the supposedly trite pidgin english saying, “water no get enemy,” popular among nigerian groups, can be said to be rooted in such mythic tales as “friendship of fire and rain” (no. 4) and “the earth and god” (no. 5), which establish the supremacy of water over the other elemental forces. in the realm of ritual and traditional religious practices, mythic symbolism revolves entirely around a given ethno-religious culture. according to malinowski, ritual is shaped by myth. in his view, an intimate connection exists between the word, the mythos, the sacred takes of a tribe on the one hand, and their ritual acts, their social organization, and their practical activities, on the other.”6 among others, the following tales of this collection illustrate vital aspects of the above viewpoint: “the gods never lie” (no. 97), “the son of the chief of dagom” (99), “the sorcerer of amagbor kingdom” (no. 101), and “why the devil is superior to other deities” (no. 103). this connection between myth and ritual emphasized by malinowski sometimes puts on the reader the responsibility of acquainting themselves with the mythology behind a given mythic tale. for the reader who is content with whatever surface entertainment they may derive from a story, this may not be necessary. but a committed reader, searching for deeper meanings, would need to access the mythic background behind the tale. in global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 59 this book, the reader who wants to fully appreciate the import of some of the tales collected from the south-western part of the country should have a basic understanding of the pantheon of yoruba gods and the significance of some of the rituals engaged in by traditional devotees. such cultural understanding would help one better appreciate, among others, tale nos. 103 – 110. for an informed introduction to african religious myths and rituals, john s. mbiti’s book, introduction to african religion (second edition) would be a good read. according to mbiti, in many african societies it is told in myths that at the beginning god and man were in very close contact, and that the heavens (or sky) and the earth were united. for various reasons this link was broken and god became more distant from the people. but through worship man is able to restore that original link to a certain extent.7 this unity of religion and myth is represented beautifully in “the earth and the sky” (tale no. 1) and reflects a basic belief in humankind’s fall from grace at the beginning of time, a popular tenet of many orthodox religions. the history of this fall from grace to sin is conveyed in religious simplicity in the following passage taken from the tale: in the beginning of time, when god created the earth and the sky, the sky was so close that the hands of the people living on earth touched it without much effort. the sky had a lot of fruits which human beings plucked and ate at will. human beings had no problem at all in getting food to eat because the sky supplied them with food in abundance. but, at a point, people of the earth made the sky to get angry because of their greed. they would pack food so recklessly that they went home with a lot more than they could eat. the rest was wasted and dumped in the dung-hill. … the sky could not control his anger. he was convinced that human beings were greedy beyond redemption. he had to teach them a lesson they would live with forever. gradually, the sky began to move upwards. human beings stretched their arms at full-length, but they could not reach the sky. he moved so far up that human beings could only see it in the distance high up there. and they lost the chance of enjoying the creator’s easy providence. this motif of punitive separation between the sky (god) and the earth (human beings) also motivated “the birth of the seasons” (tale no. 13) global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 60 and explains “why the sky is higher than land” (no. 14). as mbiti noted, something was needed to restore the above state of separation between god and the human beings he created. the latter identified worship as a remedial measure (“through worship man is able to restore that original link to a certain extent”), hence the worship of deities and ancestral spirits in many traditional communities. some of the major ways traditionalists approach god through are prayers, offerings and sacrifices. and god is approached by different ethnic groups of nigeria through a number of deities and ancestral spirits. many of the myths associated with the culture of nigeria spring from the worship or veneration of these deities and spirits. this excerpt from toyin falola’s book aptly captures some aspects of this customary reality as they manifest among some nigerian groups: the yoruba have constructed a hierarchy of spiritual forces…god is the supreme deity with the ultimate power, the creator of the universe, the final judge. below god is a plethora of gods and goddesses, the orisa. there is a god for most material items, and nonmaterial ideas; for instance, osun and oya are river goddesses, sango is the god of thunder, ogun is the god of iron. there are many major gods, such as ogun, and there are many local ones below them, associated with lineages, towns and geographical features… gods are also associated with occupations… … the igbo believe in chukwu, the supreme god, who has various messengers such as the sun, sky and earth… land is venerated through a system of religious beliefs known as ala, which rewards and punishes people according to their behaviour… the igbo also believe in the power of ancestors, as do many other nigerian groups. … for the kalabari, there are two forms of existence. the first is oje, the material world, the physical reality that can be seen. the second and more important is the spiritual order, known as teme. teme is divided into layers of hierachies of spiritual forces. on the very top are the creation gods, followed by the lesser gods including ancestors (“water people”) and local heroes.8 local heroes or legends are generally venerated. one of the most outstanding of such legends is the ijo’s ozidi, the hero of the ozidi saga believed to have been revealed to the tarakiri clan’s traditional high priest. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 61 the ozidi saga is an outstanding epic whose summary below is justified by the insight it gives into the stylistic pattern of such traditional epics. the ozidi saga follows the pattern of other epics: a child is born following the death of his father. he embarks on a quest, during which he has a string of adventures, undergoes tests, and performs great feats of magic and strength. with the assistance of a female relative, he is triumphant and establishes his people. ozidi was the son of a general who died before ozidi was born, murdered by treacherous colleagues. the ijo believe that a violent, unhappy death such as that prevents a dead man from joining his ancestors. it is the obligation of his heirs to restore the man’s honor. this was ozidi’s quest: to call home his father from the place where the murdered man’s body was unceremoniously dumped and to restore him to his proper place. on his quest, ozidi was guided by his grand-mother, oreame, a supernatural being who was in charge of his fate. in keeping with the adventures of epic heroes, ozidi engaged in battle with all manner of humans and monsters, always triumphant because the gods— including the supreme god, tamara—were with him.9 not all mythic heroes are male. inikpi, the great legendary figure of the igala, who sacrificed her life to save the igala nation, was a princess. hers was not a suicidal mission but a response to the unusual demands of the ancestors that the king should let her daughter be buried alive in order to avert a devastating defeat of the igala people by an enemy kingdom. other heroes, particularly those who began as founders of traditional dynasties, such as the hausa’s bayajida, the yoruba’s oduduwa, and the babur/bura’s yamtarawala, have since been transformed into symbols of religious and political power. the tale, “how yamah and amaha kingdoms were founded” (no. 90) indicates that political exigencies, rather than some decrees from the gods, could provoke the founding of new dynasties which future generations are likely to legitimize through myths. myths therefore could also function as the ruling class’s means of legitimizing religious and political privileges. some of the tales of this collection highlighting the worship of deities by different ethnic/linguistic groups in nigeria include “the history of the worship of tere in edeland” (no. 53), “why it is a taboo in the ere alako’s family to eat python” (no. 77), and “the origin of tubuog’s worship of the moon” (no. 85). aside from being used to explain the origin of things, myths also serve as tools for explaining why and how things function (examples would include tale nos. 76-78). often, the latter role is served in comparative terms, as global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 62 could be seen in such tales as “why the sun shines brighter than the moon” (no. 24), “why lightning precedes thunder blast” (no. 25), and “why the devil is superior to other deities” (no. 103). mythic tales can also serve explanatory purposes by the manner in which they are used to explain how certain unusual things came to be. such mythic explanations enable us to ponder about “how foolish people were created” (tale no. 30), “how mermaids became half-fish, half-human” (no. 88), and “how àlàbá the pawn was killed by his mouth” (no. 179). underlying all the functions of myth highlighted above is the given group’s belief or presumption that all of the above mythic phenomena spring from history, not fantasy. we will dwell on myth and history in the next section of this essay. all we may note here are some of those tales whose manner of presentation position them as pure history. they include “the history of oyo and oro celebration” (no. 39), “the history of the blacksmith from heaven” (no. 44), and “the history of affor people.” other tales narrated in similar tone are those centred on long-standing compounds. illustrious families promote and sustain their socio-economic or political relevance by telling and retelling their glorious “history.” some of the tales fulfilling this function in this collection include “the history of wárí compound” (no. 41), “how pere compound got its home” (no. 52) and “the history of iyagba compound.” 3. myth and history the difficulty often encountered by those who may wish to separate real history from myth is the belief by the concerned community or group that their pet myth is as factual as any historical narration. even myths featuring supernatural beings, or animals playing the role of human beings, are deemed true by such groups. how should a scholar deal with this kind of confusion? generally speaking, and as this editor had observed in his book, a history of biu10, the above situation is inevitable whenever anyone conducting a research find themselves in the domain of oral tradition. while the mythologist may be comfortable here, the historian, who must verify and date his or her facts, is likely to raise questions. unfortunately, when dealing with “the origin of nationalities, clans, domains, and long-standing traditional institutions…especially when dealing with the genesis of homogenous groups, dynasties and old civilizations,”11 the historian, anthropologist, and literary analyst cannot avoid the “twilight zone between folklore and history.”12 myth thrives within this twilight zone; yet, it cannot be ignored because of the important roles, some of which global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 63 were mentioned above, it plays in enriching art and stabilizing society. the historian, in this writer’s view, appears to be the one more concerned about the need to separate fact from fantasy. i felt that need while working on a history of biu. and i tried my best to resolve the problem, hopefully to a large extent, by cross-checking oral tradition against written history and those ethnological data which shed light on the issues under consideration. as for students of myth, their emphasis could be on the use and significance of the myth within the context of the relevant culture. what this means is that their concern with history may not go beyond “those facets of the culture or history which throw into special relief certain customary usages emphasized in the narratives, or clarify the meaning of certain historical allusions.”13 4. special audience and narrators unlike the ordinary folktale whose audience is the common folk, mostly children, historical tales are generally targeted at an adult or specialized audience. and not everyone can narrate a number of these tales. some mythic tales are for the ears of the menfolk or professional groups while others must only be narrated by diviners or griots commissioned by the king. these are some of the features which separate historical tales from typical moonlight tales. the relevance of historical tales does not necessarily lie on the morals of the tale but, rather, on their historical data, ritualistic value, philosophy, special knowledge or social enquiry. in general, they are narrated by elderly males to adult males of a particular family, professional or religious group. tales about natural phenomena, history of ethnic groups, and the origin and exploits of illustrious ancestors fall into this general category. to narrate some historical tales, one would need to have skill, not just age, on his side. some tales are narrated at a great risk and cost to the narrator. the king’s griot, whose duty it is to memorize and recall, during his daily chant, the names and great deeds of past rulers, and the momentous events of the ethnic group’s past, must not make a mistake. in the past, some griots are said to have lost their lives because they forgot or misrepresented a royal act. this is why such recitatives are composed and delivered by professional verse-makers. besides, not everyone can compose such heroic verses or narrations as they require the use of appropriate imagery and proverbial expressions, global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 64 which only the most skilful composers endowed with exceptional retentive memory can handle. moreover, many historical tales are not carelessly narrated since they are deemed to be factual and sacred; so, in spite of the existence of variants in some quarters, there are official versions of genealogical tales. divination chants also command similar requirements in composition and delivery. infact, for mythological settings with formal systems of divination, such as the ifa divination system of the yoruba, only the babalawo is deemed skilful enough to chant and interprete divination verses. among some groups in nigeria, the traditional high priest and custodian of the main shrine serves as the sole narrator of any mythic communication from the spirit world. sacred narratives or chants are accompanied by idiomatic expressions and other forms of indirect use of language. “odu ologbon meji” (tale no. 106) begins with such expressions: no wise man can hold water at the edge of his wrapper. the wise one does not know how much sound we have on earth. no wanderer knows where the world ends. a sharp knife cannot carve its own handle. it takes experience and familiarization with historical allusions to make appropriate sense of such expressions. praise songs, such as this sango’s praise taken from tale no. 57, are sometimes needed to enliven an oracular narration: sàngó olúkòso, arẹmu ogun the brave one and the husband of oya, an expanding fire on the roof èbìtì fọwọ bẹhin soro breaker and cracker of walls breaker of walls, replacing them with ridges fire escaping from the eyes, the mouth and on the roof sàngó olufiran the king of kòso the deity whom timi seeks in absentia sàngó tìmí who sees all things this is one more reason why only experienced devotees can purposefully serve as narrators in this purely traditional area. composition and narration of tales dedicated to trade or professional groups is, however, more liberally restricted. professional groups share mythic tales related to their profession within their respective groups. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 65 tales about blacksmithing, for example, are usually narrated by blacksmiths within their group or among those who share some common interest with them. in traditional societies, the nature and demands of one’s trade or skill often compels one to associate with those engaged in similar endeavour. and in such gatherings, particularly when assembled for the prime purpose of worshipping the god associated with their trade, tales of common interest to the group are shared by members of the group during moments of social interaction. for hunters, tales of such nature in this collection would include “the day death was about to die” (no. 173) and “the hunter’s supremacy over the deer” (no. 180). 5. classification of the mythic tales given the overwhelmingly mythological nature of the tales of this collection, classifying them into appropriate sections posed some challenges. sometimes, one tale may bear the characteristics of tales placed in one or two other sub-groups. this may not be surprising as many of the tales have something to do with gods/ancestors or the cosmic order they have shaped. in spite of the overlapping nature of the tales, they have been grouped according to the perceived dominant concern or objective of each set of tales (groups 1-4) or their unique contribution to the assortment of the set (group 5). the name given to each group of tales gives a clear hint of the organizing principle adopted in classifying the group. under each of these groups, listed below, further explanations are given to guide the reader. here, then, are the 5 classes: 1. creation and cosmic myths: these are tales that tell how the universe and the supernatural realm emerged; how the heavenly bodies and elemental forces began or interacted; how the earth was populated by people, animals, and spirits; and how other named animate, inanimate and sundry beginnings came to be. 2. group origin myths and chronicles: these narrations that relay the settlement history of various groups and towns; the history of dynasties and family lineages; origin of social institutions or momentous interactions between them; evolution of notable social events, practices or taboos; and origin of group other transformational experiences. 3. oracular myths and chronicles: these are narrations about gods, ancestors, spirits, traditional priests, offerings and sacrifices to oracles; rewards and punishment by spiritual forces asserting their supremacy global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 66 over human choices; traditional praise and worship songs; proverbial utterances; and sundry tales about spiritual phenomena and encounters. 4. legendary heroes and heroines: these are tales of superhuman or mythic nature – they tell us about heroic acts by outstanding men and women; they are also apparently factual stories that happened in the distant past but are traceable to a nation or group of people; and may include partially or entirely fabricated narrations that have gained popular acceptability as true stories in the course of being handed down from one generation to another by oral tradition. 5. various communal chronicles: these are miscellaneous communal tales that might or might not have qualified to be placed in any of the above four classes but are discretionally grouped together here for reasons of their variety and complementary mythic relevance. below is a tabular reflection of the number of tales featured in each of the above classes. it is good to note that this statistical representation, as it concerns the number of tales featured in each class, does not necessarily indicate any preferential decision on the part of the editor. these selections simply reflect the number and nature of mythic tales our tale-collectors were able to gather from our various communities. suffice it to say that the bulk of the tales readily collected from our folks across the country were mostly the common fictional folktale type – and these were featured in the first two books of the treasury of nigerian tales series. 6. conclusion global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 67 as we can see from the above submissions, mythic tales offer traditional folks of nigeria creative ways of responding to perennial problems of existence which have challenged mankind in general across the ages. they are artistically, socially and spiritual important and both the literate and non-literate members of many communities that these tales or their practical implications seriously. the advancement of science and technology has solved a lot of socioeconomic problems, but still many questions remain unanswered. questions about life and death, faith and destiny, may never be convincingly answered without recourse to some form of belief in a higher power. since most people seem incapable of understanding an abstract supreme being, their need for identification with ancestors and gods they can see and relate to is, from their viewpoint, understandable. what is of interet to us, as we shall see in the mythic tales themselves, is the capacity of the human imagination to create or re-enact stories that have gone through many generations but still provide powerful belief systems which help people to grapple with the many challenges of life. endnotes 1. usman, bukar (ed.), a treasury of nigerian tales: themes and settings, klamidas books, abuja, 2016 2. usman, bukar (ed.), people, animals, spirits and objects: folk stories of ngeria, klamidas books, abuja, 2016 3. see “nigeria’s heritage of folk narrative,” usman, bukar (ed.), a treasury of nigerian tales: themes and settings, op. cit 4. herskovits, melville j and frances s, dahomean narratives: a crosscultural analysis, northwestern university press, evanston, 1958, p.82 5. literarydevices editors. “myth” literarydevices.net. 2013. web. 1 aug. 2016. 6. malinowski, bronislaw, “the role of myth in life,” in dundes, alan (ed.), sacred narrative: readings in the theory of myth, university of california press, berkeley, 1984, p.195 7. mbiti, john s., introduction to african religion (2nd edition), waveland press, long grove, 2015, p.61 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 68 8. falola, toyin, culture and customs of nigeria, greenwood press, westport, 2001, pp.35-37 9. lynch, patricia ann and jeremy roberts, african mythology a to z, 2nd edition, chelsea house, new york ny, 2010, p.103 10. usman, bukar, a history of biu, klamidas, abuja, 2015 11. ibid, p.51 12. ibid, p.51. this phrase was first used by the author in his earlier book, folklore and history: twin rivers of world heritage (klamidas, 2013). 13. herskovits, melville j and frances s, op. cit. author information: dr bukar usman is the president of nigerian folklore society. email: bukarusman@gmail.com. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 7 communication via the language of performance lighting: a comparative study of two performances of ahmed yerima’s yemoja by nsikan bassey asuquo & rasaki ojo bakare abstract background: available literature points to the fact that the actual concern of each professional theatre worker and director is to be expressive, in order to effectively capture and communicate the intended message of the play to the audience. more so, the advancement in theatre lighting technology has come to be used to concrete visual forms that further the meaning of the text; thus, evincing sub-texts. nonetheless, many theatre lighting designers have paid less attention to deploying the potential of lighting design as a veritable tool in enhancing play interpretation. objective: this study sought to demonstrate the significance of deploying expressive or interpretive lighting in play performances as a means for communicating the salient but sub-textual ideas embedded in plays. methodology: the outcome of two performances of ahmed yerima’s yemoja (tagged: performance “a”, in which the myths surrounding the hero-gods were not projected, and performance “b”, in which the lighting designer deployed expressive lighting – i.e. using light to tell the story) are compared. as instruments for data collection, a total of 250 copies of the questionnaire were randomly administered to the audience members who watched the performance; interviews were conducted with the play directors and the lighting designers of the two performances; and focus group discussions were also conducted with a class of students specializing in lighting design and some of the audience members. secondary data were collected from journals, textbooks, the internet and other related extant literature. simple percentage analysis was used to analyze data for the study. results: it was found that the deployment of light and lighting effects to tell the story in performance “b” could effectively evince and communicate sub-textual ideas such as the myths surrounding the yoruba hero-gods in the play; whereas, these myths were nonexistent in the first performance “a”, in which the lighting was not effectively deployed as a tool of interpretation. conclusion: design elements like light and lighting effects can play critical roles in furthering the meaning of texts in plays, if effectively deployed as interpretive or expressive tools, rather than used merely for the creation of visibility. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 8 unique contribution: the study has shown that in the absence of standard lighting instruments or gadgets conventionally required to produce a particular meaning, commonly found lighting instruments and gadgets can be improvised to simulate and communicate the desired effect and meanings to the audience. key recommendation: for effective interpretation of a play on stage, the lighting designers should always endeavour to go beyond using light(s) merely for visibility to the point of a deliberate deployment of light and lighting effects as expressive tools – this enhances the audience’s understanding of every unfolding scenario in a play. keywords: yemoja, yoruba myth, subtext, communication and interpretive lighting introduction drama is an enacted story whose function is not just to entertain but also to communicate to and educate a society. this is why it is pertinent to note that when playwrights write plays, it is because they have an idea or a message they want to convey to society – it could be about religion, culture, politics, or to raise point(s) that can address issues that have been bedeviling the human society (awoyemi 2019, p. 6; hurwitz 2021, par. 3). when a play director picks a play to direct, the onus rests on the director to do so with the intent to clearly communicate to the audience, without ambiguity, the subject matter of the play. often, very salient but subtextual ideas in plays are left untold due to ineffective deployment of the expressive potentials of design elements, like light; yet, some theatre scholars, such as ayo akinwale (cited in adeoye 2011, p.42) and olympus g. ejue (ejue 2019, p.37) have argued against the necessity of employing interpretive lighting in theatrical performances. aim and objective the aim of this study was to investigate the potential of performance lighting (beyond mere illumination) in enhancing play interpretation. therefore, as an objective, the study carried out a performance of ahmed yerima’s yemoja (deliberately employing expressive lighting in the performance) staged at department of theatre and media arts, federal university, oye-ekiti, on the 18th of december, 2021, in order to assess the outcome of how lights were used in the performance in comparison with a previous performance of the same play, which was staged in another department of theatre and media arts in western nigeria, on 21st global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 9 of november, 2021. suffice it to state that since the aim of the comparison is not in any way to promote or disparage any institution but, rather, to validate or denounce the argument that expressive performance lighting can enhance the textual interpretation of plays, the two different performances are identified as “performance a” and “performance b” respectively (in the order of the date of their staging). conceptual definition of keywords: below are the meanings of some of the keywords in this study; explained in line with purport of their usage:  yemoja: this is the title of the play which, according to yerima, is the story of a celebration of the river goddess, yemoja. it is a selfconceived myth and an attempt at explaining the spread of the worship of the river goddess, from the yoruba cosmology into the entire diaspora (2002, p. 6).  yoruba mythology: the yorubas are members of the west african people living chiefly in southwestern nigeria. they are known to be the originators of the worship of the river goddess, yemoja. the term, mythology, refers to a traditional story that is accepted as history and serves to explain the world view of a people. therefore, by juxtaposition, yoruba mythology in this context is the belief by the traditional yorubas that yemoja, ogun, sango and obatala are (their) deities.  subtext is used in this study to mean the underlying meaning or the unspoken meaning of a text.  interpretive or expressive lighting is used in this study to mean the art of deliberately using or designing light(s) and/or lighting effect(s) to connote, imply, express or give explicit meaning to an action or object(s), or to give a semblance of, or to signify a generally acceptable notion.  communication: according to agber and ejue (2013, p. 17), communication is a conscious or unconscious, intentional or unintentional process in which feelings and ideas expressed verbal and or non-verbal messages, are sent, received and comprehended. the art of playwriting and the imperative for creative interpretation a play, unlike other literary works, is a creative work intended to be artistically realized before an audience. hurwitz (2021) corroborates the above assertion as he avers that: global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 10 playwrights begin with something they believe needs to be said, whether that is a story, a political or religious point, a question to be addressed, or a humorous observation revealing the human condition. the biggest differences between plays and other forms of writing is that plays are meant to be experienced in real time and to be experienced communally (para. 3). also, johnson (2000), in a bid to establish the huge creative responsibilities attached to the art of playwriting, avers that: “tonnes of moulding, creating, crafting, engineering and architecturing [are] involved in this unique business which involves the head, the pen, and the stage necessarily” (p. 11). to further stress on the huge task involved in playwriting which should not be wished away or taken for granted, johnson juxtaposes the attached “wright” in the word, playwright, to the "wright” in the word, shipwright, as he avers that: few words exist with the word wright attached to them. one of such is ‘shipwright’. and strangely enough, it designates a builder of ships. if we can imagine the degree of technology which goes into the creation of a vessel which successfully cruises on the high sea, the intellectual demands carefully translated into physical properties through which the finished product is called ship; then we can appreciate the ingenuity which a man who must set about making plays, needs to reckon with (2000, pp. 11–12). from the above quotes, it can be deduced that the art of playwriting is a serious task with deliberate intent to communicate to a people; as such, every theatre practitioner must be deliberate too, in carefully deploying every theatre means to elicit every bit of the meanings in every way possible. an audience does not go to the theatre to hear the story of a play being told in its literal sense. they go to the theatre to watch the literal signs on text being expressed. according to parker et al. (2009, p. 324): “the basic obligation of stage design is to give . . . meaning . . .” this invariably means that the actual concern of each theatre designer is to use their arts expressively. parker et al. (2009, p. 324) goes further to aver that: through the manipulation of light in all aspects, the lighting designer assists in reinforcing the theme of a play. in asserting the expressive power of light, appia (cited in asuquo 2019b, p. 141) avers that: “light is the most important medium on stage . . . without its unifying power our eyes would be able to perceive what objects were but not what they expressed”. enna (cited in asuquo 2009b, p. 27) succinctly adds that: the duty of the lighting designer includes the clarification and intensification of the meanings and concepts of a play. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 11 this underscores the role of lighting designs in any theatrical performance as invaluable. the basic functions of stage lighting according to boyce (2014, 43), “light is necessary to the human visual system to operate. with light, we can see; without light, we cannot”. the above assertion establishes, first, the prime and incontrovertible function of light in making theatre exist – without light, there cannot be a performance. in asserting the important role of light in theatrical performances, crabtree and beudert aver that: “electric light had so many advantages to play in productions that its presence was unavoidable. once adopted for the stage, there was no turning back. electric lighting facilitated translucency effects and it also made radical colour shifts on the scenery on stage” (2005, p. 417). stage lighting has other objectives beyond creating visibility (shelley, 1999, p. 29). these objectives include (but not limited to): providing illumination in a three-dimensional form of light and shadow . . . , composition and creation of mood. corroborating this, brockett states that light is used: to create visibility, selective visibility, and to aid composition; by directing the eye to the most important elements, it creates emphasis and subordination; light is also used to affect perception of dimensionality (alter apparent shape and dimension), and to enhance mood and atmosphere (1992, pp. 397-8). brockett goes further to add that: lighting, among other functions, may reinforce "style", reflect the time of day, weather conditions, or season, and may suggest a play’s period through the kind of lighting fixtures used on stage (1992, p. 400). synopsis of ahmed yerima's yemoja the play, yemoja, is a mythology on yoruba hero-gods – ogun, sango, orunmila, obatala, esu, and, very importantly too, on the emergence of the river goddess, yemoja. all these deities are endowed with human feelings, attitudes and frailties. the story begins with a town-crier announcing to the town’s people that the kabiyesi wishes to celebrate yemoja the river goddess. the next scenario reveals ogun visiting his lover, yemoja, at her hut. he dances to her admiration and professes his love for her. in the midst of this romantic summit, a voice calls on ogun to join them in a war against the people of ijase oke (who have come to molest his people). ogun becomes enraged and responds that he is joining the warriors at the battle front. but yemoja begs him not to go, asking that he spends the night with her. instead of heeding her plea, ogun calls on esu to keep yemoja company global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 12 till he returns from the battle. he then hands yemoja his "calabash of life" and charges her never to open it nor look into it. he leaves for the battle. esu sees his company with yemoja as a perfect opportunity to get back at her for turning down his love overtures in the past. he then tricks yemoja into opening ogun's calabash of life as a result of which she becomes partially paralyzed; at the same time, ogun is seriously wounded at the war front by "a little boy". yemoja begs esu for help, but he stoutly tells her that the only condition on which he would agree to save her life would be if she would spend some nights with him. yemoja argues that she does not want to be unfaithful to ogun. after a series of arguments and bargaining, yemoja agrees that she will spend a night with him. esu then calls on obatala to come and heal yemoja. while obatala begins the treatment, esu dashes to the battle-field and lies to ogun that yemoja deliberately opened the calabash of life because she wanted to have him (ogun) killed; and that, at the very moment, she is having amorous affairs with obatala. ogun becomes enraged and dashes to yemoja's abode for a confrontation with obatala. he meets obatala and challenges obatala to a fight to death at the market square. obatala in turn, runs to sango (ogun's foe) to fight in his stead. yemoja runs to orunmila (a diviner) to help her consult ifa to know what to do to avert the duel between ogun and sango. during the consultation, orunmila reveals to yemoja that she has a greater mission to fulfill going into the river to become the mother of all sea creatures, answering to the needs of those who call on her for help. therefore, as ogun and sango meet at the market square for the showdown, yemoja steps forward to intervene. she explains that she cannot keep quiet and watch ogun allow his temper to take hold of his manly wits; thus, bringing her love for him to the market square to ridicule. she asserts that she shall not be the reason the two men would fight and kill each other; rather, she would step into the deep blue sea answering to the different needs of all who call on her for help. suddenly and supernaturally, she transforms into a mermaid and wriggles her way into the sea. methodology: content analysis and survey methods were used for this study. under content analysis methodology, data were gathered from ahmed yerima’s play, yemoja, the video-recordings of the two performances, tagged “performance a” and “performance b”, from the live performances (via observation by participation) and from some related extant literatures. under the survey method, focus group discussions and (face-to-face and telephone) interviews were adopted as instruments of data collection. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 13 content analysis: the decision to adopt content analysis method is to give room for a detailed and systematic examination of the text and the performances investigated in this study in order to ascertain the existence or absence of the theme of yoruba mythology (which is the subject of discourse) both in the text and in the performances. after being in a live audience of the first performance, tagged in this study as “performance a”, a scrutiny of an unedited video-recording of the performance was also carried-out by the researcher. however, in order not to limit the judgment to only the researcher’s view(s), a survey method is also adopted. survey method: the decision to adopt survey was to allow for an intimate setting for a free-flow discussion in order to extrapolate empirical data from audience members who watched the performance under study. the focus group discussions were carried out with two categories of audience members; information was gathered from participants for data analysis. the first focus group discussion was organized with a group of 8 technical theatre students. the second focus group discussion was organized with 93 people (who watched the unedited video recording of “performance a”). the participants were chosen based on two criteria: those who indicated interest, who as well watched the live performance under study, tagged “performance b”. the participants were assured that they would only be mentioned as participants. a face-to-face and telephone interviews were conducted with the director and lighting designer (respectively) of “performance a”. and a total of 250 (randomly picked) out of the 345 members of the live audience (of “performance b”) were administered with copies of a questionnaire. the following questions guided the discussions and interviews: 1). from the author’s note in the play-text, do you understand that yoruba mythology is one of the major themes in ahmed yerima’s yemoja? 2). do you agree that characters like ogun, sango, and yemoja are portrayed as deities in the play-text? 3). do you agree that “performance a” effectively communicated the myths surrounding the characters of ogun, sango, and yemoja as supernatural beings or hero-gods in the play? 4). do you agree that “performance b” effectively communicated the myths surrounding the hero-gods in the play? 5). do you agree that the use of light as an expressive tool in “performance b” aided in evincing and communicating the myths of supernaturalism surrounding characters like ogun, sango, and yemoja? global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 14 results from the audience: out of the 250 administered copies of the questionnaire (which contained the options: “agree”, “strongly agree”, “disagree”, and “strongly disagree”), 240 copies (i.e. 96%) were retrieved. 223 (i.e. 92.9%) respondents strongly agreed that the lighting in the scene helped them to understand that yemoja entered into water (river), 7 (i.e. 2.9%) ticked “agreed”, no (i.e. 0%) respondent ticked “disagree” or “strongly disagree”. but 10 (4.16%) respondents did not tick any option. results from focus group discussions: a total of 8 technical theatre students and the researcher made up the focus group discussion. the participants were all allowed to watch the unedited video recording of “performance a”. after watching the video, 3 of the students admitted that though the myths surrounding the yoruba hero-gods in the play were not effectively communicated, they could still identify the characters of ogun, sango, and yemoja as beings with supernatural power because they were already familiar with the yoruba myth surrounding their persons; they said that “performance b” produced better information about the myths surrounding the characters. five (5) members of the focus group discussion claimed they could not gain any insight about the myth surrounding the yoruba hero-gods from “performance a” until they watched “performance b”. a group of 93 non-technical theatre audience members were also gathered for a focus group discussion. this was carried out to determine if the difference in the lighting of “performance a” and “performance b” could affect the perception of non-technical audience differently. 91 (i.e. 97.8%) out of the 93 non-technical theatre audience members said that although they were familiar with the yoruba myth surrounding a character like sango, it was only in “performance b” that his fire-spitting prowess was communicated. the entire 93 participants averred that ogun’s portrayal in “performance a” only communicated him as a strong man; that it was not until the lighting that separated him (at yemoja’s house) from the warriors at the forest in “performance b”, that he was portrayed as a supernatural being with the ability to hear from/communicate with people miles away. 34 (36.5%) said even when they watched “performance b” and saw the ambience transformation when yemoja transformed into a mermaid and wriggled her body to the edge of the market square, they could not understand that she was entering into water (river) until they saw the projected scene on the backdrop as she was swimming in the river. 59 (i.e. 63.4%) participants said that the ambience transformation via the lighting aided them in understanding that yemoja was entering into water. in the end, the entire 93 participants said that not only did the expressive lighting global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 15 in “performance b” aid the interpretation of the unfolding scenarios in the play, but it also made the performance to be more aesthetically appealing to them. director’s remark: according to the director of “performance a”, “we tried our best in interpreting the play with available resources . . .; yes, i believe the audience enjoyed it. but i must admit that the use of lighting designs in the second performance [‘performance b’] produced a better and deeper interpretation.” the theory of "form follows function": the concept of “form follows function” is a design theory propounded by louis sullivan in 1896. this theory was initially associated with modernist architecture and industrial designs in the 20th century. the thrust of this theory is that the form of a building or object should be primarily based on its intended use, function or purpose. beyond architecture and industrial designs, the theory has come to be applied in different fields of human endeavours. according to sullivan (cited in dubois 2021, para. 3), the phrase, “form follows function”, . . . is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic, of all things physical and metaphysical, of all things human and all things superhuman, of all true manifestations of the head, of the heart, of the soul, that the life is recognizable in its expression, that form ever follows function. this is the law. dubois (2021, par. 3), in summarizing the ideology behind “form follows function” states that, the “why” of what is to be built or designed should take precedence over “how” it is built or designed – this is the law! in other words, relating this theory to theatre practice (i.e. especially the area of lighting design), the reason for which any lighting (as a design element) is introduced or used in any theatrical performance is what should guide how the lighting is applied in the performance. according to parker et al., theatrical form in its simplest description is the communication of ideas between the performers and the audience (2009, p. 3). therefore, in expressing or communicating the playwright’s and/or the director’s vision to the audience, the form of light (in any theatrical performance) must follow the rule of expressive or communicative engagements because, according to appia (cited in asuquo 2019, p. 141), light is a unifying factor for projecting the communicative or interpretative import of any theatrical performance. therefore, not using light for an interpretive purpose(s) in theatrical performance is a negation of the rules of deploying design elements in theatrical performances; thus, it gives grounds for interrogation. