HOW DO YOU USE MOTOR RESPONSE TO EXPLAIN SKILL ACQUISITION STRATEGY

1. HOW DO YOU USE MOTOR RESPONSE TO EXPLAIN SKILL ACQUISITION STRATEGY
INTRODUCTION
Skill acquisition refers to the process that athletes use to learn or acquire a new skill. A skill can be defined as an act or task such as typing or drawing, or in the instance of sport, catching, throwing, and running. Skill acquisition is used to describe the ability to learn and acquire a new skill. A skill refers to a particular ability or the ability to do something well such as a natural talent like singing, painting or dancing.
According to Encarta Dictionary (2009), a skill is seen as ability to do something well, usually gained through training or experience. Skill acquisition on the other hand involves the development of a new skill, practice or a way of doing things usually gained through training or experience. The types of skills that can be acquired by the youth include:
a. Vocational carpentry, hair dressing, fashion designing, tailoring etc;
b. Mechanic, electrical, repairs of GSM handset, Wrist watches, air- conditioner etc; and
c. Entrepreneurial (small scale business such as operation of kiosk, buying and selling of spare parts, restaurants etc).

A motor skill is an intentional movement involving a motor or muscular component that must be learned and voluntarily produced to proficiently perform goal-oriented task, according to Knapp, Newell, and Sparrow. Men and women differ in motor skill ability. In general, men are better at gross motor skills while women are better at fine motor skills. Gender differences in brain physiology are often cited by scientists to explain these differences. Many of the regions of the brain responsible for motor skill reside in the frontal lobe, basal ganglia, and cerebellum.
The regions of the frontal lobe responsible for motor skill include the primary motor cortex, the supplemental motor area and the premotor cortex. The primary motor cortex is located on the precentral gyrus and is often visualized as the motor homunculus. By stimulating certain areas of the motor strip and observing where it had an effect, Penfield and Rassmussen were able to map out the motor homunculus. Areas on the body that have complex movements, such as the hands, have a bigger representation on the motor homunculus.
The supplemental motor area, which is just anterior to the primary motor cortex, is involved with postural stability and adjustment as well as coordinating sequences of movement. The premotor cortex, which is just below the supplemental motor area, integrates sensory information from the posterior parietal cortex and is involved with sensory guided planning of movement and begins the programming of movement.
The basal ganglia are an area in the brain where gender differences in brain physiology is evident. The basal ganglia are a group of nuclei in the brain that are responsible for a variety of functions, some of which include movement. The globus pallidus and putamen are two nuclei of the basal ganglia which are both involved in motor skills. The globus pallidus is involved with voluntary motor movement, while the putamen is involved with motor learning. Even after controlling for the naturally larger volume of the male brain, it was found that males have a larger volume of both the globus pallidus and putamen.

CONCLUSION
Motor responses can be use in a number of ways to explain skills acquisition strategies. In relation to the strategies and skills, concerning individual differences, ability and prior experience consistently emerged as moderate to strong predictors of task performance, whereas self-reported Big 5 personality was unrelated to task performance. Similar but generally weaker relationships were found between individual differences and strategy sophistication. A model that proposed that the effect of ability and prior experience on task performance was mediated by strategy sophistication was not supported. Findings were broadly consistent with cognitive correlates and skill transfer models of individual differences.

In relation to skill acquisition, looking at differences between instructed strategy shift and self-initiated strategy shift, hypotheses were partially supported. In summary, relative to self-initiated strategy shifts, instructed strategy shifts were more abrupt. Performance also tended to decline sharply immediately following the instructed strategy shift. After additional practice, performance was similar to groups that had not received instructed strategy shift. The study highlighted how the dynamics of instructed strategy shift differ from self-initiated strategy shift with regards to discontinuities.

2. WHAT IS THE IMPLICATION OF MOTIVATIONAL VARIABLE IN SKILL ACQUISITION
In order to define the phrase “motivational variables in learning,” learning should be defined first. Learning refers to “change in abilities, attitudes, beliefs, capabilities, knowledge, mental models, and patterns of interaction or skills” (Spector 2001, p. 313). Motivational variables in learning can be defined as the attributes that make a learner desire to pursue such changes. Not only the initiation of a desire, but also its continuation is necessary for the desire to result in change; that is, to be considered a motivational learning variable, a learner’s desire ought to be sustained until there is a change in the learner indicating that learning has occurred. There are numerous variables that might be associated with the initiation and continuation of a learner’s willingness to learn, including interest, perceived relevance, activation of prior knowledge, goal orientations, self-efficacy
Skill acquisition refers to the process that athletes use to learn or acquire a new skill. A skill can be defined as an act or task such as typing or drawing, or in the instance of sport, catching, throwing, and running.
Skill acquisition is a gradual developmental process that requires our cognitive (thinking) processes to work with our physical abilities to learn how to perform movements that we were previously unfamiliar with. For performers and coaches to produce peak performance, it is essential that they understand how the level of skill acquisition can affect performance. This includes an understanding of the learning process, analysis of how well it is performed and identification of how the performance of this skill can be improved.
Learning can occur in three ways:
• cognitive learning – learning by receiving knowledge and information
• affective learning – learning on a social level (e.g. self-esteem and fair-play)
• motor learning – learning by acquiring physical motor skills.
When learning physical skills motor learning is of greatest importance.
Motivational variables are regarded as a critical variable for skill acquisition and are broadly defined as any kind of sensory information related to a response or movement. Intrinsic feedback is response-produced — it occurs normally when a movement is made and the sources may be internal or external to the body. Typical sources of intrinsic feedback include vision, proprioception and audition. External feedback is augmented information provided by an external source, in addition to intrinsic feedback. Extrinsic feedback is sometimes categorized as knowledge of performance or knowledge of results.
Several studies have manipulated the presentation features of variable information (e.g., frequency, delay, interpolated activities, and precision) in order to determine the optimal conditions for learning
Skill learning is a continuous and dynamic process. When the learner acquires a skill certain changes can be seen in their performance as they move through stages of learning from a beginner through to a skilled performer. These changes can be analysed in three stages, as developed by Paul Fitts and Michael Posner in 1967 These stages are known as the cognitive, associative and autonomous stages of skill acquisition.
Each individual brings unique qualities, characteristics and experiences to the learning environment. These experiences and characteristics influence the capacity of the learner to acquire skills. These include inherited, social and emotional factors, and are the reason why individuals develop skills at different rates even though they may be exposed to the same training.
In addition to the characteristics a learner brings to the situation, everything outside the learner needs to be considered in terms of the impact on the learning process. This includes the nature, or complexity of the skill to be learnt, the performance elements, the types of practice to be used, the surrounding environment and the nature of feedback.

In order to improve performance, an athlete’s performance needs to be analyzed. In some sports and activities such as Olympic gymnastics, an assessment of skill and performance is used to determine competition results. There are a number of processes we can use to distinguish between a skilled and unskilled performer. The development of objective and subjective performance measures is two ways in which appraisal and evaluation of a performance can be done

CONCLUSION
The specificity of the implication of motivational variables in skills acquisition suggests that learning is most effective when practice sessions include environment and movement conditions which closely resemble those required during performance of the task — replicating the target skill level and context for performance. It suggests that the benefit of specificity in practice occurs because motor learning is specific to the feedback sources available during the process of skill learning. Contrary to previous beliefs, skill learning is not accomplished by shifting from one source of feedback to another, or reducing the importance of feedback for information critical to task performance. The learning process, especially for a difficult task, results in the creation of a representation of the task where all relevant information pertaining to task performance is integrated. This representation becomes tightly coupled with increasing experience performing the task. As a result, removing a significant source of information after a practice period where it was present causes performance to deteriorate (see relative frequency of knowledge of results for example – motor learning). Interestingly, the converse is also true: adding a significant source of information after a practice period where it was absent also causes performance to deteriorate.

REFERENCES
1. Kurt z, Lisa A. (2007). Understanding Motor Skills in Children with Dyspepsia, ADHAM, Autism, and Other Learning Disabilities: A Guide to Improving Coordination (KP Essentials Series) (KP Essentials). Jessica Kingsley Pub. ISBN 1-84310-865-8.
2. Lee, Timothy Donald; Schmidt, Richard Penrose (1999). Motor control and learning: a behavioral emphasis. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. ISBN 0-88011-484-3.
3. Stallings, Loretta M. (1973). Motor Skills: Development and Learning. Boston: WCB/McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-697-07263-0.
4. Joseph, R. (2000). “The evolution of sex differences in language, sexuality, and visual–spatial skills”. Archives of Sexual Behavior 29 (1): 35–66.
5. Schott, G. (1993). “Penfield’s homunculus: a note on cerebral cartography”. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry 56 (4): 329–333. doi:10.1136/jnnp.56.4.329.
6. Rijpkema, M., Everaerd, D., van der Pol, C., Franke, B., Tendolkar, I., & Fernandez, G. (2012).Normal sexual dimorphism in the human basal ganglia. Human Brain Mapping, 33(5), 1246–1252. doi: 10.1002/hbm.21283.
7. Raz, N., Gunning-Dixon, F., Head, D., Williamson, A., & Acker, J. (2001). Age and sex differences in the cerebellum and the ventral pons: A prospective mr study of healthy adults. American Journal of Neuroradiology, 22(6), 1161–1167. doi: 11415913.
8. Becker, J., Berkley, K., Geary, N., Hampson, E., Herman, J., & Young, E. (2008). Sex differences in the brain: From genes to behavior. (p. 156). New York, NY: Oxford University Press, Inc.

INFLUENCE OF MOTIVATION AND ATHLETE PERFORMANCE

I.INFLUENCE OF MOTIVATION AND ATHLETE PERFORMANCE
INTRODUCTION
Motivation is a theoretical construct, used to explain behavior. Motives are hypothetical constructs, used to explain why people do what they do, for example, when they use some strategy to achieve a goal. According to Maehr and Meyer, “Motivation is a word that is part of the popular culture as few other psychological concepts are”.[1] Wikipedia readers will have a motive (or motives) for reading an article, even if such motives are complex and difficult to pinpoint. At the other end of the range of complexity, hunger is frequently the motive for seeking out and consuming food.
Athletic Performance could mean Carrying out of specific physical routines or procedures by one who is trained or skilled in physical activity. Performance is influenced by a combination of physiological, psychological, and socio-cultural factors.
Motivation is the foundation all athletic effort and accomplishment. Without your desire and determination to improve your sports performances, all of the other mental factors, confidence, intensity, focus, and emotions, are meaningless. To become the best athlete you can be, you must be motivated to do what it takes to maximize your ability and achieve your goals.
Motivation, simply defined, is the ability to initiate and persist at a task. To perform your best, you must want to begin the process of developing as an athlete and you must be willing to maintain your efforts until you have achieved your goals. Motivation in sports is so important because you must be willing to work hard in the face of fatigue, boredom, pain, and the desire to do other things. Motivation will impact everything that influences your sports performance: physical conditioning, technical and tactical training, mental preparation, and general lifestyle including sleep, diet, school or work, and relationships.
The reason motivation is so important is that it is the only contributor to sports performance over which you have control. My There are three things that affect how well you perform. First, your ability, which includes your physical, technical, tactical, and mental capabilities. Because ability is something you are born with, you can’t change your ability so it is outside of your control.
Second, the difficulty of the competition influences performance. Contributors to difficulty include the ability of the opponent and external factors such as an “away game” crowd and weather such as temperature, wind, and sun. You have no control over these factors
Playing sports at any level of competition, from pickup games in your backyard to collegiate and professional levels, provides many benefits. From improving cardiovascular health to improving your feelings of self-esteem, sports can impact your life in significant ways. But your success in sports, and even what you can expect to get out of the experience, is dependent on many different factors. Both mental and physical factors affect your performance in sports, so if you believe your performance is lagging, try to consider as many factors as you can as possible causes. Motivation can influence athlete on the following ways;
1. Muscular Strength and Endurance
Every task you can imagine in sports, from throwing a ball to jumping over a hurdle, involves the action of your muscles. Some sports, such as power lifting, require a high level of muscular strength to produce a brief but powerful force. Others, such as marathon running, require incredible muscular endurance to sustain the strength to move your body for hours at a time. You can improve your muscular strength and endurance by practicing your particular sport, as well as working out in the weight room. A research review from the December 2004 issue of the “Journal of Exercise Physiology Online” suggests that performing workouts with heavier weight and a lower number of repetitions are better for strength, while working with moderate weight and higher numbers of repetitions is preferable for muscular endurance.
2. Cardiovascular Capacity
The muscles that you can see aren’t the only muscles that impact your sports performance. Your heart, which is part of your cardiovascular system, is crucial because it ensures that oxygenated blood reaches muscles throughout your body that help you run, jump and throw. To improve your cardiovascular capacity, perform cardio exercises such as running, swimming, aerobics or even dancing or dance-inspired workout programs such as Zumba.
3. Confidence
Being confident in yourself, your teammates and your skills is vital for sports performance. Having confidence will give you a positive attitude and help you visualize and achieve success. If you are not confident that you can beat your opponents or improve upon your previous performance, your negativity may prove you right. According to Jim Taylor, Ph.D., confidence is “is the single most important mental factor in sports,” so you should not overlook this factor.
4. Strategic Thinking
Many sports are just as much a mental game as they are a physical one, so strategic thinking is an important factor for success. Thinking strategically means you understand how players interact on the field or court and how you can employ plays that will help you defeat your opponents. By anticipating the moves of your opponents and reacting to plays as they develop, you can greatly improve your chances of winning.

