ENTERPRENUERSHIP AND SELF-RELIANT
BY
MEDAYESE FELIX JIMOH
Ojounla4eva@yahoo.com, fm.mola@gmail.com, medayesef@unijos.edu.ng, +234(0)8036924588
NOVEMBER 2009.
Abstract
The cuticle discussed acoustical issues concerning self-reliant through enterprenuership. The paper was divided into six (6) sections: Introduction which gave the general background to the concepts of self-reliant and enterprenuership; the correlation of enterprenuership and self-reliant; ways of becoming self-reliant through enterprenuership; importance and benefits of enterprenuership; implication for the family, schools and the government and lastly conclusion.
Introduction:
The problem of self-reliance has been a perpetual and a pressing issue that needed to be address with an iron and serious hands among Nigerian, especially the youth. However, this problem is rooted to our educational system. As schools, only produces graduates who are potential slaves, I mean job seekers, instead of being a job creator. The youth are trained to have a strong believes of salaried job, instead of being self-employed and create jobs for people in their society with strong mind of creativity and initiative.
Isah (2009) asserts, “A core problem of the Nigerian educational system is the theoretical mode of education which she inherited from the colonial masters. It was in response to this change that a technological base National Policy on Education was introduced, there is need to restrain the staffs. In a similar not Babalola (2008) explains that knowledge has been found to change every 4-5 years, hence many graduates with 10years experience requires refresher courses. The Nigerian school curriculum often fails to encourage courses on enterprenuership.
The 9-years Basic Education Curriculum (2004) the fifth features of the programme emphasized on the infusion of creative and critical thanking, entrepreneurial skills and relevant of the National Economic Empowerment and Development strategy (NEEDS) into the relevant content of curriculum. The focal point however, in development of the Basic Education Curriculum was to ensure unfettered access and equity to education for the total development of the individual citizen. Thus, poor, the socially marginalized and vulnerable groups can effectively develop their full capacities and potentials.
Young entrepreneurs often say that, it is exhilarating to plan something, to watch it grow and to know you made it happen. This sentence perfectly describes the reasons most often gives by young entrepreneurs as to why they are in business. In addition, when you talk to other young entrepreneurs you will hear the same thing repeatedly. The most important benefits of starting and running their own business is that they are free to do what they like and how they like it. Indeed, to me, the essence of enterprenuership is the freedom to do what you like most. Some individual with entrepreneurial spirit may spend a few hours a week on their business, while others may spend every working moment trying to make their business successful. The bottom line is that, no matter how much time the business, they feel a sense of pride and a feeling of accomplishment in the end. This sense of fulfillment is more rewarding than money. Some people call this type of fulfillment “psychic income” and this is practically refers to as self-reliance.
ENTERPRENUERSHIP AND SELF-RELIANT
Enterprenuership as factor of production is a body that organizes human and materials resources for the production of goods and services. Enterprenuership may be the owner of a company, or a manager or a board of director of a public company. Whatever he may be, he is the driving force behind the production and movement of goods and services. Well! The explanation above about enterprenuership is limited to certain independence. Enterprenuership in its broader sense is a process of making individual explored their potentials and initiatives or creativities for greatness, which will in turn build their self-confidence in order to become self-reliant and self-sufficient in the race of life.
Enterprenuership is a source of job creation, empowerment and economic dynamism in a rapidly globalizing world. See http:www.teenvestor.com/Enterprenuers/biz-benefifs/self-reliant.com.
Enterprenuership prepares people to be responsible, enterprising individuals who become entrepreneurs or entrepreneurial thinkers and contribute to economic development and sustainable communities thereby become self-sufficient. A person, who is self-reliant, is a person who is self-employed, because self-employment is one of the key to working out of poverty. To move out of poverty, one need to truly want more, make the effort to gain it, seek self-employment over normal employment, gain the necessary skills to accomplish it and establish personal values like organization, cleanliness, honesty and others one’s life. If there is a found of such virtues, then further opening and calling to the force will enable a multiplier effect of great achievement. It is a formula for ultimate success, prosperity, and joy.
The market is an unselfish thinker. The quest of knowledge (in the world) is there in a greats measure than before, in an unprecedented measure. It is a valuable market for those who are willing to exert themselves to cater to that market. That market is ubiquitous. It cannot be known from the textbooks or college courses. It has to come out of one’s own thinking based on his own observation of others’ needs. For such person, an unselfish THINKER, there is an ever-expanding market in every sector. He who discovers it is the pioneer in that field. See http://www.indiaparenting.com/raisingchild/data/raisingchild050slitml.
Self-reliant through enterprenuership and attracting money, the real power to attract money comes from our own self-reliant through enterprenuership, determination and will; not from any dependence on another’s help and support. The power to attract money comes from the psychological viewpoint that I aim the ultimate determinant of my fate. Development occurs when we take it in our own hands to wanting it. It is a truism to the field of development that society will really develop when it is into their own hands. Any work of the government or other agencies may do the initial spadework, but it is not capable of consummating the process of development-a high degree of prosperity. It reduces to man wanting more throughout the US and beyond see http://www.entered.org/standardstoolkit/benefits.htm.
WAYS BY WHICH A PERSON CAN BECOME SELF-RELIANT THROUGH ENTERPRENUERSHIP
1. Develop the spirit of wealth creation and self-employment: Wealth lies in self-employment, not on salaried jobs e.g. in India the talents have graviated to the security of salaried jobs in the government where the present as well as the future is secure. Security banishes the accomplishment of the entrepreneur, the self-employed adventure. The majority of people who have started an industry on their own have become bankrupt because, they are driven by ambition and are not endowed with the capacities for organization. Prosperity involves risk. Adventure is of the spirit. Security is physical. Bodily labour and physical skill receive the least reward. The higher rewards are reserved for the spirit. The higher values of the spirit, viz. truthfulness, honesty, etc expressed in daily life avoid the risks to venture and other unfailing success. That way, self-employment removes failure and offers secure wealth.
2. Risk – taking: people take note of a raising star when his coffers are receiving cascades of fortune. Common prudence sees that the continuous RISKS he takes make him a notable. A man risks has all–may be a small fortune-and success and comes by a few croves should he desire to rise, life at every step demands his risk all at the moment. Men who once successfully risked their all and rose, refuse further risks and level off. Business is all about risk because is rooted on profit and lost. A raising star is who constantly risks. That is what makes him an entrepreneur. Unemployed people clamour for jobs. They do not readily consider the alternate option and self-employment or taking risk because life itself is all about risk. Salaried employment offers security. The first casualty of self-employment is that sense of security, which is risky. Unless one comes to enjoy the security of insecurity, his is not meant for self-employment, which give rise proper self-reliant through enterprenuership and the attendant risks. Salaried employment is a part, while self-employment is a whole. The part it enamored of the whole, must part with it security and court ever present insecurity.
3. Translating of dream and vision into reality: “Rich is he who has a dream, even without coins in his pocket” (Taiwo 2009). An entrepreneur person is a dreamer who accomplish his dream through creating, organization and production of ideas as inclusive in capacities and skills when you have to earn for yourself, you become part of the social existence that can support an income.
Emmanuel (2008) in his survey conducted of 160 young teen investors (ages 16-18) who attended “Entrecon”, a high school conference in entrepreneurship at the University of Pennylvania. He asked the participants why they were interested in starting their business path. These young people expressed their motivation for becoming entrepreneur in terms of the sense of satisfaction that enterprenuership gave them as well as the sense of being in control of their own destines. A statistic that will surprise you according to him is that only 15 percent of the students were interested in enterprenuership solely as a way to earn money-when one of the young entrepreneurs at “Entrecon”, was asked what got her interested in enterprenuership; she said “security-happiness that I will be doing something I created. As an entrepreneur, you don’t limits unless you limit yourself. See http://www.teenvestors.com/Enterprenuers/biz-benefits/self-eliance.htm
Entrepreneurs are organized and creative in all endavours. Taiwo (2007) asserts, “I have had the privileged of translating my vision into reality”. As student at the University of Ibadan, Taiwo saw how the institution was becoming infamous for the growing increase of prostitution, as well as the level of discrimination and molestation against female students. After she discovered there was not a single female-focused organization in the University nor a forum for exchanging information, Taiwo was motivated in September 2000, to find like-minded people, mobilize resources, and establish an NGO, called ‘Echoes’. The objectives of “Echoes” are to train and empower female students so that they build their self-confidence and are able to take active leadership roles in the development of their communities. “Echoes” also trains female students to acquire vocational skills like hairdressing, dressmaking, bead production, shoe and bag production from local hides and skins, interior decoration, poultry and portrait production. Female students were also taught business and management strategies, communication skills and information technology. “Echoes” has contributed immensely to youth employment as female students now gainfully employed, and there has been a sharp decline in female prostitution rates around campus see (United Nations Human Settlement Programme http://www.unhabitat.org)
4. Proper utilization of every difficult situation: A trial or hard circumstances around man is always a period of exploring and discovering human hiding potentials. Abraham Lincoln looses all his election from the district representative but never gives up and was aiming higher until he finally got to the presidency and he won. Bill-Gate the owner of Microsoft Company the most used application package today on computer systems tried several times and failed but he picked up the challenges as opportunities for him to discover his potential but he made it at last. What about Ben Carson who was libel in School as “Dummy” (Dull student), he used that opportunity to discovered the greatness in him and he became the first neurosurgeon who separated twins born attached together in their heads.
Abenet and Milkias (2007). “Even as a student, you can come to a better understanding of the current market and the challenges faced by fellow stakeholders, thereby increasing the livelihood of your own success in the field”. They explain that the education level in Meketeya, Ethiopia, is suffering due to the lack of qualified education centres, thus, they decided they wanted to contribute to providing eduction and improving their society’s capacity. They asked themselves questions like ”why are young children not attending schools” and in search of answers, collected information about the current situation through face-to-face interview with members of their community. They realized that by opening a good kindergarten with fair fees, the community would benefits. Moreover, even though they were students themselves, they saw how they could change both their lives and the lives of those around them. Abenet and Milkias established “Ethopia kindergarten project” and “Tebeb Traditional cloth producers and Distributors” company, with the objectives of advertising and promoting their products, to open a series of good standardized shops, and to sell online through the internet. By the time they graduate, they emphasize, they will have had solid work experience with which to use as professionals entering the workforce. See http://www.unhabitat.org.
5. Developing and creating of school-to-work strategy:
This is a strong strategy for allowing young people and students to have practical work experience before students graduate from school. Such strategy as the establishment of school plant, farm, shops and other vocational training or activities e.g Jets, Home Economics, Local Craft and Creative Art, where students will develop practical experiences and cultivate the culture of self-reliant through job creation based on the skillful experiences acquired in those vocational activities.
Jean-Blaise in the veterinary school of Dakar: “Junior undertaken” decided to form a company of young veterinary surgeons, creating a frame work for practical work experience that would allow recent graduates to move easily enter into the professionals world. “It is difficult,” explains, Jean-Blaise, “to succeed in Africa where nothing is done to help graduates”. Therefore, under his own initiative, Jean-Blaise accumulated as much experiences as he could in health and livestock production, the designing and installation of livestock buildings, and the setting up of quality control levels in the food industry. He establish Junior undertaken to reinforce the capacities and competence of his peers in these fields and to encourage the spread of entrepreneurial spirit from their school, the group received a startup budget of about 9,400 USD, used for the installation and launch of the project structure. In terms of its operations, sources of finance are through services rendered, bank loans, and gifts.
Since 2000, his team has carried out research in the field of health and livestock production in over 14 countries in Africa. Jean-Blaise believes it because it becomes necessary to have a creative spirit and entrepreneurial instinct in order to solve the problems of unemployment amongst Africa’s youth. Jean-Blaise initiative of been creative is in line with John Kennedy’s statement that, Asks what you can do for your government and not what your government will do for you”. An entrepreneurial spirit is indeed a sound mind of self-reliant.
IMPORTANCE OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND SELF-RELIANT
The importance and benefits of being self-reliant through entrepreneurship can never be over-emphasized. Since entrepreneurship is the backbone of any great and developed nation today, such nations like China, United States, and Japan etc. hence, the importance and benefits of being self-reliant through entrepreneurship can be summarized as follows:
1. You are responsible for your own success and you can determine what that success will be
2. The sky is not the limit of an entrepreneur but his stepping-stone.
3. The satisfaction of achieving a goal for your personal benefit
4. You are the “Boss” of yourself
5. You are able to control your own destiny as you have self-esteem, respect and self-confidence.
6. It encourages risk taking and learning from failure, learn to identify and recognize useful opportunities.
7. It helps in writing business plan in applying economic principles and basic marketing skills for proper idea generation in assessing feasible idea and manages risk
8. Creating of employment opportunities for others, thereby contributing positively to the growth and development of your society.
9. Total freedom to choice and enjoy the wishes of your heart.
10. There is sense of security and happiness that you will be doing what you created and you do not have limits unless you limit yourself.
11. There is a personal sense of satisfaction, accomplishment and fulfillment.
12. It is an open-ended opportunities and challenges you get out of it what you put into it. If you put a lot in, you get a lot out.
13. Demonstration of proper skills in setting up a business and the skills of maintaining the longevity of the business
IMPLICATION FOR THE FAMILY, SCHOOL AND GOVERNMENT
Parents should encourage the spirit of creativity in their children, to ensure proper skills acquisition. Your child will not develop self-reliance as long as you are hovering around him like a fussy mother hen. You are going to have to learn to let go. But it is going to be a but, like walking a tightrope if you let go too early, your child may end up feeling unsecured and unprotected rather than independent on the other hand. If you let go too late, you may have already made your child get into the habit of being dependent on you or on people instead of being self-reliant.
Schools are expected to instill and inculcate not only theoretical knowledge in children but also the application (Practical experiences). Students should be developed with manipulative skills to enable them have a good spirit of self-reliant and function effectively in the larger society. All the levels of education should develop progaramme that will boost students’ creative and resourceful mind.
The government and other agencies should encourage programme that will give room for people to explore their potentials by partnering with some of the international communities who had used entrepreneurship to develop their people. Ministry of entrepreneurial should equally be created by the government.
Conclusion:
It is no doubt that entrepreneurship is a strong acquisition programme that will help people to become a better and greater individual in the society. Self-reliant can not be achieved in an atmosphere where entrepreneurial activities are lacking. Therefore self-reliance, confident, satisfaction, sufficient and contentment can only be properly achieved through entrepreneurship.
REFERENCES:
Babalola, J.B (2008). Modelling Nigeria university system for effective learning and global Revenue. Past, present and perspectives. Lecture delivered for the postgraduate school, university, and calabar, Ibadan, Awemark.
FRN (2007). The 9 years Basic Education curriculum at a Glance. Abuja: NERD press.
Isah, E.A & Fadunmi, M. (2009) Managing Schools in a Period of Economic Meltdown. European Journals of social science (Vol. 8) (No.4) university of Ibadan.
http://www.indiaparenting.com/raisingchild/data/raisingchild050.shtml. Retrival on 25/11/09
http://www.entre-ed.org/standardstoolkit/benefits.htm
http://www.teenvestors.com./Enterprenuers/biz-benefits/self-eliance.htm. Retrieved on 26/1109
United Nations Human Settlement Programme Retrival from httm://www.unhabitat.org Retieved on 25/11/09
Monday 12 April 2010
Wednesday 2 December 2009
ENTERPRENUERSHIP AND SELF-RELIANT
Abstract
The cuticle discussed acoustical issues concerning self-reliant through enterprenuership. The paper was divided into six (6) sections: Introduction which gave the general background to the concepts of self-reliant and enterprenuership; the correlation of enterprenuership and self-reliant; ways of becoming self-reliant through enterprenuership; importance and benefits of enterprenuership; implication for the family, schools and the government and lastly conclusion.
Introduction:
The problem of self-reliance has been a perpetual and a pressing issue that needed to be address with an iron and serious hands among Nigerian, especially the youth. However, this problem is rooted to our educational system. As schools, only produces graduates who are potential slaves, I mean job seekers, instead of being a job creator. The youth are trained to have a strong believes of salaried job, instead of being self-employed and create jobs for people in their society with strong mind of creativity and initiative.