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 16 communication via the language of performance lighting in yemoja performances: a comparison between “performance a” and “performance b” versions according to agber and ejue (2013, p.16), "it is through language that we express our ideas and feelings. these ideas are expressed verbally or through non-verbal means such as . . . anything to which people can attach meanings." agber and ejue (2013, p. 17) define communication as conscious or unconscious, intentional or unintentional process in which feelings and ideas are express verbal and or non verbal messages, sent, received and comprehended. according to danesi (cited in the “forward” to thomas a. sebeok’s book, sign: an introduction to semiotics, 2001), “. . . communication is grounded in the semiotic system of organism”. however, sebeok (2001, p. 5) defines semiotics as “the phenomenon that distinguishes life forms from inanimate objects . . . the instinctive capacity of all living organisms to produce and understand signs”. more so, saussure (cited in sebeok 2001, p. 5), defines sign as “a form made up (i) of something physical – sounds, letters, gestures, etc.”, which he terms as the signifier; and (ii) “of the image or concept to which the signifier refers”, which he terms as the signified; while the relation that holds between the “signifier” and the “signified” he calls signification. sebeok (2001) goes further to aver that the “signification” is an arbitrary one that human beings and/or societies have established at will (6). for example, according to brawne (2003, p. 147), "how light is reflected and what we read into the qualities of that reflected light affects our perception . . ." in other words, the lighting serves as the signifier, while what we perceive serves as the signified – that is, the meaning. barry (1999, p. 2) defines meaning as: the referent of the sign [for example]: the mental representation of a preceding rainstorm as the meaning of wet streets, the mental representation of a feline as the meaning of the word “cat” or of a drawing of a cat. . . they are the meanings arrived at as a function of the denotations and connotations of these signs. in the same context, as stated above, this study uses the denotations and connotations of different lightings used in the play performances in the study to refer to what they mean or communicate. though some signifiers have universal connotations and denotations, it is important to mention that where a signifier has different meanings for different people, the ostensible meanings alluded to the use of any light as a signifier in this study is culturally driven. this is because just as a culture of a people may differ from the culture of other people, meanings (the global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 17 signified) from different signifiers may also differ from one culture to another culture. hence, for the purpose of this study, the inferences drawn from the signifiers (the lightings) are majorly situated within the cultural milieu of the yorubas. this is so decided because ahmed yerima's play, yemoja, used as a case study in this research, is contextually situated within the yoruba cultural milieu. according to sebeok (2001, p. 9), there are six major types of signs that semiotics has cataloged and investigated. these are “symptom, signal, icon, index, symbol, and name”. this study, however, focuses only on signal, icon, index, and symbol because of their relevance in this discourse. pictorial representations of some of the scenes below are some of the scenes in the play that require expressive lighting. second scene – yemoja's abode (which simultaneously accommodates the situation where the warriors at the battle-front are calling on ogun to join them at the battlefield). performance “a” version picture 1 scenario: ogun dancing to the admiration of yemoja, but he is interrupted by the call from the warriors, telling him to join them at the battle-field (yerima 2002, pp. 18 20). the scene lighting: as light reveals ogun and yemoja, the voice of the warrior who is calling on ogun is heard from outside yemoja's hut. it can be observed here that the warriors who are calling on ogun to join them at the battlefront are not seen. this way, the information of where they are calling from, is not properly interpreted and transmitted to the audience. by so doing, the audience is only left to engage in guesswork (as per whether the warriors are within yemoja's abode), which can actually result global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 18 in misconceptions; whereas, the text says they are calling from a battlefront. performance “b” version picture 2 scenario: ogun dancing to please yemoja, but is interrupted by the call to join the warriors at the battle-field (yerima 2002, pp. 18 20). this is a scene with a simultaneous setting – the scenario on stage right (from actor's point of view) is the war-front where the warriors are calling on ogun to join them in the battle against the people of ijase oke. while on the stage left is yemoja's abode, where ogun is with yemoja. the scene lighting: in establishing the two different locales and their atmospheric conditions (with activities happening simultaneously) without the audience being confused, the lighting designer had to creatively employ the controllable qualities of light (i.e. colour, direction, movement and intensity) to enhance a clear interpretation of the scenes – while the greenish ambience is created for the warriors' scene in the forest to communicate a mangrove milieu of a forest scene (the battle-front), light is also used to create a clear atmospheric milieu around yemoja's abode to communicate a normal daylight. this way, though the warriors at the battlefront are communicating with ogun who is at yemoja's abode (as the play stipulates), the audience can clearly see and understand that the two scenarios are happening at different places. n.b. the above expressive lighting not only allows the audience members to see, understand and enjoy the actions happening in the two different locales simultaneously but enables the audience to witness ogun’s supernatural extra-sensory powers. the fact that ogun (who is at yemoja's abode) can hear the voices of the warriors who are in a faraway battlefield helps to interpret and/or implicitly communicate ogun's supernatural ability (of extrasensory perception and communication). to hear voices miles away is a rare attribute only associated with a deity – a salient theme not explicitly stated by any character in the play but implied in the text; this way, the lighting, beyond revealing actors and scenery, expresses the global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 19 inner essence of the playwright's/director's vision (the yoruba myth that ogun has supernatural powers) to the audience. it should also be noted that, in the performance “a” version of the play, the voice calling on ogun to come and join them in the battlefront was heard from behind the stage (and no lighting was used to establish the locale of the scenario). by so doing, the audience members were left to wander about who is calling on ogun, and where he or she is calling him from. thus, the information or message is not properly interpreted and transmitted to the audience. the problem, here, is that the audience members who have not read the play before watching the performance are thrown into confusion and forced to start guessing where the voice is coming from. some might have even assumed that the battleground was behind yemoja's hut (since the voice is coming from there). and the audience's assumptions/interpretations would be as divergent as their individual discernment levels are diverse; as a result, not every audience member would get the right information that ogun possesses supernatural powers (as a god). in explaining the use of greenish ambience to communicate the mangrove environment of the war scene in the forest, this researcher situates the explanation within the ideology of "icon" as one of the "signs" in the field of semiotics. sebeok (2001, p. 9): “an icon is a sign that is made to resemble, stimulate, or reproduce its referent in the same way”. so, the greenish colour in the lighting was used to simulate the natural ambience of a forest scene. performance “b” version picture 3 scenario: on sighting ogun at his arrival at the market square, sango begins to spit out fire. remark on the lighting: apart from a bright illumination to communicate a morning scene, the added light used here (by the lighting designer) for global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 20 the “b” version of the performance is a fire effect. according to yoruba myth, sango is a yoruba hero-god that spits fire (especially when he is angry). as a way of communicating this myth of sango's fire-spitting prowess, the lighting designer had to use the fire effect to do a practical interpretation of the subtext. by creating this firespiting effect, beyond the aesthetics, the audience members, especially those who might not know who the character is (perhaps, because they arrived at the theatre late, after the name of the character was mentioned or that they have no prior knowledge of the myth that surrounds the person of sango), without the fire effect, might have mistaken sango for any other ordinary person who has come to fight ogun. but with the use of the firespiting effect, the communication of the yoruba myth on sango is deepened and the audience is better informed of the nature of this special character and the unfolding scenario – an assertion which was confirmed by 99% of the respondents who filled the administered questionnaire. according to sebeok (2001), an index is a sign that refers to something or someone in terms of its existence or location in time and space, or in relation to something or someone else. for example, smoke is an index of fire (pointing out where the fire is); cough is an index of cold (10). here, the fire is used as an index of the myth surrounding the temperament of the yoruba hero-god, sango (when angry). to buttress the (above) assertion that the fire effect helped in clarifying the identity of the character, during the performance, immediately the character started spiting fire, many of the audience members (possibly those who are conversant with the yoruba mythology) started shouting, "sango"! but the fire-spiting effect was non-existent in the performance “a” version of the scene, and the name-hailing at the character’s appearance on the scene was non-existent in performance “a”. performance “a” version global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 21 picture 4 scenario: at the market-square, after yemoja stops the fight between sango and ogun, contrary to the play-text, she walks out of the scene; rather than transform into a mermaid in the presence of the town’s people, as the text stipulates. performmance “a” version picture 5 scenario: yemoja walks back to the scene after changing into a mermaid costume. observation: it is observed from “performance “a” that beyond its use for illumination, light was not used to communicate any meaning about the supernaturalness of yemoja, nor about her metamorphosis from a human to a mermaid transiting into the river – which is the core subject matter of the entire story. as such, the myth of her supernatural transformation from a human to a mermaid was played down or even nonexistent; she merely walked out of the scene and returned after a short while in a shining dress – as such, she could have been mistaken as an ordinary human being in the performance. performance “b” version global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 22 picture 6: market-square. time: day, scenario: as yemoja is about transforming into a mermaid, thunder stricks, lightning flickers and the atmosphere becomes cloudy. remarks on the lighting: sebeok (2001, p. 10), states that: “an icon is a sign that is made to resemble, stimulate, or reproduce its referent in the same way”. examples of an icon include: photographs (because they reproduce their referents in visual ways). sebeok (2001, p. 11) goes further to aver that a "symbol is a sign that stands for its referent in an arbitrary, conventional way”; for example, a cross figure can stand for the concept of christianity while white colour can be symbolic of cleanliness, purity, innocence, etc. therefore, the use of lighting effects to produce a sudden thunder-strike and lightning, and the atmospheric transformation from the bright clear morning atmosphere to a bluish ambience, was first, to establish and reinforce the idea of a supernatural occurrence occasioned by yemoja's metamorphosis from a human to a mermaid; secondly, to simulate a natural cloudy ambience of an impending rainfall. (this is because, according to the yoruba mythology, yemoja is a supernatural being associated with water); and thirdly, it is to enhance the illusion of a supernatural invocation of an aquatic milieu that would aid yemoja's movement into the river (as implied in the play-text). performance “b” version picture 7: market-square. time: day. scenario: as yemoja metamorphosed into a mermaid, iyaji, the head of yemoja's priestesses, begins to eulogies her. then she begins to wriggle her body away from the market-square. n.b. as implied in the play (at page 60 and 62) by yemoja, and the stage direction (respectively), after yemoja metamorphosed into a mermaid, she moves into a sea. yemoja: ". . . i shall today step into the big blue sea answering to the different needs of all who call me yemoja, . . ." (yerima 2002, p. 60). global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 23 n.b. since the play explicitly states that yemoja left for the sea (as the playwright attempts to communicate the origin of the worship of the river goddess), it becomes very germane to express the moment of yemoja's entry into the river to become a river "goddess" – this is fundamental information which no word of any character (in the play) effectively communicates to the audience. as such, this very significant information on the incipience of the worship of the river goddess could have eluded the audience, if not expressed via lighting design. therefore, a vivid stage picture of yemoja entering a river had to be created via lighting design. as she wriggles her body towards the edge of the market space, the area is transformed into water which links her to the sea. performance “b” version picture 8: market-square. time: day. scenario: as yemoja gets to the edge of the market-square, the area turns to water (see down stage left area of picture 8 above). the water serves as her links to the sea. the priestesses sing and dance in honour of her; which marks the incipience of the worship of the river goddess (picture 9 below). performance “b” version global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 24 picture 9: river bank. time: day. scenario: after yemoja had disappeared through the water by the market, the people sang in her praise, then left. afterwards, through the use of a lighting device known as projector, yemoja is seen swimming in a deep blue river as she had said; and the people gather in worship of yemoja (as it is today) at the river bank. a careful scrutiny of the picture above shows the image of yemoja swimming behind the motif on the backdrop. performance “a” version picture 10: the market-square. time: day. scenario: rather than see yemoja enter into the water or river as stated in the play-text, in the performance “a” version of the play, yemoja is seen returning to embrace ogun. conclusion in performance “b”, not only does the use of lighting design to establish and differentiate the battle-front from yemoja’s abode help in communicating to the audience that the two simultaneous scenarios on stage are happening at two different locales, but the existence of the conversations between ogun and the warrior at the battle-front (despite being miles apart) communicates and reinforces the yoruba myth of ogun’s possession of supernatural powers as a deity. also, the creation of the fire-spitting effect by sango and the creation of water and river effects that yemoja entered into serve to communicate and validate the supernatural powers that these characters possess as well as the yoruba mythology which surrounds the incipience of yemoja and its worship. in performance “a” version of the play, the water which yemoja is to depart into (as the text implies) is not realized; instead, yemoja merely walks out of the scene. this runs contrary to the longstanding myth which holds that yemoja left the terrestrial world for the aquatic realm to become a river goddess who is worshiped today by different people in different parts of the world. this misrepresentation of the fact is one of the problems of not global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 1 february 2024 25 using light for textual interpretation of plays. since a play performance is intended to be an interpretation of a text, the deployment of a design component, like light, must be for interpretive purposes. it is by so doing that even the minute but salient sub-textual information in a play can be effectively expressed, without ambiguity, for audience consumption. expressive lighting also enriches the aesthetics deployed in play performances, thereby swelling audience interest and patronage. references adeoye abdul rasheed abiodun. 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(2021). louis sullivan’s the tall building artistically considered: summary and analysis. https://2d-dubois.medium. com/louis-sullivan-the-tall-office-building-artistically-considered1896-71dd34bfc747 ejue, olympus g. (2019). “straight-take technique as paradigm-shift and the deconstruction of lighting intermissions in theatre directing”. in scene dock journal of theatre design and technology. a publication of sonta. vol. 3. pp. 37 – 58. hurwitz, nathan. (2021). playwriting in theatre: tools & techniques (retrieved from study.com) johnson, effiong. (2000). playwriting: the fundamentals. concept publications limited. “lumi photography”. (2021). yemoja productions. department of theatre and media arts, federal university oye-ekiti, nigeria. parker, w. oren, et al.(2009). scene design and stage lighting. wadsworth, cengage learning. sebeok, thomas a. (2001). signs: an introduction to semiotics (2nd edition). university of toronto press. witter-merithew, anna. (accessed 17 may 2022). understanding the meaning of texts and reinforcing foundation skills through discourse analysis. https://www.unco.edu/cebs/asl-interpreting /pdf/library/meaning-of-texts. pdf. yerima, ahmed. (2002). yemoja. kraft books limited. author information: nsikan bassey asuquo is of the department of theatre and media arts federal university, oye-ekiti, ekiti state, nigeria. email: nsikan.asuquo@fuoye.edu.ng prof. rasaki ojo bakare is of the department of theatre and media arts federal university, oye-ekiti, ekiti state, nigeria. email: rasaki.bakare@fuoye.edu.ng global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 7 utilizing beliefs, values and habits as tools for determining personal outcomes by duve nakolisa abstract this paper identifies beliefs, values, and habits as the critical forces that dictate the outcome of an individual’s endeavours and their capacity to realize set goals. the paper presents and illustrates the view that the fundamental causes of success and failure lie in the beliefs, values and habits of the individual. it introduces new concepts and analytical tools invented not only to clarify the expository thrusts of the paper but to empower the individual to evaluate the direction of their beliefs, values and habits. some of these new tools include the belief-values-habit (bvh) formulations and tables devised to enhance the individual’s ability to analyze and understand their own and other people’s behaviour and motives. the paper’s theoretical and practical insights are framed within the author’s bvh model and are presented as processes by which an individual can utilize beliefs, values and habits to determine the outcome of their undertaking. keyword: belief, values, habit, bvh model, bvh tables, bvh codes, bvh sets, jbut chart, success, personal outcomes very individual’s beliefs, values and habits constitute the foundation of their success or failure in personal, occupational and social endeavours. upon the fundamental tripod of beliefs, values and habits may be placed other factors which can boost or hinder an individual’s success. some of these are vision, desire, focus, persistence, hard work, foresight, knowledge, creativity, and finance. but then, even these are products of an e global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 8 individual’s beliefs, values and habits. the puzzle is that there are people who fail to achieve appreciable success in spite of exhibiting all or most of the above qualities of successful people; there are, on the other hand, those who appear not to have some of these attributes but, regardless of that, end up attaining great success in their chosen careers. what could be the explanation for this incongruity or apparent disharmony between an individual’s apparent success attributes and the outcome of his or her endeavours? concerning this, many perspectives and explanations abound. however, it is the position of this paper that there is an underlying relationship between an individual’s beliefs, values and habits and that person’s capacity to realize set goals. some vital aspects of this relationship are explored in this paper. beliefs, values and habits as critical outcome fundamentals we need to define the terms “belief”, “values” and “habit” as a guide to our understanding of their fundamental roles in determining the outcome of an individual’s occupational/vocational endeavour or their capacity to realize set goals. generally, a belief is anything an individual holds to be true and upon which they place some confidence. a belief is what someone recognizes, approves and accepts to be true with or without empirical evidence. our beliefs differ because our personalities, upbringing, education, social exposure, culture, experience, and responses to all of these and other factors, differ. that is why someone may have the belief that they would succeed in achieving what they set out to do while another firmly believes that they would fail to realize their goal no matter how hard they try. to belief is to unleash a value chain, for it inevitably links one to values that make what one believes and its attainment possible or impossible. the above is a wide-ranging definition of belief; we shall adopt a functional or operative definition of the term, suitable for its measurable application, later in this paper. what are values? values are the important ideas about key aspects of life an individual has formed over time, and usually from the standpoint of his or her beliefs. according to schwartz (1992), values are “desirable states, objects, goals, or behaviours, transcending specific situations and applied as normative standards to judge and to choose among alternative modes of behaviour”. elaborating on this point, kaushal and janjhua (2011) explain that values refer to the way in which people evaluate activities or outcomes and guide to a person’s intentions and actions… values signify desired global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 9 goals scaled according to importance, which guide a person’s life, behaviour that is directed towards goals, and criteria for choosing those goals. values are the standards by which an individual or a group of persons is guided to choose what to attain in life and by which they go through the process of attaining their goals. some people confuse beliefs with values but they are two distinct terms. pediaa (2016) distinguishes them as follows: although values and beliefs are interrelated since they collectively affect our attitudes, perceptions, personality, character and behaviour, there is a distinctive difference between them. the main difference between values and beliefs is that values are principles, ideals or standards of behaviour while beliefs are convictions that we generally accept to be true. it is these ingrained beliefs that influence our values, attitudes, and behaviour. habits are the routine value-driven things an individual or a group of persons does to become who or what they are or to attain goals they set for themselves. habits are the external expression of the internal beliefs and values of an individual or group of persons. habits are someone’s regular behaviour; they are the acts they exhibit or undertake as they are propelled by their inward beliefs and values. there are good and bad habits. good habits are the productive acts people regularly engage in that bring them good results. bad habits are the unproductive acts they frequently engage in that bring them bad results. generally, whether a habit is deemed good or bad is dependent upon what one believes and the values one holds dear. in visionary terms, a habit is considered good if it enhances one’s vision or goal and considered bad if it hinders it. an individual’s beliefs, values and habits can lead them to realize or fall short of realizing their set goals – depending on the type or nature of those beliefs, values and habits. so, while one belief-values-habit set can lead one person to success, another belief-values-habit set can lead another to failure. we will illustrate in a subsequent segment of this paper the critical need for people to choose or reinforce those beliefs, values and habits that steer them towards success rather than towards failure. we will also illustrate how beliefs, values and habits can be broadly classified and their impact practically determined as part of this papers purpose of exemplifying in what way or manner beliefs, values and habits can be utilized as tools for engineering success or the global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 10 realization of set goals. relationship between workers’ values and workplace performance it has been noted that there is a relationship between workers’ beliefs and values and how well they do (the habits they exhibit) in the work place. most jobs make practical demands on workers – they demand their skill, their capacity to do something, to communicate and to deliver results. kaushal and janjhua (2011) are of the view that there is a relationship between personal values and performance in the workplace: most of the early attempts in studying values have observed that values play a very important role in determining individual behaviour, decision making and managerial success… moreover the similarity in value orientations…plays an important role in eliminating value conflicts and have significant implications for the organizations which need to integrate for high performance work systems in the organisations… the research on work values also conceived that work values are derived from people’s basic value systems that help them navigate through the multiple spheres of their lives… dorkenoo et al (2015) also share the view that the work ethic or values of a worker has a direct bearing on their productivity since the worker’s attitude and performance of assigned tasks reflect their ingrained principles: values can strongly influence employee conduct in the workplace. if an employee values honesty, hard work, and discipline, for example, he will likely make an effort to exhibit those traits in the workplace. this person may therefore be a more efficient employee and a more positive role model to others than an employee with opposite values. values determine what individuals find important in their daily life and help to shape their behaviour in each situation they encounter. since values often strongly influence both attitude and behaviour, they serve as a kind of personal compass for employee conduct in the workplace. values help determine whether an employee is passionate about work and the workplace…. beliefs, values, habits: these three are equally important. to believe the right things without valuing the right things can give one the conviction to go in the right direction but deny them the wisdom to make the right choices. to have the right values without cultivating the right habits can enable one to make the right choices but deprive them the capacity to take the right steps. beliefs, global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 11 values, and habits are inter-connected and this connection can be utilized by every individual to transform, intensify and speed up their capacity to become successful in whatever they choose to do. there is enormous power in the cumulative effect of these three forces, if one knows how to apply them methodically to break those barriers blocking them from realizing their goal or attaining self-fulfillment. classifying beliefs, values and habits beliefs, values and habits can be broadly grouped into two classes: pro-success or positive beliefs, values and habits and anti-success or negative beliefs, values and habits. positive and negative categorization is, incidentally, among some of the vital dualisms of life – in some ways as basic as good and evil, life and death, up and down, light and darkness. when beliefs, values and habits are positive, they vivify and instigate critical success factors such as purpose, vision, goal, passion, skill, diligence and integrity. when negative, they propel their failure-inclined captives towards laxity, purposelessness, aimlessness, apathy, laziness, shortsightedness, incompetence, feebleness, and dishonesty. it is the nature of the individual’s beliefs, values and habits that dictates the course of his or her life. it is what determines how people invest time, talent and other resources; how much they earn, retain and invest; and what determines the direction, quality and level of their overall personal and business development. more than a matter of “good” or “bad” the average person can tell apart two extremely opposite beliefs, values or habits. on a moral scale, the bad attribute or act, because of its crudity, would weigh down the scale, lifting up the good attribute or act. broadly speaking, and in spite of differences in culture or nurture, there is a natural capacity in every human being to distinguish what is obviously right from what is obviously wrong. so, the average individual can draw a table such as this (table 1) without putting any data in the wrong column: table 1 good bad beliefs everyone’s life is valuable. husbands have the right to kill their wives. values honesty and diligence dishonesty and laziness global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 12 habits daily punctuality at work daily lateness at work it should be noted, however, that in terms of their capacity to enhance or hinder success, all beliefs, values and habits do not weigh the same but the differences here are not necessarily distinguished by “good” or “bad” tags. in the terrain of success considerations, a seemingly “good” attribute, such as patience, can be rated low if, for instance, it has the tendency to detain a man on the same spot and make him to be doing the same thing and producing the same negative result year in, year out. and what about outspokenness? on its own, this is good, especially for an activist who needs it to articulate and communicate his or her cause. but this “good” habit will be “bad” if routinely exhibited by someone whose job demands or requires tact and sensitivity in addressing issues. this is why, for purposes of success evaluation, it is important to avoid the term “good” or “bad” in classifying beliefs, values and habits. instead, they should be evaluated in terms of the positive (+) or negative (–) contribution they make towards the realization of a given vision or goal. evaluating beliefs as drivers of values and habits beliefs, in terms of the behaviours they spawn, can be broadly classified and labelled according to their tendency to enhance or hinder the capacity of those who believe them to accomplish their set goal. hence, for the purpose of this discussion, we shall classify beliefs or statements of belief into two types: prosuccess and anti-success beliefs. pro-success beliefs or statements of belief are phrased in such a way that they express faith in the capacity or likelihood of those who believe or utter them to achieve success or cause a positive change in their lives. anti-success beliefs or statements of belief do the opposite; they engender doubt, fear, complacency and failure. table 2, using statements people commonly say or believe, exemplifies these two kinds of beliefs. the examples cited in this table are far from being exhaustive. indeed, one could cite dozens of such everyday utterances if we had ample space for that. the ones we have listed here are meant to serve as a guide. the table should also make everyone more sensitive to the underlying meanings of regular statements people make. it should be realized that by those statements people, consciously or unconsciously, call up spiritual and physical forces that enhance the fulfillment of the tenor of their utterances, be it positive or negative. people should check themselves everyday to ensure that what they global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 13 say is not an unconscious contradiction of what they want. table 2: pro-success and anti-success statements of belief pro-success beliefs anti-success beliefs 1 i am going to succeed in life. life is a matter of fate. 2 if someone can do it, i can do it. all fingers are not equal. 3 if i can think it, i can do it. if wishes were horses beggars will ride them. 4 a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. never begin what you cannot finish. 5 nothing ventured, nothing gained. a bird in hand is worth two in the bush. 6 i can do more and achieve more. be contented with what you have. 7 it is never too late to make a u-turn. you shouldn’t learn to be left-handed at an old age. 8 success can be achieved in every environment. if i were living abroad i would have made it. 9 i am the architect of my own fortune. i have no one to help me. 10 i will keep trying until i win. i am a failure. 11 my future is in my hands. no one knows tomorrow. 12 my life is a reflection of my daily choices. life is full of ups and downs. one may ask, why is one set of the above statements tagged “pro-success” while the other set is tagged “anti-success”? the difference is in the inclination of the speaker and believer of each statement to act according to the leaning of his or her statement. speakers of the pro-success statements are usually more global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 14 inclined towards taking steps to get positive outcomes than speakers of the anti-success statements who typically tilt towards resignation, apathy, and procrastination. this indicates that speakers of the pro-success statements are more likely to expect or take steps to get positive results than speakers of the anti-success statements. the latter are usually negative-minded and liable to doing little or nothing to change their situation. pro-success and anti-success beliefs as true beliefs given the aforesaid fundamental difference between pro-success and antisuccess statements of belief, can we then say that pro-success statements are true beliefs while anti-success statements are false beliefs? we need to derive or adopt a functional definition of belief before we would be able to answer this question. from a pragmatic point of view, a belief is defined by the predisposition of the one who believes to act according to what he or she believes. that belief is false if the believer acts or is disposed to act contrary to what he or she supposedly believes. a true statement of belief is that which inspires the one who believes it to act in accordance with its dictates. so, a statement is said to be a true belief if the one who utters or believes it is inclined to do or act in accordance with what it says; a statement is amounts to a false belief if the one who utters or purports to believe it is disinclined to do or act in accordance with what that statement says. in other words, a belief – in terms of what it means to an individual – is not in and of itself true or false but is either true or false strictly on the basis of what the one who claims to believe it is inclined or disinclined to do. it is the doing part that tells us whether someone truly believes something or not. every individual tends to act in line with what they believe; so, we can gain a good insight into what someone believes by how they act. alexander bain was probably the first modern philosopher to recognize this connection between belief and action, a significant nexus as far as our discussion of the subject of belief, in this book, is concerned. bain, in 1859, defined belief as “that upon which a man is prepared to act”. max fisch in engel (2019) logically expressed it thus: “x believes p” means “x is prepared to act on p” bain clarifies the relationship between belief and action thus: global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 15 it will be readily admitted that the state of mind called belief is, in many cases, a concomittant of our activity. but i mean to go farther than this, and to affirm that belief has no meaning except in reference to our actions; the essence, or import of it is such as to place it under the region of the will. bain in misak (2016) went further to note the role of feeling as a binding force between belief and action: “the difference between mere conceiving or imagining, with or without strong feeling, and belief, is acting, or being prepared to act, when the occasion arises.” in line with this functional definition of belief, can we say, referring to the question earlier posed, that the pro-success statements listed in table 2.1 are true beliefs while the anti-success statements are false beliefs? although the speakers of the pro-success statements are more likely to get positive results than the speakers of the anti-success statements, both categories of speakers are prepared or inclined to act in accordance with their utterances. so, both sets of statements are true beliefs: the pro-success believers are prepared or inclined to act positively; the anti-success believers are prepared or inclined to act negatively. in as much as the speakers of these two sets of statements have the disposition to act in accordance with the tenor of their statements, their utterances equally constitute true belief. the major difference is that one set of true beliefs is pro-success while the other set of true beliefs is anti-success. but pro-success beliefs and anti-success beliefs, being true beliefs, have the potential to influence the mind to make each believer act in accordance with what they believe. bvh evaluation and classification what we can call belief-values-habit evaluation, or simply bvh evaluation, is a method devised by this author for assessing how success-oriented one’s beliefs, values and habits are. it is a result-oriented technique which, when mastered, can be readily applied. early in life, most people were influenced to acquire certain beliefs, values and habits they now consider counter-productive. such negative beliefs, values and habits should be done away with. it is the responsibility of the goal-setter or success-seeker to enforce necessary mental and behavioural changes to enhance the smooth realization of set goals. the bvh evaluation is a soulglobal online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 16 searching assessment of beliefs, values and habits based on their actual, potential or perceived relevance or irrelevance to the realization of one’s vision or goal. a belief or set of beliefs, values or habits is pro-success if it enhances or moves your vision or goal forward; it is anti-success if it hinders your goal or turns you partially or completely away from it. if someone’s belief, values or habit is evaluated as being pro-success, it is classified and noted as positive (+) belief, values or habit; if evaluated as being anti-success, it is classified and noted as a negative (–) belief, values or habit. this categorical assessment makes no room for neutral (0) or unsigned beliefs, values and habits. (see table 3) table 3: bvh evaluation and classification beliefs values habits goaloriented nongoal oriented goal oriented non-goal oriented goal oriented non-goal oriented evaluation pro success anti success pro success anti success pro success anti success classifi cation positive negative positive negative positive negative sign + – + – + – the goal of the bvh evaluation is to help every individual identify and categorize every issue of immediate or remote implication for their success journey. this evaluation will help them identify the success or failure orientation of their beliefs, values and habits through sorting them into two distinct categories: those which would enhance success vs. those which would hinder success. many people should be able to do this, although how well it is done would significantly vary from person to person. outcomes are not accidental results to restate our position, everyone’s ability or lack thereof to realize set goals springs primarily from the tenor of their beliefs and values and the actions they propel him to take. these are what determine the outcome the individual obtains from any endeavour to which they channel their time, energy and money. personal outcomes are usually reflections of what the individual inputted into their life in the areas of beliefs, values and habits. outcomes are global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 17 not accidental results. they are chains of interconnected forces that are difficult to deal with except one is conscious of and ready to make necessary adjustments regarding the leanings of their beliefs, values and habits. figure 1: pairs of opposite values and outcomes every individual’s success or goal-chasing journey is in stages and there are not one but many outcomes. every outcome expected at the end of every stage of the journey should be clearly and recognizably identified. this is the only way one can know whether they are making progress or not and whether one should reassess their beliefs, values and habits. such reassessments should be used to make one better at attaining a set goal, not better at derailing it. a set goal or vision is the nucleus around which every idea or experience should revolve. success is all about outcomes and outcomes are rarely accidental results. outcomes spring from the soil of the individual’s positive/negative beliefs, germinate as their positive/negative values, branch out through their positive/negative habits to become their positive/negative results. see figure 1 for an illustration of this vital relationship with particular emphasis on the connection between values and outcomes. in figure 1, two sets of beliefs – positive and negative – are involved. although these beliefs are not stated, you can use the ones listed in table 2 as examples of positive and negative beliefs. in fig. 1, a set of positive beliefs produced a set of positive values, namely, integrity, persistence, diligence, skill, passion, vision, and purpose. this set of positive values produced global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 18 desirable outcomes, such as success, wealth, self-fulfillment, social assets, increased options, and increased influence. the negative beliefs gave rise to the following negative values: dishonesty, feebleness, laziness, incompetence, apathy, shortsightedness and aimlessness. these values, as illustrated, led to unpleasant outcomes: failure, lack, self-pity, social liability, decreased lifestyle options, and decreased influence. all of these are the opposite of the positive outcomes listed above. no right-thinking person would like these negative outcomes but, like them or not, they inevitably result when one’s beliefs, values and habits are continually anti-success. it seems reasonable to state that life usually delivers what we somehow allowed our beliefs, values, and habits to attract. bvh interactions in this section of the paper, we will explore aspects of beliefs, values and habits in order to gain greater insight into their interactions and their involvement in shaping human behaviour. so far, we have seen the interaction between these three forces as a rather one-way chain, with beliefs leading to values, and values leading to habits, and habits leading to success or failure. while this sequential framework is not all there is to beliefs, values and habits, it rightly highlights the causative order of their interactions in ideal situations. however, when manifesting in the life of the individual, beliefs, values and habits can act in diverse ways. personal-growth gear let us use the concept of what this paper calls personal-growth gear to describe the manner in which an individual’s beliefs, values and habits work together to enhance their personal growth and development. an individual’s personalgrowth gear refers to the way their beliefs, values and habits move each other to generate capacity, efficiency, and productivity or incapacity, inefficiency, and non-productivity. ineffective deployment of the personal-growth gear reduces the level of output, competence, and income an individual can produce. incompetent engagement of the personal-growth gear is one of the fundamental reasons some individuals have failed repeatedly at whatever they tried to do. how effectively the personal-growth gear is put to use determines an individual’s success power. each time someone thinks, each time they take action, they are engaging their beliefs-values-habits gear, projecting it to move in a certain direction and at a certain speed. (note that by habits we include habits of gathering, sifting and analyzing information as well as habits of global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 19 acting on the information.) figure 2: personal-growth gear every act is not a linear expression that necessarily springs from beliefs to values and, then, to habits. while, in formative terms, beliefs, values and habits unfold in a sequential way, they do not necessarily manifest that way; many times, they act simultaneously, like the parts a gear, to change the pace or direction of someone’s beliefs, values or habits. (see figure 2) what this means is that the success-seeker must continually be sensitive to the inter-relationship between these three critical forces (beliefs, values and habits) in order to ensure that none of them is out of alignment with set goals, since they produce best results when they are in alignment with each other. to believe one thing and do another is a clear indication that one’s personalgrowth gear is not properly aligned. to return to the authentic path of growth and development, a realignment of bvh forces in a manner that powers one towards the desired direction would be necessary. when someone’s beliefs, values and habits are in agreement with each other, they can all be efficiently expressed in a single act through their gear-like interaction. the personal-growth gear, in enabling us to see in one instance of behaviour an individual’s essence, plays a synthetic and generative role. for example, someone casting his vote during an election is displaying belief in beliefs values habits global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 20 democracy while at the same time expressing an aspect of his democratic values and demonstrating a habitual inclination to participate in choosing his leaders. bvh unit a bvh unit is made up of three components – belief(s), values and habit(s) – that form an identifiable meaning in a sequential or non-sequential manner. a meaning is sequentially obtained from a bvh unit when it is derived through a logical sequence of belief(s), values and habit(s). a bvh unit that forms a sequential meaning is called a bvh set. a meaning is non-sequentially obtained from a bvh unit when it does not emanate from a logical sequence of belief(s), values and habit(s). a bvh unit that forms a non-sequential meaning is called a bvh mix. the term “bvh mix”, as used in this paper, takes a singular or plural verb, depending on whether it is referring to a single bvh mix or two or more bvh mix. a bvh unit (be it a bvh set or a bvh mix) is susceptible to personal, social and environmental influences, among other factors capable of causing shifts in personal beliefs, values and habits over a short or long period of time. those who withstand unsavoury influences to maintain behavioural stability achieved the feat by largely conducting their lives in line with the dictates of veritable bvh sets. classification of bvh units as we earlier stated, there are positive (pro-success) beliefs, values and habits and negative (anti-success) beliefs, values and habits. units of beliefs, values and habits (bvh units) are also classified. there are three types of bvh units: o positive bvh units o negative bvh units o positive and negative bvh units. the first two types apply to bvh sets while the last applies to bvh mix. bvh units are usually distinguished in terms of the following features:  their type  their tenor, and  their sequence. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 21 by type, we refer to the three bvh types (positive bvh units, negative bvh units, and positive and negative bvh units) listed above. the term, “tenor” is the general meaning or perspective a bvh unit is conveying or tends to be conveying. it is a feature of all bvh units. “sequence” refers to the way the tenor or meaning of a bvh unit is derived: does it flow logically and conformably from beliefs, through values to habits or is it derived as a result of a contradiction in one or more bvh components? bvh set a bvh set is a bvh unit whose meaning is derived through a logical sequence of belief(s), values and habit(s) that are in line with each other. what this means is that it is the conformability of the components of a bvh unit that determines whether it is a bvh set or a bvh mix. because the components of a bvh set correspond to each other, the elements in the components being mutually consistent, they lead to a predictable pattern of behaviour. the contradictory components of a bvh mix, on the other hand, lead to unpredictable pattern of behaviour. a bvh set is either positive or negative in type. to determine what type a bvh set is, we ask the question: are the beliefs, values and habits of this bvh set positive (pro-success) or negative (anti-success)? it is vital to note that the word, “success”, as used in the above brackets, is defined as the realization of a worthy goal or desire. if the goal of a given bvh set is evil, socially or morally harmful, the bvh set is deemed to be negative in spite of the “success” of its outcome. in this matter, the end does not justify the means. in any authentic success story, the value or glory of the outcome should be gauged by the integrity of the process. one of the defining features of a bvh set is that its belief(s), values and habit(s) point toward the same meaning or idea, thereby laying the foundation for its logical sequence. thus, in a bvh set, the beliefs are in agreement with the values which, in turn, lead to agreeable habits that externalize the tenor of the set. (see fig. 3) global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 22 figure 3: logical sequence of bvh set bvh table a bvh table is a columnar presentation of bvh units that displays in the respective columns the belief(s), values and habit(s) of each row (or bvh unit) of the table. when a row of a bvh table displays belief(s), values, and habit(s) that agreeably link to each other, that row is called a bvh set. a row whose belief(s), values, and habit(s) are not altogether consistent is called a bvh mix. the bvh table below contains three bvh sets. notice that each set’s beliefs, values and habits point toward the same meaning. since conformable values and habits can correspond to conformable beliefs in various ways, bvh tables, such as the one below, may not contain exhaustive list of sets of possible beliefs, values and habits. to illustrate the topic, only three bvh sets are listed. table 4: bvh table beliefs values habits 1 slow and steady wins the race. patience, consistency, orderly progress follows due process, stays in the same job for long, secures success in due course 2 time waits for no one. time-consciousness, decisiveness, speed, smartness on the lookout for new opportunities, easily tries new things, engages in side ventures that bring in extra income 3 it’s all fair and ok as long as you don’t get cleverness, theft, bribery, forgery, runs a prostitution and armed robbery global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 23 caught. impatience, hustle ring, engages in cross-border trafficking of girls the above bvh sets are logically sequenced. logical sequence is unique to bvh sets and refers to the order in which bvh beliefs generate conformable values which, in turn, give rise to conformable habits. we see this principle at work in the above bvh table where the values and habits of each bvh set flow from and build upon the conformable elements of the set’s belief component. bvh codes bvh codes are ways of using letters and numbers to make convenient, simplified and orderly references to the bvh sets and bvh mix in a given table. bvh codes are derived from bvh tables for the purpose of uniquely identifying and analyzing bvh sets and bvh mix. table 4 (above) is made up of three bvh sets which can be identified, as follows, in terms of their positions as rows of that table: 1st bvh set (table 4, row 1) 2nd bvh set (table 4, row 2) 3rd bvh set (table 4, row 3) instead of referring to these bvh sets using the above lengthy forms, bvh codes can be used to sort and systematize such references as follows: detailed reference bvh code 1st bvh set (table 4, row 1) bvh-s1 2nd bvh set (table 4, row 2) bvh-s2 3rd bvh set (table 4, row 3) bvh-s3 note that the letter “s”, attached to the number identifying the row where the bvh set is located in the table, stands for “set”; it is used to distinguish a bvh-set code from a bvh-mix code. bvh codes can function as primary keys in bvh-set and bvh-mix tables as well as in database records. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 24 bvh-set tables a bvh-set table provides quick tabular insight into the type, tenor and sequence of coded bvh sets. it is different from a bvh table whose columns merely indicate the beliefs, values and habits of a bvh unit (be that unit a bvh set or mix). bvh-set table and bvh-mix table have four columns each, namely, bvh code, bvh type (type), bvh tenor (tenor) and bvh sequence (sequence). a right arrow (→) is used to show the logical sequence of a bvh-set. the bvh-set table below (table 5) is drawn using bvh data provided in table 4 above and the bvh codes derived from it. table 5: bvh-set table bvh code type tenor sequence bvh-s1 + patience, consistency, orderly progress continuity→consistency→success bvh-s2 + timeconsciousness, decisiveness, speed, smartness new things→new opportunities→quick benefits bvh-s3 – cleverness, theft, bribery, forgery, impatience, hustle crime→cleverly committed→ok note that bvh-set table and bvh-mix tables are not meant to serve as alternatives to bvh tables without which none of their columns will make referential sense. bvh codes symbolize bvh sets while bvh-set and bvhmix tables provide useful information that makes more meaningful bvh tables. bvh mix a bvh mix is a unit of beliefs, values, and habits that are not sequentially linked. a bvh mix, unlike a bvh set, is positive and negative in type, does global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 25 not form a logical sequence from beliefs, through values, to habits, and so derives its tenor from inconsistent bvh components. the tenor of a bvh mix has two contradictory aspects: positive (pro-success) and negative (anti-success). recognizing this two-part tenor is vital as it enables us to make useful distinctions while sorting out the sequence of a bvh mix. under the “sequence” column, a bvh mix’s tenor is prefixed with “pro-“ or “anti-“. these prefixes are attached to a word or phrase that captures an element of bvh mix’s contradictory tenor. if that element supports life, for example, we may refer to it as “pro-life”; and if it is against the use of vaccines, we may tag it “anti-vaccines” in the bvh mix “sequence” column. the use of these two prefixes reflects the inconsistent pattern we see in a bvh mix and the illogical nature of its sequence. a forward slash is used to demarcate the elements of a bvh mix tenor. example: pro-life / anti-vaccines. the bvh table below contains only bvh mix. table 6: bvh table (2) beliefs values habits 1 there is life after death: the righteous will go to heaven and sinners will go to hell. church-attendance, get-rich-quick schemes profiteer, smuggler, loan shark, buyer of stolen goods, church goer 2 smokers are liable to die young. regular exercise, medical checkups chain smoking, campaigns against public nonsmoking areas 3 it is an abomination for a woman to commit adultery. women’s sexual faithfulness, men’s sexual freedom womanizing, cheats on wife you will observe that each mix of beliefs, values and habits cannot be said to be logical or sequential as there is no mutually consistent meaning, as we see in a bvh set. this is why a bvh mix is not simply positive (+) or negative (–) but both positive and negative (±). global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 26 in spite of its sequential discrepancy, a bvh mix is very valuable. it communicates information that reflects human foibles and the ironic nature of reality. there is so much inconsistency in real-life behaviour, so much disconnect between what people believe or claim to believe and what they actually do: this is what the bvh mix captures and expresses. very few people lead lives that only bvh sets can truly reflect; in this sense, bvh mix may serve as a truer mirror of the average person’s behaviour. bvh mix codes earlier, two distinct bvh codes – bvh set code and bvh mix code – were identified. while their functions are the same, bvh mix codes are distinguished from bvh set codes by the letter “m” (stands for “mix”) that precedes the number denoting the row where the bvh mix is located in a table. we can use bvh codes to represent each of the three bvh mix of table 6 as follows: table 7: bvh mix codes detailed reference bvh code 1st bvh mix (table 6, row 1) bvh-m1 2nd bvh mix (table 6, row 2) bvh-m2 3rd bvh mix (table 6, row 3) bvh-m3 bvh-mix tables a bvh-mix table provides quick tabular insight into the types, tenor and sequence of coded bvh mix. in spite of the fact that there is no sequentiallyderived tenor and no logical sequence in a bvh-mix table, it has four columns, the same number of columns we see in a bvh-set table. this columnar uniformity enables us to combine both tables in a bvh-set/mix table. the bvh-mix table below is drawn using bvh data provided in tables 6 and 7. notice that the tenor of each bvh-mix is both positive and negative. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 27 table 8: bvh-mix table bvh code type tenor sequence bvh-m1 ± churchattendance, get-rich-quick schemes pro-church attendance/anti-honest business bvh-m2 ± regular exercise, medical checkups pro-warning against smoking / proexercise / anti-public nonsmoking areas bvh-m3 ± women’s sexual faithfulness, men’s sexual freedom anti-female adultery / pro-male extramarital affairs bvh-set/mix table as earlier noted, a bvh-set table can be combined with a bvh-mix table to form a single table known as bvh-set/mix table. though a bvh-set/mix table is often a combination of bvh-set and bvh-mix tables, it can be a direct result of a single bvh table that contains rows of bvh sets as well as those of bvh mix. the bvh-set/mix table below (table 9) is a combination of tables 5 (bvh-set) and 8 (bvh-mix). table 9: bvh-set/mix table bvh code type tenor sequence bvh-s1 + patience, consistency, orderly progress continuity→consistency→success bvh-s2 + time-consciousness, decisiveness, speed, smartness new things→new opportunities→quick benefits bvh-s3 – cleverness, theft, bribery, forgery, impatience, hustle crime→cleverly committed→ok bvh-m1 ± church-attendance, get-rich-quick schemes pro-church attendance/anti-honest business bvh-m2 ± regular exercise, medical checkups pro-warning against smoking / proexercise / anti-public nonsmoking areas bvh-m3 ± women’s sexual faithfulness, men’s sexual freedom anti-female adultery / pro-male extramarital affairs global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 28 assuming the data used in drawing the conclusions represented in this table were obtained from two or more bvh-set and bvh-mix tables, using a single bvh-set/mix table to represent it would give a more unified and comparative picture. the accommodation of such all-inclusive data is one of the benefits of a bvh-set/mix table. more on bvh tables in this segment, we would show further ways in which bvh tables as well as bvh-set and bvh-mix tables can be presented. so far in this paper, we have drawn mostly separate bvh sets and bvh mix tables, and have combined them merely for illustrative purposes. however, a single table can contain, in interchanging pattern, units of bvh sets and those of bvh mix. in table 10, we have alternated bvh set with bvh mix by joining two of the tables earlier discussed (tables 4 and 6) to show how such a single table might look. table 10 ble (3) beliefs values habits 1 slow and steady wins the race. patience, consistency, orderly progress follows due process, stays in the same job for long, secures success in due course 2 there is life after death: the righteous will go to heaven and sinners will go to hell. church-attendance, get-rich-quick schemes profiteer, smuggler, loan shark, buyer of stolen goods, church goer 3 time waits for no one. time-consciousness, decisiveness, speed, smartness always on the lookout for new opportunities to exploit, easily tries new things, engaged in side ventures that bring in extra income 4 smokers are liable to die young. regular exercise, medical checkup chain smoking, campaigns against public nonsmoking areas 5 it’s all fair and ok as long as you don’t get caught. cleverness, theft, bribery, forgery, impatience, hustle runs a prostitution and armed robbery ring, engaged in cross-border trafficking of girls 6 it is an abomination for a woman to commit adultery. women’s sexual faithfulness, men’s sexual freedom womanizing, cheats on wife table 10 does not present ready information on the type and nature of the six bvh units contained in the table. additional information can be added by inserting bvh codes and bvh types to the table to give us what we can term global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 29 a joint bvh units table (jbut). we can add bvh codes and types to table 10 to turn it into a jbut chart (table 11): table 11: joint bvh units table (jbut) bvh code beliefs values habits bvh type bvh-s1 slow and steady wins the race. patience, consistency, orderly progress follows due process, stays in the same job for long, secures success in due course + bvh-m1 there is life after death: the righteous will go to heaven and sinners will go to hell. church-attendance, get-rich-quick schemes profiteer, smuggler, loan shark, buyer of stolen goods, church goer ± bvh-s2 time waits for no one. timeconsciousness, decisiveness, speed, smartness on the lookout for new opportunities, tries new things, engages in side ventures that bring in extra income + bvh-m2 smokers are liable to die young. regular exercise, medical checkups chain smoking, campaigns against public nonsmoking areas ± bvh-s3 it’s all fair and ok as long as you don’t get caught. cleverness, theft, bribery, forgery, impatience, hustle runs a prostitution and armed robbery ring, engages in cross-border trafficking of girls – bvh-m3 it is an abomination for a woman to commit adultery. women’s sexual faithfulness, men’s sexual freedom womanizing, cheats on wife ± a jbut chart contains five columns. the first is the bvh code. the next are beliefs, values and habits columns respectively. the fifth column indicates the bvh type of each bvh unit. this is indicated with the plus (+), minus (–), or plus-minus (±) sign. a jbut chart offers unique advantages. it gives all the information ordinarily global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 30 obtained from bvh tables in addition to all the information, apart from the ones in the sequence column, provided in bvh-set, bvh-mix, or bvhset/mix tables. a jbut chart results when bvh-code and bvh-type columns are added to a bvh table. on a final note, in describing the associated habits of a bvh set or a bvh mix, one should endeavour to state only the bare facts without qualifying them with judgmental adjectives or adverbs. avoid labels that appear subjective and raise unnecessary questions: instead of writing, for instance, “silly drunkard”, simply write “drunkard” as there is no room in a typical table for you to tell us how silly the drunkard you have in mind is. in any case, tables of this nature may not typify only one individual; it may represent other drunkards all of whom may not be silly. bvh relationships bvh relationships refer to the way belief-values-habit units or their components connect to produce patterns of behaviour. given the awesome power of beliefs, values and habits as decisive factors in everyone’s personal growth and development, success or failure, we need to gain a little understanding of certain ways in which bvh units, their components or elements, can interact to yield positive or negative results. such interactions between bvh units generate peculiar bvh relationships that, when understood, can enable the individual to strategize for success as well as enhance his or her understanding of the motives behind certain behaviours. ordinarily, beliefs, values and habits of the same orientation work together. this is the ideal picture. so, when we see a person who believes that honesty is the best policy, who values integrity, we may conclude that he cannot take bribe to facilitate an illegal outcome. conversely, when we see someone railing and fighting in public, particularly when he is beating a weaker person, it is easy to presume that he is a very rude fellow who has no control over his emotions and who, perhaps, believes that might is right. we usually expect someone’s beliefs to be in alignment with their values and habits. in reality, this is not always the case. although more bvh relationships can be identified, we will discuss only three common ones, utilizing data from the jbut chart below. the chart contains seven rows of bvh sets. the bvh sets are varied enough to represent some regular models of behaviour. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 31 table 12: jbut chart of some regular bvh sets bvh code beliefs values habits bvh type bvh-s1 god is the creator of everything and he will judge everyone after their death. fear of god religious worship and acts of high moral probity + bvh-s2 if you can’t do all you can for someone you love, you don’t deserve his or her love. sacrificial love doing whatever is demanded to please lover, keeping lover company and buying lover gifts + bvh-s3 parents and elders deserve to be greatly honoured. respect for parents and elders gesture of submission (e.g., genuflecting or prostrating) while greeting parents and elders + bvh-s4 retaliation is not evil; it is personal justice. revenge as show of manliness quick acts of retaliation – bvh-s5 everything and everyone are products of the environment and all should harmoniously coexist. social harmony and respect for the environment acts responsibly in social and environmental matters + bvh-s6 the end justifies the means. do-or-die approach to getting things done uses legal and illegal means to get anything desired – bvh-s7 it is all about the money. money or nothing undertakes business schemes that exploit and harm others – we can use the above chart and the two narrations below to identify and classify the following belief-values-habit relationships:  relationship of correspondence  relationship of inducement  relationship of concealment. understanding these bvh relationships will be of practical benefit to us in our global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 32 personal and business involvements. below, we explore the above three beliefvalues-habit relationships one by one. a. bvh relationship of correspondence you might have noticed that in each row of table 12 every stated belief corresponds to the related values and habit. of course, these are not the only values or habits these given beliefs could match. the important thing to note here is that the stated belief (denoted by the letter “b”) corresponds to the stated values (denoted by the letter “v”) which correspond to the stated habit (denoted by the letter “h”). this is why this kind of bvh relationship is called bvh relationship of correspondence. because “b” is equal by definition to “v” (the kind of values denoted by “v” are correlatively equal to the kind of beliefs represented by “b”) and “v” is equal by definition to “h”, we can, using mathematical shorthand, represent this relationship of correspondence as: b ≙ v and v ≙ h. a relationship of correspondence is the prototype of the sequentially patterned behaviour. the regularity and predictability of this bvh relationship model is unmatched by any other bvh unit. b. bvh relationship of inducement bvh relationship of inducement results when an individual finds objectionable one of the constituent elements of a bvh set but is compelled to act in conformity with it due to the influence of an agreeable element extracted from another bvh set. this is not an uncommon relationship in human interactions as the following narration will show. 1st narration: glen was a young man from europe who visited an african country for the first time. he lived for one month in one of the country’s major cities. during his short stay, he met and fell in love with a beautiful girl called kemi. the two lovers were in some ways compatible but their cultural backgrounds were different. glen’s cultural values were very liberal. he called his father by his first name, greeted him and other elders in his global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 33 community without any special gesture of respect. kemi’s ethnic setting demanded demonstrative respect for elders. because they were obsessed with each other, glen and kemi never bothered to discuss cultural or personal differences. before glen travelled back to europe, they had agreed to get married. when he got to his country, glen discussed the matter with his parents and was delighted when they gave him their consent. what remained was for him to meet kemi’s parents who were staying in the village, far from the city where he had met and interacted with their daughter.. shortly after receiving his parents’ blessings, glen flew back to kemi’s country to meet her parents. on the day he went, for the first time, to see his potential father-in-law and mother-in-law, he was accompanied by his fiancée and a few city folks, mainly young men and women from kemi’s ethnic group. no one had prepared his mind about what to expect in his fiancée’s village home. on meeting kemi’s parents, glen’s gorgeously dressed entourage prostrated on the somewhat dusty floor. although it was the first time the young foreigner was seeing such a behavioural display, he quickly recovered from his culture shock and also prostrated on the ground, almost synchronizing with everyone else. he waited till the last male member of the entourage stood up from the ground before he, too, did so. kemi’s parents were impressed and glen and their daughter were formally engaged. this foreign son-in-law kept up this habit of prostrating before his wife’s parents even after he had gotten married to their daughter. there is a bvh relationship of inducement in this narration and we shall use the above jbut chart (table 12) to illustrate it. thenceforth, it is to this jbut chart that all references to bvh codes or sets would be directed. glen and kemi share everything outlined in bvh-s2. both of them in principle agree with bvh-s3, even though, because they never discussed it, glen had no prior knowledge of the specific habit (a common cultural practice in kemi’s ethnic background) outlined in bvh-s3, column 3. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 34 both believe in honouring parents and treating them with respect is part of their shared values; but they had no mutual understanding that this should be done as outlined in bvh-s3, column 3. this matter was never discussed before glen found himself prostrating, for the first time in his life, before two strangers. what made him to do it? he believed in honouring elders, he valued respecting them but the related culture-specific habit of prostrating before them was very strange to him. so, what made him to prostrate? an interventional element from another bvh set – glen’s habitual inclination to do “whatever is demanded to please (his) lover” (bvh-s2, column 3) – induced him to prostrate on the somewhat dusty floor as dictated by the objectionable element in bvh-s3, column 3. to make this concept clearer, let’s represent what happened with symbols. two bvh sets are involved in this interaction. set a consists of the following: bvh-s2’s belief component (b2), values component (v2) and habit component (h2). set b consists of the following: bvh-s3’s belief component (b3), values component (v3) and habit component (h3). (please revisit the table to see the comma-separated elements in these components.) these two bvh sets can be represented thus: a = {b2, v2, h2} b = {b3, v3, h3} glen, we have earlier said, was in agreement with all the components of set a and all but one component (h3) of set b. suddenly faced with the challenge of acting in accordance with this somewhat objectionable component (h3), glen responded quickly by extracting an element (“doing whatever is demanded to please lover”) from set a’s habit component (h2). this element induced him to comply with the objectionable demands of set b’s habit component (h3), thus creating, symbolically speaking, a new set which we may represent as follows: c = {b3, v3, h3, h2} to continue with our set imagery, we can say that this was how glen’s initial misgivings were overwhelmed: compelled by the emergent set c’s global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 35 combination of elements, especially by the powerful effect of h2, the influential element extracted from set a, glen came to grips with the reality of the situation and quickly prostrated on the floor. when mastered and deliberately applied, bvh relationship of inducement can be a very useful self-improvement strategy. now, you may ask, can the bvh relationship of inducement be used to account for glen’s habit of prostrating before kemi’s parents years after being married to their daughter? no. on that first visit, glen prostrated on the bare ground in fulfillment of a perceived need to please his lover, not her parents. subsequent prostrations (which, by the way, had become a low bow with only his right fingers touching the ground) occurred as a result of acculturation and in demonstration of his sincere respect for two amiable elders who loved him and took him as their own son. c. bvh relationship of concealment bvh relationship of concealment occurs when all the components of a genuine bvh set are concealed by the components of another bvh set appropriated to deceive, confuse or oblige others. the appropriated bvh set can be said to be counterfeit because it is not the genuine bvh set of the appropriator. we shall use the following narration to illustrate bvh relationship of concealment. 2nd narration: georgio, convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment, waited impatiently to be set free so that he could exact revenge on the man who was a key witness during his trial. he joined one of the religious fellowships in the prison and put up an outward show of piety. because of his apparent good behaviour, he was released on parole. after his release, he reported regularly to the authorities in fulfillment of the conditions attached to his parole. judging from his speech and social habits, the paroled prisoner appeared to be a man who had acquired some constructive values. people acknowledged his new religious belief, and the accompanying positive global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 36 changes in his character. georgio, from all appearances, seemed reasonably reformed and everyone considered him a changed man. they were wrong! the paroled prisoner’s genuine beliefs, values, and habits had not changed! he was only a good actor patiently waiting for an opportunity to strike. barely two months after his conditional release, georgio murdered the man who had witnessed against him during his trial and disappeared from town. the bvh relationship of concealment occurs when there is a masking of a set of authentic bvh components (let’s call it set a) by a set of inauthentic, often opposite, bvh components (set b). we can use the jbut chart (table 12) to explain the two key sets of behaviour in the 2nd narration. in that narration, a counterfeit set (set b) of beliefs (b1), values (v1) and habits (h1) (see bvh-s1) were deployed by georgio to conceal his genuine set (set a) of negative beliefs (b4), values (v4) and habits (h4) (see bvh-s4). the genuine, though negative, bvh set can be represented thus: a = {b4, v4, h4} while the counterfeit, though positive, bvh set can be represented as b = {b1, v1, h1} note that no element of set a belongs to set b as both sets share nothing in common. because the two bvh sets are disjoint, we can express their relationship thus: a ∩ b = ϕ in bvh relationship of concealment, two disjointed bvh sets, one of which is authentic, are involved. to achieve manipulative or deceptive purposes, the authentic bvh set is concealed while the inauthentic bvh set is fronted by the manipulator. in the above narration, georgio, the manipulative actor, concealed his authentic bvh set (set a) by covering it with his inauthentic bvh set (set b), thereby global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 37 deceiving people and securing his parole. after that, he reverted to his authentic bvh set (set a) and executed his murderous retaliation against the man who had witnessed against him. the bvh relationship of concealment comes into play when someone feels the need to camouflage his or her true motives or values. it is commonly employed by the trust-breaching criminal who uses it to create a false image, win the undeserved confidence of others, and make his or her target victims less suspicious or vigilant. those who may not necessarily be ill-motivated also employ this stratagem. for relationship reasons, and usually under the undue influence of peers, many people have employed this scheme to conceal their true beliefs or values when they perceive these to be contrary to the pervasive ethic of their social circle. what we get from this is that human beings can display patterns of behaviour that appear to affirm a given belief while, in reality, that belief may or may not conform to their genuine belief-values-habit set. someone’s behaviour can indicate traits that do not, in any way, correspond to his or her genuine bvh set. all these make inter-personal relationships complex, with uneasy implications for personal development and visionary pursuit. one of the first steps some people need to take to discover and live their authentic lives is to identify and tear off the layers of bvh concealment which for years had complicated their development and hindered their success. we all need to remove all pretences and be true to that genuine voice and impulse in each of us directing us to our individual path of purpose and self-fulfillment. we need to be authentic to maximize our true worth, for authenticity is at the root of every durable success. conclusion we have explored, in this paper, the pivotal role of beliefs, values and habits in determining the outcome of personal endeavours. and we have stressed that the inability of some people to achieve hilltop success basically springs from their failure to evaluate themselves, jettison negative mindsets and behaviours, global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 38 and adopt and stick to only those beliefs, values and habits that steer them towards their desired goal. a lot of people are struggling with their careers, businesses and life goals – they are failing to be motivated by really great motivational stuff because they are yet to acknowledge and activate the success power that could be generated from their conscious refinement and deployment of their beliefs, values and habits. the ultimate point of this paper is that having control over the circumstances of life is significantly dependent upon how individuals evaluate, realign and utilize their beliefs, values and habits. references bain, a. (2016). the emotions and the will. https://archive.org/details /bub_gb_6dqcaaaaqaaj. dorkenoo, c. b., nyarko, i. k., semordey, e. y. & agbemava, e. (2015). the concept of workplace values and its effects on employee performance and corporate profitability. asian academic research journal of social sciences & humanities, vol. 2(6), 288. elizur, d. & sagie, a. (1999). facets of personal values: a structural analysis of life and work values. applied psychology: an international review, 1999, 48(1), 74. engel, p. (2019). belief as a disposition to act: variations on a pragmatist theme”. semanticscholar.org. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/fd92/28fe6b8921f3ddf67b47203c95218bc7d5 15.pdf assessed on 12th dec., 2019. https://pediaa.com/difference-between-values-and-beliefs/. assessed on december 9, 2021. kaushal, s.l. & janjhua, y. (2011, july). an empirical study on relationship between personal values and performance values. himachal pradesh university journal. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 1, no. 1, november-december 2022 copyright © gojar 2022 page 39 misak, c. j. (2016). cambridge pragmatism: from peirce and james to ramsey and wittgenstein. oxford university press, 19. schwartz, s.h. (1992). universals in the content and structure of values: theory and empirical tests in 20 countries. in advances in experimental social psychology, zanna, m., ed., volume 25, academic press, 1–65. author information: duve nakolisa is the general editor, klamidas klamidas books, abuja, nigeria. email: books@klamidas.com. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 38 legal framework addressing ecological preservation and environmental scarcity in nigeria by christian osemuyi oseghale abstract any chemical, physical, or biological agent that alters the atmosphere's natural characteristics is considered air pollution and it is an environmental scarcity problem. common sources of air pollution include gas flaring, household combustion devices, motor vehicles, industrial facilities, and forest fires. particulate matter, carbon monoxide, ozone, nitrogen dioxide, and sulfur dioxide are among the pollutants that pose a significant threat to public health and agricultural yields. air pollution is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality and causes respiratory and other diseases. 99 percent of the world's population breathes air that exceeds who standards for high levels of pollutants, with the highest exposures occurring in lowand middle-income nations like nigeria. global ecosystems and the climate of the planet are intimately connected to air quality. a tool for identifying and preventing natural sources of pollution, preventing environmental threats to population health, and improving people's quality of life in general is a legal framework. the federal republic of nigeria's 1999 constitution, as amended, is nigeria's supreme law. it emphasized the protection of wildlife, the environment, air, water, and forest sanitation. this study highlights and discusses several international, national, and local laws, acts, and treaties, and concludes that desertification, ozone layer depletion, global warming, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, acid rain, oil spills, and climate change are all largely attributable to human activities. therefore, man-made disasters may cause the transfer of contaminants made by human activity, which may have a severe impact on the ecology and become harmful to various species. keyword: air pollution, environmental scarcity, global warming, legal framework, conflict introduction in nigeria, the legislative framework addressing ecological preservation and environmental scarcity is critical for fostering sustainability in the power industry in the face of difficulties such as fossil fuel interruptions and the need for a low-carbon energy shift. the country's excessive global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 39 reliance on fossil fuels, notably oil exports, has resulted in high carbon emissions, environmental deterioration, and social inequality. to overcome these concerns, nigeria needs strong laws and regulations that prioritise environmental preservation, resource management, and the transition to low-carbon energy. environmental scarcity denotes a “declining availability of renewable natural resources” (kennedy, 2001) such as water, air and soil. the prevalence of diverse environmental problems, including air pollution, soil degradation, water pollution, oil spillage, deforestation, desertification, erosion, and flooding, are becoming primary concerns globally and nigeria being a member of the global community is having its own share of these concerns. according to the 2016 revised national policy on the environment (npe), both human activities and natural disasters increasingly pose a great threat to the environment in nigeria. nigeria has established a legal framework to address environmental issues and environmental scarcity. air pollution, a key aspect of this study, is an environmental scarcity problem often associated with industrialization and urbanization. the organization for economic cooperation and development (oecd) (2016) stated that air pollution is the presence of contaminant or pollutant substances in the air that do not disperse properly and interferes with human health or welfare, or produces other harmful effects on the environment. similarly, the 1979 convention on long-range trans-boundary air pollution sees air pollution as the introduction by man, directly or indirectly, of substances or energy into the air resulting in harmful effects of such a nature as to endanger human health, harm living resources, ecosystems, and material property, and impair or interfere with amenities and other legitimate global uses of the environment. according to the world economic forum’s (2022) analysis of glucose emissions from fossil fuel, worldwide carbon dioxide (co2) emissions from fossil fuels and cement reached a record high of 36.6 billion tones. this is in tandem with the air quality report of who which noted that 99% of the global population breathes air that exceeds who guidelines and contains high levels of pollutants, with the highest exposures occurring in lowand middle-income countries, like nigeria (who, 2022). the 1979 convention on long-range trans boundary air pollution is essentially anthropogenic, that is, it is centred on pollutants produced by humans. industrialization is unquestionably a human activity and, as a result of that, the air pollution it causes is anthropogenic. this makes it necessary that such air pollution be avoided or restrained by laws and policies or regulations in order for industrialization to be healthily and sustainably conducted (ezeanokwasa, 2019). global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 40 the environmental performance index (epi) report for 2022 emphasized that nigeria still maintains a very low environmental performance rating in spite of the abundance of government policies. in bayelsa and edo, air pollution from natural gas flaring, illegal refinery, oil bunkering, flooding, and gully erosions continues to be a serious environmental issue that hinders people's livelihoods (farming, fishing, health, and access to potable water for domestic use). consequently, this study employs a mixed method approach to evaluate legal instruments for managing conflicts and environmental scarcity in nigeria. nigerians living in bayelsa and edo states made up the study's populations. global concerns and municipal legal instruments on safeguarding the environment global concern for a clean environment led to the united nations conference on the human environment, which was held in stockholm in 1972. with a plan to step up dedicated measures on the topic, the conference brought environmental scarcity challenges to the attention of the world. the declaration of 26 environmental principles was one of the conference's accomplishments. the conference also acknowledged air pollution as a significant environmental problem after it has accumulated past the point of its carrying capacity. reaffirming the 1972 stockholm declaration and attempting to expand upon it, the rio de janeiro conference of 1992 declared 27 principles centred on the environment and development. the preambular part of that declaration and principle 1 are as follows: the united nations conference on environment and development, having met at rio de janeiro from 3 to 14 june 1992, reaffirming the declaration of the united nations conference on the human environment, adopted at stockholm on 16 june 1972, and seeking to build upon it, with the goal of establishing a new and equitable global partnership through the creation of new levels of cooperation among states, key sectors of societies and people, working towards international agreements which respect the interests of all and protect the integrity of the global environmental and developmental system, recognizing the integral and interdependent nature of the earth, our home, proclaims that: principle 1 human beings are at the centre of concerns for sustainable development. they are entitled to a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature (united nations, 1999). the geneva convention on long-range trans boundary air pollution establishes a mechanism that enables governments to collaborate in order to safeguard public health and the environment from air pollution that is global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 41 likely to impact multiple nations. within the framework of the united nations economic commission for europe (unece), the convention was signed in 1979 in geneva, and it came into effect in 1983. by reducing trans-boundary air pollution, this convention aims to reduce threats to human health (fagbemi, 2020). according to article 1 of the convention, "long range trans boundary air pollution" refers to air pollution whose source is entirely within a nation's domestic jurisdiction but whose effects are felt in another nation’s territorial jurisdictions. the basic target is for global participation in accordance with the overall guideline of ecological regulation to decrease air contamination. however, this convention has not yet been ratified in nigeria, as required by section 12 of the 1999 constitution. apart from these efforts at curbing air pollution, other conventions at international level on air pollution, among others ratified by nigeria, are: a. the united nations framework convention on climate change (unfccc): one of the most important agreements regarding air pollution is the 1994 united nations framework convention on climate change (unfccc). it is a global treaty that was negotiated, approved, and ratified in the name of sustainable development. while natural resources are exploited for the benefit of the current generation, sustainable development ensures that consideration is given to the benefit of future generations. at the 1992 earth summit, also known as the united nations conference on environment and development, in rio de janeiro, brazil, the unfccc was formally signed. b. the vienna convention for the protection of the ozone layer: there are anthropogenic air pollutant gases that, in addition to having a negative impact on human health and the environment as a result of global warming, also have a negative impact on human health and the environment as a result of the ozone layer's depletion. the purpose of this convention is to prevent the ozone layer from being depleted, as the name suggests. it was approved on march 22, 1985, and it went into effect on september 22, 1988. parties to the convention are required to take "appropriate measures... to protect human health and the environment against adverse effects resulting or likely to result from human activities which modify or are likely to modify the ozone layer." this is the convention's primary objective. c. the african (banjul) charter on human and peoples’ rights: this is a regional treaty that only applies to african nations. nigeria is obligated under article 24 of the charter to provide all citizens with an air environment that is not harmful to the ecosystem or human health. it reads, "every people shall be entitled to a general environment that is conducive global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 42 to their development.” the fact that the african charter on human and peoples' rights (ratification and enforcement) act domesticated this treaty in nigeria (cap a9 laws of the federation of nigeria, 2004) makes it stand out from the other treaties examined in this work. in nigeria, the domestication makes it enforceable by the courts. d. the bamako convention on the ban of the import into africa and the control of trans boundary movement and management of hazardous waste within africa: another regional treaty, this one was only made and ratified by african nations. in accordance with this convention, nigeria and other parties are obligated to reduce to a minimum the amount of hazardous waste produced in or imported into their jurisdiction, taking into account social, technological, and economic factors. the legal framework for the control of air pollution in nigeria's municipalities nigeria is required to fulfill its responsibilities under international treaties, among other things, according to the international law principle of pacta sunt servanda (“agreements must be kept”). when it comes to air pollution, this holds true just as much (fagbemi, 2020). as a result, numerous municipal legal instruments for controlling and preventing air pollution exist in nigeria. according to erhun (2015), as reemphasized by obutte (2021), the statutory framework of environmental protection in nigeria is made up of the nigerian constitution, the criminal code, the urban and regional planning act, the national gas policy act, the harmful wastes act also referred to as the special criminal provisions act, the environmental impact assessment act, the minerals and mining act 2007 and the cap a25 lfn 2004 associated gas re-injection (amendment) act. some of these acts are briefly explained below. the cap a25 lfn 2004 associated gas re-injection (amendment) act: this act mandates that all oil and gas producing companies in nigeria submit preliminary plans for gas reinjection and full plans for its execution. according to section 3 of the act, no company involved in the production of oil or gas may flare gas produced in conjunction with oil without the express consent of the minister responsible for oil and gas as of january 1, 1984. gas flaring, a significant anthropogenic source of ghg emissions, is a recurring problem in nigeria's oil sector. the minerals and mining act 2007: the mineral and mining act of 2007 as enacted repeals the minerals and mining act of no. 34 of 1999. according to ghose & majee (2001), there is a significant risk of air global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 43 pollution as a result of the particulate matter that is released into the atmosphere during mining, particularly opencast mining which has a negative impact on human health. today, a greater emphasis is placed on the expansion of the mining industry in an effort to diversify nigeria's primarily oil-dependent economy. nigeria’s legal framework for air pollution control covers international and municipal legal instruments. air pollution being a global problem cannot be tackled by individual countries alone; global action is required. everyone is affected by air pollution, which is a major violation of the right to clean air. the rights to life, health, water, food, housing, and an adequate standard of living are just a few of the many human rights that are affected by poor air quality (fagbemi, 2020). owing to the importance of right to clean air to life, health, dignity and wellbeing of human beings, steps taken at international level, among others, include the following:  the united nations high commissioner for human rights held its first global conference on air pollution and health in 2018 and acknowledged that there can be no doubt that all human beings are entitled to breathe clean air.  the committee on economic, social, and cultural rights in 2000 urged states to develop national strategies aimed at reducing and eradicating air pollution.  the human rights council and the high commissioner for human rights have also emphasized the necessity of combating air pollution. as part of the universal periodic review process, the effects of air pollution on human rights have been frequently recognized.  