CONCLUSION
Finally, motivation will impact performance. It is also the only factor over which you have control. Motivation will directly impact the level of success that you ultimately achieve. If you are highly motivated to improve your performances, then you will put in the time and effort necessary to raise your game. Motivation will also influence the level of performance when you begin a competition. If they’re competing against someone of nearly equal skill, it will not be ability that will determine the outcome. Rather, it will be the athlete who works the hardest, who doesn’t give up, and who performs their best when it counts. In other words, the athlete who is most motivated to win. Motivational models are central to game design, because without motivation a player will not be interested in progressing further within a game. Several models for game play motivations have been proposed, including Richard Bartle’s. Jon Radoff has proposed a four-quadrant model of game play motivation that includes cooperation, competition, immersion and achievement. The motivational structure of games is central to the gamification trend, which seeks to apply game-based motivation to business applications.

2. EFFECTS OF MOTOR EDUCABILITY OF THE ATHELETE.
INTRODUCTION
Human beings use movement to learn about their world, to function in the world as they grow and mature, and to maintain healthy bodies. Individuals must learn to move and at the same time move to learn. Children explore their worlds through movement and make fundamental links between action and reality through movement.
Understanding how individuals learn motor skills (motor learning) i.e using motor educability requires an appreciation for the following factors.
• Motor Development: how the capacity of children to produce motor skills naturally matures
• Motor Control: how the human neurological system controls movement
• Sport Psychology: how to motivate individuals to want to learn motor skills and participate in sport and exercise
• Pedagogy for Physical Education: how the learning environment can be organized to optimize the acquisition of motor skills
Motor educability focuses on the most effective ways to facilitate the acquisition of skills by understanding or manipulating three aspects of the learning process for motor skills, as illustrated in Figure 1.
Motor educability research has held a predominant place in both physical education and psychology for more than 100 years. The early work of Robert Woodworth (1899) examined the conditions that affect movement accuracy and began a long history of research in this area. In the early twenty-first century, two fundamental approaches (models) describe the acquisition of motor skills and the challenges that face the learner. The information-processing focus is grounded by the work of such researchers as James Adams (1971), Steven Keele (1968) and Richard Schmidt (1975). An alternative explanation of motor skill acquisition comes from a dynamical systems approach followed by Karl Newell (1991) and Walter, Lee, and Sternad (1998). This approach emphasizes self-organization as a function of specific control parameters and environmental conditions as a way to understanding motor behavior.
Research from motor educability focuses on understanding how individuals acquire and perform motor skills, and serves as the basis for informed practice in such professional fields as physical education, occupation therapy, sports medicine, and physical therapy. In order to illustrate the contributions of motor learning to professional practice, three examples have been selected.
Providing effective models/demonstrations. Historically it was believed that providing ideal models was the best way to transmit information to learners. This assumption suggested that teachers or professional models should provide demonstrations to facilitate the acquisition of motor skills. By the early twenty-first century, research had shown that providing “learning models” who are similar to the peer learners, and who are shown modifying their skills, are more effective than the traditional perfect model. In practice, this suggests that models who are individuals, similar to the learner, should be shown trying to learn a motor skill, receiving feedback, and improving as a result of this feedback. Teachers should therefore focus on selecting classmate children to model, and to provide feedback that allows the models to improve during the process of providing the demonstration.
Practice variability (contextual interference).
Learning environments that provide reinforcement for the immediate performance of desired skills has often been the focus of physical education programs. The short-term benefits of practice that result does not take into account the need to consider the long-term benefits of various practice strategies.

CONCLUSION
The learning environment must be structured with motor educability in mind. it influences activity initiation and persistence. Self-motivation is also an important dimension in the forethought phase of self-regulation (Zimmerman, 2000). Many of the recommendations are cast in self-determination theory because teachers, therapists and athletes can influence factors such as achievement and choice. An extensive body of research supports these factors as affecting perceived competence, autonomy, and relatedness, the three needs posited in self-determination theory. In other words, these factors increase or decrease intrinsic motivation via modifying perceived competence, autonomy, and relatedness (Vallerand, 2007).

REFERENCES
1. Maehr, Martin L; Mayer, Heather (1997). “Understanding Motivation and Schooling: Where We’ve Been, Where We Are, and Where We Need to Go”. Educational Psychology Review 9 (44).
2. Stretton, Hugh; Orchard, Lionel (1994). Public goods, public enterprise, public choice : theoretical foundations of the contemporary attack on government (1. publ. ed.). Basingstoke u.a.: Macmillan u.a. ISBN 0333607244.
3. Wright, Robert (1995). The moral animal : evolutionary psychology and everyday life (1st Vintage books ed. ed.). New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 0-679-76399-6.
4. Ryan, Richard; Edward L. Deci (2000). “Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations: Classic Definitions and New Directions”. Contemporary Educational Psychology 25 (1): 54–67. doi:10.1006/ceps.1999.1020.
5. Wigfield, A., Guthrie, J. T., Tonks, S., & Perencevich, K. C. (2004). Children’s motivation for reading: Domain specificity and instructional influences. Journal of Educational Research, 97, 299-309.
6. Dewani, Vijay. “Motivation”. slideshare. Retrieved 22 March 2013.
7. Mark R. Lepper, David Greene and Richard Nisbet, “Undermining Children’s Intrinsic Interest with Extrinsic Reward; A Test of ‘Overjustification’ Hypothesis, ” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 28, 1973, 129‐37.
8. Barbara A. Marinak and Linda B. Gambrell, “Intrinsic Motivation and Rewards: What Sustains Young Children’s Engagement with Text?, ” Literacy Research and Instruction 47, 2008, 9-26.
9. Wilson, T. D., & Lassiter, G. D. (1982). Increasing intrinsic interest with superfluous extrinsic constraints. Journal of personality and social psychology, 42(5), 811-819.
10. Cherry, Kendra. “Introduction to Operant Conditioning”. About.com. Retrieved 22 March 2013.

INFLUENCE OF SKILL LEVEL AND ATHLETIC PERFORMANCE

INFLUENCE OF SKILL LEVEL AND ATHLETIC PERFORMANCE
INTRODUCTION
U.S. National Library of Medicine defines Athletic performance as carrying out of specific physical routines or procedures by one who is trained or skilled in physical activity. Performance is influenced by a combination of physiological, psychological, and socio-cultural factors.
Athletics is an exclusive collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking. The most common types of athletics competitions are track and field, road running, cross country running, and race walking. The simplicity of the competitions, and the lack of a need for expensive equipment, makes athletics one of the most commonly competed sports in the world. Athletics is mostly an individual sport, with the exception of relay races and competitions which combine athletes’ performances for a team score, such as cross country.
There are four basic psychological skills generally exposed in Sport Psychology. Mental imagery, the first psychological skill, consists of five main categories; cognitive-specific, cognitive-general, motivational-specific, motivational-general mastery, and motivational-general arousal. Each skill can serve one or numerous functions, such as motivation or learning a new skill (Hanton et al. 2008)[9]. Relaxation is the second psychological skills in sport psychology. Relaxation can include unstructured or more structured techniques. These techniques can be grouped into two categories; muscle-to-mind and mind-to-muscle. Muscle-to-mind is better known as progressive muscular relaxation and mind-to-muscle is better known as transcendental meditation. Relaxation is considered to be relevant in regulating activation and arousal levels (Wadey et al. 2008)[21]. The third psychological skill is self-talk. Self-talk is considered a verbalization phenomenon within many athletes where they are addressing themselves. Self-talk has been shown to have both cognitive and motivational functions. The last psychological skill is goal-setting. Outcome, performance, and process are three different types of goals which can influence athletic performance by extracting changes in athletes’ levels of focus, attention spans, self-confidence, effort, and motivation (Hatziggeogoadis et al. 2008).
CONCLUSION
To be a better athlete does not necessarily mean that you must train harder or longer. It could mean that you need to address all the components that make up a successful athletic performance – mental as well as physical. Since you do not enter into competition with a completely empty head, you must include mental skills in your training and conditioning programmes as well. This will enable you to develope the strategies which will prepare you to enter a competition with the “proper mindset”
If you are interested in getting the most of your athletic endeavors, you can no longer treat your performance as a combination of isolated factors which come together in some mysterious and unified way on the day of the competition. A long distance athlete would never think to enter a long distance race without spending time physically preparing the body to meet the conditioning demands of a race. Yet, most athletes probably enter a race without determining what psychological skills he or she would need to help achieve the best physical performance. Almost no one prepares and practices the necessary mental conditions.

REFERENCES
1. Athlete – Online Etymology Dictionary
2. Intro – What is Athletics?. IAAF. Retrieved on 2010-05-28.
3. Touny, Ahmed D. 84.85–90 History of Sports in Ancient Egypt. Retrieved on 2010-05-28.
4. Diffley, Seán (2007-07-14). Tailteann Games’ place in history going for a song. The Irish Independent. Retrieved on 2010-05-28.
5. The Ancient Olympic Games: Mythic Worship of Gods and Athletes. e-Legacies. Retrieved on 2010-05-28.
6. Origins of Robert Dover’s Games . Olympick Games. Retrieved on 2010-05-28.
7. Alain Arvin-Bérod, Les enfants d’Olympie, Paris, CERF, 1996 (p.27-40)
8. Oxford Companion to Sports and Games, ed. J.Arlott, O.U.P. (1975)

WHAT IS THEORY

WHAT IS THEORY
Theory is a contemplative and rational type of abstract or generalizing thinking, or the results of such thinking. Depending on the context, the results might for example include generalized explanations of how nature works. The word has its roots in ancient Greek, but in modern use it has taken on several different related meanings. A theory is not the same as a hypothesis. A theory provides an explanatory framework for some observation and from the assumptions of the explanation follows a number of possible hypotheses that can be tested in order to provide support for, or challenge, the theory.
A theory can be normative (or prescriptive), meaning a postulation about what ought to be. It provides “goals, norms, and standards”.A theory can be a body of knowledge, which may or may not be associated with particular explanatory models. To theorize is to develop this body of knowledge. In modern science, the term “theory” refers to scientific theories, a well-confirmed type of explanation of nature, made in a way consistent with scientific method, and fulfilling the criteria required by modern science. Such theories are described in such a way that any scientist in the field is in a position to understand and either provide empirical support (“verify”) or empirically contradict (“falsify”) it. Scientific theories are the most reliable, rigorous, and comprehensive form of scientific knowledge,[6] in contrast to more common uses of the word “theory” that imply that something is unproven or speculative (which is better characterized by the word ‘hypothesis’). Scientific theories are distinguished from hypotheses, which are individual empirically testable conjectures, and scientific laws, which are descriptive accounts of how nature will behave under certain conditions.
WHAT IS CURRICULUM THEORY
Curriculum theory is the theory of the development and enactment of curriculum. Within the broad field of curriculum studies, it is both a historical analysis of curriculum and a way of viewing current educational curriculum and policy decisions. There are many different views of curriculum theory including those of Herbert Kliebard and Michael Stephen Schiro, among others. Curriculum theory (CT) can also be seen as an academic discipline devoted to examining and shaping educational curricula. Within the broad field of curriculum studies, CT includes both the historical analysis of curriculum and ways of viewing current educational curriculum and policy decisions.
Four different approaches to curriculum theory and practice include:
Curriculum as a body of knowledge to be transmitted.
Curriculum as an attempt to achieve certain ends in students – product.
Curriculum as process.
Curriculum as praxis.
ISTE
ISTE – International Society for Technology in Education.
The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE®) is the premier nonprofit organization serving educators and education leaders committed to empowering connected learners in a connected world. ISTE serves more than 100,000 education stakeholders throughout the world.

REFERENCES
• Davidson Reynolds, Paul (1971). A primer in theory construction. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
• Hawking, Stephen (1996). A Brief History of Time (Updated and expanded ed.). New York: Bantam Books, p. 15.
• James, Paul (2006). Globalism, Nationalism, Tribalism: Bringing Theory Back In. London: Sage Publications.
• Matson, Ronald Allen, “Comparing scientific laws and theories”, Biology, Kennesaw State University.
• Popper, Karl (1963), Conjectures and Refutations, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, UK, pp. 33–39. Reprinted in Theodore Schick (ed., 2000), Readings in the Philosophy of Science, Mayfield Publishing Company, Mountain View, California, USA, pp. 9–13.
• Zima, Peter V. (2007). “What is theory? Cultural theory as discourse and dialogue”. London: Continuum (translated from: Was ist Theorie? Theoriebegriff und Dialogische Theorie in der Kultur- und Sozialwissenschaften. Tübingen: A. Franke Verlag, 2004).