Isah (2009) asserts, “A core problem of the Nigerian educational system is the theoretical mode of education which she inherited from the colonial masters. It was in response to this change that a technological base National Policy on Education was introduced, there is need to restrain the staffs. In a similar not Babalola (2008) explains that knowledge has been found to change every 4-5 years, hence many graduates with 10years experience requires refresher courses. The Nigerian school curriculum often fails to encourage courses on enterprenuership.
The 9-years Basic Education Curriculum (2004) the fifth features of the programme emphasized on the infusion of creative and critical thanking, entrepreneurial skills and relevant of the National Economic Empowerment and Development strategy (NEEDS) into the relevant content of curriculum. The focal point however, in development of the Basic Education Curriculum was to ensure unfettered access and equity to education for the total development of the individual citizen. Thus, poor, the socially marginalized and vulnerable groups can effectively develop their full capacities and potentials.
Young entrepreneurs often say that, it is exhilarating to plan something, to watch it grow and to know you made it happen. This sentence perfectly describes the reasons most often gives by young entrepreneurs as to why they are in business. In addition, when you talk to other young entrepreneurs you will hear the same thing repeatedly. The most important benefits of starting and running their own business is that they are free to do what they like and how they like it. Indeed, to me, the essence of enterprenuership is the freedom to do what you like most. Some individual with entrepreneurial spirit may spend a few hours a week on their business, while others may spend every working moment trying to make their business successful. The bottom line is that, no matter how much time the business, they feel a sense of pride and a feeling of accomplishment in the end. This sense of fulfillment is more rewarding than money. Some people call this type of fulfillment “psychic income” and this is practically refers to as self-reliance.
ENTERPRENUERSHIP AND SELF-RELIANT
Enterprenuership as factor of production is a body that organizes human and materials resources for the production of goods and services. Enterprenuership may be the owner of a company, or a manager or a board of director of a public company. Whatever he may be, he is the driving force behind the production and movement of goods and services. Well! The explanation above about enterprenuership is limited to certain independence. Enterprenuership in its broader sense is a process of making individual explored their potentials and initiatives or creativities for greatness, which will in turn build their self-confidence in order to become self-reliant and self-sufficient in the race of life.
Enterprenuership is a source of job creation, empowerment and economic dynamism in a rapidly globalizing world. See http:www.teenvestor.com/Enterprenuers/biz-benefifs/self-reliant.com.
Enterprenuership prepares people to be responsible, enterprising individuals who become entrepreneurs or entrepreneurial thinkers and contribute to economic development and sustainable communities thereby become self-sufficient. A person, who is self-reliant, is a person who is self-employed, because self-employment is one of the key to working out of poverty. To move out of poverty, one need to truly want more, make the effort to gain it, seek self-employment over normal employment, gain the necessary skills to accomplish it and establish personal values like organization, cleanliness, honesty and others one’s life. If there is a found of such virtues, then further opening and calling to the force will enable a multiplier effect of great achievement. It is a formula for ultimate success, prosperity, and joy.
The market is an unselfish thinker. The quest of knowledge (in the world) is there in a greats measure than before, in an unprecedented measure. It is a valuable market for those who are willing to exert themselves to cater to that market. That market is ubiquitous. It cannot be known from the textbooks or college courses. It has to come out of one’s own thinking based on his own observation of others’ needs. For such person, an unselfish THINKER, there is an ever-expanding market in every sector. He who discovers it is the pioneer in that field. See http://www.indiaparenting.com/raisingchild/data/raisingchild050slitml.
Self-reliant through enterprenuership and attracting money, the real power to attract money comes from our own self-reliant through enterprenuership, determination and will; not from any dependence on another’s help and support. The power to attract money comes from the psychological viewpoint that I aim the ultimate determinant of my fate. Development occurs when we take it in our own hands to wanting it. It is a truism to the field of development that society will really develop when it is into their own hands. Any work of the government or other agencies may do the initial spadework, but it is not capable of consummating the process of development-a high degree of prosperity. It reduces to man wanting more throughout the US and beyond see http://www.entered.org/standardstoolkit/benefits.htm.
WAYS BY WHICH A PERSON CAN BECOME SELF-RELIANT THROUGH ENTERPRENUERSHIP
1. Develop the spirit of wealth creation and self-employment: Wealth lies in self-employment, not on salaried jobs e.g. in India the talents have graviated to the security of salaried jobs in the government where the present as well as the future is secure. Security banishes the accomplishment of the entrepreneur, the self-employed adventure. The majority of people who have started an industry on their own have become bankrupt because, they are driven by ambition and are not endowed with the capacities for organization. Prosperity involves risk. Adventure is of the spirit. Security is physical. Bodily labour and physical skill receive the least reward. The higher rewards are reserved for the spirit. The higher values of the spirit, viz. truthfulness, honesty, etc expressed in daily life avoid the risks to venture and other unfailing success. That way, self-employment removes failure and offers secure wealth.
2. Risk – taking: people take note of a raising star when his coffers are receiving cascades of fortune. Common prudence sees that the continuous RISKS he takes make him a notable. A man risks has all–may be a small fortune-and success and comes by a few croves should he desire to rise, life at every step demands his risk all at the moment. Men who once successfully risked their all and rose, refuse further risks and level off. Business is all about risk because is rooted on profit and lost. A raising star is who constantly risks. That is what makes him an entrepreneur. Unemployed people clamour for jobs. They do not readily consider the alternate option and self-employment or taking risk because life itself is all about risk. Salaried employment offers security. The first casualty of self-employment is that sense of security, which is risky. Unless one comes to enjoy the security of insecurity, his is not meant for self-employment, which give rise proper self-reliant through enterprenuership and the attendant risks. Salaried employment is a part, while self-employment is a whole. The part it enamored of the whole, must part with it security and court ever present insecurity.
3. Translating of dream and vision into reality: “Rich is he who has a dream, even without coins in his pocket” (Taiwo 2009). An entrepreneur person is a dreamer who accomplish his dream through creating, organization and production of ideas as inclusive in capacities and skills when you have to earn for yourself, you become part of the social existence that can support an income.
Emmanuel (2008) in his survey conducted of 160 young teen investors (ages 16-18) who attended “Entrecon”, a high school conference in entrepreneurship at the University of Pennylvania. He asked the participants why they were interested in starting their business path. These young people expressed their motivation for becoming entrepreneur in terms of the sense of satisfaction that enterprenuership gave them as well as the sense of being in control of their own destines. A statistic that will surprise you according to him is that only 15 percent of the students were interested in enterprenuership solely as a way to earn money-when one of the young entrepreneurs at “Entrecon”, was asked what got her interested in enterprenuership; she said “security-happiness that I will be doing something I created. As an entrepreneur, you don’t limits unless you limit yourself. See http://www.teenvestors.com/Enterprenuers/biz-benefits/self-eliance.htm
Entrepreneurs are organized and creative in all endavours. Taiwo (2007) asserts, “I have had the privileged of translating my vision into reality”. As student at the University of Ibadan, Taiwo saw how the institution was becoming infamous for the growing increase of prostitution, as well as the level of discrimination and molestation against female students. After she discovered there was not a single female-focused organization in the University nor a forum for exchanging information, Taiwo was motivated in September 2000, to find like-minded people, mobilize resources, and establish an NGO, called ‘Echoes’. The objectives of “Echoes” are to train and empower female students so that they build their self-confidence and are able to take active leadership roles in the development of their communities. “Echoes” also trains female students to acquire vocational skills like hairdressing, dressmaking, bead production, shoe and bag production from local hides and skins, interior decoration, poultry and portrait production. Female students were also taught business and management strategies, communication skills and information technology. “Echoes” has contributed immensely to youth employment as female students now gainfully employed, and there has been a sharp decline in female prostitution rates around campus see (United Nations Human Settlement Programme http://www.unhabitat.org)
4. Proper utilization of every difficult situation: A trial or hard circumstances around man is always a period of exploring and discovering human hiding potentials. Abraham Lincoln looses all his election from the district representative but never gives up and was aiming higher until he finally got to the presidency and he won. Bill-Gate the owner of Microsoft Company the most used application package today on computer systems tried several times and failed but he picked up the challenges as opportunities for him to discover his potential but he made it at last. What about Ben Carson who was libel in School as “Dummy” (Dull student), he used that opportunity to discovered the greatness in him and he became the first neurosurgeon who separated twins born attached together in their heads.
Abenet and Milkias (2007). “Even as a student, you can come to a better understanding of the current market and the challenges faced by fellow stakeholders, thereby increasing the livelihood of your own success in the field”. They explain that the education level in Meketeya, Ethiopia, is suffering due to the lack of qualified education centres, thus, they decided they wanted to contribute to providing eduction and improving their society’s capacity. They asked themselves questions like ”why are young children not attending schools” and in search of answers, collected information about the current situation through face-to-face interview with members of their community. They realized that by opening a good kindergarten with fair fees, the community would benefits. Moreover, even though they were students themselves, they saw how they could change both their lives and the lives of those around them. Abenet and Milkias established “Ethopia kindergarten project” and “Tebeb Traditional cloth producers and Distributors” company, with the objectives of advertising and promoting their products, to open a series of good standardized shops, and to sell online through the internet. By the time they graduate, they emphasize, they will have had solid work experience with which to use as professionals entering the workforce. See http://www.unhabitat.org.
5. Developing and creating of school-to-work strategy:
This is a strong strategy for allowing young people and students to have practical work experience before students graduate from school. Such strategy as the establishment of school plant, farm, shops and other vocational training or activities e.g Jets, Home Economics, Local Craft and Creative Art, where students will develop practical experiences and cultivate the culture of self-reliant through job creation based on the skillful experiences acquired in those vocational activities.
Jean-Blaise in the veterinary school of Dakar: “Junior undertaken” decided to form a company of young veterinary surgeons, creating a frame work for practical work experience that would allow recent graduates to move easily enter into the professionals world. “It is difficult,” explains, Jean-Blaise, “to succeed in Africa where nothing is done to help graduates”. Therefore, under his own initiative, Jean-Blaise accumulated as much experiences as he could in health and livestock production, the designing and installation of livestock buildings, and the setting up of quality control levels in the food industry. He establish Junior undertaken to reinforce the capacities and competence of his peers in these fields and to encourage the spread of entrepreneurial spirit from their school, the group received a startup budget of about 9,400 USD, used for the installation and launch of the project structure. In terms of its operations, sources of finance are through services rendered, bank loans, and gifts.
Since 2000, his team has carried out research in the field of health and livestock production in over 14 countries in Africa. Jean-Blaise believes it because it becomes necessary to have a creative spirit and entrepreneurial instinct in order to solve the problems of unemployment amongst Africa’s youth. Jean-Blaise initiative of been creative is in line with John Kennedy’s statement that, Asks what you can do for your government and not what your government will do for you”. An entrepreneurial spirit is indeed a sound mind of self-reliant.
IMPORTANCE OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND SELF-RELIANT
The importance and benefits of being self-reliant through entrepreneurship can never be over-emphasized. Since entrepreneurship is the backbone of any great and developed nation today, such nations like China, United States, and Japan etc. hence, the importance and benefits of being self-reliant through entrepreneurship can be summarized as follows:
1. You are responsible for your own success and you can determine what that success will be
2. The sky is not the limit of an entrepreneur but his stepping-stone.
3. The satisfaction of achieving a goal for your personal benefit
4. You are the “Boss” of yourself
5. You are able to control your own destiny as you have self-esteem, respect and self-confidence.
6. It encourages risk taking and learning from failure, learn to identify and recognize useful opportunities.
7. It helps in writing business plan in applying economic principles and basic marketing skills for proper idea generation in assessing feasible idea and manages risk
8. Creating of employment opportunities for others, thereby contributing positively to the growth and development of your society.
9. Total freedom to choice and enjoy the wishes of your heart.
10. There is sense of security and happiness that you will be doing what you created and you do not have limits unless you limit yourself.
11. There is a personal sense of satisfaction, accomplishment and fulfillment.
12. It is an open-ended opportunities and challenges you get out of it what you put into it. If you put a lot in, you get a lot out.
13. Demonstration of proper skills in setting up a business and the skills of maintaining the longevity of the business
IMPLICATION FOR THE FAMILY, SCHOOL AND GOVERNMENT
Parents should encourage the spirit of creativity in their children, to ensure proper skills acquisition. Your child will not develop self-reliance as long as you are hovering around him like a fussy mother hen. You are going to have to learn to let go. But it is going to be a but, like walking a tightrope if you let go too early, your child may end up feeling unsecured and unprotected rather than independent on the other hand. If you let go too late, you may have already made your child get into the habit of being dependent on you or on people instead of being self-reliant.
Schools are expected to instill and inculcate not only theoretical knowledge in children but also the application (Practical experiences). Students should be developed with manipulative skills to enable them have a good spirit of self-reliant and function effectively in the larger society. All the levels of education should develop progaramme that will boost students’ creative and resourceful mind.
The government and other agencies should encourage programme that will give room for people to explore their potentials by partnering with some of the international communities who had used entrepreneurship to develop their people. Ministry of entrepreneurial should equally be created by the government.
Conclusion:
It is no doubt that entrepreneurship is a strong acquisition programme that will help people to become a better and greater individual in the society. Self-reliant can not be achieved in an atmosphere where entrepreneurial activities are lacking. Therefore self-reliance, confident, satisfaction, sufficient and contentment can only be properly achieved through entrepreneurship.
REFERENCES:
Babalola, J.B (2008). Modelling Nigeria university system for effective learning and global Revenue. Past, present and perspectives. Lecture delivered for the postgraduate school, university, and calabar, Ibadan, Awemark.
FRN (2007). The 9 years Basic Education curriculum at a Glance. Abuja: NERD press.
Isah, E.A & Fadunmi, M. (2009) Managing Schools in a Period of Economic Meltdown. European Journals of social science (Vol. 8) (No.4) university of Ibadan.
http://www.indiaparenting.com/raisingchild/data/raisingchild050.shtml. Retrival on 25/11/09
http://www.entre-ed.org/standardstoolkit/benefits.htm
http://www.teenvestors.com./Enterprenuers/biz-benefits/self-eliance.htm. Retrieved on 26/1109
United Nations Human Settlement Programme Retrival from httm://www.unhabitat.org Retieved on 25/11/09
The cuticle discussed acoustical issues concerning self-reliant through enterprenuership. The paper was divided into six (6) sections: Introduction which gave the general background to the concepts of self-reliant and enterprenuership; the correlation of enterprenuership and self-reliant; ways of becoming self-reliant through enterprenuership; importance and benefits of enterprenuership; implication for the family, schools and the government and lastly conclusion.
Introduction:
The problem of self-reliance has been a perpetual and a pressing issue that needed to be address with an iron and serious hands among Nigerian, especially the youth. However, this problem is rooted to our educational system. As schools, only produces graduates who are potential slaves, I mean job seekers, instead of being a job creator. The youth are trained to have a strong believes of salaried job, instead of being self-employed and create jobs for people in their society with strong mind of creativity and initiative.
Isah (2009) asserts, “A core problem of the Nigerian educational system is the theoretical mode of education which she inherited from the colonial masters. It was in response to this change that a technological base National Policy on Education was introduced, there is need to restrain the staffs. In a similar not Babalola (2008) explains that knowledge has been found to change every 4-5 years, hence many graduates with 10years experience requires refresher courses. The Nigerian school curriculum often fails to encourage courses on enterprenuership.
The 9-years Basic Education Curriculum (2004) the fifth features of the programme emphasized on the infusion of creative and critical thanking, entrepreneurial skills and relevant of the National Economic Empowerment and Development strategy (NEEDS) into the relevant content of curriculum. The focal point however, in development of the Basic Education Curriculum was to ensure unfettered access and equity to education for the total development of the individual citizen. Thus, poor, the socially marginalized and vulnerable groups can effectively develop their full capacities and potentials.
Young entrepreneurs often say that, it is exhilarating to plan something, to watch it grow and to know you made it happen. This sentence perfectly describes the reasons most often gives by young entrepreneurs as to why they are in business. In addition, when you talk to other young entrepreneurs you will hear the same thing repeatedly. The most important benefits of starting and running their own business is that they are free to do what they like and how they like it. Indeed, to me, the essence of enterprenuership is the freedom to do what you like most. Some individual with entrepreneurial spirit may spend a few hours a week on their business, while others may spend every working moment trying to make their business successful. The bottom line is that, no matter how much time the business, they feel a sense of pride and a feeling of accomplishment in the end. This sense of fulfillment is more rewarding than money. Some people call this type of fulfillment “psychic income” and this is practically refers to as self-reliance.