the new urban agenda, which was formulated at the united nations conference on housing and sustainable urban development (habitat iii) and approved by the general assembly, includes numerous references to the interrelated imperatives of improving household and ambient air quality as well as respecting human rights (unga, 2010; cescr, 2000; naibbi, & mustapha, 2017). notwithstanding these statutes, there are also some regulatory agencies and other institutional frameworks for environmental governance in nigeria, such as the federal ministry of environment, the federal environmental protection agency act of 1988 (fepa act) repealed by the national environmental standards regulation agency (nesrea act 2007). the following regulations were made in pursuant to the fepa act: global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 44  national environmental protection (effluent limitation) regulations;  national environmental protection (pollution abatement in industries and facilities generating wastes) regulations;  national environmental protection (management of solid and hazardous wastes) regulations;  environmental impact assessment act of 1992 (eia act);  harmful wastes (special criminal provisions etc.) act of 1988 (harmful wastes act). nesrea has the statutory responsibility to enforce all environmental laws, strategies, policies, standards and regulations in nigeria, as well as enforce compliance with the provisions of all international agreements, protocols, conventions and treaties on the environment to which nigeria is a signatory (ladan, 2012). the nesrea act 2007 allows each state and local government in the country to set up its own agency for the protection and improvement of the environment within the state. each state is also empowered to make laws to protect the environment within its jurisdiction. all the states have environmental agencies and state laws. how well the states and local government have felt in protecting the environment is of paramount interest to this researcher. solving the critical environmental scarcity problem, which encompasses water scarcity, pollution, global warming, and biodiversity loss are among the greatest challenges of the 21st century. the struggle between man and nature in human history is well documented. throughout man’s existence and in most of human history, the principal threat to man has come from man himself in the course of his making a living and utilizing nature’s endowments to live a good life. citing kim and weaver (1994), budnukaeku and hyginus (2021) emphasized that there is a universal agreement that the perilous state and the current state of these natural resources, namely, the environment, bio diversity and the biosphere, are as a result of human activities. the need for environmental law or policies in every society cannot be overemphasized as they help to check the excesses of individuals and protect the citizenry and the environment from abuse. that humans and the environment are interdependent in their relationship, yet one-sided, cannot be an overemphasis either, hence the need for environmental policies. the concept of environmental policy entails the commitment of an organization or government to the laws, regulations, and other policy mechanisms concerning environmental issues. put differently, environmental policies are any measures by a government or corporation global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 45 or other public or private organization regarding the effects of human activities on the environment, particularly those measures that are designed to prevent or reduce harmful effects of human activities on ecosystems (eccleston, 2010 & banovac et al., 2017). period of unprecedented environmental awareness in nigeria there are many laws on the environment in nigeria; this study, however, places more emphasis on what ogunba (2016) called the contemporary period (1987 to 2023) as this period saw the start of serious legislation which is complemented by increased environmental awareness and interest. an environmental catastrophe, which happened in august 1987, when an italian company imported several tons of toxic industrial waste and deposited it in koko, delta state, in southern nigeria, re-kindled and energized efforts to pass meaningful environmental legislation (evuti, 2018). this led to the enactment of the harmful waste act, which criminalizes activities involving the sale, purchase, transportation, importation, deposit, or storage of harmful waste, either singly or in conjunction with others on nigeria’s soil, air, or sea. harmful waste is defined as injurious, poisonous, noxious, or toxic substances, particularly nuclear waste that emits any radioactive substances (evuti, 2018). in addition to the existing 1991 and 1999 draft policy documents, there is the fundamental obligation for the protection of the environment as stated in section 20 of the constitution of the federal republic of nigeria 1999, which provides that the “state shall protect and improve the environment and safeguard the water, air and land, forest and wild life of nigeria”. the justifiability of this section of the constitution is, however, in doubt. it is not as explicit as equivalent provisions made by some african countries; for instance, that of the republic of angola explicitly says in article 39 (1) of the constitution, “everyone has the right to live in a healthy and unpolluted environment, as well as the obligation to defend and preserve it.” moreover, as observed by fagbohun (2002), section 20 of the nigerian constitution is not justiciable. nigeria is party to several international treaties and conventions governing environmental issues. it is on the combined trust of these instruments that the national policy on the environment rests. nigeria's environment is under increasing threat from human activities and natural disasters. there are already certain ominous problems with the environment and visible scars associated with the destruction of the natural resource base (land, water and air) upon which all life depends are being noted (npe report, 2016). contributing to environmental degradation is nigeria's large population estimated at about 200 million based on its rapid growth rate of global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 46 2.8 per cent (oramah, 2006; yahaya, et al., 2020; uneke, et al., 2021). the federal government of nigeria established nesrea as a parastatal of the federal ministry of environment (fme), under act no. 25 of 31st of july 2007, thereby repealing the fepa act. the mission and vision of the agency is to ensure a cleaner and healthier environment for all nigerians, as well as to inspire personal and collective responsibility in building an environmentally conscious society for the accomplishment of healthy and friendly environment in nigeria. the nesrea act includes the following: enforce compliance with laws, guidelines, policies and standards on environmental matters; coordinate and liaise with stakeholders, within and outside nigeria, on matters of environmental standards, regulations and enforcement; enforce compliance with the provisions of international agreements, protocols, conventions and treaties on the environment; enforce compliance with policies, standards, legislation and guidelines on water quality, environmental health and sanitation, including pollution abatement; enforce compliance with guidelines, and legislation on sustainable management of the ecosystem, biodiversity conservation and the development of nigeria’s natural resources; enforce compliance with any legislation on sound chemical management, safe use of pesticides and disposal of spent packages thereof; enforce compliance with regulations on the importation, exportation, production, distribution, storage, sale, use, handling and disposal of hazardous chemicals and waste, other than in the oil and gas sector; enforce through compliance monitoring, the environmental regulations and standards on noise, air, land, seas, oceans and other water bodies other than in the oil and gas sector; enforce environmental control measures through registration, licensing and permitting systems other than in the oil and gas sector; conduct environmental audit and establish data bank on regulatory and enforcement mechanisms of environmental standards other than in the oil and gas sector; create public awareness and provide environmental education on sustainable environmental management, promote private sector compliance with environmental regulations other than in the oil and gas sector and publish general scientific or other data resulting from the performance of its functions (ladan, 2012; binali, 2014). these regulations have key provisions for environmental control, cleanup and remediation (ladan, 2012). from 2007 to 2012, nesrea has developed twenty four (24) environmental regulations which have been gazetted and are in various stages of operationalization. other institutions include the forestry research institute of nigeria (frin), mandated to conduct research into all aspects of forestry, wildlife management, agroglobal online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 47 forestry and forest products utilisation; as well as train technical and subtechnical personnel for the forestry and agro allied services in the country through its colleges, and national parks and environmental health officers registration council of nigeria (ehorecon) (ladan, 2012; binali, 2014; npe, 2016). goals of legal framework on the environment the goals of the environment policy are to focus on all environmental issues which are affecting our environment. these policies are targeted at protecting natural resources and the environment from human assault. the environmental processes are not limited to air or water pollution. they encompass all such issues which are directly or indirectly affecting the environment. the primary goal of environmental policy is to protect natural systems. environment policy aims to promote human welfare and at the same time help to reduce the harmful effects of human activities on the ecosystem and the environment. and to also ensure that man-made changes are not causing any harm to society or the life of the animals. if it is causing any damage to the growth of humans and animal species in any way, specific action would be taken to prevent that (romanova, et al., 2020). these clearly show that nigeria does not have paucity of environmental policies; what seems to be obvious, therefore, is the absence of the political will on the part of government across all levels – federal, states and local governments. the multinational companies are not exempted from blame. oyebode (2018, p.12) asserts that “in spite of these environmental laws in nigeria by various successive governments, paradoxically, environmental problems in nigeria are on the increase due to poor implementation and enforcement of the various laws”. oyabode (2018) also observed that these policies, conventions, protocols and treaties have not been very effective as environmental issues have continued to be prevalent in nigeria. unnecessary and indiscriminate deforestation and bush burning destroy the vegetative cover of the earth across the 36 states of nigeria, thereby exposing the earth to leaching, erosion and flooding which are catastrophic to human existence. there also frequent cases of the pollution of land and water through oil spillage. all of these necessitate that each of the 36 states of nigeria and the federal capital territory of abuja should implement laws dealing with environmental protection and safety. under the state laws, enforcement is basically placed in the hands of several bodies, such as environmental sanitation task force, waste management boards, state environmental protection agencies, and environmental global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 48 sanitation courts. special courts are also established to try any person who violates the laws (ijaiya & joseph, 2014). theoretical framework social contract theory was explored in this study. it originated from thinkers like thomas hobbes, john locke, and jean-jacques rousseau, who provided insights into the relationship between individuals and the state, ideas that have implications for protecting the environment. it states that the goal of government is to enforce important moral principles. according to thomas hobbes (1588-1675), government is required to regulate the people and keep society at peace. to accomplish this, hobbes highlighted that individuals should agree (in a social compact) to devote their devotion to a sovereign on the only condition that their lives were protected by sovereign authority (leviathan, 1651 referenced in encyclopedia 2021, july 27). to regulate the indiscriminate and excessive exploitation of the environment, the government, which is considered as the vanguard of the people's wellbeing, should create and enforce environmental policies and laws. government policy is a proclamation of the government's political actions, objectives, and intentions for a certain subject. to support successful environmental management, the state formulates and implements environmental policy. the framework provided by social contract theory emphasizes the reciprocal duties between people and the state. it suggests that environmental protection is a shared duty, with the state accountable for creating and implementing laws that promote environmental well-being and individuals fulfilling their commitment to comply with these laws and actively contribute to sustainable practices. this idea may enlighten and encourage efforts to maintain and preserve the natural world by recognizing the relevance of the environment within the social contract. methodology this article relied on a convergent parallel design (mixed-method research design) in interrogating legal framework on the environment and environmental scarcity in nigeria, in line with varying environmental challenges and the approach in global security that gives importance to human beings and their complex social and economic interactions as against the security of states. as part of research conducted for this paper, surveys were carried out in bayelsa and edo states on issues pertaining to the impact of government policies on the environment. close-ended questions were posed and a 5-point likert scale was used to gauge the views of the respondents. as the table below indicates, the issues raised and the responses obtained were directly relevant to the focus of this global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 49 research. moreover, they are in line with the social contract theory that says, in the context of this discussion, that individuals should agree (in a social compact) to assign their devotion to a sovereign on the only condition that their lives should be protected from environmental scarcity by the sovereign authority. discussion of finding the table below reflects the result of the surveys conducted in bayelsa and edo states. table 1: the impact of government policies on pollution in bayelsa and edo states of nigeria. source: researcher’s field work, 2023 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 50 the result of the field work, as reflected in table 1 (on the impact of government policies on pollution in bayelsa and edo states, nigeria) revealed that the respondents agreed that unnecessary and indiscriminate deforestation and bush burning destroy the vegetative cover of the earth (mean=4.80) and that there is increase in the pollution of land and water through oil spillage, gas flaring and illegal refinery (mean=4.74), despite government intervention policies or legal framework. so, they are aware of environmental laws; they, however, acknowledge their failure over time. they also added that illegal refining of crude oil in bayelsa and edo is on the increase (mean=4.73) despite environmental legal framework being formulated and implemented by the government (mean=4.68), as environmental laws can help to facilitate an effective environmental management if well implemented (mean=4.65). this result is consistent with obutte, (2021), oxfam, (2017), ladan, (2012) binali, (2014) in acknowledging the basis of protecting the environmental as noted in the nigeria constitution, and in emphasising the need for sustainable environmental management, promotion of private sector compliance with environmental regulations other than in the oil and gas sector and publishing of general scientific or other data resulting from the performance of such functions. majority of those who responded to the qualitative instruments concurred with the result from the quantitative instrument, buttressing the fact that knowledge and availability has never been in short supply. although environmental policies are plentiful in nigeria, their impacts are not seen. the truth is, most of them are just on paper, written down but nonfunctional. they have not carried out any implementation, so submitted respondents r1, r2, r5, and r8. the respondents also added that the reason these policies are not effective is because before the policies were written, government did not involve the people affected. these policies were based on assumptions. government failed to involve and meet the people to know the real problems on the ground, and this has affected the implementation. however, respondents r3, r4, r6 and r7 added that government is trying its best in the area of policy implementation. the agencies of government at the national and ub-national levels, saddled with the responsibilities of protecting and safeguarding the environment over the years, have not really been working hard in their job of creating awareness, protecting, safeguarding and securing the environment for the benefit of people and other living things such as plants, fishes, sea creatures, wildlife and agricultural development. policies are in place to regulate and control environmental pollution but standards have not been adequately enforced. thus, biodiversity has been adversely affected and global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 51 the sustainability of the environment has generally been compromised. conclusion pollution of the environment is a global issue. in nigeria, most of the pollution to the environment came from the oil industry and industrialization. this led to a serious trend of natural and man-made disasters that, depending on how serious they were, could lead to poor health, food insecurity, or even death. desertification, ozone layer depletion, global warming, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, acid rain, oil spills, and climate change, which are the primary causes of environmental degradation, all result from human activities. pollutants produced by human activities can be transferred by artificial catastrophes, which can have a negative reverse ecological impact on the species they affect. many of the factors that contribute to air pollution, such as burning fossil fuels, are also sources of emissions of greenhouse gases. as a result, policies to reduce air pollution contribute to the nearand long-term mitigation of climate change while also lowering the burden of disease caused by air pollution. this is a win-win situation for both health and the environment. the reasons why available legal instruments for managing environmental scarcity seems not to have been very effective is attributable to a number of factors. according to the research findings, these include ignorance, corruption and population increase. the adjective "ignorant" can be used to describe individuals who are unaware of significant information or facts as well as those who display conflicting attitudes that amount to cognitive dissonance. there are three different types of ignorance: factual ignorance (a lack of knowledge of a particular fact), object ignorance (nonacquaintance with a particular object), and technical ignorance (a lack of knowledge of how to perform a particular action). all three are involved in this matter. the companies should take measures to replace worn-out, leaking pipes and service their equipments. communities and partners with the government are misled by multinational corporations engaged in the oil industry while the people suffer. government officials saddled with the responsibility of enforcing standards lack the requisite knowledge, as non professionals are often employed. population is also an issue here. all the respondents agree that the more the population grows, like it is growing at geometric progression in nigeria, the more the causes of environmental scarcity, such as burning of fossil fuel, land and water pollution, industrial waste, and deforestation, among others, will be aggravated. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3 june 2024 52 recommendations nigeria's legal framework on environmental scarcity relies primarily on the judicial system. it has the duty of interpreting and applying the pertinent environmental laws, policies, and guidelines. fair handling of any particular case depends on how impartially the legal system is run, how impartially the laws are applied, and how much latitude the laws provide the judge. judges should therefore be required to uphold justice as prescribed by law in each instance, disregarding any procedural irregularities, formalities, or technicalities that are not supported by nigerian environmental laws. focusing on minutiae and pointless defenses against the preservation and sustainability of earth's environmental condition might result in rigidity and inconsistency. efforts should be made to amend the constitution in order to ensure the enforcement of environmental rights laws. furthermore, the government must make sure that environmental rights are recognized and upheld in nigeria without requiring too many formalities or complexities. competent and qualified professional environmentalists should be engaged by government at federal, states and local government levels for effective and efficient service delivery. and as a matter of urgency government should embark on effective population control measures. finally, nigeria’s legal framework plays a critical role in addressing environmental protection and resource scarcity in the power sector. by enacting laws that prioritize sustainability, promote renewable energy development, and regulate energy activities effectively, nigeria can mitigate environmental risks, reduce carbon emissions, and lay the foundation for a more sustainable utilization of energy in the future. references banovac, e., stojkov, m., & kozak, d. 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(2010). putting the human back in ‘‘human research methodology’’: the researcher in mixed methods research. journal of mixed methods research, 4(4), 271-277. uneke, c. j., obeka, i., uneke, b. i., umeokonkwo, a., nweze, c. a., otubo, k. i., & uguru, o. e. (2021). an assessment of nursing mothers’ and young people’s access to proprietary and patent medicine vendors’ services in rural communities of south-eastern nigeria: implication for review of national drug policy. journal of pharmaceutical policy and practice, 14(1), 1-14. united nations general assembly (unga) (2010). human rights council. guidelines for the alternative care of children https://resourcecentre.savethechild ren.net/pdf/5416.pdf/ world health organization (2022). household air pollution and health https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/household-airpollution-and-health yahaya, n., hussaini, m. & abubakar, b. b. (2020).population growth and environmental degradation in nigeria. academic journal of economic studies. 6. 31-35. author information: dr christian osemuyi oseghale is a lecturer in caleb university, imota lagos, nigeria. email: trustnigent1@gmail.com. orchid id: 0009-00010276-0607 apa oseghale, c. o. (2024). legal framework addressing ecological preservation and environmental scarcity in nigeria. global online journal of academic research (gojar), 3(3), 38-55. https://klamidas.com/gojar-v3n3-2024-03/. mla oseghale, christian osemuyi. “legal framework addressing ecological preservation and environmental scarcity in nigeria”. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 3, no. 3, 2024, pp. 38-55. https://klamidas.com/gojar-v3n3-2024-03/. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 1 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 2 volume 4, number 1, february 2025 e-issn 3043-6729 published by the division of general studies chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university (formerly anambra state university), anambra state, nigeria in association with klamidas communications ltd no 42 ajose adeogun street, utako district, abuja tel: (+234) 07011831125 website: https://klamidas.com/gojar email: gojar@klamidas.com, admin@klamidas.com © gojar 2025 all rights reserved no part of this publication shall be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means electronic, magnetic, or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 3 gojar editorial board editor-in-chief duve nakolisa editors prof. innocent chijindu ngangah francis chuks madukasi, phd members of editorial advisory board prof. federico g. settler university of kwazulu-natal, south africa prof. maduabuchi dukor nnamdi azikiwe university, awka, nigeria prof. sarojini nadar university of kwazulu-natal, south africa prof. roderick hewitt university of kwazulu-natal, south africa prof. jacob k. ayantayo university of ibadan, ibadan, nigeria prof. chika moore nnamdi azikiwe university, awka, nigeria prof. e. nwigwe university of port-harcourt, nigeria prof. jude e. madu chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, nigeria prof. uduma oji uduma national open university, abakiliki, nigeria prof. o.b.c.nwankwo chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, nigeria dr nneka ifeoma okafor university of nigeria, nsukka, nigeria dr. roseline uzeh university of lagos, lagos, nigeria global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 4 about gojar journal (e-issn 3043-6729) global online journal of academic research (gojar) is a multidisciplinary journal published every two months (february, april, june, august, october, and december) by the division of general studies, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, anambra state, nigeria, in association with klamidas communications ltd, a notable online academic publisher and webhost. the publishers’ goal is to enhance the capacity of academics in all disciplines to publish their quality academic papers and receive occasional email alerts drawing their attention to references made to their papers by other researchers across the globe. other benefits include: life-time archive of published papers on gojar web pages and on google scholar, free plagiarism check and paper amendment advisory services. submit paper to gojar@klamidas.com. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 5 vol. 4, no. 1, february 2025 table of contents urbanization and unemployment in anambra state, nigeria: issues and challenges chukwujekwu charles onwuka 7-25 implementation and comparative analysis of amgt method in maple 24: convergence performance in optimization problems mark laisin & rosemary u. adigwe 26-40 oil spills in the niger delta and their impact on food security in nigeria: a prevalent challenge festus funmileyi ajomale & christian osemuyi oseghale 41-59 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 6 on boundedness and solution size in rational linear programming and polyhedral optimization mark laisin, collins edike & r. n. ujumadu 60-72 relationship between housing management and housing conditions in imo state housing corporation estates in owerri, nigeria nnanyere n. chukwu, chukwunonso o. umeora & charles c. munonye 73-89 exploring the impact of integrative artificial intelligence tools on the writing proficiency of university students in kano state, nigeria mudassir hassan & adebayo abubakar funsho 90-103 rethinking motifs in selected children’s literary texts blessing ekpe okpapi & enajite ojaruega 104-118 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 7 urbanization and unemployment in anambra state, nigeria: issues and challenges chukwujekwu charles onwuka abstract this study investigates the relationship between urbanization and unemployment in anambra state, nigeria, with a focus on the challenges arising from rapid urban growth. urbanization in key cities such as onitsha, awka, and nnewi has outpaced job creation, leading to increased unemployment, skill mismatches, and infrastructural deficiencies. the research adopts a mixed-methods approach, integrating quantitative data from structured questionnaires and qualitative insights from semi-structured interviews with policymakers, urban planners, and business owners. the population for this study consists of urban residents in three major cities of anambra state: awka, onitsha, and nnewi. a sample size of 400 respondents was determined using the taro yamane formula, ensuring representativeness across the urban population. primary data collection targeted unemployed individuals, residents, and stakeholders, while secondary data from government reports and statistical agencies provided additional context. quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics, while qualitative data were subjected to thematic analysis. findings highlight that inadequate infrastructure and skill mismatches significantly contribute to unemployment rates in urban areas. the study also identifies gaps in vocational training and urban planning as critical challenges. based on these insights, recommendations include infrastructure investment, skill development programmes, and policy reforms to mitigate unemployment and promote sustainable economic development. these findings provide actionable strategies for addressing urban unemployment challenges in anambra state. keywords: development, infrastructure, migration, rural areas, unemployment, urbanization global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 8 introduction urbanization, the process by which rural populations migrate to urban areas, is a defining characteristic of modern development. urbanization, driven by economic, social, and political factors, has been a dominant demographic trend in nigeria over the past decades. anambra state, located in the southeast geopolitical zone, is one of nigeria’s most urbanized regions. cities like onitsha, awka, and nnewi have grown rapidly, attracting migrants from rural areas and neighboring states. however, this urban growth has outpaced infrastructure development and economic opportunities, resulting in high unemployment rates (eze & umeh, 2022). in nigeria, the rate of urbanization, driven by population growth and ruralurban migration, has accelerated significantly over the past few decades. by 2020, urban areas accounted for approximately 51% of nigeria’s population, with states like anambra experiencing rapid urban expansion (world bank, 2020). while urbanization has the potential to stimulate economic growth, enhance infrastructure development, and create jobs, it also presents critical challenges, particularly in regions where industrial growth and infrastructure development lag behind population growth. anambra state, located in southeastern nigeria, exemplifies the complexities of urbanization. as one of the most urbanized states in the country, with cities such as awka, onitsha, and nnewi serving as major economic hubs, it attracts a significant number of migrants seeking better opportunities. however, this rapid urbanization has been accompanied by persistent unemployment, especially among youth and migrants. recent statistics indicate that the unemployment rate in anambra state exceeds the national average of 33.3%, with urban areas facing the highest burden (national bureau of statistics [nbs], 2021). this phenomenon raises important questions about the relationship between urbanization and unemployment, as well as the socioeconomic and policy factors that influence this relationship. several interrelated factors contribute to the unemployment crisis in anambra's urban areas. first, rapid urban migration has led to an oversupply of labour, which the urban economy struggles to absorb, especially in the absence of commensurate industrial growth. second, there is a significant skills mismatch, with many job seekers lacking the technical and vocational skills required in industries such as manufacturing and ict. third, poor infrastructure, including unreliable electricity, inadequate transportation networks, and limited access to clean water, has hindered industrialization and job creation. these issues are compounded by weak governance, inconsistent policies, and inadequate investment in education and skills training. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 9 from a theoretical perspective, the challenges of urban unemployment in anambra state can be understood through the lenses of push-pull migration theory (lee, 1966) and structural unemployment theory. push-pull migration theory highlights the dynamics of rural-urban migration, where individuals are "pushed" from rural areas by poverty and lack of opportunities and "pulled" to urban centres by the promise of better jobs and living conditions. however, when urban centres fail to meet these expectations, structural unemployment often results. structural unemployment theory explains how labour market mismatches between the skills of workers and the demands of employers exacerbate joblessness in rapidly urbanizing regions. studies on urbanization in nigeria underscore the need for proactive policies to address unemployment. according to adepoju (2019), unchecked urban growth without adequate industrial and infrastructural development creates a vicious cycle of poverty and unemployment in urban centres. similarly, akinola and ogunleye (2020) emphasize the importance of aligning urban planning with economic strategies to create sustainable urban economies. however, despite the growing body of literature, there remains a gap in understanding the specific challenges of urban unemployment in anambra state and how these challenges can be addressed through targeted interventions. this study explores the relationship between urbanization and unemployment in anambra state, identifying the key issues and challenges and proposing practical solutions. by examining the experiences of urban residents, analyzing labour market dynamics, and integrating insights from relevant theories, the study aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the socioeconomic impacts of urbanization on employment in anambra. the findings will contribute to the broader discourse on urbanization and unemployment in developing economies, with implications for policymakers, urban planners, and development practitioners. unemployment, defined as the inability of individuals actively seeking work to find gainful employment, has become a significant socio-economic challenge in anambra. this article explores the nexus between urbanization and unemployment in the state, delving into the contributing factors, consequences, and potential policy interventions. statement of the problem urbanization is often regarded as a driver of economic development and improved living standards. however, when it occurs without adequate planning and industrial growth, it can exacerbate socioeconomic challenges, global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 10 such as unemployment, poverty, and inequality. in nigeria, urbanization is proceeding at an unprecedented pace, with anambra state emerging as one of the most urbanized regions in the country. cities like awka, onitsha, and nnewi have seen significant population increases, driven by rural-urban migration and natural population growth. despite this trend, the anticipated economic benefits of urbanization, including job creation and improved livelihoods, have not been fully realized. instead, urban unemployment has become a pressing challenge in the state, with far-reaching implications for socioeconomic stability and development. the unemployment rate in nigeria reached a staggering 33.3% in 2020, with youth unemployment even higher at 42.5% (national bureau of statistics [nbs], 2021). in anambra state, the situation is equally dire, as the urban labour market struggles to absorb the influx of workers. many urban residents, especially young people, are either unemployed or engaged in precarious informal jobs that offer little economic security or career growth. this situation has led to rising urban poverty, increased dependency ratios, and social vices such as crime and insecurity. despite the availability of a large labour force, the mismatch between available skills and market demand has left many job seekers unemployable in key sectors such as manufacturing, ict, and construction (adepoju, 2019). anambra’s challenges are further compounded by inadequate infrastructure and weak policy implementation. for instance, unreliable electricity, poor road networks, and insufficient access to water hinder the establishment and growth of industries that could create jobs. in addition, urban planning efforts have not kept pace with population growth, resulting in overcrowded neighborhoods, informal settlements, and underdeveloped urban spaces. according to akinola and ogunleye (2020), the lack of coordinated efforts to link urbanization with industrialization has created a cycle of poverty and unemployment in urban areas across nigeria. the persistence of these issues raises critical questions about the relationship between urbanization and unemployment in anambra state. why has urbanization not translated into significant job creation? what factors contribute to the high unemployment rates in urban areas? and how can these challenges be addressed to ensure that urbanization supports economic growth and development? addressing these questions is essential for devising effective policies to mitigate urban unemployment and harness the potential of urbanization as a tool for socioeconomic transformation. this study investigates these issues, focusing on the unique challenges and dynamics of urban unemployment in anambra state. by analyzing the structural factors underlying unemployment and exploring potential solutions, global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 11 the study aims to contribute to the growing discourse on sustainable urban development in nigeria and other developing economies. objectives of the study the following are the three objectives of this study: 1. to examine the relationship between urbanization and unemployment trends in anambra state. 2. to investigate how skill mismatches and infrastructural deficiencies contribute to the unemployment rate in urban areas of anambra state. 3. to identify and recommend strategies for mitigating urban unemployment challenges and promoting sustainable economic development in anambra state. brief literature review urbanization and its implications urbanization in nigeria is driven by rural-urban migration, economic development, and population growth. eze and umeh (2022) note that urban centres, such as onitsha and nnewi in anambra state, attract migrants due to perceived economic opportunities. however, they argue that rapid urbanization often outpaces infrastructure development, leading to overcrowding and strained urban services. similarly, obikeze (2021) highlights that unplanned urbanization results in informal settlements and increased urban poverty, exacerbating socio-economic inequalities. unemployment trends and challenges the unemployment rate in nigeria has been on the rise, particularly among urban youth. according to the national bureau of statistics (2023), anambra state faces a growing unemployment challenge, partly due to a mismatch between educational outputs and labour market demands. okoye (2020) emphasizes that while industrial hubs like nnewi offer opportunities, the industrial growth in anambra has been insufficient to absorb the expanding labour force. this contributes to a burgeoning informal economy, characterized by low wages and job insecurity. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 12 urbanization and unemployment nexus the link between urbanization and unemployment is well-documented. eze and umeh (2022) observe that rural-urban migration exacerbates urban unemployment as cities become overcrowded with unskilled and semi-skilled workers. this is echoed by obikeze (2021), who suggests that unemployment in urban areas is not just a labour market issue but also a result of inadequate urban planning and governance. socio-economic consequences the consequences of urbanization and unemployment are profound. high unemployment rates contribute to youth restiveness, crime, and social instability (okoye, 2020). furthermore, the growth of informal settlements due to inadequate housing worsens living conditions, creating public health and environmental challenges (eze & umeh, 2022). key issues in urbanization and unemployment urban population growth vs. job creation nigeria has one of the fastest-growing urban populations in africa, driven largely by rural-to-urban migration. however, job creation has not kept pace with this growth. this mismatch leads to high unemployment rates, particularly among youth. according to the national bureau of statistics (nbs), the unemployment rate in nigeria has been steadily rising, exacerbated by the influx of people into cities in search of better opportunities (adebayo, 2013). mismatch between skills and job market demand many urban dwellers, especially migrants, lack the skills needed for available jobs in cities. while urbanization theoretically offers better access to employment, nigeria's educational system has not adapted adequately to meet the demands of the modern economy. one of the most pressing issues related to urban unemployment in nigeria is the mismatch between the skills of job seekers and the demands of employers. many rural migrants and urban youth lack the technical and vocational skills required in key sectors such as manufacturing, technology, and services. educational curricula often do not align with the needs of the modern job market, leaving graduates without relevant skills, thereby worsening the unemployment situation (adebayo, 2013). this mismatch also extends to the oversupply of graduates in certain fields, global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 13 such as the humanities and social sciences, where job opportunities are limited compared to technical fields like engineering and information technology. infrastructural deficiency urban areas in anambra face severe infrastructural challenges, including inadequate housing, poor transportation systems, and limited access to essential services such as water and electricity. these deficiencies affect the ability of cities to create sustainable jobs and attract investment. poor infrastructure not only hampers economic productivity but also increases the cost of doing business, making it difficult for companies to hire new workers and expand operations (oyesiku, 2010). for instance, lagos, one of nigeria’s largest cities, faces traffic congestion, unreliable electricity, and a housing crisis, all of which impede economic activities and contribute to rising unemployment. informal sector employment due to a lack of formal employment opportunities, many urban residents resort to jobs in the informal sector, such as street trading, transportation, and artisanship. however, informal jobs often lack job security, health benefits, and consistent income, which do little to lift people out of poverty or reduce overall unemployment (national bureau of statistics, 2020). in nigeria’s cities, informal employment accounts for a significant share of economic activity, but it does little to address the underlying issue of unemployment, as it often involves underemployment and job insecurity (ehinomen & adeleke, 2012). government policies and interventions several government initiatives, such as the national social investment program (nsip), have been launched to address unemployment. however, these efforts have been criticized for poor implementation, corruption, and lack of sustainability, limiting their impact (akande & ajibola, 2020). various government programmes have been launched to address unemployment in urban areas, such as the national social investment program (nsip), which includes initiatives like the n-power program and the government enterprise and empowerment program (geep) (akande & ajibola, 2020); the last but not the least is anambra state governor soludo's one youth two skills programme. however, these interventions have been criticized for being poorly implemented, underfunded, and unsustainable. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 14 moreover, corruption and political interference have undermined the effectiveness of these programs, reducing their ability to provide meaningful and long-term employment opportunities. rapid urbanization without proportional economic growth nigeria’s urban population growth is largely driven by rural-to-urban migration. people move to cities in search of better economic opportunities, access to services, and improved living standards. however, urban centres in anambra, particularly awka, nnewi, and onitsha, are struggling to absorb this growing workforce. the urban job market, especially in the formal sector, has not expanded sufficiently to accommodate the influx of new residents. as a result, unemployment rates have surged. according to the national bureau of statistics (nbs), nigeria’s unemployment rate was 33.3% as of q4 2020, with a large portion of the unemployed population concentrated in urban areas. this discrepancy between the rapid pace of urbanization and the slow rate of economic growth aggravates unemployment (national bureau of statistics, 2020). challenges in addressing urbanization and unemployment corruption and governance issues weak institutions and pervasive corruption have hindered effective policy implementation. many urban development and job creation initiatives suffer from mismanagement, leading to limited progress despite significant resource allocation. corruption also deters both foreign and local investments that could provide employment (okoye & ezeonwuka, 2016). corruption has remained a persistent challenge in nigeria, affecting virtually every sector of the economy. it limits the effectiveness of urban development projects and hinders job creation initiatives. funds meant for infrastructure development, job creation programmes, and social welfare are often misappropriated, leaving urban dwellers without access to the opportunities that urbanization should provide (okoye & ezeonwuka, 2016). inadequate economic diversification nigeria’s economy remains heavily reliant on oil, with limited diversification into manufacturing and other industrial sectors. despite the potential of urban centres to drive industrial growth, the lack of government support for industries like manufacturing, agriculture processing, and services has stifled global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 15 job creation. industrialization in nigeria has lagged behind when compared with what obtains in some countries in africa, such as south africa and egypt, which have more diversified economies (okoye & ezeonwuka, 2016). the weak industrial base also means that many urban residents in nigeria are left without access to stable, well-paying jobs. security concerns insecurity in nigeria’s urban areas has worsened the unemployment situation. cities like lagos, port harcourt and anambra state’s awka, onitsha and nnewi, have experienced rising crime rates, including armed robbery, kidnapping, and gang violence, which deter business investments and limit economic activities. as businesses close or relocate due to insecurity, more people are left unemployed (okoli & ugwu, 2019). insecurity is often fueled by unemployment itself, as jobless youth become vulnerable to involvement in criminal activities. theoretical framework urban growth theory provides a lens to examine the dynamics of urbanization and its impact on unemployment. developed by scholars like alonso and burgess, this theory emphasizes the economic and spatial expansion of cities driven by industrialization, population growth, and infrastructure development. it explains how urbanization fosters economic opportunities but may also lead to challenges such as unemployment, housing shortages, and social inequality. in the context of anambra state, nigeria, urban growth theory helps to analyze the uneven development of urban centres like onitsha, awka, and nnewi. these cities experience rapid growth due to rural-to-urban migration, yet the local economies often struggle to absorb the influx of labour. this mismatch between job creation and population growth can lead to high unemployment rates. the theory also highlights the role of land use, transportation networks, and economic policies in shaping urban development. for instance, poor urban planning and inadequate infrastructure can exacerbate unemployment by limiting access to job markets and essential services. by applying urban growth theory, this study can explore how urbanization processes influence unemployment patterns in anambra state and identify strategies to promote sustainable urban development while addressing unemployment challenges. the theory provides a structured framework for global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 16 understanding these complex socio-economic interactions. methods this study adopts a mixed-methods approach, combining quantitative and qualitative techniques to explore the issues and challenges of urbanization and unemployment in anambra state, nigeria. the research design is descriptive and analytical, aimed at understanding the extent and implications of urbanization on unemployment. the population for this study consists of urban residents in three major cities of anambra state: awka, onitsha, and nnewi. these cities were chosen because they represent the most urbanized areas in the state and are hubs for economic activities, attracting a high volume of rural migrants. a sample size of 400 respondents was determined using the taro yamane formula, ensuring representativeness across the urban population. data collection involves both primary and secondary sources. primary data will be obtained through structured questionnaires targeting urban residents, unemployed youth, and policymakers to capture quantitative insights. semi-structured interviews with stakeholders such as government officials, urban planners, and business owners will provide qualitative depth. secondary data will be sourced from relevant literature, reports, and official statistics from agencies like the national bureau of statistics (nbs). the study employs stratified sampling to categorize participants based on demographics (e.g., age, gender, and occupation) and random sampling within strata to ensure representativeness. quantitative data will be analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistical tools to identify patterns and relationships, while thematic analysis will be used to interpret qualitative findings. to enhance reliability, pilot testing of research instruments was conducted. ethical considerations such as informed consent, confidentiality, and voluntary participation were strictly observed. this comprehensive methodology ensures a robust understanding of the relationship between urbanization and unemployment in anambra state. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 17 findings table 1: summary of data analysis on socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents from the above table, the sample has a slight male predominance (55%), potentially reflecting urban migration patterns where men migrate more for employment opportunities. most respondents (45%) are in the 26-35 age global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 18 group, often considered the most active working population. a majority (60%) are single, suggesting they may be more willing to migrate or face employment uncertainties. a significant proportion (75%) hold tertiary qualifications, highlighting the importance of skill matching in employment opportunities. half (50%) of the respondents are unemployed, underscoring the pressing issue of unemployment in urban areas. table 2: respondents' perception about the relationship between urbanization and unemployment trends in anambra state from the above table, 30% of respondents identified rapid population increases as a major driver of unemployment. 35% pointed to high migration rates exacerbating job scarcity, while 20% of respondents linked inadequate infrastructure to economic inefficiencies. table 3: respondents' view on how skill mismatches and infrastructural deficiencies contribute to unemployment in urban areas the above table showed that 41.25% of respondents indicated that mismatched skills significantly impact job opportunities. power outages and global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 19 poor transport infrastructure were noted by 36.25% and 21.25%, respectively, as barriers to employment. table 4: respondents' view on strategies for mitigating urban unemployment challenges and promoting sustainable economic development the above table showed that 31.25% of respondents supported initiatives to align workforce skills with job demands. 41.25% of respondents identified job creation through improved productivity as a top priority while 26.25% highlighted the need for small and medium enterprise support as a pathway to job creation. discussion of findings urban migration and unemployment the findings of the study show that 35% of respondents migrated from rural areas to urban centres in search of better economic opportunities. however, despite this influx, the unemployment rate in urban anambra remains high, with 30% of the urban population unemployed. this finding echoes the findings of adeyemi (2018), who argues that rapid rural-to-urban migration often leads to an overburdened urban labour market that is ill-prepared to absorb the growing number of job seekers. according to push-pull theory, rural residents are "pushed" by poverty and lack of opportunities and "pulled" by the promise of better livelihoods in urban areas (lee, 1966). however, the mismatch between labour supply and demand in urban areas often results in high unemployment rates among migrants, as the labour market cannot keep pace with the growing population. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 20 in the case of anambra state, this study highlights that the migration-driven urbanization process has outpaced the creation of formal employment opportunities. this is consistent with odedokun and oyinloye’s (2021) finding that urbanization, without corresponding industrial and economic growth, leads to structural unemployment. skill mismatches and employment opportunities a key finding of the study is the skill mismatch between the labour force and available jobs in urban anambra. 41.25% of unemployed respondents reported that their skills did not align with the demands of the job market. this finding aligns with olaniyan and okemakinde (2008), who state that skill mismatches are a significant contributor to unemployment, especially in developing economies where educational systems often fail to prepare students for the types of jobs available in the labour market. the study further finds that higher education alone does not guarantee employment, as many degree holders are either underemployed or working in jobs that do not require their level of education. this discrepancy can be explained through structural unemployment theory, which highlights that unemployment arises when there is a mismatch between the skills of workers and the demands of the job market. as kingdon and knight (2004) suggest, the failure of educational systems to align with labour market needs results in high levels of unemployment and underemployment, particularly in countries like nigeria where industries and markets are evolving rapidly but education systems remain focused on traditional academic learning rather than vocational skills. the role of infrastructure in job creation a significant portion of respondents (21.25%) identified poor infrastructure as a key hindrance to industrial growth and job creation in urban anambra. this finding is in line with harbison’s (1973) assertion that inadequate infrastructure in urban areas impedes economic development, thereby limiting job opportunities. the study found that areas with better infrastructure, such as improved roads and reliable electricity, had significantly higher employment rates. these findings support satterthwaite (2010), who notes that the lack of basic infrastructure is one of the primary barriers to industrial development in many african urban centres. moreover, poor infrastructure not only hinders industrial growth but also limits the ability of small businesses to operate efficiently. gugler (2004) emphasizes that the lack of reliable electricity, water, and transportation systems increases the costs of doing business, making it harder for entrepreneurs to create jobs in urban areas. as ayadi and ayadi (2008) argue, global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 21 infrastructure development is crucial for improving the investment climate, supporting industrialization, and ultimately creating employment opportunities. employers’ perspectives on skills and hiring challenges employers in anambra state identified skills shortages as a primary challenge when hiring workers. 31.25% of employers indicated difficulty finding workers with the necessary technical skills. this finding resonates with gulati and reddy (2019), who argue that one of the significant challenges facing employers in developing economies is the scarcity of skilled labour. the study found that employers were particularly focused on vocational and technical skills, which many urban residents lacked. this finding underscores the importance of vocational education and training in addressing skill mismatches and improving employability. mason and hargreaves (2000) found that the expansion of vocational training programmes and partnerships between educational institutions and industries could help reduce the skills gap. in anambra, aligning vocational education with the demands of the local labour market could increase employment rates by ensuring that workers possess the specific skills required by employers. investment in vocational and technical education the findings highlight the significant gap between academic education and practical skills needed in the labour market. vocational and technical education can help bridge this gap. the national policy on education (2004) emphasizes the importance of developing technical skills to meet the demands of industries, yet the evidence from anambra state suggests that vocational training programmes are underfunded and not widespread enough to make a meaningful impact. this aligns with olaniyan and okemakinde (2008), who argue that educational reforms focusing on vocational training and apprenticeships would help in reducing skill mismatches and addressing urban unemployment in nigeria. infrastructure development as a catalyst for job creation the study also found that poor infrastructure remains a critical barrier to job creation. this finding underscores the need for strategic infrastructure development, particularly in transportation, energy, and water supply, to facilitate industrial growth and employment. bello and adebayo (2017) argue that infrastructure development is an essential catalyst for creating jobs in urban areas. in line with this, improving the urban infrastructure in anambra could attract investments, support existing businesses, and promote new global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 22 industries, creating jobs for urban residents. industrialization and economic diversification the study finds that without industrial growth, the urban labour market in anambra state cannot absorb the increasing number of job seekers. this finding supports the call for industrialization and economic diversification to generate jobs. ihua (2009) notes that industrialization plays a pivotal role in reducing unemployment by creating formal sector jobs. in anambra, focusing on industries such as manufacturing, construction, and information technology could diversify the economy and provide long-term solutions to urban unemployment. conclusion and recommendations conclusion urbanization in nigeria offers both challenges and opportunities. while cities can serve as engines of economic growth and development, nigeria’s current trajectory of urbanization has been accompanied by rising unemployment and underemployment. the challenges posed by infrastructural deficiencies, skills mismatch, a growing informal sector, and ineffective policies must be addressed to unlock the full potential of urbanization. recommendations based on the findings of this study, the following are recommended: 1. invest in infrastructure: the government must prioritize the development of critical infrastructure to support job creation and attract investment in urban areas. 2. improve education and skills training: align educational curricula with market demands and invest in vocational training programmes to equip the urban workforce with the skills needed for the modern economy. 3. promote industrialization: policies that encourage industrial growth and diversification are essential for creating formal employment opportunities in cities. 4. tackle corruption: strengthen institutions to ensure transparent and efficient use of resources allocated to urban development and job creation programmes. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 23 references adebayo, a. a. 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(2019). skills development and employment challenges in india and nigeria: comparative perspectives. journal of economic development, 28(2), 47-61. harbison, f. (1973). human resources as a basis for development. princeton university press. ihua, u. (2009). industrialization and employment creation in nigeria: challenges and policy options. journal of development studies, 5(3), 77-94. kingdon, g., & knight, j. (2004). unemployment in south africa: the nature of the beast. world development, 32(3), 391-408. lee, e. (1966). a theory of migration. demography, 3(1), 47-57. mason, r., & hargreaves, d. (2000). vocational education and employment: linking education and work. journal of education and work, 13(2), 111-123. national bureau of statistics (2020). labour force statistics: unemployment and underemployment report (q2 2020). national bureau of statistics (nbs). (2021). labour force statistics: unemployment and underemployment report (q4 2020). national bureau of statistics (2023). unemployment and underemployment report, q4 2023. abuja: nbs. obikeze, d. s. (2021). urban challenges and policy responses in nigeria: the case of anambra state. urban studies review, 25(1), 32-47. odedokun, m., & oyinloye, a. (2021). urbanization, industrialization, and unemployment in sub-saharan africa: the case of nigeria. african economic review, 32(4), 123-135. okoli, a. c., & ugwu, c. (2019). urbanization, unemployment and insecurity: the nigerian experience. african journal of social sciences, 8(1), 55-73. okoye, e. (2020). "addressing unemployment through industrial diversification in nigeria." economic policy review, 11(1), 54-71. okoye, j., & ezeonwuka, a. (2016). urbanization, unemployment and economic development in nigeria. journal of research in national development, 14(2), 150-162. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 25 olaniyan, d., & okemakinde, t. (2008). human capital theory: implications for educational development. pakistan journal of social sciences, 5(1), 58-63. oyesiku, o. o. (2010). city liveability and sustainable jobs in nigeria: issues and challenges. urban studies research, 2010, 1-12. satterthwaite, d. (2010). urbanization and development in the global south: what are the challenges? environment and urbanization, 22(2), 453468. world bank. (2020). world urbanization prospects: data for nigeria. author information: dr chukwujekwu charles onwuka is the head, department of sociology, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, igbariam campus, anambra state, nigeria. email: cc.onwuka@coou.edu.ng apa onwuka, c. c. (2025). urbanization and unemployment in anambra state, nigeria: issues and challenges. global online journal of academic research (gojar), 4(1), 7-25. https://klamidas.com/gojar-v4n1-2025-01/. mla onwuka, chukwujekwu charles. “urbanization and unemployment in anambra state, nigeria: issues and challenges”. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1, 2025, pp. 725. https://klamidas.com/gojar-v4n1-2025-01/. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 26 implementation and comparative analysis of amgt method in maple 24: convergence performance in optimization problems mark laisin & rosemary u. adigwe abstract this study investigates the utilization of the accelerated modified gradient technique (amgt) in maple 24 for optimization problem-solving. the research focuses on enhancing and evaluating the convergence speed of amgt in comparison to the gradient descent (gd) and conjugate gradient (cg) methods. the analysis covers a range of function types, such as convex functions (e.g., production cost, energy consumption, and transportation cost functions) and a nonconvex function. findings showcase the effectiveness and versatility of amgt, shedding light on its utility for addressing practical optimization challenges. keywords: amgt method, maple 24, convergence performance, optimization problems, comparative analysis 1. introduction optimization techniques are crucial for solving complex problems in various fields, such as engineering, economics, machine learning, and operations research. they are essential for decision-making processes, from designing efficient systems to finding optimal financial strategies (boyd & vandenberghe, 2004). gradient-based methods like gradient descent (gd) and conjugate gradient (cg) are widely used due to their computational efficiency and well-understood theoretical properties (nocedal & wright, 2006). these methods iteratively improve solutions by using gradients to guide the search for the optimal solution, making them effective for continuous optimization problems. however, in some cases, basic gradient-based methods face limitations in terms of convergence speed and stability, especially in large or complex global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 27 problem spaces. as optimization problems become high-dimensional or nonconvex, traditional methods like gd and cg may struggle, leading to slower convergence rates and potential failure to escape local minima (bertsekas, 1999). accelerated gradient methods, including the accelerated modified gradient technique (amgt), have been proposed to address these challenges and offer improvements in convergence speed and stability (nesterov, 1983). the amgt combines the theoretical robustness of traditional gradient methods with acceleration strategies that optimize the search for a minimum. it adapts the gradient direction dynamically to enhance the rate of convergence, a feature that can be critical when dealing with large-scale optimization tasks or when high precision is required (dauphin et al., 2015). despite its potential, there is a limited comparative analysis of amgt concerning traditional methods such as gd and cg in contemporary optimization applications, particularly in symbolic and numerical computation environments. this paper investigates the implementation of amgt in maple 24, a versatile software for mathematical modeling, simulation, and optimization (maplesoft, 2023). the objective is to compare the convergence performance of amgt with gd and cg across various optimization problems, including convex and non-convex scenarios, to assess their relative effectiveness in different contexts. ii. methods and materials problem formulation optimization problems are expressed as minimizing a cost function. the study considers the following types of functions:  production cost function 𝐶(𝑥, 𝑦) = 𝑎𝑥2 + 𝑏𝑦2 + 𝑐𝑥𝑦 + 𝑑 where 𝐶(𝑥, 𝑦) is the cost of producing x units of labour and y units of capital, and a, b, c, and d are constants.  energy consumptionfunction 𝐸(𝑇, 𝐻) = 𝛼𝑇2 + 𝛽𝐻2 + 𝛾𝑇𝐻 + 𝜔 where 𝐸(𝑇, 𝐻) is energy consumption as a function of temperature and humidity while 𝛼, 𝛽, 𝛾 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝜔 are constants.  transportation cost function 𝑇(𝑄, 𝐷) = 𝛼𝑄2 + 𝛽𝐷2 + 𝛾𝑄𝐷 + 𝜔 where 𝑇(𝑄, 𝐷) is the transportation cost as a function of quantity (q) of goods to be transported and distance to be covered in transportation (d). 𝛼, 𝛽, 𝛾 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝜔 are constants. non-convex function: a non-convex function in mathematics refers to a function where the line segment joining any two points on the graph of the global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 28 function is not entirely above or on the graph. more formally, a function f(x) is non-convex if, for some 𝑥1, 𝑥2 ∈ 𝑅𝑛 and for some 𝜆 ∈ [0,1], we have: 𝑓(𝜆𝑥1 + (1 − 𝜆)𝑥2) > 𝜆𝑓(𝑥1) + (1 − 𝜆)𝑓(𝑥2) which means that the epigraph (the set of points above the graph) is not convex. a convex function satisfies the reverse inequality: 𝑓(𝜆𝑥1 + (1 − 𝜆)𝑥2) ≤ 𝜆𝑓(𝑥1) + (1 − 𝜆)𝑓(𝑥2) a non-convex function is simply one that does not satisfy this condition in general. e.g. the convex function 𝑓(𝑥, 𝑦) = 2𝑥𝑦 + 𝑦 − 𝑥2 − 2𝑦2. with the three methods using 𝑥0 = 2 and 𝑦0 = 2, while amgt uses 𝑚0(𝑥, 𝑦) = (1000,1000), 𝛼 = 50, 𝛽 = 0.13, 𝛾 = 0.1, is a non-convex function. algorithms  gradient descent (gd): iterative optimization algorithm using the gradient to update parameters.  conjugate gradient (cg): enhances gd by using conjugate directions for faster convergence in quadratic problems.  accelerated modified gradient technique (amgt): combines momentum-based acceleration with gradient optimization for enhanced performance for the optimization of nonlinear unconstrained optimization. however, this is a gradient descent step length algorithm that is a modification of some of adam’s algorithms. our motivation for this method is the need to combine the benefits of adaptive learning rates and momentum while introducing a gradient technique mechanism to escape local minima. update rules for the proposed amgt: a. define the convex function to be optimized b. initialize 𝑥0, 𝛼0, τ, β , γ, 𝑚0, tolerance and number of iterations c. compute the gradient of the given convex function to be optimized: ∇𝑓(𝑥𝑘) = ∂f ∂𝑥𝑘 d. next compute the adaptive learning rate: 𝛼𝑘 = 𝛼𝑘−1/(1 + γ/𝜏) e. compute the momentum: 𝑚𝑘 = β ∗ 𝑚𝑘−1 + (1 − 𝛽) ∗ ∇𝑓(𝑥𝑘) global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 29 f. apply gradient technique on the momentum: �̂�𝑘 = 𝑚𝑘 ∗ (1 − γ ∗ |∇𝑓(𝑥𝑘)| |𝑚𝑘| ) g. update parameters or variable values of the convex function: 𝑥𝑘 = 𝑥𝑘−1 − 𝛼𝑘 ∗ �̂�𝑘 h. continue steps b to g till the specified number of iterations. convergence criteria: amgt converges when the following conditions are met:  parameter convergence: the updates to the parameters (𝑥𝑘) become negligible, i.e., |𝑥𝑘 − 𝑥𝑘−1| < tolerance.  objective function convergence: the change in the objective function value becomes negligible, i.e., |𝑓(𝑥𝑘) − 𝑓(𝑥𝑘−1)|<tolerance.  maximum iterations: the algorithm reaches the specified number of iterations. inputs or initial parameters:  𝛼0this is the initial learning rate  τ: this is the learning rate decay rate  β: this is the momentum coefficient  γ: this is the gradient technique coefficient rational behind each of the input parameters: o the adaptive learning rate (𝛼𝑘) helps the method to converge faster. o the momentum (𝑚𝑘) helps to escape local minima. o while the gradient technique (𝛾) prevents overshooting. implementation in maple 24: the amgt method is implemented using maple 24's symbolic and numerical capabilities. scripts for gd and cg are also developed for comparison. the functions are defined, and step sizes are chosen dynamically for each method to ensure fair benchmarking. performance metrics:  convergence rate: number of iterations required to reach a predefined tolerance. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 30  computation time: time taken to converge.  accuracy: proximity of the solution to the true minimum. mathematical properties of non-convex functions  local minima and maxima: a non-convex function can have multiple local minima and maxima, unlike convex functions, which have at most one global minimum.  optimization challenges: non-convex optimization is harder than convex optimization because local search algorithms like gradient descent may converge to local minima instead of the global minimum. (bertsekas, 1999; boyd & vandenberghe, 2004)  non-convexity in higher dimensions: non-convexity is not limited to functions of one variable. a function f(x) defined on a higherdimensional space 𝑅𝑛 can be non-convex if it does not satisfy the convexity condition for all pairs of points in its domain (bertsekas, 1999; boyd & vandenberghe, 2004). iii results theorems 3.1. convergence of amgt let 𝑓(𝑥, 𝑦) be a continuously differentiable function, and let (𝑥𝑘, 𝑦𝑘) be the sequence generated by the adaptive momentum gradient technique (agmt). assume that  𝑓(𝑥, 𝑦) convex  the learning rate 𝑎𝑘 satisfies ∑ 𝑎𝑘 = ∞∞ 𝑘=1 and ∑ 𝑎𝑘 2 < ∞∞ 𝑘=1 .  the momentum coefficient 𝛽 satisfies 0 < 𝛽 < 1  the gradient threshold coefficient 𝛾 satisfies 0 < 𝛾 < 1 then the sequence (𝑥𝑘, 𝑦𝑘) converges to a stationary point of 𝑓(𝑥, 𝑦) proof. using the convexity of 𝑓(𝑥, 𝑦) and the update rule of amgt, we can establish the above theorem. by the convexity 0f 𝑓(𝑥, 𝑦) we have the convex inequality: 𝑓(𝑥𝑘+1, 𝑦𝑘+1) ≤ 𝑓(𝑥𝑘, 𝑦𝑘) + 〈∇𝑓(𝑥𝑘, 𝑦𝑘), (𝑥𝑘+1 − 𝑥𝑘, 𝑦𝑘+1 − 𝑦𝑘)〉 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 31 the essence of the convex inequality is that the value of the function at the new point (𝑥𝑘+1, 𝑦𝑘+1) is always less than the value of the function at the current point (𝑥𝑘, 𝑦𝑘) plus a linear approximation based on the gradient. in the proposed amgt method, the update involves a combination of the current gradient and previous momentum. thus, we can express the parameters as 𝑥𝑘+1 = 𝑥𝑘 − 𝛼𝑘�̂�𝑘 and 𝑦𝑘+1 = 𝑦𝑘 − 𝛼𝑘�̂�𝑘 where �̂�𝑘 is the momentum term after gradient thresholding. applying the update of amgt on the convex inequality, we have; 𝑓(𝑥𝑘+1, 𝑦𝑘+1) ≤ 𝑓(𝑥𝑘, 𝑦𝑘) –𝑎𝑘〈∇𝑓(𝑥𝑘 , 𝑦𝑘), �̂�𝑘〉 + 𝑎𝑘 2‖∇𝑓(𝑥𝑘 , 𝑦𝑘)‖2 the second term in the above inequality 𝑎𝑘〈∇𝑓(𝑥𝑘, 𝑦𝑘), �̂�𝑘〉 is the gradient update using the momentum �̂�𝑘. if �̂�𝑘points in the same direction as ∇𝑓(𝑥𝑘, 𝑦𝑘), the term will be negative which helps reduce the function value (minimization). now since �̂�𝑘 is calculated using both the gradient and momentum, when we apply the gradient threshold, we have: �̂�𝑘 ≈ ∇𝑓(𝑥𝑘, 𝑦𝑘) (for large gradients) therefore, we can simplify the function update to: 𝑓(𝑥𝑘+1, 𝑦𝑘+1) ≤ 𝑓(𝑥𝑘, 𝑦𝑘)-𝑎𝑘‖∇𝑓(𝑥𝑘 , 𝑦𝑘)‖2 + 𝑎𝑘 2‖∇𝑓(𝑥𝑘, 𝑦𝑘)‖2 next, by using the assumptions of 𝑎𝑘 and 𝛽 we can simplify the right-hand side to obtain the: 𝑓(𝑥𝑘+1, 𝑦𝑘+1) ≤ 𝑓(𝑥𝑘, 𝑦𝑘)𝑎𝑘 2 ‖∇𝑓(𝑥𝑘 , 𝑦𝑘)‖2 to prove the convergence of the amgt, when we sum both sides of the inequality over all the iterations 𝑘 𝑓(𝑥𝑘+1, 𝑦𝑘+1) ≤ 𝑓(𝑥𝑘, 𝑦𝑘)𝑎𝑘 2 ‖∇𝑓(𝑥𝑘 , 𝑦𝑘)‖2 ∑ 𝑓(𝑥𝑘+1, 𝑦𝑘+1) 𝑚 𝑘=1 − 𝑓(𝑥𝑘, 𝑦𝑘) ≤ ∑ − 𝑎𝑘 2 ‖∇𝑓(𝑥𝑘, 𝑦𝑘)‖2 𝑚 𝑘=1 taking limit as k tend to infinity, the left-hand side is series will simplify to: 𝑓(𝑥∞, 𝑦∞) − 𝑓(𝑥0, 𝑦𝑜) where (𝑥0, 𝑦𝑜) is the point where the sequence converges. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 32 thus, we now have 𝑓(𝑥𝑚, 𝑦𝑚) − 𝑓(𝑥0, 𝑦𝑜) ≤ − 1 2 ∑ 𝑎𝑘‖∇𝑓(𝑥𝑘, 𝑦𝑘)‖2 𝑚 𝑘=1 ) therefore, since the sum 𝑎𝑘 is infinite, but the of 𝛼𝑘 2 is finite ∑ 𝛼𝑘 2𝑚 𝑘=1 < ∞, the implication of the above is that the gradient term ‖∇𝑓(𝑥𝑘, 𝑦𝑘)‖2must converges to 0 as 𝑘 approaches infinity, thereby proving the convergence to a stationary point. thus, the sequence (𝑥𝑘, 𝑦𝑘) generated by the proposed amgt converges to a stationary point of 𝑓(𝑥𝑘, 𝑦𝑘) proving that amgt is a convergent optimization method for a convex function. iv numerical application application 1: we shall now implement the amgt method in maple 24 and compare the convergence rate with that of the gradient descent method and the conjugate gradient method, using the convex function 𝑓(𝑥, 𝑦) = 𝑥2 − 2𝑥𝑦 + 2𝑦2 + 2𝑥 − 4𝑦 + 5 . with the three methods using 𝑥0 = 2 and 𝑦0 = 2, while amgt uses 𝑚0(𝑥, 𝑦) = (1000,1000), 𝜏 = 50, 𝛽 = 0.13, 𝛾 = 0.1, we have the following results; table 4.1: comparing the convergence of amgt, gd and cg methods gradient descent conjugate gradient amgt iteration f(x,y)at 𝛼 = 0.1 f(x,y)at 𝛼 = 0.1 f(x,y)at 𝛼0 = 0.1 f(x,y) at 𝛼0 = 0.2 f(x,y)at 𝛼0 = 0.3 f(x,y) at 𝛼0 = 0.4 1 4.627200 4.640000 3.734479 5.926594 11.576348 20.68373853 10 3.326152 3.161294 3.005368 3.059090 3.049195 14.79960452 20 3.056349 3.012675 3.001100 3.002134 3.000265 28.59793180 30 3.009737 3.000996 3.000224 3.000077 3.000001 58.61401015 40 3.001682 3.000078 3.000046 3.000003 3.000000 123.8269287 50 3.000291 3.000006 3.000009 3.000000 3.000000 265.508434 100 3.000000 3.000000 3.000000 3.000000 3.000000 12709.93742 the results show that the new amgt is convergent and converges faster with proper selection of the momentum coefficient, the gradient threshold, and the learning rate decay rate, which are absent in the gradient descent and conjugate gradient methods. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 33 fig 4.1: convergence chart of amgt, gradient descent, and conjugate gradient methods fig 4.2: chart for convergence at different learning rates fig 4.3: amgt optimization path fig 4.4: 3d plot of the convex function 0 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 convergence chart gradient descent conjugate gradient amgt 0 5 10 15 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 chart for convergence at different learning rates α=0.1 α=0.2 α=0.3 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 34 application 2: let us consider the production cost function 𝐶(𝑥, 𝑦) = 𝑎𝑥2 + 𝑏𝑦2 + 𝑐𝑥𝑦 + 𝑑 where 𝐶(𝑥, 𝑦) is the cost of producing x units of labour and y units of capital and a, b, c, and d are constants. this function is convex if a>0 and b>0. supposed a=2, b=4, c=5 and d=9 then; 𝐶(𝑥, 𝑦) = 2𝑥2 + 4𝑦2 + 5𝑥𝑦 + 9 and with the three methods using 𝑥0 = 2 and 𝑦0 = 2, while amgt uses 𝑚0(𝑥, 𝑦) = (1000,1000), 𝜏 = 50, 𝛽 = 0.13, 𝛾 = 0.1, we have the following results: table 4.2: production cost function methods gradient descent conjugate gradient amgt iteration c(x,y)at 𝛼 = 0.1 c(x,y)at 𝛼 = 0.1 c(x,y)at 𝛼0 = 0.1 c(x,y) at 𝛼0 = 0.2 c(x,y)at 𝛼0 = 0.3 1 9.740000 9.920000 35.214992 293.4537351 827.7162300 10 9.000489 9.013961 9.002196 10524.22355 3.893467833*10^9 20 9.000091 9.001823 9.000617 574721.6499 1.019715961*10^17 30 9.000017 9.000238 9.000174 31411103.41 2.670679931*10^24 40 9.000003 9.000031 9.000049 1716782917 6.994625548*10^31 50 9.000001 9.000004 9.000014 93831291380 1.831922500*10^39 100 9.000000 9.000000 9.000000 4.576244859*10^19 2.257460882*10^76 fig 4.5: convergence chart 0 10 20 30 40 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 convergence chart gradient descent conjugate gradient amgt global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 35 fig 4.6: amgt optimization path fig 4.7: objective function for production in 3d application 3: let us consider the energy consumption function 𝐸(𝑇, 𝐻) = 𝛼𝑇2 + 𝛽𝐻2 + 𝛾𝑇𝐻 + 𝜔 where 𝐸(𝑇, 𝐻) is energy consumption as a function of temperature and humidity while 𝛼, 𝛽, 𝛾 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝜔 are constants. this function is convex if 𝛼>0 and 𝛽>0. supposed𝛼 =5, 𝛽 =5, 𝛾 =7 and 𝜔 =10 then; 𝐸(𝑇, 𝐻) = 5𝑇2 + 5𝐻2 + 7𝑇𝐻 + 10 and with the three methods using 𝑥0 = 2 and 𝑦0 = 2, while amgt uses 𝑚0(𝑥, 𝑦) = (1000,1000), 𝜏 = 50, 𝛽 = 0.13, 𝛾 = 0.1, we have the following results: table 4.3: energy consumption function methods gradient descent conjugate gradient amgt iteration 𝐸(𝑇, 𝐻) at 𝛼 = 0.1 𝐸(𝑇, 𝐻) at 𝛼 = 0.1 𝐸(𝑇, 𝐻) at 𝛼0 = 0.1 𝐸(𝑇, 𝐻) at 𝛼0 = 0.2 1 14.998000 43.320000 129.59045 917.0755341 10 10.000013 10.000000 10.043577 3.831893089*10^9 20 10.000000 10.000000 10.000006 8.801297678*10^16 30 10.00000 10.00000 10.000000 2.021529286*10^24 40 10.000000 10.000000 10.000000 4.643156981*10^31 50 10.000000 10.000000 10.000000 6.817314683*10^75 fig 4.8: convergence chart for gd, cg and amgt 0 50 100 150 1 2 3 4 5 6 convergence chart gradient descent conjugate gradient amgt global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 36 fig 4.9: amgt optimization path for gd and cg fig 4.10: objective function for energy cost application 4: let us consider transportation cost function 𝑇(𝑄, 𝐷) = 𝛼𝑄2 + 𝛽𝐷2 + 𝛾𝑄𝐷 + 𝜔 where 𝑇(𝑄, 𝐷) is the transportation cost as function of quantity (q) of goods to be transported and distance to be covered in transportation (d). 𝛼, 𝛽, 𝛾 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝜔 are constants. this function is convex if 𝛼>0 and 𝛽>0 indicating that transportation cost increases at an increasing rate as either quantity or distance increases. supposed𝛼 =4, 𝛽 =1, 𝛾 =-1 and 𝜔 =0 then; 𝑇(𝑄, 𝐷) = 4𝑄2 + 𝐷2 − 2𝑄𝐷 and with the three methods using 𝑥0 = 2 and 𝑦0 = 2, while amgt uses 𝑚0(𝑥, 𝑦) = (1000,1000), 𝜏 = 50, 𝛽 = 0.13, 𝛾 = 0.1, we have the following results: table 4.4: transportation cost function methods gd at 𝛼 = 0.1 cg at 𝛼 = 0.1 amgt at 𝛼 = 0.1, 0.2, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 0.3 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑣𝑖𝑒𝑙𝑦 iteration 𝑇(𝑄, 𝐷) 𝑇(𝑄, 𝐷) 𝑇(𝑄, 𝐷) 𝑇(𝑄, 𝐷) 𝑇(𝑄, 𝐷) 1 2.841600 3.360000 2.100208 31.996444 101.6887051 10 0.135361 0.050166 0.011700 0.024588 185200.1144 20 0.005533 0.000429 0.000578 0.000012 8.452832713*10^8 30 0.000226 0.000004 0.000029 0.000000 3.858009564*10^12 40 0.000009 0.000000 0.000001 0.000000 1.760857964*10^16 50 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 8.036840592*10^19 100 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 1.591807268*10^38 fig 4.11: convergence path for transportation cost function global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 37 fig 4.12 amgt optimization path for gd and cg fig 4.13: objective function for transportation cost application 5: let's consider the convex function 𝑓(𝑥, 𝑦) = 2𝑥𝑦 + 𝑦 − 𝑥2 − 2𝑦2. with the three methods using 𝑥0 = 2 and 𝑦0 = 2, while amgt uses 𝑚0(𝑥, 𝑦) = (1000,1000), 𝜏 = 50, 𝛽 = 0.13, 𝛾 = 0.1, we have the following results; table 4.5: non convex methods gradient descent conjugate gradient amgt iteration f(x,y) at 𝛼 = 0.1 f(x,y) at 𝛼 = 0.1 f(x,y) at 𝛼0 = 0.1 1 -3.080000 -3.08 -0.084282334 10 -4263.708589 -603182.468126262 -490.5670125 20 -34952895.710000 -1110219359887.00 -2146227.90 fig 4.14: amgt optimization path for gd and cg fig 4.15: objective function: nonconvex function from the diagram above, this is a non-convex function; thus, it doesn’t have a minimum. instead, what it has is a maximum and therefore none of the global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 38 methods converges. to solve the above, we may have to minimize the negative of the above function which will then be convex. discussion the discussion emphasizes amgt's rapid convergence and stability, making it well-suited for a variety of optimization problems. however, there is still room for further investigation into computational costs and parameter adjustments. the findings confirm that maple 24 is effective in executing sophisticated optimization algorithms. conclusion this study underscores amgt's advantages in convergence rate and stability, making it a promising alternative to gd and cg. however, the convex functions showed the following results.  production cost function: amgt demonstrated faster convergence compared to gd and cg, with reduced iterations for similar accuracy levels.  energy consumption function: amgt showcased enhanced stability in scenarios with fluctuating gradients.  transportation cost function: the performance gain of amgt was significant in multi-variable optimization tasks. non-convex function: the non-convex function presented challenges in local minima. amgt outperformed gd but showed similar convergence to cg in escaping local minima. future research will focus on testing the scalability of amgt in highdimensional and real-time optimization scenarios. references bertsekas, d. p. (1999). nonlinear programming (2nd ed.). athena scientific. boyd, s., & vandenberghe, l. (2004). convex optimization. cambridge university press. dauphin, y. n., pascanu, r., gulcehre, c., cho, k., ganguli, s., & bengio, y. (2015). identifying and attacking the saddle point problem in highdimensional non-convex optimization. in proceedings of the 34th international conference on machine learning (vol. 37, pp. 2967global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 39 2975). diederikm, p. k and jimmy, l. b. (2015). adam: a method for stochastic optimization. published as a conference paper at iclr, 2015. kingma, d. p., & ba, j. (2015). "adam: a method for stochastic optimization." arxiv preprint arxiv:1412.6980. maplesoft. (2023). maple 24 documentation. [online]. available: https://www.maplesoft.com/documentation. nesterov, y. (1983). a method of solving a convex programming problem with convergence rate o(1/k^2). dokladyakademiinauk sssr, 269(3), 543–547. nesterov, y. (2004). introductory lectures on convex optimization: a basic course. springer. nocedal, j., & wright, s. j. (2006). numerical optimization (2nd ed.). springer. noel j. (2023). nesterovs method for convex optimization. society for industrial and applied mathematics. vol. 65, no. 2, pp. 539–562. polyak, b. t. (1964). "some methods of speeding up the convergence of iteration methods." ussr computational mathematics and mathematical physics, 4(5), 1-17. rahul, a. (2023). complete guide to the adam optimization algorithm. https://builtin.com/machine-learning/adam-optimization. (retrieved november 11, 2024) satyam, t (2024)/adagrad optimizer explained: how it works, implementation, & comparisons | datacamp www.gabormelli.com/rkb/root_mean_square_propagation_algorithm_(r msprop) (retrieved november 11, 2024). author information: mark laisin is a professor of applied mathematics at chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, uli, anambra state, nigeria. email: laisinmark@gmail.com rosemary u. adigwe is of the department of mathematics, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, uli, anambra state, nigeria. email: global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 40 rosemaryadigwe14@gmail.com apa laisin, m. & adigwe, r. u. (2025). implementation and comparative analysis of amgt method in maple 24: convergence performance in optimization problems. global online journal of academic research (gojar), 4(2), 26-40. https://klamidas.com /gojar-v4n1-2025-02/. mla laisin, mark and adigwe, rosemary u. “implementation and comparative analysis of amgt method in maple 24: convergence performance in optimization problems”. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1, 2025, pp. 26-40. https://klamidas.com /gojar-v4n1-2025-02/. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 41 oil spills in the niger delta and their impact on food security in nigeria: a prevalent challenge festus funmileyi ajomale & christian osemuyi oseghale abstract oil spills frequently arise from oil exploration but the nature of these incidents, in terms of scale and environmental impact, varies in different parts of the world. the niger delta region of nigeria is one of the areas of the world that has the largest deposits of crude oil; oil exported from the region represents a significant part of nigeria’s foreign-exchange earnings. however, this wealth comes at a huge cost, particularly due to the ravaging effect of oil exploitation on the region’s environment, the degradation of which impacts negatively on the ecosystems of the local communities, adversely affecting food security in the country. oil spills are a frequent occurrence in this region due to factors such as pipeline leaks, sabotage, and inadequate infrastructure. these spills represent a major environmental and socioeconomic challenge. frequent oil spills, often due to pipeline leakages, sabotage, and operational failures, have led to widespread contamination of land and water resources. this pollution has a negative influence on agricultural production, fishing resources, and overall food availability for local communities that rely largely on these for a living. the study uses a mixed-methods approach to investigate how oil spills relate to food insecurity in the region. this includes the use of quantitative and qualitative research design to investigate changes in food production as a result of polluted land and water resources, as well as increases in food costs owing to a lack of supply. the study's goal is to establish a clear correlation between environmental deterioration and food security concerns faced by local populations. in conclusion, the paper emphasises that oil spills in the niger delta pose a grave threat not only to the environment but also to food security in the country; their devastating ripple effects include economic instability, exacerbation of poverty, health hazards, and communal unrest in the region. the interplay between environmental degradation caused by oil spills and the resultant food insecurity and communal disorder presents a complex issue that requires urgent attention from policymakers, stakeholders, and the international community. keywords: environmental degradation, food security, livelihood security, oil spillage, pollution global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 42 introduction since oil production began, in the wake of the industrial revolution, oil spillage has been occurring. the term, oil spill (which is a form of pollution), refers to the release of a liquid petroleum hydrocarbons, which are chemical compounds composed of the elements hydrogen and carbon, into the environment, particularly on marine areas, due to human activity (ahmed & fakhruddin, 2018). oil spills occur when oil is released into the ocean or coastal waters, as well as on land, due to accidents involving the vessel or tanker carrying the crude oil, pipeline vandalism, oil bunkering, theft, and poor maintenance of drilling rigs and wells, as well as spills of refined petroleum products such as gasoline and diesel (iskander et al., 2021). oil spillage generally causes immediate harm to the entire environment, endangering aquatic organisms, causing huge combustions that release dangerous gases into the atmosphere, thereby aggravating the greenhouse effect and global warming. this, in due course, leads to serious ecological problems and long-term environmental contamination of the atmosphere and water resources of the inhabitants of the affected areas (amosu & adeosun, 2021). oil pollution causes serious environmental hazards, provoking adverse climate change which, in turn, leads to food insecurity, water scarcity, flooding, spread of infectious diseases, extreme heat, economic losses, and displacements. due to these serious and interconnected effects, the world health organization (2019) regards climate change as the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century. according to encyclopedia of environmental health (2019), oil pollution causes one of the most devastating damages to the environment and can result in both shortand long-term disruption of ecosystems, creating food security challenges. although most countries of the world are beset by natural hazards, nigeria is faced with numerous man-made disasters, one of which is oil spillage, an incidence fraught with major and severe shortand long-term effects on affected inhabitants (albert et al., 2018). amnesty international, in june 2009, described the niger delta region of nigeria, which is home to some 31 million people, as one of the 10 most important wetland and coastal marine ecosystems in the world. however, wetlands international (2016) and izah (2018) have noted that in africa the niger delta region of nigeria has the largest wetland and the third largest mangrove forest in the world. they emphasized that besides the region’s richness in biodiversity and oil and gas resources, its wetland ecosystems also play a critical role in supporting the livelihoods of millions of people. but unfortunately the region’s environment is being degraded by unsustainable practices and a legacy of pollution and oil spills. nigeria remains africa's largest oil producing nation, she also houses the second largest proven oil global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 43 reserves in africa, with its crude oil production estimated at more than 2.5 million barrels per day between 2015 and 2019 (herman, 2020). however, the world data atlas (2021) had stated that nigeria’s crude oil production fluctuated substantially, decreasing through may 2020 april 2021 period and ending at 1,372 thousand barrels per day as at april 2021.the oil sector, according to olujobi (2021), accounts for more than 95% of nigeria’s foreign exchange earnings. literature review oil spills have severe environmental and socio-economic consequences, particularly in sensitive ecosystems like the niger delta. they contaminate soil and water, which are crucial for agriculture and fishing, the primary sources of food for local communities. oil-contaminated soils inhibit plant growth and reduce agricultural productivity, while water pollution disrupts local economies that thrive on fishing. the unique biodiversity of the niger delta is threatened by oil spills, which lead to habitat destruction for numerous species and food production shortages. socio-economic consequences extend beyond environmental damage, directly affecting food security. livelihoods are disrupted, leading to reduced income and increased poverty levels. health issues, such as respiratory problems and skin diseases, are also exacerbated by exposure to oil pollutants. food availability decreases due to contaminated land and water sources, resulting to food insecurity among vulnerable populations. persistent oil pollution can also force communities to migrate, leading to overcrowding in urban areas and further complicating food security challenges (akan et al., 2020; efe et al., 2021; fao, 2022; nwankwoala et al., 2018; ogonor & ogbomida, 2019; undp, 2023). the massive oil deposits, which have been extracted for decades by the government of nigeria and multinational oil companies, are located in the niger delta region of nigeria. the region is made up of nine states (abia, akwa ibom, bayelsa, cross river, delta, edo, imo, ondo and rivers) from three geopolitical zones (south-south, south-east and south-west), all of which are in the southern part of nigeria. the niger delta has remained a development oxymoron; it is characterized by widespread poverty in the midst of abundant natural and financial resources. in its 2013 report, the united nations development programme (undp) stated that the niger delta was suffering from administrative neglect, crumbling social infrastructure and services, high unemployment, social deprivation, abject poverty, filth and squalor, and endemic conflict. the era of oil production in nigeria has negatively impacted the niger delta region due to unprecedented oil spillage which has been ongoing for the past global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 44 five decades, making the region one of the most polluted in the world (kadafa, 2012; babatunde, 2017; joseph, 2019 & yaguo et al., 2021). it is estimated that while the european union experienced 10 incidences of oil spills in 40 years, nigeria recorded 9,343 cases within 10 years (albert et al., 2018; allen et al., 2018 & alejandre et al., 2021). oil spills are wreaking environmental havoc wherever they occur. since the discovery of enormous crude oil deposits in oloibiri, in present-day bayelsa state, in 1956, and the subsequent drilling and refining of this great natural resource popularly referred to as black gold, nigeria, no doubt, has experienced rapid industrial development. but, unfortunately, oil pollution in niger delta region, over the years, have so negatively impacted farmlands, crops, vegetation and water that people can no longer engage in productive farming and fishing (iwok, 2017 & babatunde, 2020). this environmental dislocation has adversely affected traditional livelihoods and undermined household food security in the region. oil spills massive oil spills are common in the niger delta as over 40 million litres of crude oil is spilled annually, resulting in human deaths and damage to the local ecosystem (adebayo, 2019; ratcliffe, 2020 & okoye, 2021). a study published by the journal of health and pollution in 2018 found that more than 12,000 oil spill incidents occurred in the niger delta region between 1976 and 2014. fifty percent of these spills were attributed to pipeline corrosion and tanker accidents while 50% occurred as a result of operational error, mechanical failure, and sabotage by mostly militant groups (adebayo, 2019 & ratcliffe, 2020). according to ikporukpo (2020), between 2010 and 2018 there were 5,848 incidents resulting in the spillage of about 169,691 barrels of oil. oil spills take place in all parts of the oil producing region of the niger delta; that is why the region is commonly described as the most polluted area of the planet (ikporukpo, 2020). regardless of the fact that oil has generated an estimated $600 billion for nigeria since the 1960s, the majority of niger delta’s population live in poverty (brown, & evangel, 2013 and amnesty international, 2012). many people in the region do not have access to clean water or health-care. the poverty rate in niger delta, in spite of the enormous wealth generated there for the nigerian state, is very high, making it one of the world’s starkest and most disturbing examples of the “resource curse” (amnesty international, 2009). as ratcliffe (2020, p.1) has noted, “you just need to take a tour to understand the magnitude of the environmental abuse.” stressing further, he said, “(bayelsa) used to be green; you could go to farm or fish. we used to have very impressive harvests. you would spend just an hour in the water and you have a lot of fish.” however, the discovery of the black gold in this global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 45 region and its subsequent exploration since the late 1950s has turned this hitherto green land of plenty, where cash crops, including rubber, cocoa, oil palm and coconut, and food crops, such as cassava, yam and plantain, are produced to dry land of sorrow, pain and poverty (undp, 2013). food security according to the united nations committee on world food security and the food and agriculture organization, food security is attained when all people, continuously, have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their food preferences and dietary needs to enable them live a healthy and active life (fao, 2009). according to the food and agriculture organisation (2005), there are three components of food security: firstly, availability (the availability of appropriate and sufficient quantities of food); secondly, access (having the economic power or other resources to access food); and thirdly, utilization and consumption (having adequate dietary intake and the ability to absorb and use nutrients in the body). on the basis of scholarly prediction that global population would reach 9.2 billion by 2050, fukase & martin (2017) and silva (2018) projected a corresponding increased food demand of 59%-102%. in the light of this reality, it seems obligatory to increase agricultural production by about 60%– 70% to provide food for the global population in 2050 (silva, 2018). to improve the availability of food and achieve food security globally, the agricultural sector needs to play a strategic role in achieving the feat of providing food for the global population (wegren & elvestad, 2018). globally, the basic human need is food security; in nigeria, one of the greatest challenges is fighting hunger. according to ahungwa et al. (2018), in the colonial era and briefly after independence, the mainstay of nigeria’s economy was agriculture, which played a strategic role, as it not only boosted the economy but also provided adequate food for the population. nigeria is now faced with a looming food security crisis, with its growing population increasingly dependent on imported foods. she has navigated from agrobased economy to petroleum-dependent economy. according to kralovec (2020), climate change compounds the challenges confronting agriculture. oil spillage in the niger delta is a major cause of climate change, as hitherto green lands suitable for agricultural production were turned into terrains that yield little or no farm products. the global oil industry’s track record has shown that punctures and oil spills are common; they occur wherever oil is drilled either as large spills, like the 1989 exxon valdez accident, or small and more frequent spills that don’t always capture global attention, such as the ones that occur in the niger delta region of global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 46 nigeria. the march 24, 1989 exxon valdez oil spill accident in alaska's prince william sound was a man-made disaster that occurred when exxon valdez, an oil tanker owned by the exxon shipping company, spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil into the ocean. this was the largest single oil spill in u.s. waters at the time (evanisko, 2020). babatunde (2017) emphasized that the degraded environment in the niger delta has contributed in no small way to food scarcity and an astronomical increase in the price of food, placing it beyond the reach of a vast majority of the local people. most local people lack access to sufficient wholesome food which they need for their daily nutritional requirements. the exploration and exploitation of crude petroleum the exploration and exploitation of crude petroleum in nigeria positioned petroleum products as the mainstay of the nation’s economy, especially during and after the oil boom of the 1970s. a report by the nigeria bureau of statistics (nbs) showed that crude oil export accounted for n3.74 trillion or 70.84 per cent of total exports in the third quarter of 2019, while its contribution to the gross domestic products (gdp) stood at 9.77%. the effect of the oil boom slowly but surely created a shift of focus by the nigerian government from agriculture to crude oil exploration, which created more wealth for the country and more environmental and socio-economic crisis for the niger delta region (sanchez, et al., 2021). the harmful effects of petroleum spillages lead to severe environmental degradation; they pose a threat to human survival and to virtually all aspects of the natural environment. despite this threat, the spill of oil and its accompanying environmental hazards remain frequent realities in the niger delta (raimi et al., 2019; okoyen et al., 2020). since the discovery of crude oil in nigeria in 1956, about 600 million gallons of crude oil, poorly managed by the oil companies, have been spilled in the niger delta region (raimi et al., 2019 & okoyen et al., 2020). these spills have polluted vast areas of land, damaging farmlands, killing fishes, causing food scarcity and severe suffering for the people. according to amnesty international (2018), as at 2011, shell accounted for 17.5 million litres of oil spillage while eni recorded 4.1 million litres of oil spillage as at 2014; however, according to statistics posted by the nigerian government, these two company’s spilled almost twice the above figures during the period. this statistical disparity indicates how difficult it is to measure accurately amounts of oil frequently spilled in this region of nigeria practically ‘swimming in oil’ (amnesty international, 2018). akinwumiju et al. (2020), utilizing