CRITICALLY DISCUSS AUGUSTE CONTE CONCEPT OF POSITIVISM

CRITICALLY DISCUSS AUGUSTE CONTE CONCEPT OF POSITIVISM
INTRODUCTION
Isidore Auguste Marie François Xavier Comte (19 January 1798 – 5 September 1857), better known as Auguste Comte (French: [oɡyst kɔ̃t]), was a French philosopher. He was a founder of the discipline of sociology and of the doctrine of positivism. He is sometimes regarded as the first philosopher of science in the modern sense of the term.
Influenced by the utopian socialist Henri Saint-Simon, Comte developed the positive philosophy in an attempt to remedy the social malaise of the French Revolution, calling for a new social doctrine based on the sciences. Comte was a major influence on 19th-century thought, influencing the work of social thinkers such as Karl Marx, John Stuart Mill, and George Eliot.
Positivism is a way of thinking developed by Auguste Comte and is based on the assumption that it is possible to observe social life and establish reliable, valid knowledge about how it works. This knowledge can then be used to affect the course of social change and improve the human condition. Positivism also argues that sociology should concern itself only with what can be observed with the senses and that theories of social life should be built in a rigid, linear, and methodical way on a base of verifiable fact. It has had relatively little influence on contemporary sociology, however, because it is argued that it encourages a misleading emphasis on superficial facts without any attention to underlying mechanisms that cannot be observed.
Positivism is the philosophy of science that information derived from logical and mathematical treatments and reports of sensory experience is the exclusive source of all authoritative knowledge, and that there is valid knowledge (truth) only in this derived knowledge. Verified data received from the senses are known as empirical evidence. Positivism holds that society, like the physical world, operates according to general laws. Introspective and intuitive knowledge is rejected. Although the positivist approach has been a recurrent theme in the history of western thought, the modern sense of the approach was developed by the philosopher and founding sociologist Auguste Comte in the early 19th century. Comte argued that, much as the physical world operates according to gravity and other absolute laws, so also does society.
Positivism is part of a more general ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry, notably laid out by Plato and later reformulated as a quarrel between the sciences and the humanities, Plato elaborates a critique of poetry from the point of view of philosophy in his dialogues Phaedrus 245a, Symposium 209a, Republic 398a, Laws 817 b-d and Ion. Wilhelm Dilthey popularized the distinction between Geisteswissenschaft (humanities) and Naturwissenschaften (natural science).
The consideration that laws in physics may not be absolute but relative, and, if so, this might be more true of social sciences, was stated, in different terms, by G. B. Vico in 1725. Vico, in contrast to the positivist movement, asserted the superiority of the science of the human mind (the humanities, in other words), on the grounds that natural sciences tell us nothing about the inward aspects of things
COMTE’S POSITIVISM
Auguste Comte (1798–1857) first described the epistemological perspective of positivism in The Course in Positive Philosophy, a series of texts published between 1830 and 1842. These texts were followed by the 1844 work, A General View of Positivism (published in French 1848, English in 1865). The first three volumes of the Course dealt chiefly with the physical sciences already in existence (mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology), whereas the latter two emphasized the inevitable coming of social science. Observing the circular dependence of theory and observation in science, and classifying the sciences in this way, Comte may be regarded as the first philosopher of science in the modern sense of the term. For him, the physical sciences had necessarily to arrive first, before humanity could adequately channel its efforts into the most challenging and complex “Queen science” of human society itself. His View of Positivism therefore set-out to define the empirical goals of sociological method.
In philosophy, generally, any system that confines itself to the data of experience and excludes a priori or metaphysical speculations. More narrowly, the term designates the thought of the French philosopher Auguste Comte (1798–1857).
As a philosophical ideology and movement, positivism first assumed its distinctive features in the work of Comte, who also named and systematized the science of sociology. It then developed through several stages known by various names, such as empiriocriticism, logical positivism, and logical empiricism, and finally, in the mid-20th century, flowed into the already existing tradition known as analytic philosophy (also called linguistic philosophy).
Comte offered an account of social evolution, proposing that society undergoes three phases in its quest for the truth according to a general ‘law of three stages’. The idea bears some similarity to Marx’s belief that human society would progress toward a communist peak.This is perhaps unsurprising as both were profoundly influenced by the early Utopian socialist, Henri de Saint-Simon, who was at one time Comte’s mentor. Comte intended to develop a secular-scientific ideology in the wake of European secularisation.
Comte’s stages were (1) the theological, (2) the metaphysical, and (3) the positive. The theological phase of man was based on whole-hearted belief in all things with reference to God. God, Comte says, had reigned supreme over human existence pre-Enlightenment. Humanity’s place in society was governed by its association with the divine presences and with the church. The theological phase deals with humankind’s accepting the doctrines of the church (or place of worship) rather than relying on its rational powers to explore basic questions about existence. It dealt with the restrictions put in place by the religious organization at the time and the total acceptance of any “fact” adduced for society to believe. Comte describes the metaphysical phase of humanity as the time since the Enlightenment, a time steeped in logical rationalism, to the time right after the French Revolution. This second phase states that the universal rights of humanity are most important. The central idea is that humanity is invested with certain rights that must be respected. In this phase, democracies and dictators rose and fell in attempts to maintain the innate rights of humanity.
The final stage of the trilogy of Comte’s universal law is the scientific, or positive, stage. The central idea of this phase is that individual rights are more important than the rule of any one person. Comte stated that the idea of humanity’s ability to govern itself makes this stage inherently different from the rest. There is no higher power governing the masses and the intrigue of any one person can achieve anything based on that individual’s free will. The third principle is most important in the positive stage. Comte calls these three phases the universal rule in relation to society and its development. Neither the second nor the third phase can be reached without the completion and understanding of the preceding stage. All stages must be completed in progress.
Comte believed that the appreciation of the past and the ability to build on it towards the future was key in transitioning from the theological and metaphysical phases. The idea of progress was central to Comte’s new science, sociology. Sociology would “lead to the historical consideration of every science” because “the history of one science, including pure political history, would make no sense unless it was attached to the study of the general progress of all of humanity”. As Comte would say: “from science comes prediction; from prediction comes action.” It is a philosophy of human intellectual development that culminated in science. The irony of this series of phases is that though Comte attempted to prove that human development has to go through these three stages, it seems that the positivist stage is far from becoming a realization. This is due to two truths: The positivist phase requires having a complete understanding of the universe and world around us and requires that society should never know if it is in this positivist phase. Anthony Giddens argues that since humanity constantly uses science to discover and research new things, humanity never progresses beyond the second metaphysical phase.
Comte’s fame today owes in part to Emile Littré, who founded The Positivist Review in 1867. As an approach to the philosophy of history, positivism was appropriated by historians such as Hippolyte Taine. Many of Comte’s writings were translated into English by the Whig writer, Harriet Martineau, regarded by some as the first female sociologist. Debates continue to rage as to how much Comte appropriated from the work of his mentor, Saint-Simon. He was nevertheless influential: Brazilian thinkers turned to Comte’s ideas about training a scientific elite in order to flourish in the industrialization process. Brazil’s national motto, Ordem e Progresso (“Order and Progress”) was taken from the positivism motto, “Love as principle, order as the basis, progress as the goal”, which was also influential in Poland.
In later life, Comte developed a ‘religion of humanity’ for positivist societies in order to fulfil the cohesive function once held by traditional worship. In 1849, he proposed a calendar reform called the ‘positivist calendar’. For close associate John Stuart Mill, it was possible to distinguish between a “good Comte” (the author of the Course in Positive Philosophy) and a “bad Comte” (the author of the secular-religious system). The system was unsuccessful but met with the publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species to influence the proliferation of various Secular Humanist organizations in the 19th century, especially through the work of secularists such as George Holyoake and Richard Congreve. Although Comte’s English followers, including George Eliot and Harriet Martineau, for the most part rejected the full gloomy panoply of his system, they liked the idea of a religion of humanity and his injunction to “vivre pour autrui” (“live for others”, from which comes the word “altruism”).
The early sociology of Herbert Spencer came about broadly as a reaction to Comte; writing after various developments in evolutionary biology, Spencer attempted (in vain) to reformulate the discipline in what we might now describe as socially Darwinistic terms.
Positivism states that all authentic knowledge allows verification and that all authentic knowledge assumes that the only valid knowledge is scientific. Enlightenment thinkers such as Henri de Saint-Simon (1760–1825), Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749–1827) and Auguste Comte (1798–1859) believed the scientific method, the circular dependence of theory and observation, must replace metaphysics in the history of thought. Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) reformulated sociological positivism as a foundation of social research.

CONCLUSION
Positivism states that all authentic knowledge allows verification and that all authentic knowledge assumes that the only valid knowledge is scientific. Enlightenment thinkers such as Henri de Saint-Simon (1760–1825), Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749–1827) and Auguste Comte (1798–1859) believed the scientific method, the circular dependence of theory and observation, must replace metaphysics in the history of thought. Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) reformulated sociological positivism as a foundation of social research. Comte first described the epistemological perspective of positivism in The Course in Positive Philosophy, a series of texts published between 1830 and 1842. These texts were followed by the 1848 work, A General View of Positivism (published in English in 1865). The first three volumes of the Course dealt chiefly with the physical sciences already in existence (mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology), whereas the latter two emphasised the inevitable coming of social science. Observing the circular dependence of theory and observation in science, and classifying the sciences in this way, Comte may be regarded as the first philosopher of science in the modern sense of the term.

REFERENCES

• Amory, Frederic.”Euclides da Cunha and Brazilian Positivism”, Luso-Brazilian Review. Vol. 36, No. 1 (Summer, 1999), pp. 87–94.
• Giddens, Anthony. Positivism and Sociology. Heinemann. London. 1974.
• Gilson, Gregory D. and Irving W. Levinson, eds. Latin American Positivism: New Historical and Philosophic Essays (Lexington Books; 2012) 197 pages; Essays on positivism in the intellectual and political life of Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico,
• Kremer-Marietti, Angèle. L’Anthropologie positiviste d’Auguste Comte, Librairie Honoré Champion, Paris, 1980.
• Kremer-Marietti, Angèle. Le positivisme, Collection “Que sais-je?”,Paris, PUF, 1982.
• LeGouis, Catherine. Positivism and Imagination: Scientism and Its Limits in Emile Hennequin, Wilhelm Scherer and Dmitril Pisarev. Bucknell University Press. London: 1997.
• Mill, John Stuart. Auguste Comte and Positivism.
• Mises, Richard von. Positivism: A Study In Human Understanding. Harvard University Press. Cambridge; Massachusetts: 1951.
• Pickering, Mary. Auguste Comte: An Intellectual Biography. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge, England; 1993.
• Richard Rorty (1982) Consequences of Pragmatism

THE PRINCIPLES OF THE BIAFRAN REVOLUTION KNOWN AS THE AHIARA DECLARATION.

THE PRINCIPLES OF THE BIAFRAN REVOLUTION KNOWN
AS THE AHIARA DECLARATION.