ENTERPRENUERSHIP AND SELF-RELIANT
Enterprenuership as factor of production is a body that organizes human and materials resources for the production of goods and services. Enterprenuership may be the owner of a company, or a manager or a board of director of a public company. Whatever he may be, he is the driving force behind the production and movement of goods and services. Well! The explanation above about enterprenuership is limited to certain independence. Enterprenuership in its broader sense is a process of making individual explored their potentials and initiatives or creativities for greatness, which will in turn build their self-confidence in order to become self-reliant and self-sufficient in the race of life.
Enterprenuership is a source of job creation, empowerment and economic dynamism in a rapidly globalizing world. See http:www.teenvestor.com/Enterprenuers/biz-benefifs/self-reliant.com.
Enterprenuership prepares people to be responsible, enterprising individuals who become entrepreneurs or entrepreneurial thinkers and contribute to economic development and sustainable communities thereby become self-sufficient. A person, who is self-reliant, is a person who is self-employed, because self-employment is one of the key to working out of poverty. To move out of poverty, one need to truly want more, make the effort to gain it, seek self-employment over normal employment, gain the necessary skills to accomplish it and establish personal values like organization, cleanliness, honesty and others one’s life. If there is a found of such virtues, then further opening and calling to the force will enable a multiplier effect of great achievement. It is a formula for ultimate success, prosperity, and joy.
The market is an unselfish thinker. The quest of knowledge (in the world) is there in a greats measure than before, in an unprecedented measure. It is a valuable market for those who are willing to exert themselves to cater to that market. That market is ubiquitous. It cannot be known from the textbooks or college courses. It has to come out of one’s own thinking based on his own observation of others’ needs. For such person, an unselfish THINKER, there is an ever-expanding market in every sector. He who discovers it is the pioneer in that field. See http://www.indiaparenting.com/raisingchild/data/raisingchild050slitml.
Self-reliant through enterprenuership and attracting money, the real power to attract money comes from our own self-reliant through enterprenuership, determination and will; not from any dependence on another’s help and support. The power to attract money comes from the psychological viewpoint that I aim the ultimate determinant of my fate. Development occurs when we take it in our own hands to wanting it. It is a truism to the field of development that society will really develop when it is into their own hands. Any work of the government or other agencies may do the initial spadework, but it is not capable of consummating the process of development-a high degree of prosperity. It reduces to man wanting more throughout the US and beyond see http://www.entered.org/standardstoolkit/benefits.htm.
WAYS BY WHICH A PERSON CAN BECOME SELF-RELIANT THROUGH ENTERPRENUERSHIP
1. Develop the spirit of wealth creation and self-employment: Wealth lies in self-employment, not on salaried jobs e.g. in India the talents have graviated to the security of salaried jobs in the government where the present as well as the future is secure. Security banishes the accomplishment of the entrepreneur, the self-employed adventure. The majority of people who have started an industry on their own have become bankrupt because, they are driven by ambition and are not endowed with the capacities for organization. Prosperity involves risk. Adventure is of the spirit. Security is physical. Bodily labour and physical skill receive the least reward. The higher rewards are reserved for the spirit. The higher values of the spirit, viz. truthfulness, honesty, etc expressed in daily life avoid the risks to venture and other unfailing success. That way, self-employment removes failure and offers secure wealth.
2. Risk – taking: people take note of a raising star when his coffers are receiving cascades of fortune. Common prudence sees that the continuous RISKS he takes make him a notable. A man risks has all–may be a small fortune-and success and comes by a few croves should he desire to rise, life at every step demands his risk all at the moment. Men who once successfully risked their all and rose, refuse further risks and level off. Business is all about risk because is rooted on profit and lost. A raising star is who constantly risks. That is what makes him an entrepreneur. Unemployed people clamour for jobs. They do not readily consider the alternate option and self-employment or taking risk because life itself is all about risk. Salaried employment offers security. The first casualty of self-employment is that sense of security, which is risky. Unless one comes to enjoy the security of insecurity, his is not meant for self-employment, which give rise proper self-reliant through enterprenuership and the attendant risks. Salaried employment is a part, while self-employment is a whole. The part it enamored of the whole, must part with it security and court ever present insecurity.
3. Translating of dream and vision into reality: “Rich is he who has a dream, even without coins in his pocket” (Taiwo 2009). An entrepreneur person is a dreamer who accomplish his dream through creating, organization and production of ideas as inclusive in capacities and skills when you have to earn for yourself, you become part of the social existence that can support an income.
Emmanuel (2008) in his survey conducted of 160 young teen investors (ages 16-18) who attended “Entrecon”, a high school conference in entrepreneurship at the University of Pennylvania. He asked the participants why they were interested in starting their business path. These young people expressed their motivation for becoming entrepreneur in terms of the sense of satisfaction that enterprenuership gave them as well as the sense of being in control of their own destines. A statistic that will surprise you according to him is that only 15 percent of the students were interested in enterprenuership solely as a way to earn money-when one of the young entrepreneurs at “Entrecon”, was asked what got her interested in enterprenuership; she said “security-happiness that I will be doing something I created. As an entrepreneur, you don’t limits unless you limit yourself. See http://www.teenvestors.com/Enterprenuers/biz-benefits/self-eliance.htm
Entrepreneurs are organized and creative in all endavours. Taiwo (2007) asserts, “I have had the privileged of translating my vision into reality”. As student at the University of Ibadan, Taiwo saw how the institution was becoming infamous for the growing increase of prostitution, as well as the level of discrimination and molestation against female students. After she discovered there was not a single female-focused organization in the University nor a forum for exchanging information, Taiwo was motivated in September 2000, to find like-minded people, mobilize resources, and establish an NGO, called ‘Echoes’. The objectives of “Echoes” are to train and empower female students so that they build their self-confidence and are able to take active leadership roles in the development of their communities. “Echoes” also trains female students to acquire vocational skills like hairdressing, dressmaking, bead production, shoe and bag production from local hides and skins, interior decoration, poultry and portrait production. Female students were also taught business and management strategies, communication skills and information technology. “Echoes” has contributed immensely to youth employment as female students now gainfully employed, and there has been a sharp decline in female prostitution rates around campus see (United Nations Human Settlement Programme http://www.unhabitat.org)
4. Proper utilization of every difficult situation: A trial or hard circumstances around man is always a period of exploring and discovering human hiding potentials. Abraham Lincoln looses all his election from the district representative but never gives up and was aiming higher until he finally got to the presidency and he won. Bill-Gate the owner of Microsoft Company the most used application package today on computer systems tried several times and failed but he picked up the challenges as opportunities for him to discover his potential but he made it at last. What about Ben Carson who was libel in School as “Dummy” (Dull student), he used that opportunity to discovered the greatness in him and he became the first neurosurgeon who separated twins born attached together in their heads.
Abenet and Milkias (2007). “Even as a student, you can come to a better understanding of the current market and the challenges faced by fellow stakeholders, thereby increasing the livelihood of your own success in the field”. They explain that the education level in Meketeya, Ethiopia, is suffering due to the lack of qualified education centres, thus, they decided they wanted to contribute to providing eduction and improving their society’s capacity. They asked themselves questions like ”why are young children not attending schools” and in search of answers, collected information about the current situation through face-to-face interview with members of their community. They realized that by opening a good kindergarten with fair fees, the community would benefits. Moreover, even though they were students themselves, they saw how they could change both their lives and the lives of those around them. Abenet and Milkias established “Ethopia kindergarten project” and “Tebeb Traditional cloth producers and Distributors” company, with the objectives of advertising and promoting their products, to open a series of good standardized shops, and to sell online through the internet. By the time they graduate, they emphasize, they will have had solid work experience with which to use as professionals entering the workforce. See http://www.unhabitat.org.
5. Developing and creating of school-to-work strategy:
This is a strong strategy for allowing young people and students to have practical work experience before students graduate from school. Such strategy as the establishment of school plant, farm, shops and other vocational training or activities e.g Jets, Home Economics, Local Craft and Creative Art, where students will develop practical experiences and cultivate the culture of self-reliant through job creation based on the skillful experiences acquired in those vocational activities.
Jean-Blaise in the veterinary school of Dakar: “Junior undertaken” decided to form a company of young veterinary surgeons, creating a frame work for practical work experience that would allow recent graduates to move easily enter into the professionals world. “It is difficult,” explains, Jean-Blaise, “to succeed in Africa where nothing is done to help graduates”. Therefore, under his own initiative, Jean-Blaise accumulated as much experiences as he could in health and livestock production, the designing and installation of livestock buildings, and the setting up of quality control levels in the food industry. He establish Junior undertaken to reinforce the capacities and competence of his peers in these fields and to encourage the spread of entrepreneurial spirit from their school, the group received a startup budget of about 9,400 USD, used for the installation and launch of the project structure. In terms of its operations, sources of finance are through services rendered, bank loans, and gifts.
Since 2000, his team has carried out research in the field of health and livestock production in over 14 countries in Africa. Jean-Blaise believes it because it becomes necessary to have a creative spirit and entrepreneurial instinct in order to solve the problems of unemployment amongst Africa’s youth. Jean-Blaise initiative of been creative is in line with John Kennedy’s statement that, Asks what you can do for your government and not what your government will do for you”. An entrepreneurial spirit is indeed a sound mind of self-reliant.
IMPORTANCE OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND SELF-RELIANT
The importance and benefits of being self-reliant through entrepreneurship can never be over-emphasized. Since entrepreneurship is the backbone of any great and developed nation today, such nations like China, United States, and Japan etc. hence, the importance and benefits of being self-reliant through entrepreneurship can be summarized as follows:
1. You are responsible for your own success and you can determine what that success will be
2. The sky is not the limit of an entrepreneur but his stepping-stone.
3. The satisfaction of achieving a goal for your personal benefit
4. You are the “Boss” of yourself
5. You are able to control your own destiny as you have self-esteem, respect and self-confidence.
6. It encourages risk taking and learning from failure, learn to identify and recognize useful opportunities.
7. It helps in writing business plan in applying economic principles and basic marketing skills for proper idea generation in assessing feasible idea and manages risk
8. Creating of employment opportunities for others, thereby contributing positively to the growth and development of your society.
9. Total freedom to choice and enjoy the wishes of your heart.
10. There is sense of security and happiness that you will be doing what you created and you do not have limits unless you limit yourself.
11. There is a personal sense of satisfaction, accomplishment and fulfillment.
12. It is an open-ended opportunities and challenges you get out of it what you put into it. If you put a lot in, you get a lot out.
13. Demonstration of proper skills in setting up a business and the skills of maintaining the longevity of the business
IMPLICATION FOR THE FAMILY, SCHOOL AND GOVERNMENT
Parents should encourage the spirit of creativity in their children, to ensure proper skills acquisition. Your child will not develop self-reliance as long as you are hovering around him like a fussy mother hen. You are going to have to learn to let go. But it is going to be a but, like walking a tightrope if you let go too early, your child may end up feeling unsecured and unprotected rather than independent on the other hand. If you let go too late, you may have already made your child get into the habit of being dependent on you or on people instead of being self-reliant.
Schools are expected to instill and inculcate not only theoretical knowledge in children but also the application (Practical experiences). Students should be developed with manipulative skills to enable them have a good spirit of self-reliant and function effectively in the larger society. All the levels of education should develop progaramme that will boost students’ creative and resourceful mind.
The government and other agencies should encourage programme that will give room for people to explore their potentials by partnering with some of the international communities who had used entrepreneurship to develop their people. Ministry of entrepreneurial should equally be created by the government.
Conclusion:
It is no doubt that entrepreneurship is a strong acquisition programme that will help people to become a better and greater individual in the society. Self-reliant can not be achieved in an atmosphere where entrepreneurial activities are lacking. Therefore self-reliance, confident, satisfaction, sufficient and contentment can only be properly achieved through entrepreneurship.
REFERENCES:
Babalola, J.B (2008). Modelling Nigeria university system for effective learning and global Revenue. Past, present and perspectives. Lecture delivered for the postgraduate school, university, and calabar, Ibadan, Awemark.
FRN (2007). The 9 years Basic Education curriculum at a Glance. Abuja: NERD press.
Isah, E.A & Fadunmi, M. (2009) Managing Schools in a Period of Economic Meltdown. European Journals of social science (Vol. 8) (No.4) university of Ibadan.
http://www.indiaparenting.com/raisingchild/data/raisingchild050.shtml. Retrival on 25/11/09
http://www.entre-ed.org/standardstoolkit/benefits.htm
http://www.teenvestors.com./Enterprenuers/biz-benefits/self-eliance.htm. Retrieved on 26/1109
United Nations Human Settlement Programme Retrival from httm://www.unhabitat.org Retieved on 25/11/09
Wednesday 30 September 2009
NYSC BATCH C AND NYSC 2009 BATCH B TIME TABLE ~ INFORMATION NIGERIA - NIGERIAN NEWS
NYSC BATCH C AND NYSC 2009 BATCH B TIME TABLE ~ INFORMATION NIGERIA - NIGERIAN NEWS
INTRODUCTION
Nigeria is a federal constitutional republic comprising thirty-six states and one Federal Capital Territory. The country is located in West Africa between latitudes 40 and 140 North and Longitude 30 and 150 east, with total land area of 923.8x103sqkm bordered with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in the north. Its coast lies on the Gulf of Guinea, a part of the Atlantic Ocean, in the south. The capital city is Abuja. The three largest and most influential ethnic groups in Nigeria are the Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba. The country Nigeria is generally comprises six geo-political zones, which includes South West, South South, South East, North West, North East and North Central or Central Nigeria known as the middle belt of Nigeria.
The people of Nigeria have an extensive history, and archaeological evidence shows that human habitation of the area dates back to at least 9000 BCE The Benue-Cross River area is thought to be the original homeland of the Bantu migrants who spread across most of central and southern Africa in waves between the 1st millennium BCE and the 2nd millennium CE.
(A). NATURE OF THE MIDDLE BELT
Historical background
The Middle Belt concept and idea as a geo-political zone predominantly based on political ideology for the separate political identity by the people of the zone this was swept away by the tide of time, even though it may be argued that the 1995 draft constitutional conference recommended the creation of six geo-political zones in the country, which the Middle Belt Region was one. However, its antagonists re-christened it to the North Central zone to suit their interest and the appellation stuck to this day. Hon. Abba Moro the Executive Chairman of Opokwu Local Government Area of Benue State states that “historically, the search for a Middle Belt Region was pioneered by the late Chief Joseph Sarwan Tarka, of blessed memory. The movement for the Middle Belt Region assumed prominence during the First Republic when various nationalities sought to assert their identities on the political landscape of Nigeria. The agitation for a Middle Belt Region was part of this scenario, and partly also as a result of the not too well disposed political magnanimity of the modern political lords/helmsmen towards the members of this region”
According to Joses (2005) The Middle Belt of Nigeria has been a hotbed of agitations, struggle and conflict since the period before independence. Between 1928 and 1948 most ethnic groups experienced the world economic recession with its antecedent scarcity and socio-economic insecurity. They began to form communal unions not only to address the insecurity created by the world economic recession and the impact of the Second World War. However, what ignited ethnic insecurity in the Middle Belt was heightened by colonial policy that failed to integrate their interests into the larger frame work of Nigerian nation. The tempo became vibrant in 1950s with ethnic emotion, feelings and sentiments. In fact the history of minority agitation started from the Middle Belt over domination suffered not only by colonial repression but also by forcefully being made to be subject to the northern praetorian emirate system. The area was not only denied infrastructural development but deprived of its independent traditional political system. The agitation from the Middle Belt later ignited similar struggles from other parts of the country.