arcgis mapping, found that 6400 oil wells with over 1143 km of pipeline networks are located in the niger delta. on the level of oil spillage going in the region, akinwumiju et al. (2020) stated that between 2006 and 2019, there was a total global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 47 of 7943 oil spill incidents in the niger delta, with 62% linked to corrosion issues and 7% due to equipment failure. the highest number of oil spills occurred in rivers state, which recorded over 3770 oil spill incidents (akinwumiju et al., 2020). statement of the problem oil accounts for at least 90% of nigeria’s foreign exchange and more than half of government revenue. nigeria is the largest exporter of oil in africa; crude oil exports accounted for 70.84% of nigeria’s total exports in the third quarter of 2019, contributing to 9.77% of her gdp (statista, 2024). in spite of these economic benefits accruing from crude oil, the problem of oil spills in the niger delta region has remained a recurring decimal that continually ruins fishing habitats, swamps, agricultural land, groundwater and waterways. over two million barrels of oil in 2,976 separate spills have resulted from the exploitation of niger delta oil reserves by international oil companies since 1976. about 300 oil spills occur in the region every year. in 2011, a spill at shell's bonga oil fields released 40,000 barrels, affecting over 350 farming communities and forcing 30,000 fishermen to abandon their means of subsistence. the people of the niger delta are practically watching their resources drain away due to oil spillage. the level of contaminants and pollution can seriously harm living creatures, including humans, animals, plants, and all forms of agricultural production. despite extensive scholarly attention, cleanup and remediation efforts and conflict resolution strategies, the environmental issues of the niger delta have not been successful addressed. it is crucial for peace and conflict resolution scholars to adopt empirical and community-based approaches in their studies in order to understanding the peculiarities of every affected community within the niger-delta region and work out suitable solutions. food security is a significant component of human security; food scarcity due to environmental degradation is a frequent problem, but little scholarly attention has been paid to the issue of food security in the niger delta. objectives of the study the first objective of the study is to quantify and analyze the frequency and severity of oil spills in the niger delta region. this involves collecting data on historical spill incidents, their geographical distribution, and the volume of oil spilled. by establishing a comprehensive database, researchers can better understand how widespread these incidents are and identify patterns over time. another critical objective is to evaluate the environmental consequences of global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 48 oil spills on local ecosystems. this includes studying soil contamination, water quality degradation, and impacts on biodiversity. the research aims to determine how these environmental changes affect agricultural productivity, particularly focusing on crops that are staples for local communities. the study also investigates the socioeconomic ramifications of oil spills on communities in the niger delta. this includes assessing how spills affect livelihoods, particularly for those dependent on agriculture and fishing. surveys and interviews with local populations can provide insights into changes in income levels, food availability, and overall community wellbeing. an essential goal of this research is to develop actionable policy recommendations aimed at mitigating the impact of oil spills on food security. this could involve suggesting improved regulatory frameworks for oil extraction companies, enhanced disaster response strategies, or community-based initiatives that promote sustainable agricultural practices despite environmental challenges. an additional objective is to raise awareness among stakeholders – including government agencies, ngos, and local communities – about the ongoing challenges posed by oil spills in relation to food security. by disseminating findings through reports, workshops, and public forums, the study seeks to foster a collaborative approach towards addressing these issues. methodology the techniques that will be used in this study are qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection and analysis. this type of mixed-methods research design will enable the researcher to combine elements of qualitative and quantitative research approaches such as the use of qualitative and quantitative viewpoints, data collection, analysis, and inference techniques for the comprehensive purposes of extensiveness and depth of understanding and corroboration in the study area. theoretical framework the niger delta region of nigeria is one of the most ecologically sensitive areas in the world; it is heavily impacted by oil spills due to extensive oil exploration and production activities. these spills have profound implications not only for the environment but also for local communities, particularly concerning food security. therefore, to analyze and interrogate this complex issue effectively, integrating ecological theory and governance theory came handy as it provides a comprehensive framework for the study topic. ecological theory emphasizes the impact of environmental changes on global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 49 ecosystems and human societies. oil spills in the niger delta can disrupt biodiversity by destroying habitats, altering food webs, and affecting local fishing communities. hydrocarbons introduced into aquatic ecosystems can lead to declines in fish populations and soil contamination, affecting agricultural productivity. the degradation of ecosystems can also lead to health issues among local populations, exacerbating food insecurity. the lack of effective work or farming skills among affected individuals can further exacerbate the situation. therefore, it is crucial to address these environmental impacts to maintain ecological balance. governance theory on the other hand is a framework that focuses on how institutions manage resources and address collective challenges through policies and regulations. it is particularly relevant to oil spills in the niger delta, where effective governance involves creating robust policies to regulate oil extraction activities and ensure accountability for environmental damage caused by oil companies. stakeholder engagement is crucial for ensuring that policies reflect the needs of those most affected by oil spills. governance theories can also help develop dispute resolution mechanisms for conflicts between communities, government entities, and corporations. monitoring and enforcement of environmental regulations is also essential, highlighting areas of ineffective enforcement. with the use of governance theory, stakeholders can identify strategies to improve regulatory frameworks that protect both the environment and food security in affected regions. using ecological theory alongside governance theory provides a multifaceted approach to understanding the impacts of oil spills on food security in nigeria’s niger delta region. this integration allows for a thorough examination of both ecological consequences and institutional responses necessary to mitigate these challenges effectively. both theories collectively offer insights into environmental impacts as well as policy implications related to food security. data analysis descriptive and inferential statistics analysis of questionnaire responses on oil spills to analyze the data collected from the questionnaire regarding the effects of oil spills, we will utilize both descriptive and inferential statistics. the responses provide insight into public perception regarding environmental impacts, agricultural consequences, and social issues related to oil spills. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 50 1. descriptive statistics descriptive statistics summarize the basic features of the data. here we will calculate frequencies, percentages, and some measures of central tendency where applicable. 1.1 agreement on environmental effects of oil spills  total respondents: 381  agree: 365  disagree: 16 percentage agreeing: percentage = (365/381) × 100 = 95.79% 1.2 environmental consequences on ecosystems and livelihood  agree: 353  disagree: 28 percentage agreeing: percentage = (353/381) × 100 = 92.64% 1.3 agricultural output decline due to contamination  agree: 377  disagree: 4 percentage agreeing: percentage = (377/381) ×100 = 98.95% 1.4 pollution of rivers affecting fishing  agree: 375  disagree: 6 percentage agreeing: percentage = (375/381) × 100 = 98.43% 1.5 community leadership tussles related to oil bunkering  agree: 350  disagree: 11 percentage agreeing: percentage = (350/381) × 100 = 91.83% 2. inferential statistics inferential statistics allow us to make conclusions about a population based on sample data. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 51 2.1 hypothesis testing we can set up hypotheses for each question to test if there is a significant agreement among respondents. null hypothesis (h0): there is no significant agreement that oil spills have devastating effects. alternative hypothesis (h1): there is significant agreement that oil spills have devastating effects. using a one-sample proportion test for each question: for example, for the first question:  sample proportion (p) = p = 365/381= 0.96 (approximately) assuming a significance level (α = 0.05), we can use a z-test for proportions: the standard error (se) can be calculated as: se = p(1−p)n = 0.96(0.04)381= 0.0313 (approximately) calculating the z-score: z = p̂−p0se = 0.96−0.50.0313 = 14.53 (approximately) given that this z-score is far greater than any critical value from z-tables at α = 0.05, we reject h0 for all questions indicating strong evidence that respondents agree with the statements regarding oil spills. inference: the analysis indicates overwhelming agreement among respondents regarding the negative impacts of oil spills on the environment, agriculture, and community dynamics in sensitive ecosystems like the niger delta. summary of findings obtained from respondents:  high levels of agreement were observed across all statements.  the lowest percentage was approximately 91.83, while the highest was 98.95. thus, it can be concluded that there is a strong consensus among respondents about the detrimental effects of oil spills the niger delta. overall summary of findings the quantitative research design utilized a questionnaire to gather data regarding perceptions of oil spills in the niger delta and their effects. the findings indicate a strong consensus among respondents, with high levels of global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 52 agreement across all statements presented in the questionnaire. specifically, the lowest percentage of agreement was approximately 91.83%, while the highest reached 98.95%. this range suggests that nearly all respondents recognize the negative impacts associated with oil spills in this region. the results highlight a significant concern regarding environmental degradation and its broader implications for communities within the niger delta. given that these percentages reflect a robust agreement, it can be inferred that there is a widespread acknowledgment of the detrimental effects of oil spills on local ecosystems, health, and occupations. in juxtaposition to the quantitative findings, qualitative research conducted through key informant interviews (kii) further supports these conclusions. all 20 respondents interviewed expressed unanimous agreement that oil spills have severely impacted food security in niger delta and indeed nigeria. this qualitative data complements the quantitative results by providing deeper insights into how oil spills affect not only environmental conditions but also socio-economic factors such as food availability and safety. the qualitative responses likely elaborate on specific mechanisms through which oil spills disrupt food security, including contamination of water sources, destruction of agricultural land, and adverse health effects on local populations that hinder their ability to produce or access food. both quantitative and qualitative research designs converge on the understanding that oil spills in the niger delta pose significant challenges not only to environmental integrity but also to food security in nigeria. the strong consensus observed in both methodologies underscores the urgency for policy interventions aimed at mitigating these impacts and addressing community concerns. discussion of findings the niger delta region in nigeria, a major oil-rich area, is facing significant environmental degradation due to oil spills. these spills, primarily caused by operational failures, sabotage, and inadequate infrastructure maintenance, result in extensive contamination of land and waterways. between 1976 and 2018, over 2 million barrels of oil were spilled, with a significant portion occurring in the last decade. the ecological consequences of these spills are severe, leading to habitat destruction, loss of biodiversity, and long-term soil contamination. mangrove forests, crucial for fish breeding, are particularly vulnerable, causing fish populations to decline, directly impacting local fishing communities. the challenge is not only environmental but also socioeconomic, undermining food security for nigeria's most vulnerable populations. to address this issue, comprehensive strategies must be global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 53 implemented, including stricter regulations on oil companies; improved infrastructure maintenance practices, community engagement initiatives focused on sustainable agriculture, and enhanced support systems for affected communities. agriculture is a primary source of income for many households in the niger delta. however, oil spills severely affect crop production through soil contamination and water pollution. contaminated soils can lead to reduced crop yields or complete crop failure due to toxic substances absorbed by plants. studies have shown that crops such as cassava and yam exhibit stunted growth when grown in contaminated soils. furthermore, water sources used for irrigation become polluted with hydrocarbons from oil spills. this not only affects crop health but also poses health risks to farmers who consume contaminated produce or use polluted water for irrigation. the result is a cycle of poverty where farmers face declining incomes due to reduced agricultural output. fisheries are another critical component of food security in the niger delta. oil spills contaminate rivers and coastal waters, leading to killing of fish and a decline in fish populations. the nigerian institute for oceanography and marine research has reported significant declines in fish catches that could be attributed to pollution from oil activities. the loss of fish stocks directly impacts food availability and nutrition for local communities that depend heavily on fish as a primary protein source. additionally, fishermen face economic hardships as their catch diminishes; this further exacerbates food insecurity as families struggle to afford alternative sources of nutrition. the health implications associated with oil spills also contribute indirectly to food insecurity. exposure to pollutants can lead to respiratory issues, skin diseases, and other health problems among local populations. poor health reduces individuals’ ability to work effectively in agriculture or fishing sectors, thereby diminishing household incomes and exacerbating food scarcity. moreover, contaminated water supplies can lead to gastrointestinal diseases which further strain community resources as families must allocate funds towards healthcare instead of food purchases or agricultural investments. the nigerian government has implemented various policies aimed at addressing oil spill incidents; however, enforcement remains weak due to corruption and lack of accountability among oil companies operating in the region. while initiatives like the national environmental (pollution abatement) regulations exist, they often fall short in practice due to insufficient funding and lack of political will. community-led efforts have emerged as vital responses; however, they often lack adequate support from global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 54 governmental bodies or international organizations, and such support is needed for effective remediation efforts. conclusion and recommendations conclusion: oil spills in the niger delta have severe environmental and socio-economic consequences. crude oil contaminates soil and water bodies, causing habitat degradation, fish population declines, and unsuitable farming land. this is especially alarming for people in the niger delta, where agriculture is the principal source of income. the socioeconomic consequences are grave, as fish populations drop and agricultural output falls, leading to food insecurity. households who struggle to provide proper nourishment experience greater poverty rates. oil spills increase existing vulnerabilities by restricting access to food sources and increasing reliance on high-cost imported goods. direct contact to spilt oil causes health difficulties, as do indirect consequences from tainted food sources. communities around oil spills may face breathing issues, skin illnesses, and other health complications caused by harmful chemicals contained in crude oil. consumption of polluted seafood or crops might result in chronic diseases. efforts have been undertaken at different levels, including government, nongovernmental organisations (ngos), and community groups, to address these concerns through legislative reforms aiming at strengthening environmental rules and encouraging sustainable practices. however, enforcement remains ineffective owing to corruption and a lack of political will. community resilience techniques are critical in reducing the impact of oil spills on food security. initiatives that concentrate on alternative livelihoods such as aquaculture or agro-ecological techniques can assist communities in adapting while minimising reliance on conventional fishing and farming ways. addressing these issues requires a comprehensive approach that includes strong regulatory frameworks to avoid spills, remediation activities to repair damaged habitats, and support networks for impacted populations to strengthen their resistance to food scarcity. recommendations: here are some vital recommendations that cover some major areas of concern: strengthening regulatory frameworks: the nigerian government should improve current rules controlling oil exploration and production operations. this includes greater enforcement of environmental rules designed to avoid oil leaks. investment in remediation technology: there is an urgent need to invest in innovative technology that can efficiently clean up oil spills. collaborations with international environmental organizations can help you gain access to global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 55 best practices in spill response. community engagement programs: local communities should be actively involved in monitoring oil operations and spill responses. empowering these communities through education about their rights and environmental stewardship can lead to better outcomes. diversification of livelihoods: to mitigate the impacts of oil spills on food security, programmes aimed at diversifying income sources for local populations should be developed. this could include promoting alternative agricultural practices or supporting small-scale fisheries. health monitoring initiatives: establishing health monitoring systems for communities affected by oil spills will help address health-related issues stemming from exposure to pollutants while providing necessary healthcare support. international collaboration: engaging with international bodies can provide technical assistance and funding necessary for both immediate response efforts following spills as well as long-term sustainable development initiatives aimed at restoring food security. references adebayo, b. 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(2021). total petroleum hydrocarbon accumulation in gills and muscle tissue of tilapia spp in kolo creek, imiringi, bayelsa state. research journal of environmental science and toxicology vol, 2(2), 010-014. author information: festus funmileyi ajomale is of caleb university, imota lagos, nigeria. email: funmilayi.ajomale@calebuniversity.edu.ng dr christian osemuyi oseghale is a lecturer in caleb university, imota lagos, nigeria. email: trustnigent1 @gmail.com. orchid id: 0009-0001-0276-0607 apa ajomale, f. f. & oseghale, c. o. (2025). oil spills in the niger delta and their impact on food security in nigeria: a prevalent challenge. global online journal of academic research (gojar), 4(1), 41-59. https://klamidas.com/gojar-v4n1-2025-03/. mla ajomale, festus funmileyi and oseghale, christian osemuyi. “oil spills in the niger delta and their impact on food security in nigeria: a prevalent challenge”. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1, 2025, pp. 41-59. https://klamidas.com/gojar-v4n1-2025-03/. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 60 on boundedness and solution size in rational linear programming and polyhedral optimization mark laisin, collins edike & r. n. ujumadu abstract this paper delves into the theoretical and practical aspects of boundedness and structural properties in rational linear programming (lp) and polyhedral optimization. it provides a comprehensive analysis of conditions under which the optimization of linear functions over rational polyhedra remains bounded and establishes explicit constraints on solution size when optimal solutions exist. by exploring the interplay between polyhedral geometry, integer hulls, and rational lp systems, this study sheds light on fundamental principles that underlie modern optimization techniques. key findings include equivalence conditions for boundedness between rational polyhedra and their integer hulls, as well as precise bounds on the numerical representation of optimal solutions. these results not only enhance the theoretical understanding of lp and polyhedral optimization but also have significant implications for computational efficiency, algorithm design, and numerical stability in solving real-world optimization problems. the discussion is rooted in rigorous mathematical foundations and extends to practical applications in areas such as mixed-integer programming, computational geometry, and combinatorial optimization. keywords: rational linear programming, polyhedral optimization, boundedness conditions, integer hull, solution size bounds, rational coefficients, computational geometry, optimization algorithms, numerical stability. i. introduction linear programming (lp) has had a significant and enduring influence, deeply connected with the evolution of optimization theory and computational methodologies. scholars have extensively traced the origins of lp back to the 1930s, highlighting leonid kantorovich’s groundbreaking work in formulating optimization problems to address resource allocation challenges in economic planning (kantorovich, 1939). kantorovich’s pioneering contributions established the foundation of linear optimization and global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 61 were later recognized with the nobel prize in economics, underscoring the lasting impact of his work. the practical relevance of lp has surged during and after world war ii. researchers, notably george dantzig, have developed the simplex algorithm to optimize military logistics and supply chains, a milestone in the application of mathematical optimization (dantzig, 1947). the simplex algorithm has remained a cornerstone in solving lp problems, celebrated for its practical efficiency and ease of implementation, despite its potential exponential time complexity in the worst-case scenarios. the study of rational linear programming, characterized by constraints and objectives expressed using rational coefficients, has gained prominence with advancements in computational methodologies. researchers have extensively analyzed rational lp systems, focusing on their numerical properties, solution size, and computational feasibility. during the 1980s, karmarkar’s introduction of the polynomial-time interior-point method has revolutionized the field, providing an alternative to the simplex algorithm and emphasizing the significance of numerical stability in optimization (karmarkar, 1984). polyhedral optimization, a core area of mathematical optimization, has bridged critical concepts in combinatorics, geometry, and optimization. scholars have explored the geometric properties of feasible regions defined by linear inequalities, offering theoretical and practical insights for solving complex problems. the study of polyhedra has uncovered deep structural relationships essential for various optimization tasks, including vertex enumeration and facet identification. among the impactful concepts in polyhedral optimization is the integer hull, representing the convex hull of all integer solutions within a polyhedron. this concept has substantially advanced the theory and algorithms of integer programming and mixed-integer programming, as emphasized by nemhauser and wolsey (1999). by enabling the transition from an infinite search space to a finite and structured geometric framework, the integer hull has simplified the analysis of discrete variable problems. recent advancements in polyhedral optimization include the construction and analysis of rational polyhedra on boards. laisin et al. (2024) have demonstrated the practical effectiveness of polyhedral techniques in modeling and solving problems involving integral polyhedra, offering applications in combinatorial optimization and computational geometry. their work has exemplified how modern techniques can address both theoretical challenges and real-world applications. this paper examines two fundamental aspects of rational lp and polyhedral global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 62 optimization: i. conditions under which the optimization of a linear function over a rational polyhedron is bounded. ii. bounds on the size of optimal solutions. building on classical results from schrijver (1998) and others, the analysis provides refined bounds and structural insights critical for advancing both theoretical understanding and practical applications in optimization. ii. preliminaries and definitions definition 2.1: sub-determinant let 𝑨 be an integral matrix. a sub-determinant of 𝑨 is |𝑩| for some square sub-matrix 𝑩 of 𝑨 (defined by arbitrary row and column indices). we write𝚵(𝑨) for the maximum absolute value of the sub-determinants of 𝑨. definition 2.2: polyhedron linear programming deals with optimizing a linear objective function of finitely many variables subject to finitely many linear inequalities. so the set of feasible solutions is the intersection of finitely many half spaces. such a set is called a polyhedron. definition 2.3: polyhedron in ℝ𝒏 it is a set of type 𝑷 = {𝒙 ∈ ℝ𝒏: 𝑨𝒙 ≤ 𝒃} for some matrix 𝑨 ∈ ℝ𝒎×𝒏and some vector 𝒃 ∈ ℝ𝒎. if a and b are rational, then p is a rational polyhedron. a bounded polyhedron is also called a polytope. we denote the rank of a matrix a by 𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒌(𝑨). the dimension dim x of a nonempty set: 𝒙 ⊆ ℝ𝒏 is defined to be 𝒏 − 𝐦𝐚𝐱 𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒌(𝑨) {𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒌(𝑨): 𝑨 𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐧 𝒏 × 𝒏 − 𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐱 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝑨𝒙 = 𝑨𝒚 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝒙, 𝒚 ∈ 𝑿} a polyhedron 𝑷 ⊆ ℝ𝒏 is called full-dimensional if 𝐝𝐢𝐦 𝑷 = 𝒏 equivalently, a polyhedron is full-dimensional if and only if there exist a point 𝒙∗ in its interior. (genova and guliashki, 2011). global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 63 proposition 2.1: nonempty polyhedron: let 𝑃 = {𝑥 ∶ 𝐴𝑥 ≤ 𝑏} be a nonempty polyhedron. if c is a nonzero vector for which 𝜹 ∶= 𝐦𝐚𝐱 {𝒄𝒙 ∶ 𝒙 ∈ 𝑷} is finite, then {𝒄𝒙 ∶ 𝒙 = 𝜹} is called a supporting hyperplane of p. a face of p is p itself or the intersection of p with a supporting hyperplane of p. a point x for which {x} is a face is called a vertex of p, and also a basic solution of the system 𝑨𝒙 ≤ 𝒃 (genova and guliashki, 2011). proposition 2.2: let 𝑃 ∶= {𝑥 ∶ 𝐴𝑥 ≤ 𝑏} be a polyhedron and 𝑭 ⊆ 𝑷. then the following statements are equivalent: (a) f is a face of p. (b) there exists a vector c such that 𝜹 ∶= 𝐦𝐚𝐱 {𝒄𝒙 ∶ 𝒙 ∈ 𝑷} is finite and 𝑭 = {𝒄𝒙 = 𝜹 ∶ 𝒙 ∈ 𝑷} (c) 𝑭 ∶= {𝒙 ∈ 𝑷: 𝑨′𝒙 = 𝒃′} ≠ ∅; for some subsystem 𝑨′𝒙 ≤ 𝒃′ of 𝑨𝒙 ≤ 𝒃 (genova and guliashki, 2011). corollary 2.1: let 𝑃 be a polyhedron and 𝐹 a face of 𝑃. then 𝐹 is again a polyhedron. furthermore, a set 𝐹′ ⊆ 𝐹 is a face of 𝑃 if and only if it is a face of 𝐹 (genova and guliashki, 2011). proposition 2.3: let 𝑷 = {𝒙: 𝑨𝒙 ≤ 𝒃} be a polyhedron. a nonempty subset 𝑭 ⊆ 𝑷 is a minimal face of 𝑷 if and only if it is a face of; 𝑭 = {𝒙: 𝑨′𝒙 = 𝒃′} for some subsystem 𝑨′𝒙 ≤ 𝒃′ of 𝑨𝒙 ≤ 𝒃 (akif and cihan, 2008) proposition 2.4: for any rational square matrix a we have 𝑠𝑖𝑧𝑒 𝑑𝑒𝑡 𝐴 ≤ 2𝑠𝑖𝑧𝑒(𝐴) proposition 2.5: if 𝒙, 𝒚 ∈ ℚ𝒏 are rational vectors, then 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒙 + 𝒚) ≤ 𝟐(𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒙) + 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒚)) 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒙𝑻𝒚) ≤ 𝟐(𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒙) + 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒚))(𝐋𝐚𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐧 𝒆𝒕 𝒂𝒍. , 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟒). global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 64 definition 2.4: integer programming problem (ipp) the ipp is a special class of linear programming problem (lpp) where all or some of the variables in the optimal solution are restricted to assume nonnegative-integer values. thus the general ipp can be stated as follows: optimize the linear function 𝐎𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐳𝐞 𝒁 = ∑ 𝒄𝒊𝒙𝒊 𝒏 𝒊=𝟏 … (𝟏) subject to the constraints. ∑ 𝒂𝒊𝒋𝒙𝒊 𝒏 𝒊=𝟏 ≤ 𝒃𝒊, 𝒋 = 𝟏, 𝟐, … , 𝒎 … (𝟐) 𝒙𝒊 ≥ 𝟎 and some 𝒙𝒊 are integers. there are two types of the integer programming problems (elmuti, 2003; genova and guliashki, 2011). definition 2.5: all integer programming problem an ipp. is termed as all ipp or pure ipp if all the variables in the optimal solution are restricted to assume non-negative integer values. definition 2.6: mixed integer programming problem (mipp) an ipp is termed as mixed mipp if only some variables in the optimal solution are restricted to assume non-negative integer values while the remaining variables are free to take any non-negative values (gupta et al., 2014). importance of ipp quite often, in business and industry, we require the discrete nature or values of the variables involved in many decision making situations. for example, in a factory manufacturing trucks or cars etc. the quantity or number manufactured can be a whole discrete number only as a fraction of truck or car is not required. in assignment problems and travelling salesman problems etc. the variables involved can assume integer values only. in allocation of goods, a shipment must involve a discrete number of trucks etc. in sequencing and routing decisions we require the discrete values of variables. thus we come across many integer programming problems and hence need some systematic procedure for obtaining the exact optimal integer solution to such problems (elmuti, 2003; genova and guliashki, 2011). global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 65 iii. main results lemma: (boundedness equivalence) let 𝑷 = {𝒙: 𝑨𝒙 ≤ 𝒃} be some rational polyhedron whose integer hull is nonempty, and let 𝒄 be some vector (not necessarily rational). then 𝐦𝐚𝐱 {𝒄𝒙: 𝒙 ∈ 𝑷} is bounded if and only if 𝐦𝐚𝐱 {𝒄𝒙: 𝒙 ∈ 𝑷𝟏} is bounded. proof: suppose 𝐦𝐚𝐱 {𝒄𝒙: 𝒙 ∈ 𝑷}is unbounded. then corollary 3.2.8 says that the system 𝒚𝑨 = 𝒄. 𝒚 ≥ 𝟎 has no solution. by corollary 3.26 there is a vector 𝒛. with 𝒆𝒛 < 0 and 𝑨𝒛 ≥ 𝟎. then the 𝑳𝑷 𝐦𝐢𝐧 {𝒄𝒛: 𝑨𝒛 ≥ 𝟎, −∥≤ 𝒛 ≤∥} is feasible. let 𝒛∗ be an optimum basic solution of this 𝑳𝑷. 𝒛∗ is rational as it is a vertex of a rational polytope. multiply 𝒛∗ by a suitable natural number to obtain an integral vector 𝝎 with 𝑨𝝎 ≥ 𝟎 and 𝒄𝝎 < 0. let 𝒗 ∈ 𝑷𝟏 be some integer vector. then 𝒗 − 𝒌𝝎 ∈ 𝑷𝟏 for all 𝒌 ∈ ℕ, and thus 𝐦𝐚𝐱 {𝒄𝒙: 𝒙 ∈ 𝑷𝟏} is unbounded. the other direction is trivial. theorem (rational matrices and vertices of polytopes) consider the rational linear programming (lp) problem: 𝑳𝑷: 𝒎𝒂𝒙 {𝒄𝑻𝒙: 𝑨𝒙 ≤ 𝒃} where a and b are rational. suppose this lp has an optimum solution. then the following hold: (i) bounded size solution: there exists an optimum solution x such that: 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒙) ≤ 𝟒𝒏(𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝑨) + 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒃)) (ii) special case (unit vector b): if 𝒃 = 𝒆𝒊 𝒐𝒓 𝒃 = −𝒆𝒊 for some unit vector 𝒆𝒊 there exists a nonsingular submatrix 𝑨′ of a and an optimum solution x such that: 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒙) ≤ 𝟒𝒏(𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝑨) + 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒃)) with each component of x satisfying: 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒑𝒐𝒏𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒙) ≤ 𝟒(𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝑨) + 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒃)) global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 66 (iii) reduced submatrix case: if 𝒃 = 𝒆𝒊 𝒐𝒓 𝒃 = −𝒆𝒊 for some unit vector 𝒆𝒊 , then there exists a non-singular submatrix 𝑨′ of a and an optimum solution x such that: 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒙) ≤ 𝟒𝒏 ⋅ 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝑨′) proof the proof of theorem 4.3 relies on these definitions 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4 and 2.5 respectively, to analyse the structure and properties of the lp problem. task 1: to show that, for a given lp, there exists a solution with bounded size. by the fundamental theorem of linear programming, there exists an optimum solution 𝒙∗ at a vertex of the feasible polytope {𝒙: 𝑨𝒙 ≤ 𝒃}. o vertex characterization: a vertex 𝒙∗ corresponds to a subset of constraints in 𝑨𝒙 ≤ 𝒃 that are active (i.e., satisfied as equalities). by corollary 2.1. the maximum is attained in a face 𝑭 of {𝒙 ∶ 𝑨𝒙 ≤ 𝒃}. let 𝑰 ⊆ {𝟏, 𝟐, … , 𝒎} denote the indices of active constraints, and let 𝑨𝑰 denote the submatrix of a corresponding to these constraints. at a vertex, the system can be written as: 𝑨𝑰𝒙 = 𝒃𝑰 where 𝒃𝑰is the corresponding sub vector of b. o non-singularity of 𝑨𝑰: for 𝒙∗ to be a vertex, the matrix 𝑨𝑰 must be non-singular (invertible), and ∣ 𝑰 ∣= 𝒏. o size of solution: solving 𝑨𝑰𝒙 = 𝒃𝑰 𝒙 = 𝑨𝑰 −𝟏𝒃𝑰 using bounds on the size of 𝑨𝑰 and 𝒃𝑰, and the fact that 𝑨𝑰 is rational, the entries of are bounded in terms of 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝑨𝑰). specifically, the size of x is bounded by: 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒙) ≤ 𝟒𝒏(𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝑨) + 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒃)). global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 67 task 2: to show that for a give lp has a special case (𝒃 = 𝒆𝒊 𝒐𝒓 𝒃 = −𝒆𝒊 ) if 𝒃 = 𝒆𝒊 𝒐𝒓 𝒃 = −𝒆𝒊 , where𝒆𝒊 is a unit vector, the lp corresponds to finding the maximum value of 𝒄𝑻𝒙 along a specific axis defined by 𝒆𝒊. o existence of a non-singular submatrix: as in task 1, there exists a vertex solution 𝒙∗, and the active constraints correspond to a nonsingular submatrix 𝑨′ of a. o bound on solution size: similar to the general case, the size of x is bounded by: 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒙) ≤ 𝟒𝒏(𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝑨) + 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒃)), with the size of each component of x further bounded by: 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒑𝒐𝒏𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒙) ≤ 𝟒(𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝑨) + 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒃)). task 3: to show that for a give lp has reduced submatrix: let 𝑭′ ⊆ 𝑭 be a minimal face. by corollary 2.1𝑭′ = {𝒙 ∶ 𝑨′𝒙 = 𝒃′} for some subsystem 𝑨′𝒙 ≤ 𝒃′ 𝐨𝐟 𝑨𝒙 ≤ 𝒃. then, in the special case where 𝒃 = 𝒆𝒊 𝒐𝒓 𝒃 = −𝒆𝒊 , let 𝑨′ denote the nonsingular submatrix corresponding to the active constraints at the optimum. now, we may assume that the rows of 𝑨′ are linearly independent. we then take a maximal set of linear independent columns (call this matrix 𝑨”) and set all other components to zero. then 𝒙 = (𝑨")−𝟏𝒃′, filled up with zeros, is an optimum solution to our lp. by cramer’s rule the entries of 𝒙 are given by 𝒙𝒊 = 𝐝𝐞𝐭 𝑨′′′ 𝐝𝐞𝐭 𝑨′′ , where 𝑨′′′ arises from 𝑨′′ by replacing the 𝒋 − 𝒕𝒉 column by 𝒃′. by propositions 2.4 and 2.5 respectively, we obtain 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒙) ≤ 𝒏 + 𝟐𝒏(𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝑨′′′) + 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝑨′′)) ≤ 𝟒𝒏(𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝑨′′) + 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒃′)). if 𝒃 = ±𝒆𝒊 then | 𝐝𝐞𝐭(𝑨′′′) | is the absolute value of a sub determinant of 𝑨′′. the size of x can then be further bounded as: 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒙) ≤ 𝟒𝒏 ⋅ 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝑨′). this follows because 𝑨′ has fewer rows and columns compared to the full matrix a, reducing the maximum size contribution. q.e.d. utilizing results from schrijver (1998) and cook et al., (1986), we derive global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 68 bounds on the size of optimal solutions by analyzing the bit-length of vertices of and properties of rational systems. iv. applications: production scheduling problem i) integer programming: the equivalence of boundedness conditions simplifies complexity analyses for mixed-integer programming problems problem setup a factory produces two products, a and b, using two resources, labor and material. the available resources are limited to 100 hours of labor and 80 units of material. the profit for producing one unit of a is $50, and for b, it's $40. the problem is to determine the production quantities 𝒙𝟏 (units of a) and 𝒙𝟐 (units of b) to maximize profit, subject to the following constraints: labor constraint: 𝟐𝒙𝟏 + 𝟏𝒙𝟐 ≤ 𝟏𝟎𝟎, material constraint: 𝟏𝒙𝟏 + 𝟐𝒙𝟐 ≤ 𝟖𝟎. this is a linear programming (lp) problem. however, if the production quantities 𝒙𝟏 and 𝒙𝟐 must be integers (e.g., you cannot produce fractional units), the problem becomes a mixed-integer programming (mip) problem. rational polyhedron and integer hull  the feasible region defined by the constraints is a rational polyhedron p, containing all real-valued solutions that satisfy the constraints.  the integer hull 𝑷𝑰 is the convex hull of all integer solutions within p. it represents the feasible region for the mip problem. boundedness analysis 1. boundedness of p: the polyhedron p is bounded since it is enclosed by the constraints 𝟐𝒙𝟏 + 𝟏𝒙𝟐 ≤ 𝟏𝟎𝟎 and 𝒙𝟏 + 𝟐𝒙𝟐 ≤ 𝟖𝟎, which intersect in the positive quadrant. 2. boundedness of 𝑷𝑰: the integer hull 𝑷𝑰, being a subset of p, is also bounded. this follows from the equivalence of boundedness conditions: if 𝒎𝒂𝒙 {𝒄𝑻𝒙: 𝒙 ∈ 𝑷} is bounded, then 𝒎𝒂𝒙 {𝒄𝑻𝒙: 𝒙 ∈ 𝑷𝑰, } is bounded. simplifying the analysis instead of analyzing the mip problem directly, the equivalence of boundedness conditions allows us to focus on the polyhedron p to verify boundedness. once p is confirmed to be bounded, we can conclude that 𝑷𝑰, global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 69 is bounded, avoiding the need for exhaustive checks over all integer solutions. solving the problem the integer solutions can then be obtained by applying integer programming techniques, such as branch-and-bound or cutting planes, which operate within the bounded integer hull 𝑷𝑰, . thus, reducing the boundedness check to p, the analysis simplifies significantly, saving computational effort and making the problem more tractable. ii) computational geometry: solution size bounds assist in designing efficient algorithms for convex hull and vertex enumeration. application context consider the problem of computing the convex hull of a set of points in ℝ𝒏. convex hull algorithms, such as quickhull or graham's scan, rely on numerical representations of the points and may involve large computations when the coordinates of the points have a high bit-length. efficient algorithms benefit from guarantees about the size of intermediate and final solutions, which directly impacts computation time and memory usage. problem setup let 𝑷 = {𝒙 ∈ ℝ𝒏: 𝑨𝒙 ≤ 𝒃} be a rational polyhedron defined by m linear inequalities, where 𝑨 ∈ ℚ𝒎×𝒏. the goal is to compute the convex hull of the integer points in p, denoted 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒗(𝑷𝑰). solution size bounds from theoretical results, if an optimal solution x to a linear program over p exists, its size is bounded as: 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒙) ≤ 𝟒𝒏(𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝑨) + 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒃)). this means each vertex of the convex hull 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒗(𝑷𝑰)has coordinates with a bit-length constrained by this bound. application to convex hull algorithms a. numerical stability: o algorithms like quickhull require operations on vertex coordinates, such as comparing slopes or calculating determinants. knowing the bounds on the size of x ensures that these operations remain numerically stable and feasible on finite-precision systems. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 70 b. efficient data structures: o solution size bounds guide the choice of data structures. for example, if the bound indicates small bit-lengths, lightweight data structures (e.g., arrays with fixed-width integers) can be used, reducing memory overhead. c. algorithm design: o when enumerating vertices of 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒗(𝑷𝑰), solution size bounds restrict the search space, enabling pruning strategies in branch-and-bound algorithms. for example, if a candidate vertex exceeds the size bounds, it can be discarded without further computation. application in ℝ𝟐 suppose p is a polygon defined by: 𝑷 = {𝒙 ∈ ℝ𝟐: 𝟐𝒙𝟏 + 𝒙𝟐 ≤ 𝟏𝟎, 𝒙𝟏 + 𝟑𝒙𝟐 ≤ 𝟏𝟓, 𝒙𝟏, 𝒙𝟐 ≥ 𝟎}. the integer points in p are (𝟎, 𝟎), (𝟏, 𝟎), (𝟐, 𝟎), … , (𝟒, 𝟑).  the convex hull of these points forms a polygon whose vertices are subsets of the integer points.  using the size bounds, we confirm that all integer solutions 𝒙 = (𝒙𝟏, 𝒙𝟐) satisfy 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆(𝒙) ≤ 𝟒(𝟐 + 𝟐) = 𝟏𝟔, ensuring efficient computations. iii) impact on algorithms: with these bounds:  vertex enumeration: we avoid considering infeasible points with excessively large coordinates.  convex hull computation: ensures that the algorithm’s runtime is proportional to the actual feasible vertices, reducing unnecessary overhead. this example demonstrates how solution size bounds provide theoretical guarantees that directly improve the efficiency and practicality of convex hull and vertex enumeration algorithms. thus, it improves the bounds that contribute to better prerecession and numerical stability in lp solvers. v. conclusion this paper establishes critical theoretical results in rational linear programming and polyhedral optimization, emphasizing boundedness equivalence and solution size constraints. by proving the equivalence of boundedness between rational polyhedra and their integer hulls, as well as global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 71 deriving explicit bounds on the size of optimal solutions, this work contributes to a deeper understanding of the structural and numerical properties of optimization problems. these findings are not only of theoretical interest but also pave the way for advancements in computational optimization, particularly in improving algorithmic efficiency and ensuring numerical stability. vi. recommendations future work may explore extensions to non-convex settings, where the feasible regions are no longer polyhedral, presenting new challenges in understanding boundedness and solution representation. another promising direction involves generalizations to cases with irrational coefficients, which require advanced techniques to address the complexities introduced by nonrational systems. furthermore, integrating these theoretical insights into practical optimization software and exploring their impact on real-world applications, such as logistics, network design, and machine learning, could significantly enhance the utility and scope of rational lp and polyhedral optimization. such efforts would bridge the gap between theoretical advancements and their practical implementations, fostering innovation in both academic and industrial domains. references akif, m b. and cihan, a. (2008). a 0-1 integer programming approach to a university timetabling problem. hacettepe journal of mathematics and statistics, 37: 41-55. cook, w., cunningham, w. h., pulleyblank, w. r., & schrijver, a. (1986). combinatorial optimization. wiley. dantzig, g. b. (1947). linear programming and extensions. princeton university press. dantzig, g. b. (1947). maximization of a linear function of variables subject to linear inequalities. in t. c. koopmans (ed.), activity analysis of production and allocation (pp. 339-347). wiley. elmuti, d. (2003). the perceived impact of outsourcing on organizational performance. american journal of business, 18: 33-42. genova, k. and guliashki, v. (2011). linear integer programming methods and approaches a survey. journal of cybernetics and information technologies. vol 11. gupta, prem kumar (er.) and d. s. hira (2014); operations research seventh global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 72 revised edition. by rajendra ravindra pvt ltd, ram nagar new delhi110055 and published by s. chand & company pvt ltd, india kantorovich, l. v. (1939). mathematical methods in the organization and planning of production. leningrad state university. karmarkar, n. (1984). a new polynomial-time algorithm for linear programming. combinatorica, 4(4), 373-395. laisin, m., edike, c. and bright o. osu (2024); the construction of rational polyhedron on an 𝒏 × 𝒏 board with some application on integral polyhedral. tijer, vol 11, issue 11, www.tijer.org nemhauser, g. l., & wolsey, l. a. (1999). integer and combinatorial optimization. wiley. schrijver, a. (1998). theory of linear and integer programming. wiley. author information: prof. mark laisin is of the department of mathematics, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, uli, anambra state, nigeria. email: laisinmark@gmail.com collins edike is of the department of mathematics, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, uli, anambra state, nigeria. email: edikecollins505@gmail. com dr r. n. ujumadu is of the department of mathematics, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, uli, anambra state, nigeria. email: rozyngujmadu@yahoo. com apa laisin, m., edike, c., & ujumadu, r. n. (2025). on boundedness and solution size in rational linear programming and polyhedral optimization. global online journal of academic research (gojar), 4(1), 60-72. https://klamidas.com/gojar-v4n1-2025-04/. mla laisin, mark, edike, collins, & ujumadu, r. n. “on boundedness and solution size in rational linear programming and polyhedral optimization”. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1, 2025, pp. 60-72. https://klamidas.com/gojarv4n1-2025-04/. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 73 relationship between housing management and housing conditions in imo state housing corporation estates in owerri, nigeria nnanyere n. chukwu, chukwunonso o. umeora & charles c. munonye abstract housing conditions are acknowledged as important factors that determine the habitability of buildings. this was why this study investigated the relationship between housing management and housing conditions in imo state housing corporation (imshc) estates in owerri capital territory, imo state, nigeria, with a view to obtaining vital feedback which can be used for gauging and improving housing conditions in the study area. a survey design method was applied with a focus on five imshc estates randomly selected from the research population following a stratification based on housing type. three hundred and five occupied housing units were randomly sampled from the selected estates. data were collected from these using questionnaires. the variables, ‘flaking/peeling wall finish’ and ‘availability of procedures for maintenance operations’, representing housing condition and housing management system respectively, were selected for this analysis. the two variables are of nominal variable category; therefore, the chisquare test of independence analysis tool was applied towards examining the significance of the relationship. it was established that there is a significant relationship between flaking/peeling wall finish’ and ‘availability of procedures for maintenance operations’ in the study area. it is recommended that for prompt maintenance of facilities in buildings, the residents should undertake it. for maintenance of facilities in the neighbourhood, imshc should undertake that. moreover, there should be a legal provision to enable residents of imshc estates to enforce maintenance activities in the environment. the time taken to respond to residents’ complaints should be improved upon by ensuring prompt response to grievances. keywords: buildings, habitability, housing conditions, housing management, maintenance global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 74 introduction before the colonisation of nigeria, there was no need for housing estates because residential buildings were constructed mainly to quarter family members who dwelt in huts within the family compound. umeora (2018) noted that the colonial masters introduced housing estates to house their employees near their places of work in cities. when nigeria gained independence, government and other organised bodies continued with this urban housing development and expanded the number of housing estates all over the country. the management and maintenance of these estates have come under scrutiny by professionals in the housing sector. developing countries such as nigeria have witnessed high rates of urbanisation but these have not been accompanied by adequate increases in the rate of economic development. this fast but inadequately managed urbanisation has created a huge demand for urban housing which could not be met by the government and the organised formal sector in major nigerian cities. as a result, 20 to 35 percent of urban housing in nigerian cities is either dilapidated or in dire need of major repairs due to the poor housing conditions in the various housing programmes (bello & egresi, 2017; muhammad & bichi, 2014). owerri, the capital territory of imo state, is not left out in urbanisation and population growth. from 2006 to 2016, owerri has experienced an average population growth rate of 4.04% (united nations, 2022). the resultant effect of this population growth are evident in the urban housing crisis which has affected the housing conditions as the supply of housing stock manifestly lags behind the needs of the populace. this was corroborated by aotearoa (2009) as cited in umeora (2020a). housing condition is a vital influential factor of the habitability of buildings as it shows the level of resident’s well-being. isma’il et. al. (2015) posited that there are severe housing shortages in urban centres caused by poor housing conditions. this manifests in the high number of people living in public quarters that lack basic physical and social amenities. housing conditions refer to the sum of external effects (natural and man-made) that make the housing units comfortable for the inhabitants. they play a major role in the health status of occupants as they impact the physical, social, economic, and mental well-being of occupants (turunen et. al, 2010). the world health organisation (who) also stated that housing should be able to minimise the following for the occupants: physical injury, protracted diseases, as well as reduce psychological and social stresses to the barest minimum. the imo state housing corporation (imshc) was established under section 3 edict no. 14 of 1976. imshc has the mandate to design and supervise the construction of houses, the acquisition of houses, the management of housing global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 75 estates, rental to the members of the public, maintenance of buildings, and other infrastructure needed for the proper functioning of the estates (imo state housing corporation). some of the imshc estates in owerri were developed over 30 years ago, and it seems the management agency that has the responsibility of monitoring and supervising the activities of the estates has not lived up to its expectations. the managers of the estates, judged by their primary duty of ensuring that the building units in the estates and the facilities do not deteriorate, have fallen short of expectation. the dwelling units lack maintenance operations, and this has resulted to evident decay in quality of the various housing estates. when housing estates are poorly or inadequately managed, tragic consequences, such as ill-maintained buildings, poor sanitation, and various environmental health hazards could emanate. okoye et al. (2018) affirmed that management of waste in the environment is crucial for healthy living. ibem et al. (2013) noted that housing enables occupants to carry out different activities – work, rest, leisure, fitness and social interactions in the neighbourhood. muoghalu (1987), as cited in umeora (2018), posited that of all the dimensions of housing, management is the most crucial in explaining level of satisfaction of residents. maintenance level, empathy, responsiveness and strictness were identified as the major components of managerial competence. therefore, proper housing management is indispensable for keeping the buildings and amenities in serviceable conditions to ensure residents’ satisfaction and good housing conditions (hui, 2005). the owerri capital territory has, over the years, witnessed the migration of people from different parts of nigeria. consequently, some housing estates have been put under pressure. some of these estates lack basic amenities such as electricity, water drainages, potable water, proper waste disposal systems, and good roads; instead, what one sees there are bad roads, defaced facades, and broken roofs, among other signs of inadequate maintenance. the lack and inadequacy of these affect the housing conditions. additionally, poor housing conditions and quality are associated with health conditions such as respiratory diseases, depression, nausea, allergic symptoms, hypothermia, and physical injury. some human activities in imo state housing corporation estates, such as poor drainage planning, building along the drainage profile and blocking of drainage channels, and lack of coordinated maintenance management activities have also contributed to poor housing conditions. some poor housing conditions in the estates are manifest in surface dampness on the walls, peeling of paints, and algae growth on the walls, and runoff of surface water causing erosion in the environment. salleh et al. (2012) identified some management issues which have impact on housing conditions and residents’ global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 76 level of satisfaction in housing; they include the following: occupants’ selection procedures, laws implementation, time taken to respond to residents’ complaints, environmental security and overall quality of maintenance carried out by the management. this study was part of a wider research that sought to examine the effect of housing conditions on housing quality in imo housing corporation estates in owerri capital territory to provide guidelines for improving housing conditions in the study area. for this particular study, the objective was to investigate the relationship between housing management and housing conditions in imo state housing corporation estates in owerri, nigeria. a null hypothesis was put forward which sought to establish the significant relationship between housing management system and housing conditions in the estates. it stated that there is no significant relationship between housing management and housing conditions in imo state housing corporation estates in owerri, nigeria. area of study the area of study, owerri capital territory, is situated in imo state, nigeria. owerri is the capital of imo state, nigeria. it was created by the military administration of general murtala ramat muhammed on february 3rd 1976. nigeria is a country in west africa that is situated in the northern latitudes between 4o and 14o and between 3o and 15o of the eastern longitudes. it borders niger in the north, chad in the northeast, cameroon in the east, and benin in the west. nigeria covers an area of 923,769 square kilometres, with a population of over 211 million (national population commission, 2006). figure 1 shows the map of nigeria showing 36 states and the study area. figure 1: map of nigeria showing imo state and the study area (owerri capital territory) source: chukwu (2024) global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 77 owerri capital territory is approximately 100 square kilometres in area. it is located along the crossroad of major commercial routes in southeast nigeria, which are onitsha-owerri express road, owerri-port harcourt express road, owerri-umuahia road and owerri-aba road. owerri capital territory comprises the following local governments in imo state: owerri municipal, owerri west, owerri north and parts of mbaitoli, aboh mbaise, ngor okpala, ohaji/egbema and ikeduru local government areas. owerri capital territory is located between latitudes 05˚25’ and 05˚32’ north and longitudes 06˚57’ and 07˚07’. rainfall is the greatest climatic variable with an annual total mean of 2190mm (chukwuocha, ngah, & chukwuocha, 2017). other climatic data of the study area include an average annual high temperature of 32°c (89.96°f ), an annual low temperature of 23.19°c (73.74°f), average annual precipitation of 229.07cm and humidity of 74.78% (nigerian climatic classification, 2023). weather parameters are paramount in this era of climate change. also, relative humidity, amount of sunshine and wind speed, among others, are weather parameters which play a role in determining the amount of rainfall received in an area. literature review there is a consensus that management/institutional framework plays a key role in housing policy formulation and implementation (ibem, 2011). management is usually inspired by the need to be cautious in the usage of assets and judicious in the usage of time in attaining pre-stated objectives. obodoh (2009) defined management as the scheduling, coordination, and control of the essential resources for the achievement of stated goals. the relationship between the management system of housing and the residents exerts a great impact on housing quality. if there is a cordial relationship between them, matters of maintenance of infrastructure will be addressed timely to reduce dilapidation. issues under management variables are the type and quality of services rendered by the managers, time taken by the managers in treating residents’ complaints and ensuring environmental sanitation. the imo housing corporation has the mandate to control and manage the development of housing units and perform such other functions as the commissioner of housing and urban development may direct. those functions may also include to design and supervise housing programmes for the state government; award contracts for the development of housing estates, assess infrastructure needed in layouts of housing estates owned or managed by the corporation; oversee the maintenance of buildings, roads, footways, bridges, drains, sewers and water courses for or in connection with housing estate owned or managed by the corporation (imo state housing corporation, n.d.). global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 78 to assist the harmonisation between residents in running some of the shared facilities of housing, a certain level of organisation from the management is necessary. although there is mounting interest in research examining the effects of management on housing performance, few works have looked at the correlation between housing management systems and housing condition (aotearoa, 2009). given that most housing schemes are constructed to stipulated standards, the buildings and facilities in the estates generally perform optimally at that new state, until they start to deteriorate when subjected to inhabitation and usage. therefore, appropriate maintenance and management of amenities in the housing estates are crucial for keeping the amenities in functional conditions to ensure residents’ satisfaction (hui, 2005). some of the stipulated standards of housing condition address: aesthetics, sanitation, drainage, age of the building, access to basic housing facilities, burglary, spatial adequacy, noise level within the neighbourhood, sewage and waste disposal, air pollution and ease of movement, among others. lanrewaju (2012) noted poor housing condition in public housing programmes in maintenance of facilities within the estate as well as poor management approach towards residents’ problems in the estate. salleh, yosuf, salleh and johari (2012) identified management issues which have impacted housing conditions in housing estates, including the sociability of the managers, residents’ selection procedures, implementation of bye-laws, time taken to respond to residents’ complaints, security of the neighbourhood and quality of maintenance works done by the managers. methodology the research design for this study was survey design, and it was accomplished through the use of a questionnaire to collect data from respondents in the study area. the research population was the completed imshc estates within owerri capital territory, built and inhabited between 1976 and 2016 when the last housing estate was completed. stratified sampling of the estates based on building type was adopted as the sampling method for this study. in the first stage, the list of the 14 estates completed and occupied in the study area was generated as shown in table 1. table 1: list of imo state housing corporation estates in owerri capital territory s/n name of estate 1 aladimma 2 prefab 3 prefab extension i 4 prefab extension ii global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 79 5 uratta road 6 trans-egbu 7 umuguma area ‘s’ 8 umuguma area ‘x’ 9 umuguma area ‘xa’ 10 tavron prefab estate 11 city garden estate mcc road 12 redemption housing estate 1 avu/obinze 13 exclusive garden estate phase i&ii nekede 14 oforola housing estate oforola source: imo state housing corporation, n.d in the second stage, the categorisation of the estates based on building type was done. the categorisation of the estates is 1 bungalows; 2 bungalows and duplexes; 3 bungalows and 3-storey blocks of flats. table 2 describes the categorisation based on the above-stated criteria. table 2: list of imo state housing corporation estates in owerri categorised by house type in the estates s/n bungalow bungalow and duplex bungalow and 3 storey block of flats 1 redemption estate prefab estate trans-egbu estate 2 aladimma estate umugwuma estate 3 uratta road estate oforola estate 4 tavros estate city garden estate 5 nekede exclusive garden estate source: fieldwork, 2022 following the categorisation, random sampling by balloting was carried out and the following were picked to represent the various building types: i. bungalows: aladimma estate and uratta road housing estate ii. bungalows and duplex combined: prefab estate and city garden estate iii. bungalow and 3 storey block of flats: trans-egbu. sampling size was derived using the cochran formula for finite population: from kothari (2004) n = z2 x σ2 p x n (n-1) e2 + z2 x σ 2 p where n = size of sample for finite population; n = research population = 1484 housing units; σp = standard deviation of population assumed = 0.5; e global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 80 = significance level (precision/acceptable error) chosen = 0.05; z = standard variate at a given confidence level = 1.96 for a confidence level of 95%. a sample size of 305 respondents was derived and distributed to the estates in ratio to their contribution as shown in table 3. table 3: respondents population in sampled estates aladimma estate uratta road prefab city garden trans-egbu housing units 556 310 267 10 341 sampled 114 64 55 2 70 source: fieldwork, 2022 a systematic random sampling was used in the selection of housing units in each street of the housing estates. after the first house, every fourth house was surveyed. in each house, in the case of a multi-family unit, one household would be administered the questionnaire. pearson's product moment correlation analysis was used to test the significant relationship between the two interval variables selected from the research data using statistical package for social sciences. results and discussion analysis of aggregated data on the availability of procedures for maintenance operations in the estate from the data gathered, 90.2% of the respondents indicated that there was no available procedure for maintenance operations in the estates. this could be part of the reasons why there was a decline in the housing quality in the area (see table 4). table 4: aggregated data on availability of procedures for maintenance operations in the estate value label frequency valid percent cumulative percent yes 28 9.8 9.8 no 259 90.2 100.0 total 287 100.0 source: fieldwork, 2023 analysis of aggregated data of management of maintenance of facilities in the estate the data analysed revealed that most of the respondents pointed out that management of maintenance of facilities in the estates was handled by the global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 81 residents while 7% showed that imshc managed the facilities. see table 5 for details. table 5: aggregated data on management of maintenance of facilities in the estate value label frequency valid percent cumulative percent imshc 2 .7 .7 residents 270 94.1 94.8 both parties 15 5.2 100.0 total 287 100.0 source: fieldwork (2023) analysis of aggregated data of communication channels in the estate the results collected indicated that most of the respondents communicated with the housing corporation by visiting the office. a few of the respondents stated that they communicated with the imshc either by phone calls or sms. table 6 shows this. table 6: aggregated data on communication channels in the estate value label frequency valid percent cumulative percent sms 1 .3 .3 phone calls 16 5.6 5.9 visit to office 241 84.0 89.9 internet 1 .3 90.2 all of the above 28 9.8 100.0 total 287 100.0 source: fieldwork (2023) analysis of aggregated data of duration to react to resident’s complaints in the estate the data analysed indicated that it took between 4-6 days to react to resident’s complaints as noted by the majority of the respondents. 36.9% of the respondents agreed that it took more than six (6) days for imshc to react to their complaints. table 7 shows this. table 7: aggregated data on duration to react to resident’s complaints in the estate value label frequency valid percent cumulative percent 1-3 days 17 5.9 5.9 4-6 days 164 57.1 63.1 more than 6 days 106 36.9 100.0 total 287 100.0 source: fieldwork (2023) global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 82 analysis of aggregated data on the regularity of corporation visits to the estate from the data gathered, it could be seen that most of the respondents (35.9%) confirmed that the regularity of the corporation's visit to the estate was twice a year while 31.0% agreed that the regularity of the corporation's visit to the estate was quarterly and 18.8% of the respondents accepted once a year. this is illustrated in table 8. table 8: aggregated data on regularity of corporation visits to the estate value label frequency valid percent cumulative percent monthly 10 3.5 3.5 bi-monthly 24 8.4 11.8 quarterly 89 31.0 42.9 twice a year 103 35.9 78.7 once a year 54 18.8 97.6 others 7 2.4 100.0 total 287 100.0 source: fieldwork (2023) analysis of aggregated data on the availability of security in the estate the investigation revealed that 57.1% of the respondents confirmed the availability of security measures in the estates within the study area as shown in table 9. table 9: aggregated data on availability of security in the estate value label frequency valid percent cumulative percent yes 164 57.1 57.1 no 123 42.9 100.0 total 287 100.0 source: fieldwork (2023) analysis of aggregated data of arrangement of security in the estate it could be observed that the majority of the respondents indicated that the arrangement of security in the estate was handled by residents (individuals). few of the respondents noted that security arrangement was done centrally by the estate (see table 10). table 10: aggregated data on arrangement of security in the estate value label frequency valid percent cumulative percent estate central 56 19.5 19.5 individual 209 72.8 92.3 both 22 7.7 100.0 total 287 100.0 source: fieldwork (2023) global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 83 analysis of aggregated data of management of central security in the estate the data collected showed that the majority of the respondents stated that management of central security in the estate was done by the residents. a few of the respondents stated that imshc managed security in the estates while a minute percentage (1.7%) stated that the government managed security arrangements. table 11 shows this. table 11: aggregated data on management of central security in the estate value label frequency valid percent cumulative percent imshc 6 2.1 2.1 estate residents 276 96.2 98.3 government 5 1.7 100.0 total 287 100.0 source: fieldwork (2023) analysis of aggregated data on the state of repair of external walls the state of repair of walls was examined and the results showed that a greater percentage (41.5%) of the external walls were in a bad state of repair while the external walls in a good state of repair were less at 38.3%. table 12 shows the details. this means that the buildings in a bad state of external wall repairs were in a poor state, and they were not fit for human inhabitation. table 12: aggregated data on the state of repair of external walls in the buildings value label frequency valid percent cumulative percent very good 15 5.2 5.2 good 110 38.3 43.6 not sure 30 10.5 54.0 bad 119 41.5 95.5 very bad 13 4.5 100.0 total 287 100.0 source: fieldwork (2023) analysis of aggregated data on the state of repair of the roof from the data gathered and analysed, roofs in bad state of repair were greater in number with 47.7% of the respondents indicating so while the ones in good state of repair were 34.1%. this implies that most of the roofs were in a bad state and needed urgent repairs and improvement. figure 2 illustrates this. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 84 figure 2: aggregated data on the state of repair of roofs in the buildings source: fieldwork (2023) aggregated data analysis of waste disposal facilities in the estates from the analysis, there was a high level of inadequate waste disposal facilities in the estate, as reported by 31.7% of the respondents; 21.3% of the respondents reported that waste disposal facilities were adequate. table 13 displays the result. table 13: aggregated data on waste disposal facilities in the estate value label frequency valid percent cumulative percent very inadequate 19 6.6 6.6 inadequate 91 31.7 38.3 undecided 106 36.9 75.3 adequate 61 21.3 96.5 very adequate 10 3.5 100.0 total 287 100.0 source: fieldwork (2023) analysis of aggregated data of state of repair of buildings it can be observed from table 14 that most of the respondents stated that the buildings in the estates were in a bad state of repair and 26.8% of the respondents stated that the buildings were in a good state of repair. this revealed that most of the buildings were in poor condition and unfit for human dwelling. table 14: aggregated data on the state of repair of building in the buildings value label frequency valid percent cumulative percent very good 14 4.9 4.9 good 77 26.8 31.7 7.3, 7% 34.1, 34% 7, 7% 47.7, 48% 3.8, 4% very good good not sure bad very bad global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 85 not sure 69 24.0 55.7 bad 115 40.1 95.8 very bad 12 4.2 100.0 total 287 100.0 source: fieldwork 2023 analysis of aggregated data of flaking/peeling wall finish used in the housing estates most of the respondents indicated that the paint on the internal walls was peeling off. this implies that a greater proportion of the buildings have their paint peeling off as shown in figure 3. it implies that most of the buildings need to be repainted to improve their aesthetic appearance. figure 3: data on flaking/peeling wall finish used in the housing estates. source: fieldwork (2023) test of hypothesis the variables ‘flaking/peeling wall finish’ (pwf) and ‘availability of procedures for maintenance operations’ (apmo) were selected for this analysis. the two variables are of nominal variable category; therefore, the chi-square test of independence analysis tool was applied towards examining the significance of the relationship. the result from the analysis carried out showed 0.776 as the chi-square value, with a df value of 1 and a p-value of 0.038 as presented in table 15. this p-value of 0.038 is less than the chosen α-value (i.e., acceptable significance level) of 0.050 for this research, implying therefore that it is accepted as significant. it is established, hence, that the relationship that exists between the two investigated variables can be stated to be statistically significant for this study. the alternate hypothesis, which states that ‘there is significant relationship between flaking/peeling off wall finish and ‘availability of procedures for maintenance operations in imo state housing global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 86 corporation (imshc) estates in owerri capital territory’, is thus accepted. table 1: result of chi-square test of independence analysis of relationship between pwf and apmo availability of procedures for maintenance operations flaking/peeling wall finish chi-square 0.776a df 1 p-value .038 source: fieldwork (2023) conclusion and recommendations the study showed that the housing management affects housing condition in imo state housing corporation (imshc) estates in owerri capital territory. obodoh (2009) stated that the relationship between managers of housing estates and the residents exerts a great impact on housing quality. if there is an amiable relationship between them, issues of maintenance will be addressed timely to reduce dilapidation. hui (2005) stated that a proper management system is essential for keeping the housing in serviceable conditions to ensure good quality at all times. no system can function adequately without a proper management system, housing estates inclusive. the management can be made up of administrative and technical staff. the latter, which should be made up of professionals in the building industry, should be included in the planning and design of the estates. the former should see to the running of the estates by ensuring that the guidelines established are kept to by residents. they should carry out supervisory roles in conjunction with technical staff to get feedback from the residents. while investigating the management systems and housing conditions in the area of study, it was proven that there is significant relationship between flaking/peeling off of wall finish and the availability of procedures for maintenance operations in imo state housing corporation. it is also noted that the availability of procedures for maintenance operations had significant correlation with the state of repair of external walls. therefore, it is recommended that: i. for prompt maintenance of facilities in buildings the residents should undertake it. for maintenance of facilities in the neighbourhood, imshc should undertake that. there should be a legal provision to enable the residents to enforce maintenance activities in the environment by imshc. to lessen abuse of the residents, there should be a provision to enable the residents to withhold rent or annual development fee paid to compensate for maintenance executed by them in the event of delays by the estate managers. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 87 ii. the time taken to respond to residents’ complaints should be improved upon by ensuring prompt response to complaints. from the analysis done, it was evident that it takes more than a week to respond to residents’ complaints. this situation should be reversed by taking into consideration other means by which the imshc could attend to various complaints by the residents. this may be by having a liaison office within the estate where residents can also drop comments and suggestions. leveraging on this, the feedback system is guaranteed, leading to a working partnership between imshc and the residents, which is useful. these recommendations, if implemented, could lead to an increased level of housing quality in the imshc estates. references aotearoa, t. (2009). measuring housing quality: potential ways to improve data collection and housing quality in new zealand. review of housing statistics report. bello, a. & egresi, i. (2017). housing conditions in kano, nigeria: a qualitative assessment of adequacy. analele universităţii din oradea, seria geografie, 2, 205-229 chukwu, n.n. (2024). effects of housing conditions on housing quality in imo state housing corporation estates, owerri capital territory, nigeria. a ph.d thesis in the department of architecture, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, nigeria. chukwuocha, n. a., ngah, s. a., & chukwuocha, a. c. (2017). vulnerability studies of sensitive watershed areas of owerri south east nigeria using digital elevation models. journal of geoscience and environment protection, 1-3. hui, e. y. y. (2005). key success factors of building management in large and dense residential estates, facilities, 23 (1/2), 47 – 62. kothari, c. r. (2004). research methodology: methods and techniques (2nd ed.). new delhi: new age international ltd. ibem, e.o., (2011), evaluation of public housing in ogun state, nigeria. (doctoral thesis), department of architecture covenant university, ota, ogun state. imo state housing corporation. (n.d.). housing types in the imo state housing corporation owerri. owerri: standard press limited. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 88 isma'il, m., ishaku, e., yahaya, a., tanko, m., & ahmed, h. t. (2015). urban growth and housing problems in karu local government area of nasarawa state, nigeria. global journal of reasearch and review (gjrr). 45-53, lanrewaju, f. a. (2012). urbanization, housing quality and environmental degeneration in nigeria. journal of geography and regional planning, 423-425. muhammad, m., & bichi, a. m. (2014). contraints and challenges on housing provision in kano city, nigeria. international journal of advancements in research & technology, volume 3, 4-23. muoghalu, l.n. (1987). a comparative evaluation of residents’ satisfaction with public and private rental housing in benin city nigeria. a ph.d thesis in the department of geography and regional planning, university of benin, nigeria. nigerian climatic classification. (2023, june 15). https://tcktcktck.org. retrieved from weather and climate. obodoh, c.m. (2009). assessment of the impact of institutional control in the management of public estates: a case study of central bank of nigeria quarters, enugu, (m.sc. dissertation) in the department of estate management, faculty of environmental studies, university of nigeria, enugu campus okoye, b.s.a., umeora, c.o., ifebi, o.c. & onwuzuligbo, c.c. (2018). effects of sewage disposal systems on the environment in public housing estates in enugu metropolis. african journal of environmental research, 1(1). 120-131. http://journal .coou.edu.ng/index.php/ajer salleh, a. n. a., yosuf, b. n. a., salleh,. a. g., & johari, d. n. (2012). tenants satisfaction in public housing and its relationship with rent arrears: majlis bandaraya ipoh, perak, malaysia. international journal of trade, economics and finance, 2(1), 10-18. turunen, m., paanala, a., villman, a. n., & haverinen-shaughnessy, u. (2010). evaluating housing quality, health and safety using an internet-based data collection and response system: a crosssectional study. environ health. umeora, c.o (2018). housing management and residents’ satisfaction in housing estates in enugu metropolis, nigeria: case study of central bank of nigeria quarters, enugu. african journal of environmental global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 89 research. 1(2), 52-63 umeora, c.o. (2020). examination of state of repair of buildings in private housing estates in enugu metropolis, enugu state nigeria. journal of environmental sciences and resources management, 12(1), 52-66. united nations. (2022). world population prospects 2022. new york: united nations department of economic and social affairs/population division. author information: nnanyere n. chukwu works at tertiary education trust fund (tetfund) south-east zonal office, enugu, nigeria. email: emekacnn@gmail. com chukwunonso o. umeora is of department of architecture, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, anambra state, nigeria. email: coumeora@gmail.com charles c. munonye is of department of architecture, chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu university, anambra state, nigeria. apa chukwu, n. n., umeora, c. o., & munonye, c. c. (2025). relationship between housing management and housing conditions in imo state housing corporation estates in owerri, nigeria. global online journal of academic research (gojar), 4(1), 73-89. https://klamidas.com/gojar-v4n1-2025-05/. mla chukwu, nnanyere n., umeora, chukwunonso o. & munonye, charles c. “relationship between housing management and housing conditions in imo state housing corporation estates in owerri, nigeria”. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1, 2025, pp. 73-89. https://klamidas.com/gojarv4n1-2025-05/. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 90 exploring the impact of integrative artificial intelligence tools on the writing proficiency of university students in kano state mudassir hassan & adebayo abubakar funsho abstract the integration of artificial intelligence (ai) tools in educational context has significant implications for students’ writing skills, often resulting in detrimental effects. current scholarship highlights that while ai tools offer certain advantages, overreliance on them can lead to cognitive offloading, which in turn diminishes critical thinking abilities and stifles creativity. this study aims to assess the impact of ai tools on university students’ academic writing skills, as well as to examine the ethical concerns surrounding the adoption of ai technologies in writing processes. employing mixed-method approach in the study, data were collected from three hundred and twenty (320) university students and fifty (50) language teachers via questionnaire, pre-test and post-test scores from essay writing tasks. data collected through questionnaire were analyzed descriptively, while inferential analysis was employed to address the stated hypotheses. findings of the study reveal that the presence of ai tools reduces students’ capacity to produce high-quality academic discourse and promotes unethical practices. therefore, the study reveals significant negative impact of ai on students’ writing capabilities and the prevailing manifested trend of cognitive offloading. based on the findings, it is recommended that teachers and relevant stakeholders adopt ai tools as complementary resources, while reinforcing traditional writing methods that nurture critical thinking, creativity and students’ expression. keywords: artificial intelligence, cognitive offloading, chatgpt, writing proficiency, creativity introduction the significant advancement in information and communication technology (henceforth, ict) that has uniquely defined the 21st century creates an environment that encourages human-like thought or cognitive-like content global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 91 produced by artificial cognitive systems. this major shift suggests that the era of unchallenged human cognitive supremacy is no longer predominant, particularly when it comes to content generated through human thought processes. in fact, this transformation has been largely driven by the recent emergence of artificial intelligence (henceforth, ai). while scientists applaud this remarkable achievement in science and technology, this revolutionary trend has simultaneously sparked extensive discussions among scholars. in the context of teaching and learning, there is an increasing concern about the potential negative effects of this technology on students’ ability to engage actively in academic endeavours related to self-generated intellectual discourse, creativity and critical thinking. some scholars argue that the absence of comprehensive preventive measures to regulate students’ indiscriminate use of ai-generated content, which they present as their original work, is pedagogically detrimental. in addition, the widespread adoption of ai technology has the potential to diminish students’ writing skills, creativity and critical thinking. on the other hand, other scholars maintain an optimistic view of ai’s role in enhancing students’ writing capabilities. they contend that advancements in ai can be effectively harnessed to augment and complement human efforts, regardless of the specific context in which they are applied. as a result, the applications and complementary functions of ai are diverse. these different perspectives have led to renewed interest in assessing the positive contributions of ai technology in education. therefore, the primary focus of this study is to examine the potential threats posed by ai technology and its associated online platforms, such as chatgpt, on the writing abilities of university students in kano state, nigeria. aim and objectives of the study the present study seeks to investigate the potential effects of ai on students’ writing proficiency. specifically, it explores the influence of ai tools and technologies, including automated writing assistants and language generation technologies (henceforth, lgt), on the writing skills of university students. in addition, the study has the following objectives: 1to examine the impact of ai technology on university students’ writing skills in kano state. 2to assess the ethical implications related to the use of ai tools on students’ writing skills. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 92 research questions the following research questions are set to guide the study: 1what is the difference between the learning outcome of university students taught writing through the ai technology and those taught using the traditional approach in kano state? 2how does the application of ai tools in students writing processes affect ethical standard? research hypothesis ho1: there is no significant difference between the learning outcome of university students taught writing through ai technology and those taught using the traditional approach in kano state. ho2: there is no significant impact of ethical issues associated with the use of ai tools on students’ writing skills. review of previous related studies the inclusion of ai within educational context has attracted considerable scholarly attention in recent years, particularly concerning its implication for students’ writing proficiency. empirical studies and scholars’ views show divergent perspectives. some suggest that the integration of ai technologies can effectively support and enhance multiple facets of writing skills by offering positive personalized feedback, providing linguistic assistance and promoting creativity, as well as enhancing language usage (yarima, 2024). on the other hand, others believe that ai technologies have significant negative impact on students’ ability to write excellent academic discourse. the primary concerns regarding ai effect on students’ writing include detrimental over-reliance on ai tools, erosion of critical thinking and creativity, undermining of fundamental writing skills, harmful impact on academic integrity, as well as possible overall decline in students’ writing ability (hassan, 2024). studies conducted by idham, rauf & rajib (2024), zafrullah, meisya & ayumi (2024), psatama & hashuti (2024), risang (2023), ramadhan et al. (2023), cascidy (2023 in yarima, 2024) and bhutoria (2022) indicate that aibased writing assistance tools such as grammar checker and automated content generators facilitate and enhance various aspect of students writing proficiency. idham, rauf & rajib (2024) report that ai tools provide useful personalized feedback and instruction which are significantly useful in providing tailored suggestions for improving students’ writing skills. in addition, zakrullah, meisya & ayumi (2024) indicate that ai tools enhance global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 93 writing capacity of students, while psatama & hashuti (2024), risang (2023) and ramadhan et al. (2023) argue that ai tools, not only improve students writing skills, but motivate students’ active practical participation in writing processes which is a radical positive departure from the traditional teachercentered approach. moreover, malik et al. (2023) explores the impact of ai technologies in academic essays writing using a case study design. the study involved 245 undergraduate students from 25 tertiary institutions in eastern and central indonesian provinces. data for the study were collected through online questionnaire instrument. findings of the study reveal that ai tools enhance students’ writing abilities, develop self-efficacy and academic integrity. furthermore, studies conducted by aljuaid (2024), teng & wang (2023) and zhao et al. (2023) indicate that ai tools improve students’ writing proficiency, and boost their confidence and productivity during the writing process. one of the primary concerns regarding ai on students writing is the risk of students developing an over-reliance on ai-based writing assistance tools (abwat), such as grammar checkers and automated content generators. studies by basha (2024) and perkins (2023) indicate that ai technologies chatgpt can generate unique and logical content that can evade detection, giving rise to significant concern over academic integrity. in addition, it is indicated by the findings that ai tools negate the development of basic foundation skills, critical thinking and make students inactive in academic performance. similarly, studies by budai & backer (2020 in yarima, 2024), borenstien & howard (2021), kyoungwon et al. (2021 in yarima, 2024) and abd rahman et al. (2023 in yarima, 2024) reveal that students who depend heavily on ai tools, experience a significant decline in their ability to write. besides, ai tools provide a false proficiency level of students, thereby disallowing teachers to locate students’ deficiency. in a recent study conducted by yarima (2024), it is revealed by the findings that ai tools make students less motivated to engage in the repetitive process of writing, as they perceived ai tools as a shortcut to producing polished writing without investing the necessary effort. in the same vein, it is affirmed by turner (2024) that when students use ai tools to generate ideas and compose entire texts, originality and innovative thought in writing become stifle. in addition, adamu (2024) argues that ai tools can lead to shallow analyses and weakened argumentative writing skills. besides, findings of the studies conducted by lydia (2023 in yarima, 2024) and derrida (2022 in yarima, 2024) reveal that ai tools diminish students’ ability to write, render them less attentive to grammar usages, spelling, correct use of punctuations, erosion of critical thinking, originality, as well as encourage unethical problem of plagiarism. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 94 based on the scholars’ assessments and the results of studies conducted on the impact of ai tools on the writing proficiency of students, it is clear that the new technology has a significant impact on students’ writing skills – positively and negatively. parts of the positive impact include the provision of real-time feedback on grammar, style and structure and provision of effective guide to students on how to improve their writing efficiency. the technology does not only provide students with opportunity to generate ready-made written content, which support brainstorming, but facilitates personalized learning opportunities, offering tailored suggestions that help students improve their writing proficiency. on the negative perspectives, the technology reduces students’ critical thinking ability due to over-reliance on ai technology for assistance. though ai can be a powerful tool for enhancing writing skills, it should not be used in conjunction with traditional learning methods to ensure a well-rounded development, as well the development of critical thinking skill which is one of the cardinal objectives of writing skills (hassan, 2024). what is more, with ai associated language problems of a learner cannot be exposed, as the writing is not done by him. therefore, deficiencies in language usage cannot be seen and corrected by teachers. the clear gaps identified in the previous studies on the effect of ai technology on students’ writing skills include the fact that most studies, if not all, were carried out in europe and asia, with only a handful conducted in african nations. besides, majority of the studies focus on learners of english as a foreign language (efl). in contrast, this study is conducted in kano state, located in north-west nigeria, within the west african sub-region. additionally, this study involves learners of english as a second language (henceforth, esl) according to catherine (2023 in yarima, 2024) writing ability refers to “the capacity to communicate effectively through written language, allowing students to express their ideas, thought and feeling by demonstrating good command of language usage and organizational skill.” writing ability enables university students to excel both academically and professionally, while also enhancing their personal lives (yarima, 2004). writing encompasses a series of sequential activities leading to continuous learning process. through traditional learning methods, students are consciously and deliberately exposed to different writing activities aimed at developing their critical thinking, creativity, language usage and organizational skills, as well as the ability to develop and articulate their own ideas, rather than relying on content generated by ai tools. from a pedagogical perspective, within the context of english as a second language (esl) education, writing reveals specific areas in which learners may struggle with the target language. this allows teachers to identify such deficiencies and provide the necessary global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 95 support to help students overcome the challenges associated with language learning in the esl context for proficiency. according to febrina and kartolo (2022 in yarima, 2024), the teaching of writing is done to achieve several objectives: promoting students to engage in writing with honesty and responsibility, utilizing language with caution, integrity, and sensitivity; stimulating students’ imagination, creativity and cognitive abilities; and producing written works or essays that are wellorganized, precise, clear, structured and adhere to formal conventional norms. similarly, hassan (2024) asserts that university students are expected to produce writing that is formal and devoid of any informal language usage (hassan & sanusi, 2023). in addition, it is anticipated that students at the university level will generate exemplary academic discourse in their capacity as members of the formal discourse communities. however, the advent of ai technology appears to pose a potential threat capable of undermining the objectives and expectations. methods research design the study employs a mixed-methods design; a quantitative approach using a quasi-experimental design was employed. a pre-test was administered to assess the initial skills levels of the participants in both the control and experimental groups. following this, the experimental group had the opportunity to use ai tools to generate ideas for writing narrative essays for two weeks, while the control group received instruction through the traditional methods without the integration of ai technology. to evaluate the effectiveness of these strategies, a post-test was conducted simultaneously for both groups. the post-test scores were compared with the pre-test scores in order to assess the impact of ai technology on students’ writing skills. in addition, a qualitative approach was also used in the study, with data collected through a questionnaire and analyzed descriptively. population and sample the study population consisted of participants from four selected universities in kano state. a sample size of one hundred and sixty (160) participants for each group, namely the control and experimental groups, was determined using taro yamane guidelines for appropriate sample size selection. a purposive sampling technique was employed to select the sample of the study. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 96 research instrument the study collected data from students’ essays that were given during the pretest and post-test phases. the students’ writings were assessed using a set of scoring criteria for evaluating students’ writing and for giving feedback, writing assessment rubric (waru), developed by spack & burden (2015). the rubric is widely used by researchers as criteria for assessing writing. it provides a comprehensive and all-encompassing guideline for assessing and scoring writing including content, organization, mechanics, language use and vocabulary as presented in table 1 below: a ten items structured questionnaire was also distributed to forty (40) randomly selected lecturers across the four designated universities – ten from each of the universities. the questionnaire was designed in likert format. the items in the questionnaire sought to elicit data on the ethical concern of using ai tools, as well as the impact of the technology on the writing skills of selected university students in kano state, nigeria. data collection and analysis data collected through questionnaire instrument and from the scores obtained from the writing tasks (pre-test and post-test scores) were analysed by employing inferential and descriptive methods. results data presentation and analysis impact of ai technology on the writing skills of university students in kano state global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 97 the descriptive result as shown in table 2, the pre-test score of the control group shows that majority of the students in the group scored low, as the highest percentage of 76.1% failed, while the low percentage of only 24.0% scored high. also, the mean score of the result is 6.2. on the other hand, the academic performance of the students in the pre-test treatment for those in the experimental group shows that 85.9% performed academically low, while only 11.3% scored high. the mean of the group is 5. 9, the standard deviation of the pre-test scores is 10.2 for the conventional group and 8.6 for the experimental group. this means that the results of the two groups are the same; as majority in the two groups performed poorly. on the other hand, the results of the post-test indicate that majority of the subjects in the control group of 96.1% scored high, while only 39.7% scored low. equally, majority of the students, 60.3% scored high, while 43.8% scored low. by comparing the two results, it is evident that the results of the post-test for those in the control group is better as 96.1% passed, while only 60.3% in the experimental group passed. the disparity in the two scores is facilitated by the scoring criteria, which necessitated the removal of certain expressions and usages considered as ai generated. therefore, teaching writing using traditional approach is most effective in facilitating students’ writing skills. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 98 as shown in the analysis, majority of the teachers agreed that ai technology negates students’ ability to write good academic discourse (78.4%), discourages creativity (67.2%), motivates students’ over-reliance on ai content-generated materials (81%), does not facilitate effective grammar usage (76.2%), encourages laziness (69.5%), encourages plagiarism (71.7%), does not improve students’ proficiency in the use of words (84.1%), fails to guide students’ ability to use punctuations (67%), negates students’ expressive and organizational skills (76.3%) and impedes teachers’ effort to identify areas of learners’ deficiencies in the target language. conversely, the response patterns of 21.6%, 32.8%, 19%, 23.8%, 30.5%, 28.3%, 15.9%, 23%, 23.7% and 38.1% show the opposite. therefore, ai technology negates university students’ ability to write good academic discourse. the non-descriptive result pre-test score table 3 shows that there is no significant difference between the academic performance of students’ score in the control and experimental groups as the calculated t-value of 0.5 is less than the t-critical value of 2.086 for a twotailed test at the .05 level of significance for 5 degrees of freedom. therefore, the stated null hypothesis is retained, concluding that the two scores of the pre-test of the two groups did not differ. this means that the pre-test scores show no significant differences of the academic performance between the two groups before their exposure to treatment. post-test scores of the control and experimental groups global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 99 table 4 shows that there is significant difference between the academic performance of students’ scores in the post-test of the control and experimental groups as the calculated tvalue of 2.43 is greater than the t critical value of 2.080 for a two-tailed test at the .05 level of significance for 21 degrees of freedom. therefore, the stated null hypothesis is rejected, concluding that the two scores of the post-test of the two groups differed. majority of the respondents indicate that the use of ai tools by students facilitate increasing concerns on ethical standard, as ai usage inhibits originality. this is because students unconsciously replicate styles suggested by ai hindering their ability to develop their own unique styles. in addition, ai degrades students’ capacity for independent thought and critical analysis. furthermore, issues related to plagiarism and lack of adequate input from the students are parts of the ethical consideration indicated by the majority of the respondents. table 5 shows that there is significant difference between the academic performances of the two groups: control and experimental groups in ethical consideration, as the calculated tvalue of -2.82 exceeds the tcritical value global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 100 of 1.96 for a two-tailed test at the .05 level of significance for 237 degrees of freedom. therefore, the stated null hypothesis is rejected, indicating that there is a significant difference in ethical consideration in the writing of those students in the control group and experimental group respectively. discussion on the findings of the study the findings of the study indicate that students who were taught writing using traditional approaches to teaching without the integration of ai tools demonstrated better academic performance than those who used ai tools in their writing processes. this observation reaffirms concerns expressed by many scholars and language teachers regarding students’ overreliance on ai writing tools; grammar checkers and automated essay generators as a result of their significant negative impact on critical writing skills, particularly, in terms of critical thinking and creativity. in addition, findings of the study suggest that students who employed ai tools allowed the facilities to dictate their writing structures, content, choice of words, grammar and paragraphing, which negated their capacity for original thought and proficiency. on the other hand, students who were taught based on the traditional approaches, without the integration of ai tools, attained a better understanding of the various stages of the writing process, while those using ai tools missed vital opportunities for comprehensive engagement through the stages, thereby undermining their understanding of writing as a complex process. in addition, it is evident that ai tools create a detrimental psychological barrier that negates students’ abilities to exhibit high levels of critical thinking, creativity, originality and aesthetic presentation of ideas. moreover, findings suggest that students who rely on ai tools are engaging in cognitive offloading, which negates the effectiveness of their critical thinking abilities and reduce their creative capacities. similarly, students’ dependence on ai tools affects their foundational writing skills and capacity to construct coherent discourse, thereby undermining their overall writing proficiency. therefore, the study’s findings demonstrate another significant concern: the indiscriminate use of ai tools is causing students to develop a superficial understanding of the conventional writing processes. likewise, the reliance on ai-generated content leads to decreased engagement and negates originality in students’ writing; all these are attributed to the down-to-earth simplicity and convenience of such technology-based tools. it is also indicated by the findings of the study that the integration of ai tools in students’ writing raises several ethical concerns that require careful consideration, particularly, regarding academic integrity, authenticity and the cultivation of critical thinking skills. the ease with which students generate essays using the ai tools can make them to submit work that is not truly their own, thereby encouraging plagiarism and compromising the core values of global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 101 honesty in learning contexts. conclusion and recommendations based on the findings of the study, it can be concluded that ai writing tools offer substantial advantages in areas like grammar correction and content creation. but, it is important to recognize their potential negative effects on students’ writing capabilities. excessive dependence on these resources can impair understanding of the writing process, reduce involvement in critical thinking and impede writing proficiency. consequently, teachers need to find a harmonious approach that combines the use of ai with the cultivation of fundamental writing skills through conventional practices. indeed, a strategic incorporation of technology along with a commitment to skill enhancement is vital for developing both proficiency and competence in students’ writing skills. references adamu, k. 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(2024). artificial intelligence as a learning media in english education: bibliometric using biblioshiny analysis. english language teaching and research journal, 8(1), 71-81 global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 103 author information: dr. mudassir hassan is a lecturer in department of english, faculty of humanities, the nigeria police academy, wudil, kano, nigeria. email: mudakano1973@gmail.com dr. adebayo abubakar funsho is a lecturer in department of linguistics, faculty of humanities, the nigeria police academy, wudil, kano, nigeria. apa hassan, m. & funsho, a. a. (2025). exploring the impact of integrative artificial intelligence tools on the writing proficiency of university students in kano state, nigeria. global online journal of academic research (gojar), 4(1), 91-104. https://klamidas.com/gojar-v4n1-2025-06/. 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[google scholar] global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 104 rethinking motifs in selected children’s literary texts blessing ekpe okpapi & prof (mrs) enajite ojaruega abstract this study evaluates various motifs in selected children’s literary texts against the backdrop of exposing negative and anti-social conducts among children and members of the society. it also foregrounds the artistic merit in the use of various literary tropes by authors of children’s literature in enhancing their appeal to the audience. the primary texts for this study are james ene henshaw’s this is our chance and chinua achebe’s chike and the river. they are selected because they best exemplify the critical use of motifs in achieving the required message that this study is geared towards. the sociological approach to literature which concentrates on the extrinsic elements that examine the relationship between literature and society is applied to determine the artistic elements and motifs in the selected texts. the paper shows that the themes treated in children’s literatures are often those that children are concerned with at various stages of their life – such as heroism, adventure, risk, mischief, fantasy, love, overcoming restiveness, jealousy and so on. the paper, therefore, concludes that since heroism and adventure constitute the major fulcrum of nigerian children’s literature, authors of children’s literature should choose a principal character who is going to be the hero or heroine in their works. thus, the development of the story is the development of the hero/heroine until the end of the story where he/she overcomes the conflict. keywords: children’s literature, motifs, thematic preoccupations, literary texts introduction children’s literature, which is often illustrated, consists of all literary creations for readers and listeners in their teenage or younger years. it is literature meant and intentionally written for children in elementary/primary schools as well as those in junior secondary schools to read and understand. the children, through their encounter with the texts, get involved with the events, setting, actions, intrigues, characters and ideas in the books. in other words, children literature offers the young ones the opportunity to explore global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 105 situations and feelings in literary texts they may have not yet encountered in real life. although critics of children’s literature believe that the characteristics of children’s literature are its short length, limited characters, action, condensation of plot and incident, linear story-line and simple language style, the most important and endearing aspect of children’s literature is its photo illustrations. children’s literature is important because it provides pupils with opportunities to respond to literature. it makes them appreciate their own cultural heritage as well as those of others. it helps develop emotional intelligence and creativity. it nurtures growth and development of their personality and social skills; and it transmits important literature and themes from one generation to the next. various forms of children’s literature abound. they range from biographies, children’s poetry, children’s stories, fables, fairy tales, fantasy, to science fiction, among others. these various forms are well propagated in books, vcds and animated film stations. since one of the functions of children’s literature is to promote morality in children, children’s books usually feature well-illustrated pictures relevant to the text to broaden the children’s knowledge and sensitize them on current socio-political and scientific issues. in this regard, books with themes of greed, dishonesty, injustice, hunger, industry and heroism are well illustrated to portray negative and positive traits that the children should imbibe or discard. the graphic illustrations play a great role in books intended for young readers – texts some critics refer to as “beginner’s books”, especially when they are written for pre-literate children between ages 0-5. these illustrated pictures remain in the memory of the children for a long time. according to lesnik-oberstein (1994, p.6), “even after children attain sufficient levels of literacy to enjoy the story without illustrations, they continue to appreciate the occasional drawings found in chapter books”. nigerian children’s literature are fictional narratives that treat various themes that revolve around heroism, adventure, bravery as well as others that are meant for the edification of the young ones. however, acholonu (2012, p.23) raises concern about the overriding exploitation of the themes of crime and violence in some so-called children’s books with the portraiture of young children involved in criminal acts. this, to acholonu, is inappropriate because it makes a child or the reader of these texts, relive the harrowing experiences that the protagonist goes through. in essence, themes of violence and crime in children’s literature should be toned down. to this end, acholonu, in discussing the use of motifs, primarily focuses on language and its appropriateness, while recommending positive themes, such as heroism, the use of images and various literary devices that enhance the message and aesthetic quality of children’s books. furthermore, while some of the existing scholarship on nigerian global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 106 children’s literature have contributed to the understanding of moral aspects of children’s literature, little studies have been done in the area of heroism and the artistry inherent in creative works that constitute nigerian children’s literature, which is what this essay sets out to investigate. in order to achieve this, the paper focuses on james ene henshaw’s this is our chance and chinua achebe’s chike and the river. the choice of these texts derives from the fact that they best exemplify the themes of heroism, bravery, adventure, etc. which constitute the pedagogical fulcrum of this paper. diverse themes in achebe’s chike and the river and henshaw’s this is our chance multiple themes are explored in the two texts selected for investigation in this essay. they include the themes of heroism/bravery, love, and adventure. other favoured themes are jealousy and hatred. these themes are significant because they express the general experience of children in relation to the environment and human society. children’s literature, therefore, comments on both the positive and negative aspects of society, with the aim of orientating the children to learn from the experiences of persons portrayed in the stories. the theme of heroism is a favoured one in the genre of children’s literature in africa. according to dandatti abdulkadir (1981, p.31), the term ‘hero’ in africa is used to describe “courage and endurance man exhibits in his struggle for survival, or in his pursuit of honour”. he states further that “these actions involve great risk and are considered heroic by the conventions and values of his community”. with specific reference to children’s literature which thrives on the children’s quest for adventure, the thematic orientation foregrounds elements of valour and bravery. the children in their quest to achieve certain goals encounter various ordeals (physical, supernatural and metaphysical) which are also reflected in the texts. these themes are utilized by writers of children’s literature in ways that make their books interesting. chinua achebe’s chike and the river, for instance, explores the themes of heroism/bravery. in the text, chike, as an 11-year old child, had never left his village, umuofia. then, one day, his mother told him that he would be going to onitsha to live with his uncle. this gives him a sense of joy as he had earlier received from his uncle’s servant, michael, highlights of the good things that he is sure to encounter in onitsha. “he was tired of living in a bush village and wanted to see a big city” (p.1). with this mindset, chike is poised for adventure in this new city. at the point of departure, we find the young chike hesitant to leave home. however, chike embarks on his adventure into the city, where he soon finds out that the city may indeed glitter, but it is not all gold. firstly, the child-hero is exposed to the values of the village before embracing the city and all its challenges. but chike soon global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 107 makes friends and is forced to mature quickly in an intimidating metropolis where all manner of dangers lurks. rather than destroy his innocent disposition, the events help in propelling him towards an intriguing adventure that is set ahead of him. for instance, his first challenge which eventually constitutes the conflict in the story revolves around his quest to cross the river niger through ferry to asaba. this ambition made him to pass through various ordeals especially his curiosity to survive among his new classmates and friends in onitsha. his brave quest to cross the river niger to asaba is to show to his friends that he has achieved a feat which in the estimation of his friends is the hallmark of a city boy. as the writer puts it, “anyhow, chike was happy about one thing. he could now talk like the rest of his companions” (p.56). it should be well stated here that chike’s adventure to cross the river niger constitutes an act of heroism, a feat he must achieve in order to be accepted into the fold of his companions. during the journey chike felt as proud as mungo park when he finally reached the niger. here at last was the great river niger. chike stuck out his chest as though he owned the river, and drew a deep breath. the air smelt clean and fresh (p.54). as a proud hero, he added this feat to his name as part of his achievement as a young boy. the writer says – it was all like a dream. chike wondered whether it was actually happening. ‘so this is me’, he thought. ‘chike anene, alias chiks the boy, of umuofia, mbaino district, onitsha province, eastern nigeria, nigeria, west africa, africa, world, universe.’ this was how he wrote his name (p.53). chike’s bravery is also manifested when he exposes the night-watchman and the thieves who stole from a shop in the market. chike is brave despite the man’s aggression towards him. he refuses to be cowed in the face of intimidation by the night watchman who threatened to harm him should he expose him. as a little boy, he is alone in a strange land. his safety is at stake. should anything happen to him, he will be alone at the mercy of fate. but as a brave boy, he needs to show that he has fully imbibed all the morals he received from his mother – especially the one that says, truth is golden and falsehood leads to disgrace. at the end, he becomes a hero in the process of the recovery of the stolen goods. this is why bowra (1952) tells us that heroic literature “may be concerned with any action in which a man stakes his life on his ideal of what he ought to be” (p.48). chike stands his ground and is able to convince the people that the night-watchman was part of the people that stole from the shop. the narrator explains it thus: as chike told his story the night-watchman began to shake. he global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 108 covered his face with his hands to hide his tears. chike became a hero. one big man in the crowd lifted him up and placed him on his shoulders. the others applauded. they said they had never seen such bravery from such a little boy… everywhere people spoke of chike’s adventure. his photograph appeared in the local newspapers and his name was mentioned on the radio. then after the three thieves and the night-watchman had been tried and imprisoned chike got a letter from the manager of the shop. he announced that the company which owned the shop had decided to award a scholarship to chike which would take him right through secondary school (p.66). here, chike’s bravery is recreated as an example for the young reader to emulate. achebe re-imagines this role for the child-hero in a manner that chike’s success will necessarily encourage other young children to stand for the truth at all time and emulate him under similar circumstances. the letter of commendation and award of scholarship from the manager of the shop is a pointer to societal acceptation of his bravery and good deeds. by this, chike becomes a source of inspiration to all young children who aspire to become great in life. the theme of adventure in achebe’s chike and the river provides excitement for young readers because they can share in the experiences of chike who is also young. chike’s journey from his village umuofia and his ambition to cross the river niger give the text an exhilarating appeal that excites the young reader; this is because of the accidental adventure that follows after chike missed the return boat. in his desperation, chike strays by accident into a gang of armed robbers and then he is caught up in the rapidly unfolding events. the passage goes thus: when the lorry stopped the man at the back climbed out. chike opened his eyes but it was pitch dark. the three men were now talking in whispers. then the driver reversed the lorry. for a while there was silence. chike prayed that the men would move away for even one minute so that he could get down and hide. but they did not move. instead, a fourth man came and joined them. from what they said chike understood that this fourth person was the night-watchman. … then he told the driver, whose name was ignatius, to move out the benches from the back of the lorry. chike was half-dead. he heard the man let down the tail-board. but he did not come in. instead he returned to the front of the lorry to get a flash light. in the twinkling of an eye chike slipped out and began to walk away. he had no idea where he was going. it was too dark to see. but he continued walking as quietly as a cat. unfortunately, his foot kicked against a tin and made a noise. the driver shouted: ‘who dat?’ chike turned sharply to his left and ran. his eyes were now used to the darkness and he could see vaguely. he saw something like a door and walked in (p. 61-62) global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 109 the above episode underscores the scary nature of the accidental adventure that the child-hero goes through in his quest to survive in a strange land. the use of suspense and introduction of actions that make the curious reader to pray on behalf of chike that he should not be caught adumbrates the artistic significance of the text. however, the child-hero survives the scary incidents through a dint of luck and the strength of his character and when the situation affords itself for him to display his bravery, he seizes it and becomes the hero that exposes the armed gang. this episode of chike’s adventure thus provides the opportunity for revealing his inner strengths and weaknesses. chike therefore comes up at the end of the story wiser than before. what endears achebe’s chike and the river to the young reader is that it serves as a mirror of life for young children. chike, the child-hero for instance, moves from naïveté and ignorance to self-knowledge and selfdiscovery. life for the young child is like a series of well-planned events all geared towards his personal development and growth. but he succeeds through determination and constant hard work – in spite of temptations to go astray. chike stuck to the lessons he learnt from home and from his mother. he is honest, truthful, courageous, and polite and these are qualities that earn him the success at the end of the story. it is significant to note that although chike is attracted by good life, wealth, and material acquisitions, the ultimate success that achebe allows him to achieve is the prize that gives him great self-confidence and pride which is the scholarship he wins to go to school to receive a good education, the reward for exposing and turning in the criminals. this is thus the new imagination that the story encapsulates. like in achebe’s chike and the river, the theme of heroism and bravery are also explored in james ene henshaw’s this is our chance. at the beginning of the story, we encounter princess kudaro at crossroads with the customs and traditions of koloro kingdom. as the plot develops, it becomes clear that she is poised to change the rigid system of things placed on the people of koloro by their now anachronistic customs and traditions. the only way opened to her is to defiantly elope with the prince of udura (an enemy kingdom) whom she had met in her school in the city. the princess is conscious of the consequences of her action, but as it is typical with all heroic literature where the hero cares less for his/her safety, she runs out of the palace to unite with her lover. her action pits her kingdom against udura. war alarms are sounded and both kingdoms square up for a showdown. as the intrigues continue, bambula, her private teacher, who is another youth, is fingered as the one who radicalised her into taking such a step. bambula is taken to prison, awaiting his death. also, the prince of udura is global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 110 arrested and imprisoned in koloro kingdom. however, the conflict is amicably resolved when news comes from the kingdom of udura that the princess had performed a heroic act by saving the life of one of the sons of chief mboli, the king of udura. of great significance is the act of bravery and heroism displayed by the young lovers in the play. both princess kudaro and prince ndamu defy the age-long animosity between their kingdoms to get married in order to unite the kingdoms. when the young prince ndamu is brought before chief damba, he displays critical features of a hero – fearlessness, composure and wits as revealed thus: damba: (walking around him, and examining him disdainfully.) young man, you interest me, i have two questions for you. firstly, are you the young man called vitamins? secondly, where is my daughter? ndamu: (with princely dignity.) my name is ndamu, prince of the village of udura. it is true that your daughter and i tried to get away. search parties were after us, one from this village and another from my own. i, therefore, tried to hide her under a bush, but before i could find a suitable hiding-place for myself, i was caught by your men. oh i wish i knew what had happened to her: sweet, kind, gentle, obedient kudaro. oh…. (p.23). from the above conversation, the reader is exposed to the fact that king damba’s knowledge is at variance with contemporary realities. he is hooked on the past, hence he mistakes prince ndamu with the notion of vitamin which his daughter’s home teacher had espoused in his several discussions with him. however, further interrogation opens a cultural dimension to the discourse elopement is alien to african culture. but in the play, henshaw uses position as tool towards solving identified problems in the society. these problems are from all indications still the problems of our time. that is, cultural enmity which according to the author must be changed, even if it means total disregard for the old and obsolete cultural principles. of significant import is the cultural perspective that the playwright tries to advocate with the boldness of prince ndamu in defending his attempt to elope with the king’s daughter. herein lies new imagination in the text – multiculturalism can make people of diverse cultures to live together as one as well as intermarry without any hindrance. this concept is given voice in the manner in which the playwright articulates the intrigues in the play where the princess’s life is necessarily hanging in the balance should the king continue to defend traditional values against the new imagination which is global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 111 constitutive of cultural change and assimilation. similar display of bravery and heroism is shown in the action of ayi, kudaro’s young maid who defies the status of the king and questions the place of tradition over humanity. she tells the king bluntly that: ayi: but, sir, where would principles be without men to observe them? and where would men be without human heart beating within them? (p.30) when it becomes obvious that the elders of koloro kingdom will not yield to the voice of reason, as exemplified by the children, ayi confesses to the king thus: ayi: (interrupting). damba, sir, i have lived here with you to learn. but all i knew was from your good wife. i beg you, permit me to leave this village. where i will go i do not know. no matter what happens i shall always treasure the memory of your wife and her last words – “tell damba, for the children’s sake, for the women’s sake, let there be no war…” (p,32). the young maid, ayi, is brave in telling the truth to the leaders of koloro kingdom. to the children, therefore, time has changed and it has come to the point when their education has exposed them to the reality of things. they can no longer cope with primitive customs and traditions that reduce their humanity. in the restoration of the koloro kingdom from the path of selfdestruction, it is the actions of the children that represent the voice of reason and triumph over those of the elders who are brash, divisive and insensitive to reality. the elders dwell in the past and make custom and tradition a fortress that retards their progress. this is why betiang believes that henshaw’s plays, written somehow in the shavian tradition of the problem play, were and are an ‘invitation to action’ towards solving these identified problems in the society. (p.123). according to fanon, a writer from a colonized culture who writes for his people “ought to use the past with the intention of opening the future, as an invitation to action and a basis for hope” (p.187). the children become the basis of hope in the society. what the author has done with the theme of love in this play is to capture the invasion of love bred in the comfort of western education against the african traditional love arrangement. he exposes the battle facing every dare-to-break conventional rule in the pursuit of a new culture that encourages humanity and freedom of choice. as he puts it himself in the preface to the play, there is “the need to preserve good traditions, and at the same time to graft upon them,where appropriate, the best from other countries” (p.5). at the end of the play, education and modernity win against tradition and ethnocentrism. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 112 for instance, chief damba submits to the caprices of the children and accepts the fact that modernity has triumphed over mundane sentiments. he says: “but is this the price of education that our children should dislike what their fathers love, and place high values on what we loathe. perhaps it is the will of our fathers’ spirits that it must be (p.31). peter p. ekeh (1989, p.8-12) articulates this phenomenon as a conflict between the demand of the ‘primordial culture’ and that of the ‘civic culture’. the primordial culture, according to him, is kin-group specific and built around the ‘notional’ and ‘substantive’ concepts of ethnic groups. this type of culture is pre-colonial and based on tribe and carries the tribal ethos and controls. the civic culture, on the other hand, is a colonial contact culture which contains social formations, ideas, values and institutions that arise from the nigerian nation state. civic culture is, therefore, western, modern and urban based. the use of various literary motifs in achebe’s chike and the river and henshaw’s this is our chance in the articulation of the themes of heroism/bravery in henshaw’s this is our chance and achebe’s chike and the river, the writers adopt various motifs and styles with which they address contemporary issues which constitute thematic fulcrum of this essay. these motifs are examined to bring out the salient indices of bravery, fantasy, mischief, love, and others in the works. as has been noted above, the themes prevalent in many of the children’s literature relate to events in the cultural, political and economic milieu of the children. the formation of the right characters, narrative techniques, and appropriate themes in children’s literature is thus the primary concern of the writers of children’s works. in chike and the river, for instance, achebe exhibits the same simple style that is famous in his adult novels. he shows through the adventures of chike that despite the use of a single character around whom the activities revolve he could still deepen our insight and illustrate deeper levels of human nature. for example, at the beginning of the novel, the writer presents a vivid and graphic description of chike’s mood when he hears the news of his going to onitsha to stay with his uncle; the author also contrasts the village setting with that of onitsha. the story goes thus: chike was now eleven years old, and he had never left his village. then one day his mother told him that he would be going to onitsha in the new year to live with his uncle who was a clerk in one of the firms there. at first chike was full of joy. he was tired of living in a bush village and wanted to see a big city. he had heard many wonderful stories about onitsha. his uncle’s servant, michael, had told him that there was a water tap in the very compound where they lived. chike said this was impossible but michael had sworn to its global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 113 truth by wetting his first finger on his tongue and pointing it to the sky. chike was too thrilled for words. so he would no longer wake up early in the morning to go to the stream. the trouble with their village stream was that the way to it was very rough and stony, and sometimes children fell and brake their water-pots. in onitsha chike would be free from all these worries. also he would live in a house with an iron roof instead of his mother’s poor hut of mud and thatch. it all sounded so wonderful. (p. 1-2). the narrative above appeals to boys and girls because the author manages to localize the story in an identifiable environment through the use of familiar activities. this narrative motif endears the story to the young children. besides, the young reader can see the contrasting pictures of the rural and urban environments. the former lacks modern amenities, good water supply, electricity, and modern infrastructure, but it is safe and serene and had the human touch and human face. the urban centre, on the other hand, has physical structures and amenities, but life in them is relatively unsafe. there are frequent drug abuse and fraud. but the beauty of the work is that achebe is careful to show through the experiences and actions of the child-hero in the text that if a child holds on to his or her good upbringing he can survive in any environment. chike and the river is an adventure story. however, the plot revolves around chike’s ambition to cross the river niger in a boat. it is this desire that nearly makes him deviate from his good upbringing as he tries to get money through a magician known as prof. chardus who swindles him thereby depriving him of his three kobo. chike is so desperate to sail across the river that he begs his uncle for some money but the man looked so stern that he had to run from him. nevertheless, his wish is fulfilled when he goes to the riverside to wash cars for people and is rewarded with one naira. the adventure takes a different turn when chike fulfills his ambition and he is enamoured by asaba that he forgets to return to the riverside to catch the last boat to onitsha. the author contrives the story interestingly to include a patriotic act by chike who sleeps in a lorry that is used for robbery. chike helps the police in tracking down the three thieves thereby exposing a thief known as peter nwana the miserly trader. this final act is the crux of the didactic message in the novel. the author uses the message as a motif to teach the simple lesson that all good acts are rewarded. by making chike famous through his brave act, the author is encouraging other boys and girls to emulate him. this is the didactic aspect of the novel that is invaluable. however, within the story, achebe also discusses issues relating to the moral consciousness of children. he indicates this motif in the novel through chike’s abhorrence to filthy environment. in the house in which chike lives there are two latrines for about fifty people, one for adults and the other for children. both are filthy but the children’s own is worse. it swarms with flies global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 114 bigger than any chike had ever seen at umuofia. they revolt him, and so he learns that a big town is not always better than a village. the juxtaposition of onitsha, the town and umuofia, a village is used to inform the reader that a village has certain virtues that can be absent in a town. achebe is thus changing the erroneous concept that a town is filled with only the good things of life. in the same manner, the novelist tells the story of ezekiel, the spoilt child, in order to illustrate a different behaviour from that of chike which must be condemned by all good children. this juxtaposition of the two characters is important. ezekiel is an only son but due to over-pampering he “was developing into a lawless imp.” (p.15). ezekiel formulates a plan in school through which he writes to some pen-friend boys in england asking for money and promising to send them leopard skins. ezekiel has no plan to send them the leopard’s skin because he simply wants their money. his act encourages other boys to send similar letters too. the bad boys are punished when the headmaster discovers their criminal acts. most of the activities in this novel are structured to reflect the importance of good behaviours. the manner in which chike fords a river when he travels with his mates to convey the luggage of a missionary to okikpe gives him confidence. achebe uses that incident to stress that most obstacles that seem insurmountable could yield to brave confident children. this incident is juxtaposed with the incident of some boys who take brain pills to enable them pass examinations. these boys lack confidence in themselves and they break down before the day of examinations thereby losing even the little knowledge they would have been able to produce on the examination day. the most important aspect of achebe’s didacticism in chike and the river is the illustration that a town possesses several influences that could turn a child from his or her good upbringing. he therefore points out some of these problem areas thereby aiding the children in understanding what is good and also helping parents in ensuring that their children are not influenced by bad boys and girls. furthermore, the various literary motifs used by achebe in the novel make it rewarding for children. there are familiar folksongs, idioms and code mixing, humourous anecdotes, games that children play for entertainment and amusement, children’s pranks and slangs, children’s fantasies and daydreaming, children’s nicknames for each other, and children’s perceptions of the adult world, which they discuss among themselves in their peculiar types of dialogue. for example, chike’s classmate, samuel, who is a good footballer gives himself a nick name, s.m.o.g in place of his full name. the novelist puts it thus: s.m.o.g. was samuel’s nickname which he gave himself. his full name was samuel maduka obi: so his initials were s.m.o. then one global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 115 day he saw that if he added a ‘g’ to his initials he would become s.m.o.g, he immediately did so. in onitsha the letters s.m.o.g. were said to bring good luck because they stood for save me o god (p. 4). similarly, chike is called ‘chiksthe boy’ by his peers. when he eventually crosses the river niger, in excitement chike rills out his full name and includes his nickname thus: it was all like a dream. chike wondered whether it was actually happening. ‘so this is me,’ he thought. ‘chikeanene, alias chiks the boy, of umuofia, mbaino district, onitsha province, eastern nigeria, nigeria, west africa, africa, world, universe.’ this was how he wrote his name (p. 53). the use of idioms, slangs and humourous anecdotes are evident in the headmaster’s statement in front of the assembly when he scolded ezekiel and his friends who sent letters to other children in england requesting gifts from them. such idioms and slangs like scallywag and nincompoops were strange to the children and they laughed. the event is well captured thus: ‘that is what these nincompoops here have done to you.’ there was laughter again at nincompoops, another strange word (p. 15). folksongs in the novel are used to express happiness and excitement in the children. chike becomes excited when he makes the money to take the ferry boat to asaba, however, he becomes impatient when the boat seems to take long time in coming. he resorts to singing to keep himself happy. this interesting scenario is captured by the narrator, thus: chike’s dream had come true; at last he could go to asaba. he jumped up and down several times and sang ‘one more river to cross’. it was one of the songs he had learnt at the c.m.s. central school, umuofia (p. 51). all these literary motifs and aesthetic devices are used to reinforce the authenticity of the story and the reality of the children’s world created in the text. in this is our chance, henshaw uses the medium of dramatic literature to foreground the role of children as a stabilising feature in any society. here the author juxtaposes the modern vision and ideas of the children about the ever-changing society against archaic traditional disposition of the adults. the children represent modern civilization which they have acquired through western education while the adults foreground the tenets of retardation dictated by customs and traditions and abhor good neighbourliness. the morals that the author passes across to the society is that exposure through global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 116 education will open society to freedom and progress. through the characters of the young children: princess kudaro, prince ndamu and ayi, the reader is brought into the world of the powerful versus the weak. with clear and simple words, henshaw takes the reader through children’s travail in the hands of the adults who take pleasure in upholding the ancient customs and traditions which are unknown to the children. here, the author pits ayi who represents those ideals of the children against damba and ajugo who oppose them. this idea is aesthetically recreated: ayi: how would you like your daughter killed and your dead? damba: don’t trifle with my wife. ayi: i trifle not, but i must speak my mind. for long i have seen her serve and love you as never a woman has. i have seen her organise the women of this village in their farms and in their homes. i have seen her trying to do everything to make you, and the village, worthy of her. and yet as she lies dying, tortured by all that your stubbornness has brought to her, you sit here and talk of principles, of customs and traditions, and listen to the advice of a man who has no feelings at all. (looking at ajugo).(p.30) through clarity of expression, henshaw projects the nuances of the characters in the text. through the use of language, the text lends itself to the theme of oppression. from the beginning of the text to almost the end, the language use expresses the tension between the forces of retardation typified by the adults and progress represented by the children. the simple but emphatic statement by kudaro that she plans to run away and get married to ndamu already gives the reader and the story a sense of wonder as to what comes next. it brings some presence to the text itself. the statement raises many other questions and makes the reader interested in paying more attention to the text. as the plot develops, the thematic preoccupation continues to be unraveled. throughout this period, the tone of the language is high. the play, therefore, creates a frame to express the oppression of children characters. kudaro, ayi and other children in koloro kingdom who are victimized by the insensitivity of adults yearn for freedom. kudaro expresses her inner feelings to ayi thus: kudaro: (lowering her voice). ayi, my girl, i have a secret for you, it is not that i do not like my home, but i have a handsome young man in the town where i used to go to school (then she smiles as she speaks.) he promised to marry me. but how can he marry me when i am locked up in this village? (she almost weeps.) (p. 12) the children are pictured constantly in one form of discomfort. the children are not given the carefree and naïve characteristics usually associated with global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 117 children. rather, the children are portrayed as emotionally and physically strong, though disturbed. through various literary motifs, the text lends itself to an aesthetic ideal. conclusion the aim of this essay is to demonstrate that the aesthetic goal of the creators of children’s literature is to compose stories that appeal to young adults through the themes treated and literary motifs used. the analysis establishes the fact that children’s literature thematises issues of heroism, bravery, adventure, jealousy and triumphs whose appeal derives essentially from the alluring use of various motifs. thus, the peculiar use of language in the selected texts and other literary motifs are artistic tropes used by writers to make children’s literature in nigeria aesthetically appealing to the reader. references abdulkadir, d. (1981) “oral composition: a historical appraisal” oral poetry in nigeria.uchegbulam n. abalogu. et al (eds). lagos: nigeria magazine. achebe, c.(1966).chike and the river. cambridge: cambridge university press acholonu, c.o. (2012). “the female writer as a goddess” nokoko journal. no. p.20-48 betiang, liwhu (2012). “a critical survey of cultural perspectives in the drama of james ene henshaw, 1924-2003” lwati: a journal of contemporary research, 9(1), 120-133. bowra, c.m. (1966). heroic poetry. london: macmillan. ekeh, peter p. (1989). “the scope of culture in nigeria”. in peter p. ekeh and garba ashiwaju, eds. nigeria since independence: the first 25 years (culture). vii. ibadan: heinemann,1–17. fanon, frantz (1981). the wretched of the earth. harmondsworth: penguin. henshawene james (1956).this is our chanceand other plays. london: university of london press ltd. lesnik-oberstein, karin (1994). children’s literature: criticism and the fictional child. oxford: clarendon press. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1 february 2025 118 author information: blessing ekpe okpapi is of the department of english and literary studies, delta state university, abraka, nigeria. email: blessingekp@gmail. com prof (mrs) enajite ojaruega is of the department of english and literary studies, delta state university, abraka, nigeria. email: ojaruega@delsu.edu.ng apa okpapi, b. e. & ojaruega, e. (2025). rethinking motifs in selected children’s literary texts. global online journal of academic research (gojar), 4(1), 104-118. https://klamidas.com/gojar-v4n12025-07/. mla okpapi, blessing ekpe and ojaruega, enajite. “rethinking motifs in selected children’s literary texts”. global online journal of academic research (gojar), vol. 4, no. 1, 2025, pp. 104-118. https://klamidas.com/gojar-v4n1-2025-07/. 