INTRODUCTION
PROUD AND COURAGEOUS BIAFRANS,
FELLOW COUNTRY MEN AND WOMEN,
I salute you. Today, as I look back over our two years as a sovereign and independent nation, I am overwhelmed with the feeling of pride and satisfaction in our performance and achievement as a people. Our indomitable will, our courage, our endurance of the severest privations, our resourcefulness and inventiveness in the face of tremendous odds and dangers, have become proverbial in a world so bereft of heroism, and have become a source of frustration to Nigeria and her foreign masters. For this and for the many miracles of our time, let us give thanks to Almighty God. I congratulate all Biafrans at home and abroad. I thank you all the part you have played and have continued to play in this struggle, for your devotion to the high ideals and principles on which this Republic was founded.
I thank you for your absolute commitment to the cause for which our youth are making daily, the supreme sacrifice, and a cause for which we all have been dispossessed, blockaded, bombarded, starved and massacred. I salute you for your tenacity of purpose and amazing steadfastness under siege.
I salute the memory of the many patriots who have laid down their lives in defence of our Fatherland. I salute the memory of all Biafrans – men, women and children – who died victims of the Nigerian crime of genocide. We shall never forget them. Please God, their sacrifice shall not be in vain. For the dead on the other side of this conflict, may their souls rest in peace. To our friends and well-wishers, to the growing band of men and women around the world who have, in spite of the vile propaganda mounted against us, identified themselves with the justice of our cause, in particular to our courageous friends, officers and staff of the Relief Agencies and humanitarian organisations, pilots who daily offer themselves in sacrifice that our people might be saved; to Governments, in particular Tanzania, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Zambia and Haiti. I give my warmest thanks and those of our entire people.
THE STRUGGLE
Fellow country men and women, for nearly two years we have been engaged in a war which threatens our people with total destruction. Our enemy has been unrelenting in his fury and has fought our defenceless people with a vast array of military hardware of a sophistication unknown to Africa. For two years we have withstood his assaults with nothing other than our stout hearts and bare hands. We have frustrated his diabolical intentions and have beaten his wicked mentors in their calculations and innovations. Shamelessly, our enemy has moved from deadline to deadline, seeking excuses justifying his failures to an ever credulous world. Today, I am happy and proud to report that, all the odds notwithstanding, the enemy, at great cost in lives and equipment, is nowhere near to his avowed objective.
In the Onitsha sector of the war, our gallant forces have kept the enemy confined in the town which they entered 15 months ago. Despite the fact that this sector has great strategic attraction for the vandal hordes, being a gate-way, as it is, to the now famous jungle strip of Biafra, and the scene of the bloodiest encounters of this war, it is significant that the enemy has made no gains throughout this long period.
In the Awka sector of the war, the story remains the same. The enemy is confined only to the highway between Enugu and Onitsha, not venturing north or south of that road.
In the Okigwe sector, from where the enemy made the thrust that brought him into Umuahia, the situation remains unchanged, with our troops making the entire enemy route from Okigwe to Umuahia no joy ride. In Umuahia town itself, fighting has continued in the township.
In the Ikot Ekpene, Azumini and Aba sectors of the war, the vandals, whilst maintaining their positions in Ikot Ekpene and Aba with our troops surrounding them, have continued to suffer heavy casualties in their attempt to hold firmly on to Azumini.
We now come to the Owerri/Port Harcourt sector. After the clearing of Owerri township and our rapid move towards Port Harcourt, our gallant forces are holding positions in Eleele town, in the outskirts of Igirita and forward of Omoku.
Across the Niger, the successes of our troops have been maintained despite numerous enemy counter-attacks. Our Navy has continued to support all operations along the Niger with good results. Our guerrillas have continued their magnificent work of harassing the enemy and giving him no respite on our soil. I salute them all.
In the air, the Biafran Air Force has made a most dramatic re-entry into the war, and in a brilliant series of raids has all but paralyzed the Nigerian Air Force. In four days’ operations, eleven operational planes of the enemy were put of action, three control towers in Port Harcourt, Enugu and Benin were set ablaze, the Airport building in Enugu, and the numerous gun positions were knocked out. The refinery in Port Harcourt was set on fire. And, more recently, three days ago, the Ughelli Power Station was put out of action. The brilliance of this performance, the precision of the strike, the genius of target selection, have left Nigeria in a daze and her friends bewildered. Another way of looking at this is that in four days of operation, the Biafran Air Force has destroyed more military targets than what the Nigerian Air Force has been able to do for two years.
In cost, probably twice what the Nigerian air raids have cost us in military equipment and installations. The only superiority left in the record of achievement of the Nigerian Air Force is the number of civilians and civilian targets their cowardly raids have destroyed. Proud Biafrans, I have kept my promise.
Diplomatically, our friends have increased and have remained steadfast to our cause; and despite the rantings of our detractors, indications are that their support will continue.
At home, our sufferings have continued. Scarcity and want have remained our companions. Yet, with fortitude, we seem to have overcome th once imminent danger of mass starvation and can now look forward to a period after the rains of comparative plenty. Our efforts in the Land Army programme give visible signs all over our land of imminent victory in the war against want.
Fellow countrymen and women, the signs are auspicious, the future fills us with less foreboding. I am confident. With the initiative in war now in our own hands, we have turned the last bend in our race to self-realisation and are now set on the home straight in this our struggle. We must not flag. The tape is in sight. What we need now is a final burst of speed to breast the tape and secure the victory which will ensure for us, for all time, glory and honour, peace and progress.
Fellow compatriots, today, being our Thanksgiving Day, it is most appropriate that we pause awhile to take stock, to consider our past, our successes notwithstanding; to consider our future, our aspirations and our fears. For two long years we have been locked in mortal combat with an enemy unequalled in viciousness; for two long years, defenceless and weak, we have withstood without respite the concerted assault of a determined foe. We have fought alone, we have fought with honour, we have fought in the highest traditions of christian civilization. Yet, the very custodians of this civilization and our one-time mentors, are the very self-same monsters who have vowed to devour us.
Fellow Biafrans, I have for a long time thought about this our predicament – the attitude of the civilized world to this our conflict. The more I think about it the more I am convinced that our disability is racial. The root cause of our problem lies in the fact that we are black. If all the things that have happened to us had happened to another people who are not black, if other people who are not black had reacted in the way our people have reacted these two long years, the world’s response would surely have been different.
In 1966, some 50,000 of us were slaughtered like cattle in Nigeria. In the course of this war, well over one million of us have been killed; yet the world is unimpressed and looks on in indifference. Last year, some blood-thirsty Nigerian troops for sport murdered the entire male population of a village. All the world did was to indulge in an academic argument whether the number was in hundreds or in thousands. Today, because a handful of white men collaborating with the enemy, fighting side by side with the enemy, were caught by our gallant troops, the entire world threatens to stop. For 18 white men, Europe is aroused. What have they said about our millions? 18 white men assisting the crime of genocide! What does Europe say about our murdered innocents? Have we not died enough? How many black dead make one missing white? Mathematicians, please answer me. Is it infinity?
Take another example. For two years we have been subjected to a total blockade. We all know how bitter, bloody and protracted the First and Second World Wars were. At no stage in those wars did the white belligerents carry out a total blockade of their fellow whites. In each case where a blockade was imposed, allowance was made for certain basic necessities of life in the interest of women, children and other non-combatants. Ours is the only example in recent history where a whole people have been so treated. What is it that makes our case different? Do we not have women, children and other non-combatants? Does the fact that they are black women, black children and black non-combatants make such a world of difference?
Nigeria embarked on a crime of genocide against our people by first mounting a total blockade against Biafra. To cover up their designs and deceive the black world, the white powers supporting Nigeria blame Biafrans for the continuation of the blockade and for the starvation and suffering which that entails. They uphold Nigerian proposals on relief which in any case they helped to formulate, as being “conciliatory” or “satisfactory” . Knowing that these proposals would give Nigeria further military advantage, and compromise the basic cause for which we have struggled for two years, they turn round to condemn us for rejecting them. They accepted the total blockade against us as a legitimate weapon of war because it suits them and because we are black. Had we been white the inhuman and cruel blockade would long have been lifted.
The mass deaths of our citizens resulting from starvation and indiscriminate air raids and large despoliation of towns and villages are a mere continuation of this crime. That Nigeria has received complete support from Britain should surprise no one. For Britain is a country whose history is replete with instances of genocide.
In my address to you on the occasion of the first anniversary of our independence, I touched on a number of issues relevant to our struggle and to our hope for a prosperous, just and happy society. I talked to you of the background to our struggle and on the visions and values which inspired us to found our own State.
THE MYTH ABOUT THE NEGRO
On this occasion of our second anniversary, I shall go further in the examination of the meaning and import of our revolution by discussing the wider issues involved and the character and structure of the new society we are determined and committed to build. Our enemies and their foreign sponsors have deliberately sought by false and ill-motivated propaganda to becloud the real issues which caused and still determine the course and character of our struggle. They have sought in various ways to dismiss our struggle as a tribal conflict. They have attributed it to the mad adventurism of a fictitious power-seeking clique anxious to carve out an empire to rule, dominate and exploit. But they have failed. Our cause is transparently just and no amount of propaganda can detract from it.
Our struggle has far-reaching significance. It is the latest recrudescence in our time of the age-old struggle of the black man for his full stature as man. We are the latest victims of a wicked collusion between the three traditional scourges of the black man – racism, Arab-Muslim expansionism and white economic imperialism. Playing a subsidiary role is Bolshevik Russia seeking for a place in the African sun. Our struggle is a total and vehement rejection of all those evils which blighted Nigeria, evils which were bound to lead to the disintegration of that ill-fated federation. Our struggle is not a mere resistance – that would be purely negative. It is a positive commitment to build a healthy, dynamic and progressive state, such as would be the pride of black men the world over.
For this reason, our struggle is a movement against racial prejudice, in particular against that tendency to regard the black man as culturally, morally, spiritually, intellectually, and physically inferior to the other two major races of the world – the yellow and the white races. This belief in the innate inferiority of the Negro and that his proper place in the world is that of the servant of the other races, has from early days coloured the attitude of the outside world to Negro problems. It still does today.
Not so long ago the fashion was to question the humanity of the Negro. Some white theorists attributed the creation to the Devil, others even identified the Devil as the first Negro. Later they derived the Negro from the accursed progeny of Ham. Nearer to us still in time, it became a topic for serious debate in learned circles in Europe whether the Negro was in fact a man; whether he had a soul; and if he had a soul, whether conversion to christianity could make any difference to his spiritual condition and destination. By the nineteenth century it had been reluctantly conceded that the Negro is in fact human, but a different kind of man, certainly not the same kind of man as the white. Pseudo-intellectual s went to work to prove that the Negro was a different kind of man from the white. They uncovered the abundant so-called anthropological evidence from archaelogy which “proved” to them conclusively that the Negro was no more the same kind of man as the European than a rat was a rabbit.
It is this myth about the Negro that still conditions the thinking and attitude of most white governments on all issues concerning black Africa and the black man; it explains the double standards which they apply to present-day world problems; it explains their stand on the whole question of independence and basic human rights for the black peoples of the world. These myths explain the stand of many of the world governments and organisations on our present struggle.
Our disagreement with the Nigerians arose in part from a conflict between two diametrically opposed conceptions of the end and purpose of the modern African state. It was, and still is, our firm conviction that a modern Negro African government worth the trust placed in it by the people, must build a progressive state that ensures the reign of social and economic justice, and of the rule of law. But the Nigerians, under the leadership of the Hausa-Fulani feudal aristocracy preferred anarchy and injustice.
Since in the thinking of many white powers a good, progressive and efficient government is good only for whites, our view was considered dangerous and pernicious: a point of view which explains but does not justify the blind support which these powers have given to uphold the Nigerian ideal of a corrupt, decadent and putrefying society. To them genocide is an appropriate answer to any group of black people who have the temerity to attempt to evolve their own social system.
When the Nigerians violated our basic human rights and liberties, we decided reluctantly but bravely to found our own state, to exercise our inalienable right to self-determination as our only remaining hope for survival as a people. Yet, because we are black, we are denied by the white powers the exercise of this right which they themselves have proclaimed inalienable. In our struggle we have learnt that the right of self-determination is inalienable, but only to the white man.
SELF-DETERMINATION
The right to self-determination was good for the Greeks in 1822, for the Belgians in 1830, and for the Central and Eastern Europeans and the Irish at the end of the First World War. Yet it is not good for Biafrans because we are black. When blacks claim that right, they are warned against dangers trumped up by the imperialists – “fragmentation” and “Balkanization” , as if the trouble with the Balkans is the result of the application of the principle of self-determination. Were the Balkans a healthier place before they emerged from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire? Those who sustained the Ottoman Empire considered it a European necessity, for its Eastern European provinces stood as a buffer between two ambitious and mutually antagonistic empires – the Russian and the Austrian. For the peace and repose of Europe, it therefore became a major cncern of European statesmen to preserve the integrity of that empire. But when it was discovered that Ottoman rule was not only corrupt, oppressive and unprogressive, but also stubbornly irreformable, the happiness and well-being of its white populations came to be considered paramount. So by 1918 the integrity of that ancient and sprawling empire had been sacrificed to the well-being of the Eastern Europeans. Fellow Biafrans, that was in the white world.
But what do we find here in Negro Africa? The Federation of Nigeria is today as corrupt, as unprogressive and as oppressive and irreformable as the Ottoman Empire was in Eastern Europe over a century ago. And in contrast, the Nigerian Federation in the form it was constituted by the British cannot by any stretch of imagination be considered an African necessity. Yet we are being forced to sacrifice our very existence as a people to the integrity of that ramshackle creation that has no justification either in history or in the freely expressed wishes of the people. What other reason for this can there be than the fact that we are black?
In 1966, 50,000 Biafrans – men, women and children – were massacred in cold blood in Nigeria. Since July 6, 1967, hundreds of Biafrans have been killed daily by shelling, bombing, strafing and starvation advised, organised and supervised by Anglo-Saxon Britain. None of these atrocities has raised enough stir in many European capitals. But on the few occasions when a single white man died in Africa, even where he was a convicted bandit like the notorious case in the Congo, all the diplomatic chanceries of the world have been astir.; the whole world has been shaken to its very foundations by the din of protest against the alleged atrocity and by the clamour for vengeance. This was the case when the Nigerian vandals turned their British-supplied rifles on white Red Cross workers in Okigwe. Recently this has been the case with the reported disappearance of some white oil technicians in the Republic of Benin. But when we are massacred in thousands, nobody cares, because we are black.
Fellow countrymen and women, the fact is that in spite of their open protestations to the contrary, the white peoples of the world are still far from accepting that what is good for them can also be good for blacks. The day they make this basic concession that day will the non-Anglo-Saxon nations tell Britain to her face that she is guilty of genocide against us; that day will they call a halt to this monstrous war.
Because the black man is considered inferior and servile to the white, he must accept his political, social and economic system and ideologies ready made from Europe, America or the Soviet Union. Within the confines of his nation he must accept a federation or confederation or unitary government if federation or confederation or unitary government suits the interests of his white masters; he must accept inept and unimaginative leadership because the contrary would hurt the interests of the master race; he must accept economic exploitation by alien commercial firms and companies because the whites benefit from it. Beyond the confines of his state, he must accept regional and continental organisations which provide a front for the manipulation of the imperialist powers; organisations which are therefore unable to respond to African problems in a truly African manner. For Africans to show a true independence is to ask for anathemization and total liquidation.
ARAB-MUSLIM EXPANSIONISM
The Biafran struggle is, on another plane, a resistance to the Arab-Muslim expansionism which has menaced and ravaged the African continent for twelve centuries. As early as the first quarter of the seventh century, the Arabs, a people from the Near-East, evolved Islam not just as a religion but as a cover for their insatiable territorial ambitions. By the tenth century they had overrun and occupied, among other places, Egypt and North Africa. Had they stopped there, we would not today be faced with the wicked and unholy collusion we are fighting against. On the contrary, they cast their hungry and envious eyes across the Sahara on to the land of the Negroes.
Our Biafran ancestors remained immune from the Islamic contagion. From the middle years of the last century Christianity was established in our land. In this way we came to be a predominantly Christian people. We came to stand out as a non-Muslim island in a raging Islamic sea. Throughout the period of the ill-fated Nigerian experiment, the Muslims hoped to infiltrate Biafra by peaceful means and quiet propaganda, but failed. Then the late Ahmadu Bello, the Sarduana of Sokoto tried, by political and economic blackmail and terrorism, to convert Biafrans settled in Northern Nigeria to Islam. His hope was that these Biafrans on dispersion would then carry Islam to Biafra, and by so doing give the religion political control of the area. The crises which agitated the so-called independent Nigeria from 1962 gave these aggressive proselytisers the chance to try converting us by force.
It is now evident why the fanatic Arab-Muslim states like Algeria, Egypt and the Sudan have come out openly and massively to support and aid Nigeria in her present war of genocide against us. These states see militant Arabism as a powerful instrument for attaining power in the world.
Biafra is one of the few African states untainted by Islam. Therefore, to militant Arabism, Biafra is a stumbling block to their plan for controlling the whole continent. This control is fast becoming manifest in the Organisation of African Unity. On the question of the Middle East, the Sudanese crisis, in the war between Nigeria and Biafra, militant Arabism has succeeded in imposing its point of view through blackmail and bluster. It has threatened African leaders and governments with inciting their Muslim minorities to rebellion if the governments adopted an independent line on these questions. In this way an O.A.U that has not felt itself able to discuss the genocide in the Sudan and Biafra, an O.A.U. that has again and again advertised its ineptitude as a peace-maker, has rushed into open condemnation of Israel over the Middle East dispute. Indeed in recent times, by its performance, the O.A.U. might well be an Organisation of Arab Unity.
AFRICA EXPLOITED
Our struggle, in an even more fundamental sense, is the culmination of the confrontation between Negro nationalism and white imperialism. It is a movement designed to ensure the realization of man’s full stature in Africa.
Ever since the 15th century, the European world has treated the African continent as a field for exploitation. Their policies in Africa have for so long been determined to a very great extent by their greed for economic gain. For over three and half centuries, it suited them to transport and transplant millions of the flower of our manhood for the purpose of exploiting the Americas and the West Indies. They did so with no uneasiness of conscience. They justified this trade in men by reference to biblical passages violently torn out of context.
When it became no longer profitable to them to continue with the depopulation and uncontrolled spoilation of Negro Africa, their need of the moment became to exploit the natural resources of the continent, using Negro labour. In response to this need they evolved their informal empire in the 19th century under which they controlled and exploited Negro Africa through their missionaries and monopolist mercantile companies. As time went on they discarded the empire of informal sway as unsatisfactory and established the direct empire as the most effective means of exploiting our homeland. It was at this stage that with cynical imperturbability they carved up the African continent, and boxed up the native populations in artificial states designed purely to minister to white economic interests.
This brutal and unprecedented rape of a whole continent was a violent challenge to Negro self-respect. Not surprisingly, within half a century the theory and practice of empire ran into stiff opposition from Negro nationalism. In the face of the movement for Negro freedom the white imperialists changed tactics. They decided to install puppet African administrations to create the illusion of political independence, while retaining the control of the economy. And this they quickly did between 1957 and 1965. The direct empire was transformed into an indirect empire, that regime of fraud and exploitation which African nationalists aptly describe as Neo-Colonialism.
To God be all Glory!!