The Middle Belt is a political expression of ethnic minorities in the former Northern region which are found in the North-west, North-east and particularly North-central, which have been oppressed by both colonial rule and praetorian emirate system of the north and their contemporary political leaderships. Under the new dispensation of geo-political zoning of the federation the concept has been restricted to North-central and thereby obliterating the name North-central from the political lexicon of Nigeria. Meanwhile, the late head of state General Sani Abacha in his October 1, 1995 independent broadcast while presenting the 1995 constitution zoned the country into six political areas: North-west, North-east, Middle Belt, South-east, South-west and Southern Minority. While the Southern minority protested and preferred to be called South-south, the Middle Belt with time had been changed, by those who are repugnant to the concept, to North central. Nevertheless, the concept is bigger than any specific geo-political zone. The concept of Middle Belt is nebulous as some states like Kaduna, Niger, Kwara, Yobe, Borno and Adamawa,which have a concentration of Hausa-Fulani and some major ethnic minorities, who are Moslems (Nupe, Kanuri etc), and do see themselves more of 'Lugard North' than belonging to the belt. There is also a marginal ethnic-minority like the Yoruba (Kwara, Kogi), whose interest and loyalty are also divided; as they prefer to identify with the South West Yorubaland when the going is bad or who would want to benefit from both sides. However, Middle Belt therefore, is encompassing and can be seen as a political entity situated within the vast Savannah region of Nigeria, which has the concentration of ethnic-communal groups who majority practice African traditional religion or Christianity. They have their peculiar multifarious political systems, religious beliefs and cultural orientations, which are non Islamic and different from the Hausa-Fulani emirate system. In the words of Richard Sklar, the Middle Belt area comprise of people who were either non-Hausa speaking, non-Muslim or both.
However, the region is constituted by eight states of the federation which includes; Kogi, Kwara, Niger, Plateau, Nasarawa, Benue, Adamawa, Taraba and the Federal Capital Territory of the federation as a result of ethno-minority situation in trying to re-assert the independent entity, the place has for long become an alluring bride for many suitors, conscious of the strategic part it plays in deciding the outcome of an election. Straddling the middle of Nigeria, the middle Belt is a relatively big complex multi-ethnic, multi-religious geographical area, where unlike the Hausa-Fulani and the Kanuris of the far north, is populated largely by minority ethnic groups. Its politics is no complex, swinging between an uneasy attachment to the far north and sometimes an open or cautious solidarity and alliance with southern-based parties. No wonder it has since the pre-independence days been a fertile fishing water pond for the big three ethnic groups in the country in their quest for political dominance.
Geography and Vegetation of the Middle Belt
The middle Belt is located at the central point of Nigeria characterized with guinea savannah and marked by crystalline rock outcroppings and gently rolling hills, such as the adamawa hill, Biu Mountain and Jos plateau. The two major or notable rivers in Nigeria, River Niger and Benue meet at the region precisely at Lokoja town in Kogi state. The two major seasons are the raining season from the month of April through October and dry season from November through March. The temperature is also relative from state to states as it is relatively cold weather in Jos plateau while other states are predominantly with hot weather condition.
Architecture:
The Middle belt regions of Nigeria are predominantly rural environs except those of the states capitals and some other sub-towns around the capital city. Therefore, the building patterns and structures are usually with mud and thatched roofs in the villages.
However, the house patterns and structure in the urban environments or centres are to greater extent measured with the modern day housing pattern like what are obtainable in towns like Jos, Ilorin, Yola, Lokoja, Minna, Markudi, Abuja etc where good housing plans, streets, water channel, and lightning systems are well constructed
Political Activities
The political activities of middle belt people will be incomprehensive without a bit of traces back their political struggle as part of the movement and the primary factor for the existence and the actualization of the region today. The middle belt however is much more than an attractive bride waiting to be plucked by the lucky suitor. It has other attributes.
Chief Solomon Daushep Lar, a prominent advocate of this cause thinks he knows the true significance of the area in Nigeria. A middle Belt conference he convened in August 1998, the first civilian governor of the old Plateau state and one-time National chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) stated that "because the Middle Belt is located in central Nigeria, which comprise the people of southern and northern Nigeria, it is always in the best position to interpret the north to the south and the south to the north. Not only do we serve as the glue for the country, our privileged location enables us to best measure the temperature of the nation. This role places enormous responsibility on our shoulders, and also requires that both the north and the south must listen carefully to us anytime we speak on contentious issues".
This is chief Lar's understanding and the place of the middle Belt in the corporate entity called Nigeria. Indeed even before the emergences of the Lars on the political scene, the area had been under going some kind of rethinking on its place in Nigeria and its politics. The birth of the United Middle Belt Congress (UMBC) in the late 1940's was the culmination of such rethinking and the search by the area for relevance in national politics. The founding fathers of the UMBC such as the late Rwang Pam, Yonah Asadugu, Bello Jacob Ijumu, Pastor David Lot, among many others invested enormous amount of their time and resources to see to the realization of the goals of the area through political activities.
Economic Activities
The main activities for sustainability are farming, fishing, hunting, trading, weaving, blacksmithing, tying and dying mat making, and some other sub minor petty trading across the region although the predominant economic activities are farming and fishing as a result of their fertile nature of land and the presence of river Niger and Benue around Kogi, Benue, part of Niger, and some other related areas nearby the riverine environs, mining amongst Jos Plateau people, weaving of clothe and canoe building among the Nupe people of Niger.
Agriculture/Soil type
Since, the average populace of the region are predominantly farmer their concentration however is basically on subsistence farming i.e. farming consumptions of the immediate family. Therefore, relatively few of these people produced agricultural product on commercial basis couple with the low level of mechanise farming because most of their farming activities is still intensively on communal effort.
The types of crops growing in the middle belt of Nigeria are tuber crops such as yam, cassava, cocoa-yam, potatoes, cereals such as millet and maize, economic trees such as Iroko, obeche and mahogany, fruits such as citrus fruit, guava, and some other related crops growing commercial purposes. The nature of the land of the region is relative from states to states just as the South Eastern region soil is more fertile than every other parts of the region. The soil generally in the middle belt is relatively sandy-loam type of soil while parts are reddish in colour and sticky.
Social/Per-Social
Social and religious institutions among the people of middle belt is strongly base on traditions, norms, belief system, folkways and taboos of each tribe within a given state of the region because of heterogenous nature of their culture and languages such the Birom and Ngas of plateau, Okun and Igala of Kogi, Nupe of Niger, Idoma and Tiv of Benue, Eggon of Nasarrawa, Omu-aran of Kwara and lot more at the various states of the region.
The region to a large extent control social vices through their culture and the established rules and regulations lay down by their Ancestor. There are still element of moral consensus among the people their tribal and cultural activities or festival where the youth are taught roles and responsibility to imbibe by in order to fit in and capable of helping himself out of future problems
Socialization process of the children among the people of the region is still to a greater extent in the rural areas on imitation such learning the occupation of their parents such as farming, fishing or even some skills like swimming by those that lives around the riverine area.
However, Christianity, Islam and other social institutions such education, clubs and related societies have some kind of influences on the ways of life of the people in the region such as their mode of dressing, food they eat, language, crafts and other activities
Transportation systems
Transportation as the process of conveying goods and services from one destination to another has been from time immemorial. Therefore, transportation is inevitable to any given society rather they could be a point of peculiarities in those means of transportation, middle belt is characterized majorly by road transports, inland waterway, and fewer places with railway transportation network and airway. These transports systems are head porterage, bicycle, motor-cycle, canoe peddling, lorries, horse, camel, cars, Aeroplane in places like Jos Plateau, Ilorin, Minna, Markudi, Yola etc. Roads are constructed both by the central and regional governments liking these states to one another which equally help their trading activities from states to states.
Health
Health wise is also a critical issue in the middle belt where a lot of traditional herbal medicine is applied or used for different kinds of sicknesses and problems are equally diagnose through appriori method i.e. using the knowledge of Mr A to solve a similar case of Mr B in their traditional setting and up till the present day of existence even as the government and corporate bodies establishes Hospitals for proper health care the traditional herbal medicine are still in used for the curing of many diseases like typhoid fever, measles, malaria, and some other critical bone fractures especially among the rural dwellers of the region.
(B). PROBLEMS AND CHALLENGES OF THE MIDDLE BELT
Political problems
The middle belt region had been for so long subjected to political prejudice and other related problems. Chimaroke (2005) lamented that “the seeming tension in the Middle Belt arose variously from, competing ethnic identities, inter /intra-religious differences, disputes over arable/gracing land and scarce rural resources, contests over chieftaincy/political representations and access to power. By the same token, it was reasonably argued that the measure of ascendance of these elements of conflict arise from political competition, bias, stereotype, prejudices, elite manipulation, inequity, mass poverty and brash attitude of the noveau riche. It is also stated to include protracted national economic crisis, excessive centrality of national administration, long period of military rule, arbitrariness of rules, unclear citizenship identification and of course, a supra-national interest in lands and locality matters”
(C). PROSPECTS OR WAY FORWARD FOR THE MIDDLE BELT CHALLENGES:
References:
Ochoche, Sunday (anchorman): (1998) Enhancing Peaceful Coexistence in Nigeria (communiqué of Middle Belt Zonal Conference, Jos); Centre for Peace Research & Conflict Resolution, National War College
:http://www.nigerdeltacongress.com/darticles/dynamics_of_ethnic_and_religious.htm
Haruna Isah (200) The Middle Belt: History and politics Nasarawa Publishing Company Limited
Iloeje, p. (2000). Geography of Nigeria Development
Bagudu, Nankin (ed.): Linguistic Minorities and Inequality in Nigeria; League for Human Rights, Jos; 2003.
Abba, Morro (2005). What the Middle Belt Agenda should be
Atang Izang (2008). The Arewa Consultative Forum
Ajayi, P. O. (2003). Comprehensive Geography for Senior Secondary Schools. Jos: Johnson
Chimaroke Nnamani (2005). Nigeria Central the Middle Belt, Glue Of The Nation. 2005 edition of the public lecture series of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) Plateau State Council, in conjunction with Africa Republic Foundation (ARF); Hill Station Hotel, Jos, Nigeria.
INTRODUCTION
Nigeria is a federal constitutional republic comprising thirty-six states and one Federal Capital Territory. The country is located in West Africa between latitudes 40 and 140 North and Longitude 30 and 150 east, with total land area of 923.8x103sqkm bordered with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in the north. Its coast lies on the Gulf of Guinea, a part of the Atlantic Ocean, in the south. The capital city is Abuja. The three largest and most influential ethnic groups in Nigeria are the Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba. The country Nigeria is generally comprises six geo-political zones, which includes South West, South South, South East, North West, North East and North Central or Central Nigeria known as the middle belt of Nigeria.
The people of Nigeria have an extensive history, and archaeological evidence shows that human habitation of the area dates back to at least 9000 BCE The Benue-Cross River area is thought to be the original homeland of the Bantu migrants who spread across most of central and southern Africa in waves between the 1st millennium BCE and the 2nd millennium CE.
(A). NATURE OF THE MIDDLE BELT
Historical background
The Middle Belt concept and idea as a geo-political zone predominantly based on political ideology for the separate political identity by the people of the zone this was swept away by the tide of time, even though it may be argued that the 1995 draft constitutional conference recommended the creation of six geo-political zones in the country, which the Middle Belt Region was one. However, its antagonists re-christened it to the North Central zone to suit their interest and the appellation stuck to this day. Hon. Abba Moro the Executive Chairman of Opokwu Local Government Area of Benue State states that “historically, the search for a Middle Belt Region was pioneered by the late Chief Joseph Sarwan Tarka, of blessed memory. The movement for the Middle Belt Region assumed prominence during the First Republic when various nationalities sought to assert their identities on the political landscape of Nigeria. The agitation for a Middle Belt Region was part of this scenario, and partly also as a result of the not too well disposed political magnanimity of the modern political lords/helmsmen towards the members of this region”
According to Joses (2005) The Middle Belt of Nigeria has been a hotbed of agitations, struggle and conflict since the period before independence. Between 1928 and 1948 most ethnic groups experienced the world economic recession with its antecedent scarcity and socio-economic insecurity. They began to form communal unions not only to address the insecurity created by the world economic recession and the impact of the Second World War. However, what ignited ethnic insecurity in the Middle Belt was heightened by colonial policy that failed to integrate their interests into the larger frame work of Nigerian nation. The tempo became vibrant in 1950s with ethnic emotion, feelings and sentiments. In fact the history of minority agitation started from the Middle Belt over domination suffered not only by colonial repression but also by forcefully being made to be subject to the northern praetorian emirate system. The area was not only denied infrastructural development but deprived of its independent traditional political system. The agitation from the Middle Belt later ignited similar struggles from other parts of the country.
The Middle Belt is a political expression of ethnic minorities in the former Northern region which are found in the North-west, North-east and particularly North-central, which have been oppressed by both colonial rule and praetorian emirate system of the north and their contemporary political leaderships. Under the new dispensation of geo-political zoning of the federation the concept has been restricted to North-central and thereby obliterating the name North-central from the political lexicon of Nigeria. Meanwhile, the late head of state General Sani Abacha in his October 1, 1995 independent broadcast while presenting the 1995 constitution zoned the country into six political areas: North-west, North-east, Middle Belt, South-east, South-west and Southern Minority. While the Southern minority protested and preferred to be called South-south, the Middle Belt with time had been changed, by those who are repugnant to the concept, to North central. Nevertheless, the concept is bigger than any specific geo-political zone. The concept of Middle Belt is nebulous as some states like Kaduna, Niger, Kwara, Yobe, Borno and Adamawa,which have a concentration of Hausa-Fulani and some major ethnic minorities, who are Moslems (Nupe, Kanuri etc), and do see themselves more of 'Lugard North' than belonging to the belt. There is also a marginal ethnic-minority like the Yoruba (Kwara, Kogi), whose interest and loyalty are also divided; as they prefer to identify with the South West Yorubaland when the going is bad or who would want to benefit from both sides. However, Middle Belt therefore, is encompassing and can be seen as a political entity situated within the vast Savannah region of Nigeria, which has the concentration of ethnic-communal groups who majority practice African traditional religion or Christianity. They have their peculiar multifarious political systems, religious beliefs and cultural orientations, which are non Islamic and different from the Hausa-Fulani emirate system. In the words of Richard Sklar, the Middle Belt area comprise of people who were either non-Hausa speaking, non-Muslim or both.
However, the region is constituted by eight states of the federation which includes; Kogi, Kwara, Niger, Plateau, Nasarawa, Benue, Adamawa, Taraba and the Federal Capital Territory of the federation as a result of ethno-minority situation in trying to re-assert the independent entity, the place has for long become an alluring bride for many suitors, conscious of the strategic part it plays in deciding the outcome of an election. Straddling the middle of Nigeria, the middle Belt is a relatively big complex multi-ethnic, multi-religious geographical area, where unlike the Hausa-Fulani and the Kanuris of the far north, is populated largely by minority ethnic groups. Its politics is no complex, swinging between an uneasy attachment to the far north and sometimes an open or cautious solidarity and alliance with southern-based parties. No wonder it has since the pre-independence days been a fertile fishing water pond for the big three ethnic groups in the country in their quest for political dominance.
Geography and Vegetation of the Middle Belt
The middle Belt is located at the central point of Nigeria characterized with guinea savannah and marked by crystalline rock outcroppings and gently rolling hills, such as the adamawa hill, Biu Mountain and Jos plateau. The two major or notable rivers in Nigeria, River Niger and Benue meet at the region precisely at Lokoja town in Kogi state. The two major seasons are the raining season from the month of April through October and dry season from November through March. The temperature is also relative from state to states as it is relatively cold weather in Jos plateau while other states are predominantly with hot weather condition.
Architecture:
The Middle belt regions of Nigeria are predominantly rural environs except those of the states capitals and some other sub-towns around the capital city. Therefore, the building patterns and structures are usually with mud and thatched roofs in the villages.
However, the house patterns and structure in the urban environments or centres are to greater extent measured with the modern day housing pattern like what are obtainable in towns like Jos, Ilorin, Yola, Lokoja, Minna, Markudi, Abuja etc where good housing plans, streets, water channel, and lightning systems are well constructed
Political Activities
The political activities of middle belt people will be incomprehensive without a bit of traces back their political struggle as part of the movement and the primary factor for the existence and the actualization of the region today. The middle belt however is much more than an attractive bride waiting to be plucked by the lucky suitor. It has other attributes.
Chief Solomon Daushep Lar, a prominent advocate of this cause thinks he knows the true significance of the area in Nigeria. A middle Belt conference he convened in August 1998, the first civilian governor of the old Plateau state and one-time National chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) stated that "because the Middle Belt is located in central Nigeria, which comprise the people of southern and northern Nigeria, it is always in the best position to interpret the north to the south and the south to the north. Not only do we serve as the glue for the country, our privileged location enables us to best measure the temperature of the nation. This role places enormous responsibility on our shoulders, and also requires that both the north and the south must listen carefully to us anytime we speak on contentious issues".
