History and Strategic Studies

The study evaluated the effect of COVID-19 and the containment measures on Nigerian journalists and journalism practice in Nigeria. The study adopted the descriptive survey research design, with a questionnaire and personal interviews as instruments for data collection. A total of 362 copies of the questionnaire were correctly completed and returned by the respondents, and 25 editors and management staff of selected media organizations in Nigeria were interviewed for the study. The study's findings indicated that Nigerian journalists were actively involved in COVID-19 containment efforts in the country and that COVID-19 containment measures negatively affected journalists' performance and journalism practice in Nigeria. It is recommended, among others, that Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) should be provided for a journalist covering the pandemic, and journalists' fundamental human rights should be respected in COVID-19 containment efforts.

The culture of turning mining sites into tourism destinations of the future has remained a path to nation-building in many states. This study investigates the political economy of mining tourism in South Africa. It revealed that even when communities own mining rights, this does not guarantee any sustainability of their mining industry. Many mines in South Africa are closing down; resulting in job losses by many breadwinners. Retrenchment, rather than retirement is a common phrase in the South African mining industry. However, communities and the government are reluctant to explore new products such as mining tourism. The study focused on the mining tourism sector in the North West

The Boko Haram insurgency which started in Maiduguri in 2009 after the extrajudicial killing of its then leader, Muhammad Yusuf, spread like a wildfire to engulf the northeastern part of Nigeria and beyond, thereby becoming an international phenomenon. It led to serious political, economic as well as social dislocations of people in Borno State, millions of people were rendered homeless and ended up as Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) who were either hosted in government established camps, privately owned camps or are staying within the host communities in less vulnerable areas of the State. The magnitude of the destruction by the Boko Haram insurgents in Borno State attracted the attention of national and international humanitarian agencies to respond to the plight of the victims of the insurgency starting from 2014. This paper seeks to examine the role of NEMA and UNICEF in supporting the victims of Boko Haram insurgency in Borno State, particularly in providing them with food items, non-food items and in the education sector. The methodology adopted in this paper is qualitative method which uses primary and secondary sources, which are critically analyzed. However, this paper reveals information regarding Boko Haram attacks on some communities in Borno State, when they received intervention from the humanitarian agencies under discussion and the nature of interventions within the period under review.

There are several authoritative accounts of the history of Arochukwu people-a revered community in Igbo land. Historians wrote some of these accounts of Igbo extraction who share historical link or root with the Aro and those of European writers who were probably influenced by the unverified accounts of insiders and outsiders. These writers seem to agree that Arochukwu people have a high pedigree of social and economic mobility and are imbued with such craftiness that proved them as shrewd merchants and at the same time exhibited high intellectual acumen. They were famous for possessing one of the most powerful, respected and fearsome oracle in Igbo land called Long Juju by the British and Ibina-Ukpabi by the indigenes. It was widely believed that the oracle possessed awesome powers such that it could deliver instant judgement and kill the guilty party. For this widely held belief, it was consulted by people from far and wide. But covertly, the Long Juju was used by the Arochukwu people to facilitate the slave trade and that was one of the reasons why the British ordered a punitive expedition against them in 1902. The strategic location of Arochukwu in the Cross River basin positioned them securely to control the booming slave trade in Igbo land and beyond as middleman to European slave merchants. Strikingly, the slave trade was the major significant economic activity that the Arochukwu people were known to have engaged in which also, gave them fame and made them establish settlements outside their native Aro. Undoubtedly, the Arochukwu is a great people, whose imprints remain indelible in Igbo history but the extent to which their exploits are rendered in current narratives and writings as historical truths are contestable. This paper contends that most written accounts of the Arochukwu people do not represent factual truths but embodies embellishments, myths and conjectures.

The outbreak of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic has seriously impacted negatively on the socio-economic and political activities in the international system. The pandemic has exposed the leadership capacities and health investments cum preparedness of countries across the globe. This paper studies the reactions and responses of nations in containing the deadly virus and observes that while Western nations react rapidly and more proactively, African nations seem to be caught in a web of religious prevarications and State fragility which has impugned on the efforts of States in containing the virus. The paper argues that the Nigerian government’s response so far in containing the virus is indicative of State fragility and that the prevailing perception of the virus as eschatological and nihilistic among the citizens, especially the very religious ones, may further obfuscate and mar government’s efforts in containing the virus. The paper will show how the government’s approach engenders a dire socioeconomic complication which may have more disastrous effects on the political economy of post Covid-19 Nigeria and suggested ways forward.

From the 1980s, Nigeria’s economy has witnessed severe stagnation.
While Eurocentric literature pinpoint the Nigerian civil war and her leaders’ corruptive tendency as the prima facie, Afrocentric literatures trace the country’s economic woes to her historical processes of colonial domination and economic exploitation. Nevertheless, none of the above arguments underpin more firmly as being the catalyst to the country’s economic dysfunction especially when compared to IMF policies in the country. This paper in part, demonstrates that IMF policies in Nigeria vis-a-vis its Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) through its Loan Conditionality is “the crux impediment facing the country.” As such, the paper argues that the acceptance of IMF loans during General Ibrahim Babangida’s among other misgovernance administration perpetuated the economic woes and fostered the backwardness of the country. Employing primary and secondary sources, the paper posits that a more inclusive economic system devoid of the current extractive economic policies would revitalize its fortunes.