URBAN AIR POLLUTION; ITS CONSEQUENCES AND MANAGEMENT

URBAN AIR POLLUTION; ITS CONSEQUENCES AND MANAGEMENT
INTRODUCTION
Urban Air pollution is the introduction of particulates, biological molecules, or other harmful materials into the Earth’s atmosphere, possibly causing disease, death to humans, damage to other living organisms such as food crops, or the natural or built environment.
The atmosphere is a complex natural gaseous system that is essential to support life on planet Earth. Stratospheric ozone depletion due to air pollution has been recognized as a threat to human health as well as to the Earth’s ecosystems.
Urban Air Pollution
It is estimated that more than 1 billion people are exposed to outdoor air pollution annually. Urban air pollution is linked to up to 1 million premature deaths and 1 million pre-native deaths each year. Urban air pollution is estimated to cost approximately 2% of GDP in developed countries and 5% in developing countries. Rapid urbanisation has resulted in increasing urban air pollution in major cities, especially in developing countries. Over 90% of air pollution in cities in these countries is attributed to vehicle emissions brought about by high number of older vehicles coupled with poor vehicle maintenance, inadequate infrastructure and low fuel quality.
While most developed countries have put in measures to reduce vehicle emissions, in terms of fuel quality and vehicle emission reduction technologies, these measures are yet to be adopted in most cities in developing countries.

SOURCES OF URBAN AIR POLLUTION
There are various locations, activities or factors which are responsible for releasing pollutants into the atmosphere of urban areas. These sources can be classified into two major categories.
Anthropogenic (man-made) sources:
These are mostly related to the burning of multiple types of fuel.
• Stationary sources include smoke stacks of power plants, manufacturing facilities (factories) and waste incinerators, as well as furnaces and other types of fuel-burning heating devices. In developing and poor countries, traditional biomass burning is the major source of air pollutants; traditional biomass includes wood, crop waste and dung.
• Mobile sources include motor vehicles, marine vessels, and aircraft.
• Controlled burn practices in agriculture and forest management. Controlled or prescribed burning is a technique sometimes used in forest management, farming, prairie restoration or greenhouse gas abatement. Fire is a natural part of both forest and grassland ecology and controlled fire can be a tool for foresters. Controlled burning stimulates the germination of some desirable forest trees, thus renewing the forest.
• Fumes from paint, hair spray, varnish, aerosol sprays and other solvents
• Waste deposition in landfills, which generate methane. Methane is highly flammable and may form explosive mixtures with air. Methane is also an asphyxiant and may displace oxygen in an enclosed space. Asphyxia or suffocation may result if the oxygen concentration is reduced to below 19.5% by displacement.
• Military resources, such as nuclear weapons, toxic gases, germ warfare and rocketry
Natural sources:
• Dust from natural sources, usually large areas of land with few or no vegetation
• Methane, emitted by the digestion of food by animals, for example cattle
• Radon gas from radioactive decay within the Earth’s crust. Radon is a colorless, odorless, naturally occurring, radioactive noble gas that is formed from the decay of radium. It is considered to be a health hazard. Radon gas from natural sources can accumulate in buildings, especially in confined areas such as the basement and it is the second most frequent cause of lung cancer, after cigarette smoking.
• Smoke and carbon monoxide from wildfires
• Vegetation, in some regions, emits environmentally significant amounts of VOCs on warmer days. These VOCs react with primary anthropogenic pollutants—specifically, NOx, SO2, and anthropogenic organic carbon compounds — to produce a seasonal haze of secondary pollutants.
• Volcanic activity, which produces sulfur, chlorine, and ash particulate

CLOUD OF INDUSTRIAL SMOKES OVER A CITY SKIES

CLOUD OF INDUSTRIAL SMOKES OVER A CITY SKIES
CONSEQUENCES OF URBAN AIR POLLUTION

Below are a few key consequences of urban air pollution.

Acidification:
Chemical reactions involving air pollutants can create acidic compounds which can cause harm to vegetation and buildings. Sometimes, when an air pollutant, such as sulfuric acid combines with the water droplets that make up clouds, the water droplets become acidic, forming acid rain. When acid rain falls over an area, it can kill trees and harm animals, fish, and other wildlife.

Acid rain destroys the leaves of plants.
When acid rain infiltrates into soils, it changes the chemistry of the soil making it unfit for many living things that rely on soil as a habitat or for nutrition. Acid rain also changes the chemistry of the lakes and streams that the rainwater flows into, harming fish and other aquatic life.
Eutrophication:
Rain can carry and deposit the Nitrogen in some pollutants on rivers and soils. This will adversely affect the nutrients in the soil and water bodies. This can result in algae growth in lakes and water bodies, and make conditions for other living organism harmful.
Ground-level ozone:
Chemical reactions involving air pollutants create a poisonous gas ozone (O3). Gas Ozone can affect people’s health and can damage vegetation types and some animal life too.
Particulate matter:
Air pollutants can be in the form of particulate matter which can be very harmful to our health. The level of effect usually depends on the length of time of exposure, as well the kind and concentration of chemicals and particles exposed to. Short-term effects include irritation to the eyes, nose and throat, and upper respiratory infections such as bronchitis and pneumonia. Others include headaches, nausea, and allergic reactions. Short-term air pollution can aggravate the medical conditions of individuals with asthma and emphysema. Long-term health effects can include chronic respiratory disease, lung cancer, heart disease, and even damage to the brain, nerves, liver, or kidneys. Continual exposure to air pollution affects the lungs of growing children and may aggravate or complicate medical conditions in the elderly.
OTHER CONSEQUNECES OF URBAN AIR POLLUTION
some pollutants, if they are present in excessive quantities, can produce chemical and physical alterations of the air, hampering its capacity to “work” correctly and guarantee our survival functions. Men’s activity usually originates pollutants (anthropogenic origin), although in some cases natural sources contribute significantly. Most of human-origin urban air pollution derives either from fossil fuels (their combustion is necessary to produce energy) or from industrial chemical processes. The environmental impact of air pollutants is variable: some compounds mainly act at local level, where they are produced and distributed, while others affect entire regions.
Some others have an impact on the whole planet. In fact, some atmospheric agents have a short life (a few hours or a few days) and after that they fall on the ground, while other pollutants keep active for long periods and can spread on a wider area. This type of pollutants can have an influence on environmental conditions at a continental, sometimes even planetary level, with a negative impact on human health, even in places that are far away from the source of pollution. In most cases, the type and quantity of pollutants emitted into the atmosphere depend on the nature of the energy sources that are used (see the corresponding section on natural resources) and on the raw materials that men use during production processes.
MANAGEMENT OF URBAN AIR POLLUTION
The most basic solution for urban air pollution is to end its root causes: quit coal and move away from fossil fuels, replacing them with clean, renewable energy.
In the short-term, there are many intermediate solutions for urban air pollution. However, all of these solutions require governments to recognize the impact of urban air pollution on public health and the economy, and take action immediately.
• Make complete air quality information easily available to the public.
• Tighten the controls for power plant emissions to reduce emissions.
• Introducing cleaner fuel standards and switching to electric vehicles.
• Restrict the construction of power plants and other energy-intensive industries near residential areas.
• Improve urban planning to increase green spaces.
• Take air quality into consideration when conducting environmental assessments for major projects; for example, flyovers and highways should be far away from residential areas.

CONCLUSION
The solutions to urban air pollution are straightforward and simple but they require government action: quit coal, establish clear, strict air quality standards and introduce effective policy instruments to curb the rapid growth of the number of vehicles on the roads. Although the impact of big cities on local air quality has long been recognised, the impacts on regional and global climate are beginning to receive increased attention. We know now that air pollutants can drive climate change in complex ways (see Arneth et al. 2009, for example). Many pollutants (such as sulphur dioxide) form tiny droplets that deflect incoming solar radiation and tend to cool the climate. Pollution control policies that reduce the atmospheric concentrations of such substances can in fact lead to warming. Other pollutants – black carbon (soot) in particular – can absorb incoming solar radiation and lead to warming.

REFERENCES
1. “Reports”. WorstPolluted.org. Archived from the original on 11 August 2010. Retrieved 2010-08-29.
2. “7 million premature deaths annually linked to air pollution”. WHO. 25 March 2014. Retrieved 25 March 2014.
3. Evidence growing of air pollution’s link to heart disease, death at the Wayback Machine (archived June 3, 2010) // American Heart Association. May 10, 2010
4. “Newly detected air pollutant mimics damaging effects of cigarette smoke” (PDF). Retrieved 2010-08-29.
5. “Infant Inhalation Of Ultra-fine Air Pollution Linked To Adult Lung Disease”. Sciencedaily.com. 2009-07-23. Retrieved 2010-08-29.
6. “The Effect of Changing Background Emissions on External Cost Estimates for Secondary Particulates”. Open environmental sciences. 2008.
7. David Pennise and Kirk Smith. “Biomass Pollution Basics”. WHO.
8. “Indoor air pollution and household energy”. WHO and UNEP. 2011.