This is chief Lar's understanding and the place of the middle Belt in the corporate entity called Nigeria. Indeed even before the emergences of the Lars on the political scene, the area had been under going some kind of rethinking on its place in Nigeria and its politics. The birth of the United Middle Belt Congress (UMBC) in the late 1940's was the culmination of such rethinking and the search by the area for relevance in national politics. The founding fathers of the UMBC such as the late Rwang Pam, Yonah Asadugu, Bello Jacob Ijumu, Pastor David Lot, among many others invested enormous amount of their time and resources to see to the realization of the goals of the area through political activities.
Economic Activities
The main activities for sustainability are farming, fishing, hunting, trading, weaving, blacksmithing, tying and dying mat making, and some other sub minor petty trading across the region although the predominant economic activities are farming and fishing as a result of their fertile nature of land and the presence of river Niger and Benue around Kogi, Benue, part of Niger, and some other related areas nearby the riverine environs, mining amongst Jos Plateau people, weaving of clothe and canoe building among the Nupe people of Niger.
Agriculture/Soil type
Since, the average populace of the region are predominantly farmer their concentration however is basically on subsistence farming i.e. farming consumptions of the immediate family. Therefore, relatively few of these people produced agricultural product on commercial basis couple with the low level of mechanise farming because most of their farming activities is still intensively on communal effort.
The types of crops growing in the middle belt of Nigeria are tuber crops such as yam, cassava, cocoa-yam, potatoes, cereals such as millet and maize, economic trees such as Iroko, obeche and mahogany, fruits such as citrus fruit, guava, and some other related crops growing commercial purposes. The nature of the land of the region is relative from states to states just as the South Eastern region soil is more fertile than every other parts of the region. The soil generally in the middle belt is relatively sandy-loam type of soil while parts are reddish in colour and sticky.
Social/Per-Social
Social and religious institutions among the people of middle belt is strongly base on traditions, norms, belief system, folkways and taboos of each tribe within a given state of the region because of heterogenous nature of their culture and languages such the Birom and Ngas of plateau, Okun and Igala of Kogi, Nupe of Niger, Idoma and Tiv of Benue, Eggon of Nasarrawa, Omu-aran of Kwara and lot more at the various states of the region.
The region to a large extent control social vices through their culture and the established rules and regulations lay down by their Ancestor. There are still element of moral consensus among the people their tribal and cultural activities or festival where the youth are taught roles and responsibility to imbibe by in order to fit in and capable of helping himself out of future problems
Socialization process of the children among the people of the region is still to a greater extent in the rural areas on imitation such learning the occupation of their parents such as farming, fishing or even some skills like swimming by those that lives around the riverine area.
However, Christianity, Islam and other social institutions such education, clubs and related societies have some kind of influences on the ways of life of the people in the region such as their mode of dressing, food they eat, language, crafts and other activities
Transportation systems
Transportation as the process of conveying goods and services from one destination to another has been from time immemorial. Therefore, transportation is inevitable to any given society rather they could be a point of peculiarities in those means of transportation, middle belt is characterized majorly by road transports, inland waterway, and fewer places with railway transportation network and airway. These transports systems are head porterage, bicycle, motor-cycle, canoe peddling, lorries, horse, camel, cars, Aeroplane in places like Jos Plateau, Ilorin, Minna, Markudi, Yola etc. Roads are constructed both by the central and regional governments liking these states to one another which equally help their trading activities from states to states.
Health
Health wise is also a critical issue in the middle belt where a lot of traditional herbal medicine is applied or used for different kinds of sicknesses and problems are equally diagnose through appriori method i.e. using the knowledge of Mr A to solve a similar case of Mr B in their traditional setting and up till the present day of existence even as the government and corporate bodies establishes Hospitals for proper health care the traditional herbal medicine are still in used for the curing of many diseases like typhoid fever, measles, malaria, and some other critical bone fractures especially among the rural dwellers of the region.
(B). PROBLEMS AND CHALLENGES OF THE MIDDLE BELT
Political problems
The middle belt region had been for so long subjected to political prejudice and other related problems. Chimaroke (2005) lamented that “the seeming tension in the Middle Belt arose variously from, competing ethnic identities, inter /intra-religious differences, disputes over arable/gracing land and scarce rural resources, contests over chieftaincy/political representations and access to power. By the same token, it was reasonably argued that the measure of ascendance of these elements of conflict arise from political competition, bias, stereotype, prejudices, elite manipulation, inequity, mass poverty and brash attitude of the noveau riche. It is also stated to include protracted national economic crisis, excessive centrality of national administration, long period of military rule, arbitrariness of rules, unclear citizenship identification and of course, a supra-national interest in lands and locality matters”
(C). PROSPECTS OR WAY FORWARD FOR THE MIDDLE BELT CHALLENGES:
References:
Ochoche, Sunday (anchorman): (1998) Enhancing Peaceful Coexistence in Nigeria (communiqué of Middle Belt Zonal Conference, Jos); Centre for Peace Research & Conflict Resolution, National War College
:http://www.nigerdeltacongress.com/darticles/dynamics_of_ethnic_and_religious.htm
Haruna Isah (200) The Middle Belt: History and politics Nasarawa Publishing Company Limited
Iloeje, p. (2000). Geography of Nigeria Development
Bagudu, Nankin (ed.): Linguistic Minorities and Inequality in Nigeria; League for Human Rights, Jos; 2003.
Abba, Morro (2005). What the Middle Belt Agenda should be
Atang Izang (2008). The Arewa Consultative Forum
Ajayi, P. O. (2003). Comprehensive Geography for Senior Secondary Schools. Jos: Johnson
Chimaroke Nnamani (2005). Nigeria Central the Middle Belt, Glue Of The Nation. 2005 edition of the public lecture series of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) Plateau State Council, in conjunction with Africa Republic Foundation (ARF); Hill Station Hotel, Jos, Nigeria.
Wednesday 18 March 2009
GLOBALIZATION AND URBANIZATION DIFFERENCES
INTRODUCTION
Generally, human existence cannot do without some forms of changes been it natural or artificial over time. Changes is something or phenomenon that is constant in it occurrence, as a result man in his activities bye and large strive to develop himself and his environment in order to meet up with the challenges of change that are bound to happened.
Globalization and Urbanization are some of these challenges that occur as a result of man activities in both the natural and artificial set up. Which to a large extent pose some challenges on man activities either positively or negatively? Most of the literature on urbanization and globalization has so far been focused on the cities of developed countries that have had their economic bases greatly enhanced by globalization, namely, New York, London and Tokyo (Sassen, 1991).
There have been very little systematic studies of urbanization in less developed countries where the benefits of globalization are less obvious or are absent despite two decades of donor-mandated economic reform programmes by developing countries in an effort to integrate them better to the world economy. Even less known is about the effect of globalization on the relationships between capital cities that serve as the nerve center of global accumulation and the hundreds of small towns and provincial capitals that have been untouched by economic globalization in a meaningful way. This paper will examine with critical issues the differences that exist between globalization and urbanization
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN URBANIZATION AND GLOBALIZATION
We will like to clearly distinguish or draw a land mark between the concept of urbanization and globalization under the following sub-themes:
a. Historical perspective,
b. Conceptual clarifications,
c. Characteristics features,
d. Challenges and
e. Benefits
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES
Globalization: The concept of globalization in an abstract sense i.e unpopular, originated around 1500. In parts of Western Europe, a long-term crisis of feudalism which gave way to technological innovation and the rise of market institutions advances in production and incentives for long-distance trade stimulated Europeans to reach other parts of the globe. In the 15th century, Portugal's Company of Guinea was one of the first chartered commercial companies established by Europeans in other continent during the Age of Discovery, whose task was to deal with the spices and to fix the prices of the goods. During the "long sixteenth century," Europeans thus established an occupational and geographic division of labor in which capital-intensive production was reserved for core countries while peripheral areas provided low-skill labor and raw materials. At any one time, a particular state could have hegemonic influence as the technological and military leader, but no single state could dominate the system: it is a world economy in which states are bound to compete. While the Europeans started with only small advantages, they exploited these to reshape the world in their capitalist image. The world as a whole is now devoted to endless accumulation and profit-seeking on the basis of exchange in a market that treats goods and labor alike as commodities.
Globalization in a wider context began shortly before the turn of the 16th century, with two Kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula - the Kingdom of Portugal and the Kingdom of Castile. Portugal's global explorations in the 16th century, especially, linked continents, economies and cultures to a massive extent. Portugal's exploration and trade with most of the coast of Africa, Eastern South America, and Southern and Eastern Asia, was the first major trade based form of globalization which made a wave of global trade, colonization, and enculturation reached all corners of the world.
Global integration continued through the expansion of European trade in the 16th and 17th centuries, when the Portuguese and Spanish Empires colonized the Americas, followed eventually by France and England. Globalization has had a tremendous impact on cultures, particularly indigenous cultures, around the world. In the 17th century, globalization became a business phenomenon when the British East India Company (founded in 1600), which is often described as the first multinational corporation, was established, as well as the Dutch East India Company (founded in 1602) and the Portuguese East India Company (founded in 1628). Because of the high risks involved with international trade, the British East India Company became the first company in the world to share risk and enable joint ownership of companies through the issuance of shares of stock: an important driver for globalization.
Globalization was achieved by the British Empire (the largest empire in history) due to its sheer size and power. British ideals and culture were imposed on other nations during this period.
The 19th century is sometimes called "The First Era of Globalization." It was a period characterized by rapid growth in international trade and investment between the European imperial powers, their colonies, and, later, the United States.
It was in this period that areas of sub-Saharan Africa and the Island Pacific were incorporated into the world system. The "First Era of Globalization" began to break down at the beginning of the 20th century with the first World War. Said John Maynard Keynes
Globalization is the process, completed in the twentieth century, by which the capitalist world-system spreads across the actual globe. Since that world-system has maintained some of its main features over several centuries, globalization does not constitute a new phenomenon. At the turn of the twenty-first century, the capitalist world economy is in crisis; therefore, according to the theory's leading proponent, the current "ideological celebration of so-called globalization is in reality the swan song of our historical system" (I. Wallerstein, Utopistics, 1998: 32).
Urbanization: in its own historical perspective is more related to natural evolvement of human existence and growth in relation to population of people in a given geographical location. In the work of Jason (2006) “the results of our work show the existing models for the origin of ancient cities may in fact be flawed, urbanism does not appears to have originated with a single powerful ruler or political entity, instead it was the organic outgrowth of many groups coming together.” He further expresses that, to understand patterns of population growth in the earliest urban areas, archaeologists at Tell Brak, located in northern Mesopotamia, in what is today called northern Iraq and northern Syria.
The emergence of the city from the village was made possible by the improvements in plant cultivation and stock-breeding that came with Neolithic culture; in particular, the cultivation of the hard grains that could be produced in abundance and kept over from year to year without spoiling. With the surplus of manpower available as Neolithic man escaped from a subsistence economy, it was possible to draw a larger number of people into other forms of work and service: administration, the mechanical arts, warfare, systematic thought, and religion. So the once-scattered population of Neolithic times, dwelling in hamlets of from ten to fifty houses was concentrated into cities ruled and regimented on a different plan (Childe, 1954).
These early cities bore many marks of their village origins, for they were still in essence agricultural towns this early association of urban growth with food production governed the relation of the city to its neighboring land far longer that many observers now realize. This means that one of the chief determinants of large-scale urbanization has been nearness to fertile agricultural land. One of the outstanding facts about urbanization is that, while the urban population of the globe in 1930 numbered around 415,000,000 souls, or about a fifth of the total population, the remaining fourfifths still lived under conditions approximating that of the Neolithic economy [Sorre, 1952].
In the first stage of urbanization measured with the number and size of cities varied with the amount and productivity of the agricultural land available. Cities were confined mainly to the valleys and flood plains, like the Nile, the Fertile Crescent, the Indus and the Hwang Ho. Increase of population in any one city was therefore limited. The second stage of urbanization began with the development of large-scale river and sea transport and the introduction of roads for chariots and carts. In this new economy the village and the country town maintained the environmental balance of the first stage; but, with the production of grain and oil in surpluses that permitted export, a specialization in agriculture set in and, along with this, a specialization in trade and industry, supplementing the religious and political specialization that dominated the first stage. Both these forms of specialization enabled the city to expand in population beyond the limits of its agricultural hinterland; and, in certain cases, notably in Greek city of Megalopolis, the population in smaller centers was deliberately removed to a single big center ---a conscious reproduction of a process that was taking place less deliberately in other cities. At this stage the city grew by draining away its resources and manpower from the countryside without returning any equivalent goods. Along with this went a destructive use of natural resources for industrial purposes, with increased concentration on mining and smelting.
The third stage of urbanization does not make its appearance until the nineteenth century, and it is only now beginning to reach its full expansion, performance, and influence. If the first stage is one of urban balance and cooperation, and the second is one of partial urban dominance within a still mainly agricultural framework, behind both is an economy that was forced to address the largest part of its manpower toward cultivating the land and improving the whole landscape for human use. The actual amount of land dedicated to urban uses was limited, if only because the population was also limited. This entire situation has altered radically during the last three centuries by reason of a series of related changes. The first is that world population has been growing steadily since the seventeenth century, when the beginning of reasonable statistical estimates, or at least tolerable guesses, can first be made. According to (Woytinskys, 1953)
Thanks to World War II, the idea of building such towns on a great scale, to drain off population from the overcrowded urban centers, took hold. This resulted in the New Towns Act of 1947, which provided for the creation of a series of new towns, fourteen in all, in Britain. This open pattern of town-building, with the towns themselves dispersed through the countryside and surrounded by permanent rural reserves, does a minimum damage to the basic ecological fabric. To the extent that their low residential density, of twelve to fourteen houses per acre, gives individual small gardens to almost every family, these towns not merely maintain a balanced micro-environment but actually grow garden produce whose value is higher than that produced when the land was used for extensive farming or grazing [Block, 1954].
CONCEPTUAL CLARIFICATIONS ON BOTH GLOBALIZATION AND URBANIZATION
Globalization: The phenomenon of globalization has many dimensions and it means different things to different people and in different academic disciplines. Economists see it as global capitalism; cultural studies sees it as a form of cultural hybridization (Robertson, 1996); and political scientists see it as a process by which the nation-state is forced to surrender its sovereignty to regional and international political institutions (Strange, 1996). At the very fundamental level, what we mean when we use the term globalization is an increase in worldwide interconnectedness.
Aliyu (2000 in Irmiya)
"Globalization," except in a superficial, journalistic sense, therefore has little meaning and analytical utility in general terms. It is precisely the kind of totalizing or universalizing construct being called into question by postmodern modes of social enquiry (Simon 1996). As the contributions in King (1991) reveal clearly, globalization even has very different meanings in the cultural arena for various academic disciplines. However, some sociologists view globalization in two perspectives-first as a process and second as a product.
The first perspective, globalization as a process-is the process that is fuel by the onslaught of market capitalism throughout the world and accompanying advances in electronic communication and transportation technologies (Allen & Hammett, 1988).
Tom G. Palmer of the Cato Institute defines globalization as "the diminution or elimination of state-enforced restrictions on exchanges across borders and the increasingly integrated and complex global system of production and exchange that has emerged as a result." Globalization is often used to refer to economic globalization, that is, integration of national economies into the international economy through trade, foreign direct investment, capital flows, migration, and the spread of technology.
Second perspective as a product-is seen an the product of the developed emergence which had already created its structure in business such as e-commerce, ICT, corporate hegemony and capitalism
Urbanization on the other side, according to the 2005 Revision of the UN Urbanization is the increase of the population in cities compared to the overall population of a region, country or the world as a whole. Also urbanization refers to a process in which an increasing proportion of an entire population lives in cities and the suburbs of cities. Historically, it has been closely connected with industrialization.
However, industrialization is a situation when more and more inanimate sources of energy were used to enhance human productivity, surpluses increased in both agriculture and industry. Larger and larger proportions of a population could live in cities. Economic forces were such that cities became the ideal places to locate factories and their workers.
Dungwom (2003 in Irmiya 2009) defined urbanization as the progressive concentration of population in towns and cities through different process.
These definitions above the clarity of the two concepts as one deal with market economy in relations to price control and the one talk about the population of people in a given area or the nature of habitation of people in a given region.