GROUP DYNAMICS

GROUP DYNAMICS
INTRODUCTION
Group dynamics is a system of behaviors and psychological processes occurring within a social group (intragroup dynamics), or between social groups (intergroup dynamics). The study of group dynamics can be useful in understanding decision-making behavior, tracking the spread of diseases in society, creating effective therapy techniques, and following the emergence and popularity of new ideas and technologies. Group dynamics are at the core of understanding racism, sexism, and other forms of social prejudice and discrimination. These applications of the field are studied in psychology, sociology, anthropology, political science, epidemiology, education, social work, business, and communication studies.
HISTORY OF GROUP DYNAMICS
The history of group dynamics (or group processes) has a consistent, underlying premise: ‘the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.’ A social group is an entity, which has qualities that cannot be understood just by studying the individuals that make up the group. In 1924, Gestalt psychologist, Max Wertheimer identified this fact, stating ‘There are entities where the behavior of the whole cannot be derived from its individual elements nor from the way these elements fit together; rather the opposite is true: the properties of any of the parts are determined by the intrinsic structural laws of the whole’ (Wertheimer 1924, p. 7)
As a field of study, group dynamics has roots in both psychology and sociology. Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920), credited as the founder of experimental psychology, had a particular interest in the psychology of communities, which he believed possessed phenomena (human language, customs, and religion) that could not be described through a study of the individual. On the sociological side, Émile Durkheim (1858–1917), who was influenced by Wundt, also recognized collective phenomena, such as public knowledge. Other key theorists include Gustave Le Bon (1841–1931) who believed that crowds possessed a ‘racial unconscious’ with primitive, aggressive, and antisocial instincts, and William McDougall (psychologist), who believed in a ‘group mind,’ which had a distinct existence born from the interaction of individuals.
Ultimately, it was social psychologist Kurt Lewin (1890–1947) who coined the term group dynamics to describe the positive and negative forces within groups of people. In 1945, he established The Group Dynamics Research Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the first institute devoted explicitly to the study of group dynamics. Throughout his career, Lewin was focused on how the study of group dynamics could be applied to real-world, social issues.
An increasing amount of research has applied evolutionary psychology principles to group dynamics. Humans are argued to have evolved in an increasingly complicated social environment and to have many adaptations concerned with group dynamics. Examples include mechanisms for dealing with status, reciprocity, identifying cheaters, ostracism, altruism, group decision, leadership, and intergroup relations.
KEY THEORISTS OF GROUP DYNAMICS
Gustave Le Bon
Gustave Le Bon was a French social psychologist whose seminal study, The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1896) led to the development of group psychology.
William McDougall
The British psychologist William McDougall in his work The Group Mind (1920) researched the dynamics of groups of various sizes and degrees of organization.
Sigmund Freud
In Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, (1922), Sigmund Freud based his preliminary description of group psychology on Le Bon’s work, but went on to develop his own, original theory, related to what he had begun to elaborate in Totem and Taboo. Theodor Adorno reprised Freud’s essay in 1951 with his Freudian Theory and the Pattern of Fascist Propaganda, and said that “It is not an overstatement if we say that Freud, though he was hardly interested in the political phase of the problem, clearly foresaw the rise and nature of fascist mass movements in purely psychological categories.”
Jacob L. Moreno
Jacob L. Moreno was a psychiatrist, dramatist, philosopher and theoretician who coined the term “group psychotherapy” in the early 1930s and was highly influential at the time.
Kurt Lewin
Kurt Lewin (1943, 1948, 1951) is commonly identified as the founder of the movement to study groups scientifically. He coined the term group dynamics to describe the way groups and individuals act and react to changing circumstances. Group dynamics can be defined as a field of enquiry dedicated to the advancing knowledge about the nature of groups, the laws of their development and their interrelations with individuals, other groups and larger institutions. Based on their feelings and emotions, members of a group form a common perception. The interactive psychological relationship in which members of a group form this common perception is actually “Group Dynamics”.

William Schutz
William Schutz (1958, 1966) looked at interpersonal relations from the perspective of three dimensions: inclusion, control, and affection. This became the basis for a theory of group behavior that sees groups as resolving issues in each of these stages in order to be able to develop to the next stage. Conversely, a group may also devolve to an earlier stage if unable to resolve outstanding issues in a particular stage. He referred to these group dynamics as “the interpersonal underworld” because they dealt with group processes that were largely unseen, as opposed to “content” issues, which were nominally the agenda of group meetings.
Wilfred Bion
Wilfred Bion (1961) studied group dynamics from a psychoanalytic perspective, and stated that he was much influenced by Wilfred Trotter for whom he worked at University College Hospital London, as did another key figure in the Psychoanalytic movement, Ernest Jones. He discovered several mass group processes which involved the group as a whole adopting an orientation which, in his opinion, interfered with the ability of a group to accomplish the work it was nominally engaged in. His experiences are reported in his published books, especially Experiences in Groups. The Tavistock Institute has further developed and applied the theory and practices developed by Bion.
Bruce Tuckman
Bruce Tuckman (1965) proposed the four-stage model called Tuckman’s Stages for a group. Tuckman’s model states that the ideal group decision-making process should occur in four stages:
• Forming (pretending to get on or get along with others)
• Storming (letting down the politeness barrier and trying to get down to the issues even if tempers flare up)
• Norming (getting used to each other and developing trust and productivity)
• Performing (working in a group to a common goal on a highly efficient and cooperative basis)
Tuckman later added a fifth stage for the dissolution of a group called adjourning. (Adjourning may also be referred to as mourning, i.e. mourning the adjournment of the group). This model refers to the overall pattern of the group, but of course individuals within a group work in different ways. If distrust persists, a group may never even get to the norming stage.
M. Scott Peck
M. Scott Peck developed stages for larger-scale groups (i.e., communities) which are similar to Tuckman’s stages of group development. Peck describes the stages of a community as:
• Pseudo-community
• Chaos
• Emptiness
• True Community
Communities may be distinguished from other types of groups, in Peck’s view, by the need for members to eliminate barriers to communication in order to be able to form true community. Examples of common barriers are: expectations and preconceptions; prejudices; ideology, counterproductive norms, theology and solutions; the need to heal, convert, fix or solve and the need to control. A community is born when its members reach a stage of “emptiness” or peace.
Richard Hackman
Richard Hackman developed a synthetic, research-based model for designing and managing work groups. Hackman suggested that groups are successful when they satisfy internal and external clients, develop capabilities to perform in the future, and when members find meaning and satisfaction in the group. Hackman proposed five conditions that increase the chance that groups will be successful. These include:
1. Being a real team: which results from having a shared task, clear boundaries which clarify who is inside or outside of the group, and stability in group membership.
2. Compelling direction: which results from a clear, challenging, and consequential goal?
3. Enabling structure: which results from having tasks which have variety, a group size that is not too large, talented group members who have at least moderate social skill, and strong norms that specify appropriate behavior?
4. Supportive context: that occurs in groups nested in larger groups (e.g. companies). In companies, supportive contexts involves a) reward systems that reward performance and cooperation (e.g. group based rewards linked to group performance), b) an educational system that develops member skills, c) an information and materials system that provides the needed information and raw materials (e.g. computers).
5. Expert coaching: which occurs on the rare occasions when group members feels they need help with task or interpersonal issues. Hackman emphasizes that many team leaders are overbearing and undermine group effectiveness.
INTRAGROUP DYNAMICS
Intragroup dynamics (also referred to as ingroup-, within-group, or commonly just ‘group dynamics’) are the underlying processes that give rise to a set of norms, roles, relations, and common goals that characterize a particular social group. Examples of groups include religious, political, military, and environmental groups, sports teams, work groups, and therapy groups. Amongst the members of a group, there is a state of interdependence, through which the behaviors, attitudes, opinions, and experiences of each member are collectively influenced by the other group members. In many fields of research, there is an interest in understanding how group dynamics influence individual behavior, attitudes, and opinions.
GROUP FORMATION
Group formation starts with a psychological bond between individuals. The social cohesion approach suggests that group formation comes out of bonds of interpersonal attraction. In contrast, the social identity approach suggests that a group starts when a collection of individuals perceive that they share some social category (‘smokers’, ‘nurses,’ ‘students,’ ‘hockey players’), and that interpersonal attraction only secondarily enhances the connection between individuals. Additionally, from the social identity approach, group formation involves both identifying with some individuals and explicitly not identifying with others. So to say, a level of psychological distinctiveness is necessary for group formation. Through interaction, individuals begin to develop group norms, roles, and attitudes which define the group, and are internalized to influence behavior.
Emergent groups arise from a relatively spontaneous process of group formation. For example, in response to a natural disaster, an emergent response group may form. These groups are characterized as having no preexisting structure (e.g. group membership, allocated roles) or prior experience working together. Yet, these groups still express high levels of interdependence and coordinate knowledge, resources, and tasks.
GROUP MEMBERSHIP AND SOCIAL IDENTITY
The social group is a critical source of information about individual identity.[18] An individual’s identity (or self-concept) has two components: personal identity and social identity (or collective self). One’s personal identity is defined by more idiosyncratic, individual qualities and attributes. In contrast, one’s social identity is defined by his or her group membership, and the general characteristics (or prototypes) that define the group and differentiate it from others. We naturally make comparisons between our own group and other groups, but we do not necessarily make objective comparisons. Instead, we make evaluations that are self-enhancing, emphasizing the positive qualities of our own group (see ingroup bias). In this way, these comparisons give us a distinct and valued social identity that benefits our self-esteem. Our social identity and group membership also satisfies a need to belong. Of course, individuals belong to multiple groups. Therefore, one’s social identity can have several, qualitatively distinct parts (for example, one’s ethnic identity, religious identity, and political identity).
Optimal distinctiveness theory suggests that individuals have a desire to be similar to others, but also a desire to differentiate themselves, ultimately seeking some balance of these two desires (to obtain optimal distinctiveness). For example, one might imagine a young teenager in the United States who tries to balance these desires, not wanting to be ‘just like everyone else,’ but also wanting to ‘fit in’ and be similar to others. One’s collective self may offer a balance between these two desires. That is, to be similar to others (those who you share group membership with), but also to be different from others (those who are outside of your group).
GROUP COHESION
In the social sciences, group cohesion refers to the processes that keep members of a social group connected. Terms such as attraction, solidarity, and morale are often used to describe group cohesion. It is thought to be one of the most important characteristics of a group, and has been linked to group performance, intergroup conflict and therapeutic change.
Group cohesion, as a scientifically studied property of groups, is commonly associated with Kurt Lewin and his student, Leon Festinger. Lewin defined group cohesion as the willingness of individuals to stick together, and believed that without cohesiveness a group could not exist. As an extension of Lewin’s work, Festinger (along with Stanley Schachter and Kurt Back) described cohesion as, “the total field of forces which act on members to remain in the group” (Festinger, Schachter, & Back, 1950, p. 37). Later, this definition was modified to describe the forces acting on individual members to remain in the group, termed attraction to the group. Since then, several models for understanding the concept of group cohesion have been developed, including Albert Carron’s hierarchical model and several bi-dimensional models (vertical v. horizontal cohesion, task v. social cohesion, belongingness and morale, and personal v. social attraction). Before Lewin and Festinger, there were, of course, descriptions of a very similar group property. For example, Emile Durkheim described two forms of solidarity (mechanical and organic), which created a sense of collective conscious and an emotion-based sense of community.
BLACK SHEEP EFFECT
Beliefs within the ingroup are based on how individuals in the group see their other members. Individuals tend to upgrade likeable in-group members and deviate from unlikeable group members, making them a separate outgroup. This is called the black sheep effect. A person’s beliefs about the group may be changed depending upon whether they are part of the ingroup or outgroup.
New members of a group must prove themselves to the full members, or “old-timers”, to become accepted. Full members have undergone socialization and are already accepted within the group. They have more privilege than newcomers but more responsibility to help the group achieve its goals. Marginal members were once full members but lost membership because they failed to live up to the group’s expectations. They can rejoin the group if they go through re-socialization. In a Bogart and Ryan study, the development of new members’ stereotypes about in-groups and out-groups during socialization was surveyed. Results showed that the new members judged themselves as consistent with the stereotypes of their in-groups, even when they had recently committed to join those groups or existed as marginal members. They also tended to judge the group as a whole in an increasingly less positive manner after they became full members.
Depending on the self-esteem of an individual, members of the in-group may experience different private beliefs about the group’s activities but will publicly express the opposite—that they actually share these beliefs. One member may not personally agree with something the group does, but to avoid the black sheep effect, they will publicly agree with the group and keep the private beliefs to themselves. If the person is privately self-aware, he or she is more likely to comply with the group even if they possibly have their own beliefs about the situation.
In situations of hazing within fraternities and sororities on college campuses, pledges may encounter this type of situation and may outwardly comply with the tasks they are forced to do regardless of their personal feelings about the Greek institution they are joining. This is done in an effort to avoid becoming an outcast of the group. Outcasts who behave in a way that might jeopardize the group tend to be treated more harshly than the likeable ones in a group, creating a black sheep effect. Full members of a fraternity might treat the incoming new members harshly, causing the pledges to decide if they approve of the situation and if they will voice their disagreeing opinions about it.
GROUP INFLUENCE ON INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOR
Individual behavior is influenced by the presence of others. For example, studies have found that individuals work harder and faster when others are present (see social facilitation), and that an individual’s performance is reduced when others in the situation create distraction or conflict. Groups also influence individual’s decision-making processes. These include decisions related to ingroup bias, persuasion, obedience, and groupthink. There are both positive and negative implications of group influence on individual behavior. This type of influence is often useful in the context of work settings, team sports, and political activism. However, the influence of groups on the individual can also generate extremely negative behaviors, evident in Nazi Germany, the My Lai Massacre, and in the Abu Ghraib prison (also see Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse).
INTERGROUP DYNAMICS
Intergroup dynamics refers to the behavioral and psychological relationship between two or more groups. This includes perceptions, attitudes, opinions, and behaviors towards one’s own group, as well as those towards another group. In some cases, intergroup dynamics is prosocial, positive, and beneficial (for example, when multiple research teams work together to accomplish a task or goal). In other cases, intergroup dynamics can create conflict. For example, Fischer & Ferlie found initially positive dynamics between a clinical institution and its external authorities dramatically changed to a ‘hot’ and intractable conflict when authorities interfered with its embedded clinical model.[30] Similarly, underlying the 1999 Columbine High School shooting in Littleton, Colorado, United States, intergroup dynamics played a significant role in Eric Harris’ and Dylan Klebold’s decision to kill a teacher and 14 students (including themselves).
INTERGROUP CONFLICT
According to social identity theory, intergroup conflict starts with a process of comparison between individuals in one group (the ingroup) to those of another group (the outgroup). This comparison process is not unbiased and objective. Instead, it is a mechanism for enhancing one’s self-esteem. In the process of such comparisons, an individual tends to:
• favor the ingroup over the outgroup
• exaggerate and overgeneralize the differences between the ingroup and the outgroup (to enhance group distinctiveness)
• minimize the perception of differences between ingroup members
• remember more detailed and positive information about the ingroup, and more negative information about the outgroup
Even without any intergroup interaction (as in the minimal group paradigm), individuals begin to show favoritism towards their own group, and negative reactions towards the outgroup. This conflict can result in prejudice, stereotypes, and discrimination. Intergroup conflict can be highly competitive, especially for social groups with a long history of conflict (for example, the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, rooted in group conflict between the ethnic Hutu and Tutsi). In contrast, intergroup competition can sometimes be relatively harmless, particularly in situations where there is little history of conflict (for example, between students of different universities) leading to relatively harmless generalizations and mild competitive behaviors. Intergroup conflict is commonly recognized amidst racial, ethnic, religious, and political groups.
The formation of intergroup conflict was investigated in a popular series of studies by Muzafer Sherif and colleagues in 1961, called the Robbers Cave Experiment. The Robbers Cave Experiment was later used to support realistic conflict theory. Other prominent theories relating to intergroup conflict include social dominance theory, and social-/self-categorization theory.

INTERGROUP CONFLICT REDUCTION
There have been several strategies developed for reducing the tension, bias, prejudice, and conflict between social groups. These include the contact hypothesis, the jigsaw classroom, and several categorization-based strategies.
INTERDEPENDENCE
There are also techniques for reducing prejudice that utilize interdependence between two or more groups. That is, members across groups have to rely on one another to accomplish some goal or task. In the Robbers Cave Experiment, Sherif used this strategy to reduce conflict between groups. Elliot Aronson’s Jigsaw Classroom also uses this strategy of interdependence. In 1971, thick racial tensions were abounding in Austin, Texas. Aronson was brought in to examine the nature of this tension within schools, and to devise a strategy for reducing it (so to improve the process of school integration, mandated under Brown v. Board of Education in 1954). Despite strong evidence for the effectiveness of the jigsaw classroom, the strategy was not widely used (arguably because of strong attitudes existing outside of the schools, which still resisted the notion that racial and ethnic minority groups are equal to Whites and, similarly, should be integrated into schools).

CONCLUSION
The phrase “Group Dynamics” contains two words- (i) Group- a social unit of two or more individuals who have in common a set of beliefs and values, follow the same norms and works for an establishable common aim. The members of the group share a set of common purpose, tasks or goals. (ii) Dynamics- the flow of, coherent activities which as envisaged, will lead the group towards the establishment of its set goals.
The dynamics of a particular group depend on how one defines the boundaries of the group. Often, there are distinct subgroups within a more broadly defined group. For example, one could define U.S. residents (‘Americans’) as a group, but could also define a more specific set of U.S. residents (for example, ‘Americans in the South’). For each of these groups, there are distinct dynamics that can be discussed. Notably, on this very broad level, the study of group dynamics is similar to the study of culture. For example, there are group dynamics in the U.S. South that sustain a culture of honor, which is associated with norms of toughness, honor-related violence, and self-defense.

REFERENCES
1. Backstrom, L.; Huttenlocher, D.; Kleinberg, J.; Lan, X. (2006). “Group formation in large social networks”. Proceedings of the 12th ACM SIGKDD international conference on Knowledge discovery and data mining – KDD ’06. p. 44. doi:10.1145/1150402.1150412. ISBN 1595933395. edit
2. Hogg, M. A.; Williams, K. D. (2000). “From I to we: Social identity and the collective self”. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice 4: 81. doi:10.1037/1089-2699.4.1.81. edit
3. Westheimer, G. (1999). “Gestalt theory reconfigured: Max Wertheimer’s anticipation of recent developments in visual neuroscience”. Perception 28 (1): 5–15. doi:10.1068/p2883. PMID 10627849. edit
4. Dion, K. L. (2000). “Group cohesion: From “field of forces” to multidimensional construct”. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice 4: 7–2. doi:10.1037//1089-2699.4.1.7. edit
5. gupta, niranjan (2013). “The Research Center for tcce pindra garhwa”. Sociometry 8 (2): 126–136. doi:10.2307/2785233. JSTOR 2785233. edit
6. Van Vugt, M.; Schaller, M. (2008). “Evolutionary approaches to group dynamics: An introduction”. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice 12: 1. doi:10.1037/1089-2699.12.1.1. edit
7. Hammer, Espen Adorno and the political, pp.58-9
8. Schutz, W. (1958). FIRO: A Three-Dimensional Theory of Interpersonal Behavior. New York, NY: Rinehart.
9. Schutz, W. (1966). The Interpersonal Underworld. (Updated version based on 1958 work). Palo Alto, CA: Science and Behavior Books.
10. Page 194 to 196, Irvin D. Yalom, The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy, third edition, Basic Books (1985), hardback, ISBN 0-465-08447-8
11. Peck, M. S. (1987) The Different Drum: Community-Making and Peace.p. 95-103.
12. J. Richard Hackman (2002). Leading Teams: Setting the Stage for Great Performances. Harvard Business Press.
13. Wageman, R. (1995). “Interdependence and Group Effectiveness”. Administrative Science Quarterly 40 (1): 145–180. doi:10.2307/2393703. edit
14. Cohen, D.; Nisbett, R. E.; Bowdle, B. F.; Schwarz, N. (1996). “Insult, aggression, and the southern culture of honor: An “experimental ethnography.””. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 70 (5): 945–959. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.70.5.945. PMID 8656339. edit
15. Cohen, D. (1998). “Culture, social organization, and patterns of violence”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 75 (2): 408–419. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.75.2.408. PMID 9731316. edit
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ETHNIC STEROTYPES AND PREDUDICE REDUCTION IN NIGERIA: A SOCIO-PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH.

ETHNIC STEROTYPES AND PREDUDICE REDUCTION IN NIGERIA: A SOCIO-PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH.
INTROCUTION
In social psychology, a stereotype is a thought that can be adopted about specific types of individuals or certain ways of doing things. These thoughts or beliefs may or may not accurately reflect reality. However, this is only a fundamental psychological definition of a stereotype. Within psychology and spanning across other disciplines, there are different conceptualizations and theories of stereotyping that provide their own expanded definition. Some of these definitions share commonalities, though each one may also harbor unique aspects that may contradict the others.
The term stereotype derives from the Greek words στερεός (stereos), “firm, solid” and τύπος (typos), “impression,” hence “solid impression”.
The term comes from the printing trade and was first adopted in 1798 by Firmin Didot to describe a printing plate that duplicated any typography. The duplicate printing plate, or the stereotype, is used for printing instead of the original.
Outside of printing, the first reference to “stereotype” was in 1850, as a noun that meant “image perpetuated without change.” However, it was not until 1922 that “stereotype” was first used in the modern psychological sense by American journalist Walter Lippmann in his work Public Opinion.
A “stereotype” is a generalization about a person or group of persons. We develop stereotypes when we are unable or unwilling to obtain all of the information we would need to make fair judgments about people or situations. In the absence of the “total picture,” stereotypes in many cases allow us to “fill in the blanks.” Our society often innocently creates and perpetuates stereotypes, but these stereotypes often lead to unfair discrimination and persecution when the stereotype is unfavorable.
For example, if we are walking through a park late at night and encounter three senior citizens wearing fur coats and walking with canes, we may not feel as threatened as if we were met by three high school-aged boys wearing leather jackets. Why is this so? We have made a generalization in each case. These generalizations have their roots in experiences we have had ourselves, read about in books and magazines, seen in movies or television, or have had related to us by friends and family. In many cases, these stereotypical generalizations are reasonably accurate. Yet, in virtually every case, we are resorting to prejudice by ascribing characteristics about a person based on a stereotype, without knowledge of the total facts. By stereotyping, we assume that a person or group has certain characteristics. Quite often, we have stereotypes about persons who are members of groups with which we have not had firsthand contact.
Television, books, comic strips, and movies are all abundant sources of stereotyped characters. For much of its history, the movie industry portrayed African-Americans as being unintelligent, lazy, or violence-prone. As a result of viewing these stereotyped pictures of African-Americans, for example, prejudice against African-Americans has been encouraged. In the same way, physically attractive women have been and continue to be portrayed as unintelligent or unintellectual and sexually promiscuous.
Stereotypes also evolve out of fear of persons from minority groups. For example, many people have the view of a person with mental illness as someone who is violence-prone. This conflicts with statistical data, which indicate that persons with mental illness tend to be no more prone to violence than the general population. Perhaps the few, but well-publicized, isolated cases of mentally ill persons going on rampages have planted the seed of this myth about these persons. This may be how some stereotypes developed in the first place; a series of isolated behaviors by a member of a group which was unfairly generalized to be viewed as a character of all members of that group.
An ethnic stereotype, national stereotype, or national character is a system of beliefs about typical characteristics of members of a given ethnic group or nationality, their status, society and cultural norms. National stereotypes may be either about their own ethnicity/nationality or about others. Stereotypes about their own nation may aid in maintaining the national identity.
Various anti-national phobias and prejudices operate with ethnic stereotypes.
Ethnic stereotypes are commonly portrayed in ethnic jokes, most of which usually considered to be offensive in various degrees.
STEREOTYPES AND PREJUDICE IN NIGERIA
Stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination are understood as related but different concepts. Stereotypes are regarded as the most cognitive component and often occurs without conscious awareness, whereas prejudice is the affective component of stereotyping and discrimination is the behavioral component of prejudicial reactions. In this tripartite view of intergroup attitudes, stereotypes reflect expectations and beliefs about the characteristics of members of groups perceived as different from one’s own, prejudice represents the emotional response, and discrimination refers to actions. Understanding the nature of prejudice, scapegoating, stereotypes, and discrimination is the first step in combating these practices. All of us have prejudices about members of groups different from ourselves. We should, however, recognize that we are not acting fairly if we treat people differently because of these stereotypes and prejudices. Each one of us deserves to be considered a unique human being.
Although related, the three concepts can exist independently of each other. According to Daniel Katz and Kenneth Braly, stereotyping leads to racial prejudice when people emotionally react to the name of a group, ascribe characteristics to members of that group, and then evaluate those characteristics.
Possible prejudicial effects of stereotypes are:
• Justification of ill-founded prejudices or ignorance
• Unwillingness to rethink one’s attitudes and behavior towards stereotyped groups
• Preventing some people of stereotyped groups from entering or succeeding in activities or fields[
Ethnicity is one of the keys to understanding Nigeria’s pluralistic society. It distinguishes groupings of peoples who for historical reasons have come to be seen as distinctive–by themselves and others–on the basis of locational origins and a series of other cultural markers. Experience in the postindependence period fostered a widespread belief that modern ethnicity affects members’ life chances. In Nigerian colloquial usage, these collectivities were commonly called “tribes.” In the emergent Nigerian national culture, this topic was discussed widely as “tribalism,” a morally reprehensible term whose connotations were similar to American terms, such as “discrimination,” “racism,” or “prejudice.” Nigerian national policies have usually fostered tolerance and appreciation for cultural differences, while trying at the same time to suppress unfair treatment based on ethnic prejudice. This long-term campaign involved widespread support in educated circles to replace the term “tribe” or “tribal” with the more universally applicable concept of ethnicity. Nevertheless, older beliefs died slowly, and ethnic identities were still a vital part of national life in 1990.
The ethnic variety was dazzling and confusing. Estimates of the number of distinct ethnic groupings varied from 250 to as many as 400. The most widely used marker was that of language. In most cases, people who spoke a distinct language having a separate term for the language and/or its speakers saw themselves, or were viewed by others, as ethnically different. Language groupings were numbered in the 1970s at nearly 400, depending upon disagreements over whether or not closely related languages were mutually intelligible. Language groupings sometimes shifted their distinctiveness rather than displaying clear boundaries. Manga and Kanuri speakers in northeastern Nigeria spoke easily to one another. But in the major Kanuri city of Maiduguri, 160 kilometers south of Manga-speaking areas, Manga was considered a separate language. Kanuri and Manga who lived near each other saw themselves as members of the same ethnic group; others farther away did no
Prejudice has become profitable in Nigeria. Its boom season for ethnic entrepreneurs and, indeed, for sundry purveyors of hate. These traders in prejudice do not inhabit any special corners of Nigeria. They are everywhere and they profit from nearly everything. They cut across generations, class, gender, and creed. Nothing escapes their attention and everything is sooner or later an ethnic conspiracy or an excuse for a slur on an identity group