Characteristics Features of Both Globalization and Urbanization
Globalization:
A striking feature of globalization is the very fact of social change expressed in a “multiplicity of transitions” occurring simultaneously at several and in some cases mutually contradictory levels. These multiplicities of changes occur in different ways for different economies, different cities and different agents within them. The effects, which can either be positive or negative, are manifest in a wide array of contexts—from the social and cultural to the economic, environmental and political. While one section of humanity is growing and developing as a result of integration to global markets, the other wallows in increasing despondency and despair, including in those parts of the world that are believed to have benefited enormously from economic globalization. This chapter examines how economic globalization affects countries and regions within countries differently depending on a range of factors, including the level of integration of the local economy into the global economy, the national and local policy context and degree of decentralization of power; the influence of different institutions in each country and locality and demographic characteristics. The chapter specifically looks at how uneven globalization reinforces preexisting social and economic differences within African cities.
Globalization is geneally facilitated with use of ICT Information and Communication Technology which stands as the key factors for global systems such as internet, GSM phone, parcel post and much other poster agent transfer
Alubo (2009) identifies the following as the main features of globalization:
1. Interdependence and integration,
2. Collapse of commodity prices
3. Difficult to distinguished between national and international financial problems,
4. There is dominance in British Woods Institutions (BWI)
5. There are nations dependence
To Alubo, globalization is characterized with a high level of interdependence of nations to nations without necessarily taken into cognizance of the barriers of boundaries and restriction. Regulation of prices of commodity is not longer
Urbanization: however, urbanization has the following main feature
1. better infrastructure,
2. bigger market,
3. individualization
4. Industrialization
5. densely populated environment and
6. social welfare
Challenges of Globalization and Urbanization
Globalization:
Political disfranchisement: most of the country especially the third world countries are not succinctly having their fundamental sovereignty rather they are relegated to sub minor existence of species, neo-colonialism to the highest oder
Exploitation of foreign impoverished workers: The deterioration of protections for weaker nations by stronger industrialized powers has resulted in the exploitation of the people in those nations to become cheap labor. Due to the lack of protections, companies from powerful industrialized nations are able to offer workers enough salary to entice them to endure extremely long hours and unsafe working conditions, though economists question if consenting workers in a competitive employers' market can be decried as "exploitated". The abundance of cheap labor is giving the countries in power incentive not to rectify the inequality between nations. If these nations developed into industrialized nations, the army of cheap labor would slowly disappear alongside development. It is true that the workers are free to leave their jobs, but in many poorer countries, this would mean starvation for the worker, and possible even his/her family if their previous jobs were unavailable
Low productivity in the poorer countries: Most of the third world countries are sometimes at disadvantage side as most of their activities is based on agricultural products, although it is true that globalization encourages free trade among countries, there are also negative consequences because some countries try to save their national markets. The main export of poorer countries is usually agricultural goods. Larger countries often subsidise their farmers (like the EU Common Agricultural Policy, which lowers the market price for the poor farmer's crops compared to what it would be under free trade
Global inequality: globalization results to global inequality because it makes some countries to be at the receiving ends while some at the loosing ends. Global inequality was estimated at around 65 Gini points, whereas the new numbers indicate global inequality to be at 70 on the Gini scale. It is unsurprising that the level of international inequality is so high, as larger sample spaces almost always give a higher level of inequality. In December 2007, World Bank economist Branko Milanovic has called much previous empirical research on global poverty and inequality into question because, according to him, improved estimates of purchasing power parity indicate that developing countries are worse off than previously believed. Milanovic remarks that "literally hundreds of scholarly papers on convergence or divergence of countries’ incomes have been published in the last decade based on what we know now were faulty numbers."
Global conflicts, such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States of America, is interrelated with globalization because it was primary source of the "war on terror", which had started the steady increase of the prices of oil and gas, due to the fact that most OPEC member countries were in the Arabian Peninsula.
Dumping of the locally manufactured product
Urbanization
Displacement of Nature because many elements supplied by nature, necessary for both health and mental balance, will be lacking as a result of urbanization
Destructive use of natural resources. These are used for industrial purposes, with increased concentration on mining and smelting in order to have a concentrated environment named city or urban.
Land degradation: since urbanization is more of development in the physical and basic infrastructures, so the possibility of derogating the land surface is very high.
Pollution: this as a results of industrial activities since the majority of the urban environment are dominated by at every angles of the urban centre industries and other intensive commercial activities
Problems of land for agricultural purposes, social problems and anti-social vices like criminal activities and adjustment behaviour of the inhabitants all these are yet another serious challenges of urbanization
Benefits of Globalization and Urbanization
Globalization:
Alubo (2009) summarizes the following as the major advantages of globalization:
1. Market liberalization,
2. Process of increasing economic, political, and social interdependence,
3. World without boundaries,
4. It has made trade from far possible and
5. It has turn the world into a global village
Urbanization:
1. It brings about industrialization
2. High standard of living of people
3. It create employment opportunity
4. It gives an international recognition
In conclusion, without much ado one will observe that globalization is more relative to internationalization-refers to importance of international trade, relations, treaties and other relative variables in persuading the prospective partners. While urbanization deals mostly with industrialization-the use of more animate sources of energy for the enhancement of human productivity
Globalization is equally a concept within human imagination and creativity while urbanization can be view as a natural phenomenon which evolves as a result of human activities.
Globalization is a concept often used or develops within the discipline of social sciences while urbanization can see in more of environmental sciences or studies.
Globalization is a close concept with capitalism which deals chiefly with the exploitation of human power and initiatives, financial resources but urbanization in its own context deals chiefly with exploitation of natural environment and it involve large portion of land.
References:
http://www.ifpri.org/pubs/jhu/transformrural.asp.
Alubo O. (2009). Sociology of Development. Lecture note unpublished
Jason, Ur (2006). Origin of Urbanization. Harvard University
David Simon, (1996). Urbanization, globalization, and economic crisis in Africa
Block, Geoffrey D. M. (1954) The Spread of Towns. (London: Conservative Political Centre. 57 pp.)
Chossudovsky, Michel (2003) Globalization of Poverty and the new world order. (2.ed.). Imprint Shanty Bay, Ont. Global Outlook,
Wade, Robert Hunter (2001). 'The Rising Inequality of World Income Distribution', Finance & Development, Vol 38, No 4
Childe, V. Gordon (1942) What Happened in History (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. 288 pp.)
Xabier Gorostiaga (1995)."World has become a 'champagne glass' globalization will fill it fuller for a wealthy few' National Catholic Reporter,
Childe, V. Gordon (1954) Early Forms of Society. (in [Singer et alii, 1954:38--57].)
Irmiya (2009) Urbanization/Transportation and related issues. Lecture Note Unpuplished
Keyes, Fenton (1951) Urbanism and Population Distribution in China (American Journal of Sociology, LVI, No. 6, pp. 519-27.)
Webber, Adna Ferrin (1899) The Growth of Cities in the Nineteenth Century: A Study in Statistics. (New York: Macmillan Co. 495 pp.)
Wallerstein. 1974a. "The Rise and Future Demise of the of the World-Capitalist System: Concepts for Comparative Analysis." Comparative Studies in Society and History 16: 387-415.
--. 1974b. The Modern World-System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century. New York: Academic Press.
__. 1989. The Modern World-System III: The Second Era of Great Expansion of the Capitalist World-Economy, 1730-1840s. New York: Academic Press.
__. 1995. After Liberalism. New York: The New Press.
__. 1998. Utopistics: Or, Historical Choices of the Twenty-First Century. New York: The New Press.
__. 2000. "The Twentieth Century: Darkness at Noon?" Keynote address, PEWS conference, Boston.
BY
MEDAYESE FELIX JIMOH
DEPARTMENT OF ARTS/SOCIAL SCIENCE
SOCIAL STUDIES EDUCATION
FACULTY OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF JOS
Generally, human existence cannot do without some forms of changes been it natural or artificial over time. Changes is something or phenomenon that is constant in it occurrence, as a result man in his activities bye and large strive to develop himself and his environment in order to meet up with the challenges of change that are bound to happened.
Globalization and Urbanization are some of these challenges that occur as a result of man activities in both the natural and artificial set up. Which to a large extent pose some challenges on man activities either positively or negatively? Most of the literature on urbanization and globalization has so far been focused on the cities of developed countries that have had their economic bases greatly enhanced by globalization, namely, New York, London and Tokyo (Sassen, 1991).
There have been very little systematic studies of urbanization in less developed countries where the benefits of globalization are less obvious or are absent despite two decades of donor-mandated economic reform programmes by developing countries in an effort to integrate them better to the world economy. Even less known is about the effect of globalization on the relationships between capital cities that serve as the nerve center of global accumulation and the hundreds of small towns and provincial capitals that have been untouched by economic globalization in a meaningful way. This paper will examine with critical issues the differences that exist between globalization and urbanization
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN URBANIZATION AND GLOBALIZATION
We will like to clearly distinguish or draw a land mark between the concept of urbanization and globalization under the following sub-themes:
a. Historical perspective,
b. Conceptual clarifications,
c. Characteristics features,
d. Challenges and
e. Benefits
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES
Globalization: The concept of globalization in an abstract sense i.e unpopular, originated around 1500. In parts of Western Europe, a long-term crisis of feudalism which gave way to technological innovation and the rise of market institutions advances in production and incentives for long-distance trade stimulated Europeans to reach other parts of the globe. In the 15th century, Portugal's Company of Guinea was one of the first chartered commercial companies established by Europeans in other continent during the Age of Discovery, whose task was to deal with the spices and to fix the prices of the goods. During the "long sixteenth century," Europeans thus established an occupational and geographic division of labor in which capital-intensive production was reserved for core countries while peripheral areas provided low-skill labor and raw materials. At any one time, a particular state could have hegemonic influence as the technological and military leader, but no single state could dominate the system: it is a world economy in which states are bound to compete. While the Europeans started with only small advantages, they exploited these to reshape the world in their capitalist image. The world as a whole is now devoted to endless accumulation and profit-seeking on the basis of exchange in a market that treats goods and labor alike as commodities.
Globalization in a wider context began shortly before the turn of the 16th century, with two Kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula - the Kingdom of Portugal and the Kingdom of Castile. Portugal's global explorations in the 16th century, especially, linked continents, economies and cultures to a massive extent. Portugal's exploration and trade with most of the coast of Africa, Eastern South America, and Southern and Eastern Asia, was the first major trade based form of globalization which made a wave of global trade, colonization, and enculturation reached all corners of the world.
Global integration continued through the expansion of European trade in the 16th and 17th centuries, when the Portuguese and Spanish Empires colonized the Americas, followed eventually by France and England. Globalization has had a tremendous impact on cultures, particularly indigenous cultures, around the world. In the 17th century, globalization became a business phenomenon when the British East India Company (founded in 1600), which is often described as the first multinational corporation, was established, as well as the Dutch East India Company (founded in 1602) and the Portuguese East India Company (founded in 1628). Because of the high risks involved with international trade, the British East India Company became the first company in the world to share risk and enable joint ownership of companies through the issuance of shares of stock: an important driver for globalization.
Globalization was achieved by the British Empire (the largest empire in history) due to its sheer size and power. British ideals and culture were imposed on other nations during this period.
The 19th century is sometimes called "The First Era of Globalization." It was a period characterized by rapid growth in international trade and investment between the European imperial powers, their colonies, and, later, the United States.
It was in this period that areas of sub-Saharan Africa and the Island Pacific were incorporated into the world system. The "First Era of Globalization" began to break down at the beginning of the 20th century with the first World War. Said John Maynard Keynes
Globalization is the process, completed in the twentieth century, by which the capitalist world-system spreads across the actual globe. Since that world-system has maintained some of its main features over several centuries, globalization does not constitute a new phenomenon. At the turn of the twenty-first century, the capitalist world economy is in crisis; therefore, according to the theory's leading proponent, the current "ideological celebration of so-called globalization is in reality the swan song of our historical system" (I. Wallerstein, Utopistics, 1998: 32).
Urbanization: in its own historical perspective is more related to natural evolvement of human existence and growth in relation to population of people in a given geographical location. In the work of Jason (2006) “the results of our work show the existing models for the origin of ancient cities may in fact be flawed, urbanism does not appears to have originated with a single powerful ruler or political entity, instead it was the organic outgrowth of many groups coming together.” He further expresses that, to understand patterns of population growth in the earliest urban areas, archaeologists at Tell Brak, located in northern Mesopotamia, in what is today called northern Iraq and northern Syria.
The emergence of the city from the village was made possible by the improvements in plant cultivation and stock-breeding that came with Neolithic culture; in particular, the cultivation of the hard grains that could be produced in abundance and kept over from year to year without spoiling. With the surplus of manpower available as Neolithic man escaped from a subsistence economy, it was possible to draw a larger number of people into other forms of work and service: administration, the mechanical arts, warfare, systematic thought, and religion. So the once-scattered population of Neolithic times, dwelling in hamlets of from ten to fifty houses was concentrated into cities ruled and regimented on a different plan (Childe, 1954).
These early cities bore many marks of their village origins, for they were still in essence agricultural towns this early association of urban growth with food production governed the relation of the city to its neighboring land far longer that many observers now realize. This means that one of the chief determinants of large-scale urbanization has been nearness to fertile agricultural land. One of the outstanding facts about urbanization is that, while the urban population of the globe in 1930 numbered around 415,000,000 souls, or about a fifth of the total population, the remaining fourfifths still lived under conditions approximating that of the Neolithic economy [Sorre, 1952].
In the first stage of urbanization measured with the number and size of cities varied with the amount and productivity of the agricultural land available. Cities were confined mainly to the valleys and flood plains, like the Nile, the Fertile Crescent, the Indus and the Hwang Ho. Increase of population in any one city was therefore limited. The second stage of urbanization began with the development of large-scale river and sea transport and the introduction of roads for chariots and carts. In this new economy the village and the country town maintained the environmental balance of the first stage; but, with the production of grain and oil in surpluses that permitted export, a specialization in agriculture set in and, along with this, a specialization in trade and industry, supplementing the religious and political specialization that dominated the first stage. Both these forms of specialization enabled the city to expand in population beyond the limits of its agricultural hinterland; and, in certain cases, notably in Greek city of Megalopolis, the population in smaller centers was deliberately removed to a single big center ---a conscious reproduction of a process that was taking place less deliberately in other cities. At this stage the city grew by draining away its resources and manpower from the countryside without returning any equivalent goods. Along with this went a destructive use of natural resources for industrial purposes, with increased concentration on mining and smelting.
The third stage of urbanization does not make its appearance until the nineteenth century, and it is only now beginning to reach its full expansion, performance, and influence. If the first stage is one of urban balance and cooperation, and the second is one of partial urban dominance within a still mainly agricultural framework, behind both is an economy that was forced to address the largest part of its manpower toward cultivating the land and improving the whole landscape for human use. The actual amount of land dedicated to urban uses was limited, if only because the population was also limited. This entire situation has altered radically during the last three centuries by reason of a series of related changes. The first is that world population has been growing steadily since the seventeenth century, when the beginning of reasonable statistical estimates, or at least tolerable guesses, can first be made. According to (Woytinskys, 1953)
Thanks to World War II, the idea of building such towns on a great scale, to drain off population from the overcrowded urban centers, took hold. This resulted in the New Towns Act of 1947, which provided for the creation of a series of new towns, fourteen in all, in Britain. This open pattern of town-building, with the towns themselves dispersed through the countryside and surrounded by permanent rural reserves, does a minimum damage to the basic ecological fabric. To the extent that their low residential density, of twelve to fourteen houses per acre, gives individual small gardens to almost every family, these towns not merely maintain a balanced micro-environment but actually grow garden produce whose value is higher than that produced when the land was used for extensive farming or grazing [Block, 1954].
CONCEPTUAL CLARIFICATIONS ON BOTH GLOBALIZATION AND URBANIZATION
Globalization: The phenomenon of globalization has many dimensions and it means different things to different people and in different academic disciplines. Economists see it as global capitalism; cultural studies sees it as a form of cultural hybridization (Robertson, 1996); and political scientists see it as a process by which the nation-state is forced to surrender its sovereignty to regional and international political institutions (Strange, 1996). At the very fundamental level, what we mean when we use the term globalization is an increase in worldwide interconnectedness.
Aliyu (2000 in Irmiya)
"Globalization," except in a superficial, journalistic sense, therefore has little meaning and analytical utility in general terms. It is precisely the kind of totalizing or universalizing construct being called into question by postmodern modes of social enquiry (Simon 1996). As the contributions in King (1991) reveal clearly, globalization even has very different meanings in the cultural arena for various academic disciplines. However, some sociologists view globalization in two perspectives-first as a process and second as a product.
The first perspective, globalization as a process-is the process that is fuel by the onslaught of market capitalism throughout the world and accompanying advances in electronic communication and transportation technologies (Allen & Hammett, 1988).
Tom G. Palmer of the Cato Institute defines globalization as "the diminution or elimination of state-enforced restrictions on exchanges across borders and the increasingly integrated and complex global system of production and exchange that has emerged as a result." Globalization is often used to refer to economic globalization, that is, integration of national economies into the international economy through trade, foreign direct investment, capital flows, migration, and the spread of technology.
Second perspective as a product-is seen an the product of the developed emergence which had already created its structure in business such as e-commerce, ICT, corporate hegemony and capitalism
Urbanization on the other side, according to the 2005 Revision of the UN Urbanization is the increase of the population in cities compared to the overall population of a region, country or the world as a whole. Also urbanization refers to a process in which an increasing proportion of an entire population lives in cities and the suburbs of cities. Historically, it has been closely connected with industrialization.
However, industrialization is a situation when more and more inanimate sources of energy were used to enhance human productivity, surpluses increased in both agriculture and industry. Larger and larger proportions of a population could live in cities. Economic forces were such that cities became the ideal places to locate factories and their workers.
Dungwom (2003 in Irmiya 2009) defined urbanization as the progressive concentration of population in towns and cities through different process.
These definitions above the clarity of the two concepts as one deal with market economy in relations to price control and the one talk about the population of people in a given area or the nature of habitation of people in a given region.
Characteristics Features of Both Globalization and Urbanization
Globalization:
A striking feature of globalization is the very fact of social change expressed in a “multiplicity of transitions” occurring simultaneously at several and in some cases mutually contradictory levels. These multiplicities of changes occur in different ways for different economies, different cities and different agents within them. The effects, which can either be positive or negative, are manifest in a wide array of contexts—from the social and cultural to the economic, environmental and political. While one section of humanity is growing and developing as a result of integration to global markets, the other wallows in increasing despondency and despair, including in those parts of the world that are believed to have benefited enormously from economic globalization. This chapter examines how economic globalization affects countries and regions within countries differently depending on a range of factors, including the level of integration of the local economy into the global economy, the national and local policy context and degree of decentralization of power; the influence of different institutions in each country and locality and demographic characteristics. The chapter specifically looks at how uneven globalization reinforces preexisting social and economic differences within African cities.
Globalization is geneally facilitated with use of ICT Information and Communication Technology which stands as the key factors for global systems such as internet, GSM phone, parcel post and much other poster agent transfer
Alubo (2009) identifies the following as the main features of globalization:
1. Interdependence and integration,
2. Collapse of commodity prices
3. Difficult to distinguished between national and international financial problems,
4. There is dominance in British Woods Institutions (BWI)
5. There are nations dependence
To Alubo, globalization is characterized with a high level of interdependence of nations to nations without necessarily taken into cognizance of the barriers of boundaries and restriction. Regulation of prices of commodity is not longer
Urbanization: however, urbanization has the following main feature
1. better infrastructure,
2. bigger market,
3. individualization
4. Industrialization
5. densely populated environment and
6. social welfare
Challenges of Globalization and Urbanization
Globalization:
Political disfranchisement: most of the country especially the third world countries are not succinctly having their fundamental sovereignty rather they are relegated to sub minor existence of species, neo-colonialism to the highest oder
Exploitation of foreign impoverished workers: The deterioration of protections for weaker nations by stronger industrialized powers has resulted in the exploitation of the people in those nations to become cheap labor. Due to the lack of protections, companies from powerful industrialized nations are able to offer workers enough salary to entice them to endure extremely long hours and unsafe working conditions, though economists question if consenting workers in a competitive employers' market can be decried as "exploitated". The abundance of cheap labor is giving the countries in power incentive not to rectify the inequality between nations. If these nations developed into industrialized nations, the army of cheap labor would slowly disappear alongside development. It is true that the workers are free to leave their jobs, but in many poorer countries, this would mean starvation for the worker, and possible even his/her family if their previous jobs were unavailable
Low productivity in the poorer countries: Most of the third world countries are sometimes at disadvantage side as most of their activities is based on agricultural products, although it is true that globalization encourages free trade among countries, there are also negative consequences because some countries try to save their national markets. The main export of poorer countries is usually agricultural goods. Larger countries often subsidise their farmers (like the EU Common Agricultural Policy, which lowers the market price for the poor farmer's crops compared to what it would be under free trade
Global inequality: globalization results to global inequality because it makes some countries to be at the receiving ends while some at the loosing ends. Global inequality was estimated at around 65 Gini points, whereas the new numbers indicate global inequality to be at 70 on the Gini scale. It is unsurprising that the level of international inequality is so high, as larger sample spaces almost always give a higher level of inequality. In December 2007, World Bank economist Branko Milanovic has called much previous empirical research on global poverty and inequality into question because, according to him, improved estimates of purchasing power parity indicate that developing countries are worse off than previously believed. Milanovic remarks that "literally hundreds of scholarly papers on convergence or divergence of countries’ incomes have been published in the last decade based on what we know now were faulty numbers."
Global conflicts, such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States of America, is interrelated with globalization because it was primary source of the "war on terror", which had started the steady increase of the prices of oil and gas, due to the fact that most OPEC member countries were in the Arabian Peninsula.
Dumping of the locally manufactured product
Urbanization
Displacement of Nature because many elements supplied by nature, necessary for both health and mental balance, will be lacking as a result of urbanization
Destructive use of natural resources. These are used for industrial purposes, with increased concentration on mining and smelting in order to have a concentrated environment named city or urban.
Land degradation: since urbanization is more of development in the physical and basic infrastructures, so the possibility of derogating the land surface is very high.
Pollution: this as a results of industrial activities since the majority of the urban environment are dominated by at every angles of the urban centre industries and other intensive commercial activities
Problems of land for agricultural purposes, social problems and anti-social vices like criminal activities and adjustment behaviour of the inhabitants all these are yet another serious challenges of urbanization
Benefits of Globalization and Urbanization
Globalization:
Alubo (2009) summarizes the following as the major advantages of globalization:
1. Market liberalization,
2. Process of increasing economic, political, and social interdependence,
3. World without boundaries,
4. It has made trade from far possible and
5. It has turn the world into a global village
Urbanization:
1. It brings about industrialization
2. High standard of living of people
3. It create employment opportunity
4. It gives an international recognition
In conclusion, without much ado one will observe that globalization is more relative to internationalization-refers to importance of international trade, relations, treaties and other relative variables in persuading the prospective partners. While urbanization deals mostly with industrialization-the use of more animate sources of energy for the enhancement of human productivity
Globalization is equally a concept within human imagination and creativity while urbanization can be view as a natural phenomenon which evolves as a result of human activities.
Globalization is a concept often used or develops within the discipline of social sciences while urbanization can see in more of environmental sciences or studies.
Globalization is a close concept with capitalism which deals chiefly with the exploitation of human power and initiatives, financial resources but urbanization in its own context deals chiefly with exploitation of natural environment and it involve large portion of land.
References:
http://www.ifpri.org/pubs/jhu/transformrural.asp.
Alubo O. (2009). Sociology of Development. Lecture note unpublished
Jason, Ur (2006). Origin of Urbanization. Harvard University
David Simon, (1996). Urbanization, globalization, and economic crisis in Africa
Block, Geoffrey D. M. (1954) The Spread of Towns. (London: Conservative Political Centre. 57 pp.)
Chossudovsky, Michel (2003) Globalization of Poverty and the new world order. (2.ed.). Imprint Shanty Bay, Ont. Global Outlook,
Wade, Robert Hunter (2001). 'The Rising Inequality of World Income Distribution', Finance & Development, Vol 38, No 4
Childe, V. Gordon (1942) What Happened in History (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. 288 pp.)
Xabier Gorostiaga (1995)."World has become a 'champagne glass' globalization will fill it fuller for a wealthy few' National Catholic Reporter,
Childe, V. Gordon (1954) Early Forms of Society. (in [Singer et alii, 1954:38--57].)
Irmiya (2009) Urbanization/Transportation and related issues. Lecture Note Unpuplished
Keyes, Fenton (1951) Urbanism and Population Distribution in China (American Journal of Sociology, LVI, No. 6, pp. 519-27.)
Webber, Adna Ferrin (1899) The Growth of Cities in the Nineteenth Century: A Study in Statistics. (New York: Macmillan Co. 495 pp.)
Wallerstein. 1974a. "The Rise and Future Demise of the of the World-Capitalist System: Concepts for Comparative Analysis." Comparative Studies in Society and History 16: 387-415.
--. 1974b. The Modern World-System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century. New York: Academic Press.
__. 1989. The Modern World-System III: The Second Era of Great Expansion of the Capitalist World-Economy, 1730-1840s. New York: Academic Press.
__. 1995. After Liberalism. New York: The New Press.
__. 1998. Utopistics: Or, Historical Choices of the Twenty-First Century. New York: The New Press.
__. 2000. "The Twentieth Century: Darkness at Noon?" Keynote address, PEWS conference, Boston.
BY
MEDAYESE FELIX JIMOH
DEPARTMENT OF ARTS/SOCIAL SCIENCE
SOCIAL STUDIES EDUCATION
FACULTY OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF JOS
Teacher The Panacea of Environmental Education
INTRODUCTION
Over the last fifteen years, an awareness of the subject of environmental education has grown at formal and non-formal levels in Nigeria. Within the formal system in Nigeria, environmental education is taught as part of other school subjects such as social studies geography and integrated science. A great deal of effort has been invested by the Nigeria Educational Research Development Council (NERDC) to infuse the environmental education concept into many subjects in the junior and senior secondary school curricula.
The Science Teachers’ Association of Nigeria on its own part is pursuing a regimen of training for environmental educators for the school system through its annual workshops.
In their work was an evaluation of the teachers’ knowledge of environmental issues and examination of the delivery of environmental education in schools. They further revealed a heightened awareness of environmental issues among Nigerians’ teachers. This also showed a preference for certain teaching strategies in the delivery of environmental education by the teachers. However the participating teachers state that they may not be able to teach environmental education as a core subject because of the number of subjects being taught at secondary school levels.
Environmental Education which is an organized efforts to teach about how natural environments function and, particularly, how human beings can manage their behavior and ecosystems in order to live a sustainable life. Environment is the utmost important part of our lives. It is concerned with the surroundings in which we live and cherish our life. Protection of environment is everyone’s duty. So environmentally educated teachers are needed in order to teach the contents of environmental education effectively. Conservation of environment is not taken seriously by people, there is a “who cares” attitude or “the little I pollute, how does it matter much?” This attitude is because of lack of environmental education to create good orientation and environmental issues.
The goal of environmental education is to develop a world population that is aware of and concerned about the environment and its associated problems and who has the knowledge, skills, attitudes, motivations and commitment to work individually and collectively towards solution of current environmental problems and prevention of new ones. School system provides the largest organized base for environmental education and action. It offers an effective instrument for embedding in them the desirable environmental ethics. Teacher is one of the chief significant factors, which is bound to affect the teaching of environmental education. Teachers who are properly trained with environmental concepts can provide a vital link in the delivery of environmental knowledge, its associated problems and their solutions.
Reasons why teachers has failed in effective delivery of Environmental Education through social studies (Nigeria in Focus)
Teachers are supposed to be the vessels through which the gospel of environmental education can be impacted to the live of learners. So teachers are seen as the four runners of effective delivery of any curricula activities. Being important change agents in the education enterprise, teachers are therefore at the heart of any successful effort to promote environmental education (Okebukola et al. 1997; Disinger 1984). The overall expectation is that teachers’ could be a corpus of environmental educators that could serve as the agent in the spread of the message of sustainable development and environmental protection. But teachers had failed for the effective delivery of environmental education as a result of the following reasons:
1. Professionalism (Poor Professional Values, Professional Knowledge/dispositions and Professional Development.)
2. Poor Content Of Teaching
3. Poor practice of teaching (Communication, classroom Management/instruction, planning/evaluation and Consideration of Individual Needs, Abilities/Disabilities and Aspirations )
4. Teachers’ limited knowledge of ecological concepts and environmental issues
5. Teachers’ look worm attitude
Professional skill and training: Insufficient teacher training has been identified as a major cause of curriculum failure in Environmental Education (UNESCO; 1997, Knapp; 2000, Mckeown-Ice, 2000). Teacher are expected to be professionally trained in related field especially in the area of environmental education such as Foundational competencies in professional education, Competencies in environmental education content, but very high numbers of the teachers are not environmentally educated. Olusanya (2008) Reasons accounting for this belief may probably stem from the sense of ill-preparedness and low professional confidence with regards to their content and pedagogical knowledge of the current environmental issues and problems. .
Poor content of teaching: The teachers failed to base the content of their teaching on clearly defined aims, objectives and learning outcomes as laid down by education authorities and agreed within the profession which has lead to unsound knowledge and understanding of the subject matter, processes of inquiry, concepts and skills, plan their teaching on the basis of recent, relevant pedagogical research
Poor practice of teaching: A lot of teachers fail to establish expectations that are clear, challenging and achievable for students; use a wide variety of fair and consistent assessment strategies and instruments for diagnostic, formative and summative evaluation relate assessment strategies and instruments to learning objectives, content and tasks. Ineffectively select and sequence learning activities, manage and pace teaching time to achieve planned student outcomes and also fail to apply a variety of human, material and technological resources to maximise learning as impartial as possible when discussing controversial matters like environmental issues with students.
Teachers’ limited knowledge about ecological concepts and environmental issues: teachers who are not environmentally educated will encounter problems in the proper delivery of environmental issues
Teachers look worm attitude: Just as revealed in Olusanya (2008) the infusion of EE generated concerns and anxieties from the teachers, who viewed the infusion as overloading of the already loaded curricula. In 1996 the Science Teachers’ Association of Nigeria (STAN) through its National Environmental Education Project (NEEP) commenced, a regimen of training for environmental educators (i.e. train-the-trainers workshop) as a response to growing teachers’ concern regarding overloading of curriculum. (Okebukola et.al. (1997).
Organized on annual basis, the workshops presented opportunities for secondary school science teachers, to learn about the strategies which can best allow easy assimilation of knowledge (Thiele and Treagust 1991; Okebukola 1996); as well as, facilitate students’ understanding of environmental concepts or principles (Ahove 1997). From the above statement one will understand that, the teachers’ attitude is a very strong factor militating against the actualization of the goals of environmental education.
Conclusions: Teachers needed to have more knowledge, skills and change in attitude for them to be able to deliver the goals and objective of environmental education for sustainable living of man in the society. Since the teacher as posits by Ukairo (1978) is the one who help to make society what it is. Therefore, teachers are encouraged to acquire more knowledge related to environmental concepts and issues.
References:
Disinger, J. (2007). Field Instruction in school settings. ERIC/SMEAC 1984 [cited
September 15 2007]. Available from http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-922/settings.htm.
Okebukola, Peter. (1996). And the barrier to meaningful learning of science came tumbling down. In Inaugural Lecture. Ojo, Lagos: Lagos State University Press.
Okebukola, Peter, M. Ahove, A Kola-Olusanya, Ben Akpan, and M. Ogunsola-Bandele. (1997). Teachers' perception of the effectiveness of strategies for teaching concepts on the environment. In Strategies for Environmental Education: Focus on Global Warming, Greenhouse effect and ozone Layer Depletion, edited by P. Okebukola and B. Akpan. Port Harcourt, Nigeria: African Pep Publishers.
Gruenewald, D.A. (2004). A Foucauldian analysis of environmental education: toward the socioecological challenge of the Earth Charter, Curriculum Inquiry 34(1):71-107.
Ahove, M. (1997). The use of analogies in teaching some concepts on the environment. In Strategies for environmental education: Focus on global warming, greenhouse effect and ozone layer depletion, edited by P. Okebukola and B. Akpan
Thiele, R. B., and D. F. Treagust. (1991). Using analogies in secondary chemistry teaching. Australian Science Teachers' Journal 37 (2):10-14.