CONCLUSION
Prejudice and stereotyping are biases that work together to create and maintain social inequality. Prejudice refers to the attitudes and feelings—whether positive or negative and whether conscious or non-conscious—that people have about members of other groups. In contrast, stereotypes have traditionally been defined as specific beliefs about a group, such as descriptions of what members of a particular group look like, how they behave, or their abilities. As such, stereotypes are cognitive representations of how members of a group are similar to one another and different from members of other groups. Importantly, people can be aware of cultural stereotypes and have cognitive representations of those beliefs without personally endorsing such stereotypes, without feelings of prejudice, and without awareness that such stereotypes could affect one’s judgment and behavior. Prejudice and stereotyping are generally considered to be the product of adaptive processes that simplify an otherwise complex world so that people can devote more cognitive resources to other tasks. However, despite any cognitively adaptive function they may serve, using these mental shortcuts when making decisions about other individuals can have serious negative ramifications. The horrible mistreatment of particular groups of people in recent history, such as that of Jews, African Americans, women, and homosexuals, has been the major impetus for the study of prejudice and stereotyping. Thus, the original conceptions and experiments were concerned almost entirely with conscious, negative attitudes and explicitly discriminatory actions. However, as the social acceptability of prejudice and stereotypes has changed, the manifestations of prejudice and stereotypes have also changed. In response to these changes, and given that people who reject prejudice and stereotyping can still unwittingly internalize stereotypic representations, the study of prejudice and stereotyping has recently moved to include beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors that could be considered positive and not obviously or overtly prejudiced. Importantly, even when prejudice and stereotypes are ostensibly positive (e.g., traditional women are wonderful and adored), they preserve the dominance of powerful groups: they not only limit the opportunities of stereotyped groups but also produce a litany of negative outcomes when those group members defy them. Because of these new conceptions of bias, there have also been methodological adaptations in the study of prejudice and stereotyping that move beyond the conscious attitudes and behaviors of individuals to measure their implicit prejudice and stereotypes as well. This article gives a quick tour through the social psychological study of prejudice and stereotyping to inform the reader about its theoretical background, measurement, and interventions aimed to reduce prejudice.

REFERENCES
• Alí, Maurizio. (2010). Medios de comunicación, asuntos étnicos e intercultura en Colombia. En Revista Razón y Palabra, 74 (nov.2010/ene.2011). México DF: ITESM Campus Estado de México. ISSN 1605-4806.
• Macrae CN, Stangor C, Hewstone M.(eds.) “Stereotypes and stereotyping.” Guilford Press, 1996.

DISCUSS NORTHERN NIGERIA ALONG THESE LINES

DISCUSS NORTHERN NIGERIA ALONG THESE LINES
INTRODUCTION
Northern Nigeria was a British protectorate which lasted from 1900 until 1914 and covered the northern part of what is now Nigeria. The protectorate spanned 255,000 miles (410,000 km) and included the states of the Sokoto Caliphate and the Kano Emirate and parts of the former Bornu Empire, conquered in 1902. The first High Commissioner of the protectorate was Frederick Lugard, who actively suppressed revolutions and created a system of administration built around native authorities. The Protectorate was ended in 1914, when its area was unified with the Southern Nigeria Protectorate and the Lagos Colony, becoming the Northern Province of the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria.

MAP OF NORTHERN NIGERIA

1. HISTORY/POLITICS
The Berlin Conference of 1884 and 1885 provided the area that would become the Northern Nigeria Protectorate to the British. The Royal Niger Company was formed in 1886 with George Taubman Goldie as the vice governor. The Company negotiated trade agreements and political agreements, sometimes coercive, with many of the chieftains, emirs, and the Sokoto Caliphate. In 1897, Frederick Lugard was the appointed head of the West African Frontier Force which was tasked with stopping Fulani resistance and possible French incursions in the northwest area.
On 1 January 1890, the Royal Niger Company’s charter was revoked and the British government took control. The Royal Niger Company was paid £865,000 and was given the rights to half of all mining revenue in a large part of the areas for 99 years in exchange for ceding the territory to the British government. Lugard was appointed the High Commissioner of the newly created Northern Nigeria Protectorate. Zungeru became the headquarters for the protectorate in 1902 because it was the most northerly city accessible by river transport.
Military operations began in 1902 and continued for about five years of sporadic fighting. The remnants of the Bornu Empire were conquered in 1902 and the Sokoto Caliphate and the Kano Emirate were taken over in 1903. Fighting continued in 1904 in Bassa. In 1906 a large Mahdist revolution began outside of the city of Sokoto in the village of Satiru, a combined force of the British and the British-appointed Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammadu Attahiru II, destroyed the town and killed most residents involved. After 1907 there were fewer revolts and use of military force by the British and the focus of the High Commissioner turned toward taxation and administration.

2. GEOGRAPHY AND SETTING
The highest point in Northern Nigeria is Chappal Waddi at 2,419 m (7,936 ft). The main rivers are the Niger and the Benue River which converge at Kabba province and empty into the Atlantic Ocean. The expansive valleys of the Niger and Benue River valleys dominate the southern areas of the country. To the southeast of the Benue river, hills and mountains which forms the Mambilla Plateau create the highest Plateau in Northern Nigeria. This plateau extends to the border with Cameroon, this montane land forms part of the Bamenda Highlands in Cameroon. The Great savannah belt of the Great Plains of Hausa land dominates much of the rest of the country. This region experiences rainfall between 20 and 60 inches (508 and 1,524 mm) per year. The savannah zone’s three categories are Guinean forest-savanna mosaic, Sudan savannah, and Sahel savannah. Guinean forest-savanna mosaic is plains of tall grass which are interrupted by trees. Sudan savannah is similar but with shorter grasses and shorter trees. Sahel savannah consists of patches of grass and sand, found in the northeast. In the Sahel region, rain is less than 20 inches (508 mm) per year and the Sahara Desert is encroaching. In the dry north-east corner of the country lies Lake Chad, which Northern Nigeria shares with Niger, Chad and Cameroon.
Northern Nigeria is an ethnically and religiously diverse state. The, Hausa, Fula and Birom peoples dominate much of the North Western and central parts of the Country. While the Hausa and Fula are chiefly Muslims, they have a very rich Christian history, The Ancient Hausa Kings of Gobir ‘Masu Sakandami’ – the Cross Bearers were Christians long before the coming of European evangelists and a large Christian Hausa and Fula minority thrives in many of the North Western Provinces. A substantial part of the Huusa population also adheres to ancient religion of Hausa Animism.
The Biroms of the Plateau and the Tiv and Jukun of the Benue are chiefly Christian, they were converted to Christianity after the colonization of the country by the British. The Nupe, Kebawa and Yoruba peoples occupy the south western parts of the Counrty, these people are also mainly Muslims with Emirate type Native systems that predate the country’s existence.

3. RELIEF AND DRAINAGE
In general, the topography of Nigeria consists of plains in the north and south interrupted by plateaus and hills in the centre of the country. The Sokoto Plains lie in the northwestern corner of the country, while the Borno Plains in the northeastern corner extend as far as the Lake Chad basin. The Lake Chad basin and the coastal areas, including the Niger River delta and the western parts of the Sokoto region in the far northwest, are underlain by soft, geologically young sedimentary rocks. Gently undulating plains, which become waterlogged during the rainy season, are found in these areas. The characteristic landforms of the plateaus are high plains with broad, shallow valleys dotted with numerous hills or isolated mountains, called inselbergs; the underlying rocks are crystalline, although sandstones appear in river areas. The Jos Plateau rises almost in the centre of the country; it consists of extensive lava surfaces dotted with numerous extinct volcanoes
The major drainage areas in Nigeria are the Niger-Benue basin, the Lake Chad basin, and the Gulf of Guinea basin. The Niger River, for which the country is named, and the Benue, its largest tributary, are the principal rivers. The Niger has many rapids and waterfalls, but the Benue is not interrupted by either and is navigable throughout its length, except during the dry season. Rivers draining the area north of the Niger-Benue trough include the Sokoto, the Kaduna, the Gongola, and the rivers draining into Lake Chad. The coastal areas are drained by short rivers that flow into the Gulf of Guinea.
The climatic conditions in the northern part of Nigeria exhibit only two different seasons, namely, a short wet season and a prolonged dry season. Temperatures during the day remain constantly high while humidity is relatively low throughout the year, with little or no cloud cover.

There are, however, wide diurnal ranges in temperature (between nights and days) particularly in the very hot months. The mean monthly temperatures during the day exceed 36°C while the mean monthly temperatures at night fall, most times to below 22°C.

Thus much of Nigeria and the region to the west experiences two rainy periods as the intertropical convergence move north or south; but in the north the two rainy seasons merge to give a single wet season between July and September.

The few high plateaus of Jos and Biu, and the Adamawa highlands, experience climatic conditions which are markedly different from the generalized dry and wet period in northern Nigeria. Temperatures are 5 – 10°C lower due to high altitude than in the surrounding areas. Similarly, the annual rainfall figures are higher than in areas around them, particularly on the windward side.

4. POPULATION
Northern Nigeria comprises of 62% of Nigeria’s land mass and 53.7% of the national population. Majority of the people in northern Nigeria are Muslims and the culture of these people reflects largely Islamic influences. Western-style education was introduced into the southern part of Nigeria by Christian missionaries in the mid 1800th. On the other hand, it took the Europeans another 64 years to establish the first primary school in the north in 1907. European form of education was initially rejected by the people of the north regarding it as a threat to their culture and religion. For many years people were not willing to send their children (especially girls) to those schools. Early marriage was popularly supported by most families and large percentages of girls were rarely allowed to attend formal western schools or go beyond primary school education.

5. LAND TENURE
Traditional land tenure throughout Nigeria was based on customary laws under which land was considered community property. An individual had usufructuary rights to the land he farmed in his lineage or community area. He could possess the land as long as he used it to his families or society’s benefit, and could pass the land on to heirs and pledge its use to satisfy a debt, but could not sell or mortgage it. The right of disposal belonged only to the community, which, acting through traditional authorities, exercised this right in accordance with customary law.
The Fulani conquest of much of northern Nigeria in the early 1800s brought a change in land tenure in areas under Fulani control. The conquerors bestowed fiefs on certain individuals, who sometimes appointed overseers with the power to allocate unused land without regard for local community interests. One result was a growing number of grants to strangers during the nineteenth century because overseers sought to increase the revenue from their landlords’ holdings. This practice gradually reduced the extent of bush land and encouraged the migration of farmers to urban areas that began toward the end of the nineteenth century.
In the early 1900s, the British established hegemony over the Fulani and declared all land in the former Fulani fiefs to be public property. Subsequently, in contrast to southern Nigeria, where the community owned land in the north the government required occupancy permits. However, at the same time the northern authorities were charged with supervision and protection of the indigenous population’s traditional rights, and a general reversion to customary land-tenure practices occurred. In predominantly Muslim areas, traditional land inheritance laws were allowed to remain in force. As a result of the government’s support of local customary laws, encroachment by outsiders appears largely to have been halted. In 1962 the government of the Northern Region placed formal restrictions on landholding by individuals who were not members of a northern community.
During the 1970s, however, individuals and business enterprises drove up land prices, especially in newly urbanized areas, by investing heavily in real estate. In the south, customary owners turned from land sales to more profitable high-rent leasing arrangements. In the north, where land was held only by permit, farmers on the outskirts of cities became victims of developmental rezoning. Their permits were revoked, and, only minimally compensated, they moved to other areas. The land was then subdivided and sold at high prices.
In response to a potential crisis in land distribution, the Federal Military Government promulgated the Land Use Decree of March 1978, establishing a uniform tenure system for all of Nigeria. Subsequently incorporated in the constitution of 1979, the decree effectively nationalized all land by requiring certificates of occupancy from the government for land held under customary and statutory rights and the payment of rent to the government. However, the decree stipulated that anyone in a rural or urban area who normally occupied land and developed it would continue to enjoy the right of occupancy, and could sell or transfer his interest in the development of the land.
The main purpose of the 1978 decree was to open land to development by individuals, corporations, institutions, and governments. The decree gave state and local government’s authority to take over and assign any undeveloped land.

CONCLUSION

Northern Nigeria is now known for many negative things, which many believed is promoted by extreme poverty in the region accentuated by continual irresponsible leadership that has taken over the region, leaders who fail to follow the footstep of one of the greatest leadership example who show complete transparency in leadership, backed by honesty and humility, Sir Ahmadu Bello will never forgive these men who continue to use his name to deceive the masses while in the real sense they are busy destroying the legacies he left behind.

REFERENCES
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