Olusanya, A. K (2008). Environmental Education in Nigeria: A Look beyond the Infusion Problem. Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto
Environmentally Educated Teachers The Priority of Priorities? Unesco-Unep Environmental Education Newsletter Vol. XV, No. 1, March 1990
UNESCO. (1997). Educating for a sustainable future: A transdisciplinary vison for concerted action. UNESCO Publication No. EPD-97/Conf.401/CLD.1). Paris: UNESCO.
Knapp, D. (2000). The Thessaloniki Declaration: A wake-up call for environmental education? Journal of Environmental Education, 31 (3), 32-39.
Mckeown-Ice, R. (2000). Environmental education in the United States: A survey of pre-service teacher education programs. Journal of Environmental Education, 32(1), 4-11.
http://www.ifev.edu.vu/students/teacher_profile.html
Over the last fifteen years, an awareness of the subject of environmental education has grown at formal and non-formal levels in Nigeria. Within the formal system in Nigeria, environmental education is taught as part of other school subjects such as social studies geography and integrated science. A great deal of effort has been invested by the Nigeria Educational Research Development Council (NERDC) to infuse the environmental education concept into many subjects in the junior and senior secondary school curricula.
The Science Teachers’ Association of Nigeria on its own part is pursuing a regimen of training for environmental educators for the school system through its annual workshops.
In their work was an evaluation of the teachers’ knowledge of environmental issues and examination of the delivery of environmental education in schools. They further revealed a heightened awareness of environmental issues among Nigerians’ teachers. This also showed a preference for certain teaching strategies in the delivery of environmental education by the teachers. However the participating teachers state that they may not be able to teach environmental education as a core subject because of the number of subjects being taught at secondary school levels.
Environmental Education which is an organized efforts to teach about how natural environments function and, particularly, how human beings can manage their behavior and ecosystems in order to live a sustainable life. Environment is the utmost important part of our lives. It is concerned with the surroundings in which we live and cherish our life. Protection of environment is everyone’s duty. So environmentally educated teachers are needed in order to teach the contents of environmental education effectively. Conservation of environment is not taken seriously by people, there is a “who cares” attitude or “the little I pollute, how does it matter much?” This attitude is because of lack of environmental education to create good orientation and environmental issues.
The goal of environmental education is to develop a world population that is aware of and concerned about the environment and its associated problems and who has the knowledge, skills, attitudes, motivations and commitment to work individually and collectively towards solution of current environmental problems and prevention of new ones. School system provides the largest organized base for environmental education and action. It offers an effective instrument for embedding in them the desirable environmental ethics. Teacher is one of the chief significant factors, which is bound to affect the teaching of environmental education. Teachers who are properly trained with environmental concepts can provide a vital link in the delivery of environmental knowledge, its associated problems and their solutions.
Reasons why teachers has failed in effective delivery of Environmental Education through social studies (Nigeria in Focus)
Teachers are supposed to be the vessels through which the gospel of environmental education can be impacted to the live of learners. So teachers are seen as the four runners of effective delivery of any curricula activities. Being important change agents in the education enterprise, teachers are therefore at the heart of any successful effort to promote environmental education (Okebukola et al. 1997; Disinger 1984). The overall expectation is that teachers’ could be a corpus of environmental educators that could serve as the agent in the spread of the message of sustainable development and environmental protection. But teachers had failed for the effective delivery of environmental education as a result of the following reasons:
1. Professionalism (Poor Professional Values, Professional Knowledge/dispositions and Professional Development.)
2. Poor Content Of Teaching
3. Poor practice of teaching (Communication, classroom Management/instruction, planning/evaluation and Consideration of Individual Needs, Abilities/Disabilities and Aspirations )
4. Teachers’ limited knowledge of ecological concepts and environmental issues
5. Teachers’ look worm attitude
Professional skill and training: Insufficient teacher training has been identified as a major cause of curriculum failure in Environmental Education (UNESCO; 1997, Knapp; 2000, Mckeown-Ice, 2000). Teacher are expected to be professionally trained in related field especially in the area of environmental education such as Foundational competencies in professional education, Competencies in environmental education content, but very high numbers of the teachers are not environmentally educated. Olusanya (2008) Reasons accounting for this belief may probably stem from the sense of ill-preparedness and low professional confidence with regards to their content and pedagogical knowledge of the current environmental issues and problems. .
Poor content of teaching: The teachers failed to base the content of their teaching on clearly defined aims, objectives and learning outcomes as laid down by education authorities and agreed within the profession which has lead to unsound knowledge and understanding of the subject matter, processes of inquiry, concepts and skills, plan their teaching on the basis of recent, relevant pedagogical research
Poor practice of teaching: A lot of teachers fail to establish expectations that are clear, challenging and achievable for students; use a wide variety of fair and consistent assessment strategies and instruments for diagnostic, formative and summative evaluation relate assessment strategies and instruments to learning objectives, content and tasks. Ineffectively select and sequence learning activities, manage and pace teaching time to achieve planned student outcomes and also fail to apply a variety of human, material and technological resources to maximise learning as impartial as possible when discussing controversial matters like environmental issues with students.
Teachers’ limited knowledge about ecological concepts and environmental issues: teachers who are not environmentally educated will encounter problems in the proper delivery of environmental issues
Teachers look worm attitude: Just as revealed in Olusanya (2008) the infusion of EE generated concerns and anxieties from the teachers, who viewed the infusion as overloading of the already loaded curricula. In 1996 the Science Teachers’ Association of Nigeria (STAN) through its National Environmental Education Project (NEEP) commenced, a regimen of training for environmental educators (i.e. train-the-trainers workshop) as a response to growing teachers’ concern regarding overloading of curriculum. (Okebukola et.al. (1997).
Organized on annual basis, the workshops presented opportunities for secondary school science teachers, to learn about the strategies which can best allow easy assimilation of knowledge (Thiele and Treagust 1991; Okebukola 1996); as well as, facilitate students’ understanding of environmental concepts or principles (Ahove 1997). From the above statement one will understand that, the teachers’ attitude is a very strong factor militating against the actualization of the goals of environmental education.
Conclusions: Teachers needed to have more knowledge, skills and change in attitude for them to be able to deliver the goals and objective of environmental education for sustainable living of man in the society. Since the teacher as posits by Ukairo (1978) is the one who help to make society what it is. Therefore, teachers are encouraged to acquire more knowledge related to environmental concepts and issues.
References:
Disinger, J. (2007). Field Instruction in school settings. ERIC/SMEAC 1984 [cited
September 15 2007]. Available from http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-922/settings.htm.
Okebukola, Peter. (1996). And the barrier to meaningful learning of science came tumbling down. In Inaugural Lecture. Ojo, Lagos: Lagos State University Press.
Okebukola, Peter, M. Ahove, A Kola-Olusanya, Ben Akpan, and M. Ogunsola-Bandele. (1997). Teachers' perception of the effectiveness of strategies for teaching concepts on the environment. In Strategies for Environmental Education: Focus on Global Warming, Greenhouse effect and ozone Layer Depletion, edited by P. Okebukola and B. Akpan. Port Harcourt, Nigeria: African Pep Publishers.
Gruenewald, D.A. (2004). A Foucauldian analysis of environmental education: toward the socioecological challenge of the Earth Charter, Curriculum Inquiry 34(1):71-107.
Ahove, M. (1997). The use of analogies in teaching some concepts on the environment. In Strategies for environmental education: Focus on global warming, greenhouse effect and ozone layer depletion, edited by P. Okebukola and B. Akpan
Thiele, R. B., and D. F. Treagust. (1991). Using analogies in secondary chemistry teaching. Australian Science Teachers' Journal 37 (2):10-14.
Olusanya, A. K (2008). Environmental Education in Nigeria: A Look beyond the Infusion Problem. Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto
Environmentally Educated Teachers The Priority of Priorities? Unesco-Unep Environmental Education Newsletter Vol. XV, No. 1, March 1990
UNESCO. (1997). Educating for a sustainable future: A transdisciplinary vison for concerted action. UNESCO Publication No. EPD-97/Conf.401/CLD.1). Paris: UNESCO.
Knapp, D. (2000). The Thessaloniki Declaration: A wake-up call for environmental education? Journal of Environmental Education, 31 (3), 32-39.
Mckeown-Ice, R. (2000). Environmental education in the United States: A survey of pre-service teacher education programs. Journal of Environmental Education, 32(1), 4-11.
http://www.ifev.edu.vu/students/teacher_profile.html
Tuesday 17 March 2009
THE NATURE, PROPLEMS AND PROSPECTS OF THE MIDDLE BELT REGION OF NIGERIA
THE MIDDLE BELT GEO-POLITICAL ZONE OF
INTRODUCTION
The people of Nigeria have an extensive history, and archaeological evidence shows that human habitation of the area dates back to at least 9000 BCE The Benue-Cross River area is thought to be the original homeland of the Bantu migrants who spread across most of central and southern Africa in waves between the 1st millennium BCE and the 2nd millennium CE.
(A). NATURE OF THE MIDDLE BELT
Historical background
The Middle Belt concept and idea as a geo-political zone predominantly based on political ideology for the separate political identity by the people of the zone this was swept away by the tide of time, even though it may be argued that the 1995 draft constitutional conference recommended the creation of six geo-political zones in the country, which the Middle Belt Region was one. However, its antagonists re-christened it to the North Central zone to suit their interest and the appellation stuck to this day. Hon. Abba Moro the Executive Chairman of Opokwu Local Government Area of Benue State states that “historically, the search for a Middle Belt Region was pioneered by the late Chief Joseph Sarwan Tarka, of blessed memory. The movement for the Middle Belt Region assumed prominence during the
According to Joses (2005) The Middle Belt of Nigeria has been a hotbed of agitations, struggle and conflict since the period before independence. Between 1928 and 1948 most ethnic groups experienced the world economic recession with its antecedent scarcity and socio-economic insecurity. They began to form communal unions not only to address the insecurity created by the world economic recession and the impact of the Second World War. However, what ignited ethnic insecurity in the Middle Belt was heightened by colonial policy that failed to integrate their interests into the larger frame work of Nigerian nation. The tempo became vibrant in 1950s with ethnic emotion, feelings and sentiments. In fact the history of minority agitation started from the Middle Belt over domination suffered not only by colonial repression but also by forcefully being made to be subject to the northern praetorian emirate system. The area was not only denied infrastructural development but deprived of its independent traditional political system. The agitation from the Middle Belt later ignited similar struggles from other parts of the country.
The Middle Belt is a political expression of ethnic minorities in the former Northern region which are found in the North-west, North-east and particularly North-central, which have been oppressed by both colonial rule and praetorian emirate system of the north and their contemporary political leaderships. Under the new dispensation of geo-political zoning of the federation the concept has been restricted to North-central and thereby obliterating the name North-central from the political lexicon of
However, the region is constituted by eight states of the federation which includes; Kogi, Kwara, Niger, Plateau, Nasarawa, Benue, Adamawa, Taraba and the Federal Capital Territory of the federation as a result of ethno-minority situation in trying to re-assert the independent entity, the place has for long become an alluring bride for many suitors, conscious of the strategic part it plays in deciding the outcome of an election. Straddling the middle of
Geography and Vegetation of the Middle Belt
The middle Belt is located at the central point of Nigeria characterized with guinea savannah and marked by crystalline rock outcroppings and gently rolling hills, such as the adamawa hill,
Architecture:
The Middle belt regions of
However, the house patterns and structure in the urban environments or centres are to greater extent measured with the modern day housing pattern like what are obtainable in towns like Jos, Ilorin, Yola, Lokoja, Minna, Markudi, Abuja etc where good housing plans, streets, water channel, and lightning systems are well constructed
Political Activities
The political activities of middle belt people will be incomprehensive without a bit of traces back their political struggle as part of the movement and the primary factor for the existence and the actualization of the region today. The middle belt however is much more than an attractive bride waiting to be plucked by the lucky suitor. It has other attributes.
Chief Solomon Daushep Lar, a prominent advocate of this cause thinks he knows the true significance of the area in
This is chief Lar's understanding and the place of the middle Belt in the corporate entity called
Economic Activities
The main activities for sustainability are farming, fishing, hunting, trading, weaving, blacksmithing, tying and dying mat making, and some other sub minor petty trading across the region although the predominant economic activities are farming and fishing as a result of their fertile nature of land and the presence of river Niger and Benue around Kogi, Benue, part of Niger, and some other related areas nearby the riverine environs, mining amongst Jos Plateau people, weaving of clothe and canoe building among the Nupe people of
Agriculture/Soil type
Since, the average populace of the region are predominantly farmer their concentration however is basically on subsistence farming i.e. farming consumptions of the immediate family. Therefore, relatively few of these people produced agricultural product on commercial basis couple with the low level of mechanise farming because most of their farming activities is still intensively on communal effort.
The types of crops growing in the middle belt of
Social/Per-Social
Social and religious institutions among the people of middle belt is strongly base on traditions, norms, belief system, folkways and taboos of each tribe within a given state of the region because of heterogenous nature of their culture and languages such the Birom and Ngas of plateau, Okun and Igala of Kogi, Nupe of Niger, Idoma and Tiv of Benue, Eggon of Nasarrawa, Omu-aran of Kwara and lot more at the various states of the region.
The region to a large extent control social vices through their culture and the established rules and regulations lay down by their Ancestor. There are still element of moral consensus among the people their tribal and cultural activities or festival where the youth are taught roles and responsibility to imbibe by in order to fit in and capable of helping himself out of future problems
Socialization process of the children among the people of the region is still to a greater extent in the rural areas on imitation such learning the occupation of their parents such as farming, fishing or even some skills like swimming by those that lives around the riverine area.
However, Christianity, Islam and other social institutions such education, clubs and related societies have some kind of influences on the ways of life of the people in the region such as their mode of dressing, food they eat, language, crafts and other activities
Transportation systems
Transportation as the process of conveying goods and services from one destination to another has been from time immemorial. Therefore, transportation is inevitable to any given society rather they could be a point of peculiarities in those means of transportation, middle belt is characterized majorly by road transports, inland waterway, and fewer places with railway transportation network and airway. These transports systems are head porterage, bicycle, motor-cycle, canoe peddling, lorries, horse, camel, cars, Aeroplane in places like Jos Plateau, Ilorin, Minna, Markudi, Yola etc. Roads are constructed both by the central and regional governments liking these states to one another which equally help their trading activities from states to states.
Health
Health wise is also a critical issue in the middle belt where a lot of traditional herbal medicine is applied or used for different kinds of sicknesses and problems are equally diagnose through appriori method i.e. using the knowledge of Mr A to solve a similar case of Mr B in their traditional setting and up till the present day of existence even as the government and corporate bodies establishes Hospitals for proper health care the traditional herbal medicine are still in used for the curing of many diseases like typhoid fever, measles, malaria, and some other critical bone fractures especially among the rural dwellers of the region.
(B). PROBLEMS AND CHALLENGES OF THE MIDDLE BELT
Political problems
The middle belt region had been for so long subjected to political prejudice and other related problems. Chimaroke (2005) lamented that “the seeming tension in the Middle Belt arose variously from, competing ethnic identities, inter /intra-religious differences, disputes over arable/gracing land and scarce rural resources, contests over chieftaincy/political representations and access to power. By the same token, it was reasonably argued that the measure of ascendance of these elements of conflict arise from political competition, bias, stereotype, prejudices, elite manipulation, inequity, mass poverty and brash attitude of the noveau riche. It is also stated to include protracted national economic crisis, excessive centrality of national administration, long period of military rule, arbitrariness of rules, unclear citizenship identification and of course, a supra-national interest in lands and locality matters”
(C).
References:
Ochoche, Sunday (anchorman): (1998) Enhancing Peaceful Coexistence in
:http://www.nigerdeltacongress.com/darticles/dynamics_of_ethnic_and_religious.htm
Haruna Isah (200) The Middle Belt: History and politics Nasarawa Publishing Company Limited
Iloeje, p. (2000). Geography of
Bagudu, Nankin (ed.): Linguistic Minorities and Inequality in
Abba, Morro (2005). What the Middle Belt Agenda should be
Atang Izang (2008). The Arewa Consultative Forum
Ajayi, P. O. (2003). Comprehensive Geography for Senior Secondary Schools. Jos: Johnson
Chimaroke Nnamani (2005).
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