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This paper evaluates the bonus-malus system in practice in the Nigerian motor insurance industry. It would appear that the regulation is a bit fluid so that what actually looks like a bonus-malus system is more like a rule of thumb as operators do not honor the industry agreed tariff. This paper constructs an alternative bonus-malus scale that has reasonable penalties and that is yet commercially feasible. The model can easily be replicated for other developing economies.

The Niger Delta undoubtedly is the oil fountain of Nigeria. The region comprises of nine oil rich states of Abia, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River i , Delta, Edo, Imo, Ondo, and Rivers. The region's oil accounts for approximately 90 percent of the value of Nigeria's exports, but remains one of the least developed regions as a result of deliberate neglect. The neglect of the region for many years by successive governments in Nigeria degenerated into violent political crisis and armed conflict, which began to surge appreciably in the late 1990s and reached a dangerous dimension in 2009. The objective of this paper is to validate the proposal that using entrepreneurship development (ED) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) can be better strategies for conflict resolution (CR) in the Niger-Delta region in Nigeria. Based on the objective of this paper relevant literature on entrepreneurship and corporate social responsibility was reviewed to provide more insights into the various dimensions of the subject matter. More importantly, a survey technique was preferred for the study through the use of structured questionnaire to generate vital information on the topic from 600 Nigerians. The received responses of the respondents were tabulated and systematically analysed with simple frequency table and percentages, while the tentative research hypotheses were tested using Regression and Correlation Analyses. From the data analysis carried out and taking cognisance of the research questions, it was established empirically that entrepreneurship development and corporate social responsibility can be better strategies for conflict resolution in the Niger-Delta. In conclusion, palliative recommendations were given to Fedral Governemnt, policymakers of the multinational oil companies and stakeholders in the oil industry to help forged sustainable peace and energy development in the Niger-Delta.

A major challenge facing telecoms business providers in Nigeria today is the continuous growing competition and customers' expectation of service quality and as such customers are able to choose among multiple service providers based on the level of satisfaction, affordability, and service quality of service providers. Customer demand and competition are forcing firms to cut loose from the traditional customer satisfaction paradigm, to adopt proactive strategies which will assist them to take the lead in the market-place. This study aims at identifying factors that discriminate among subscribers exhibiting willingness to drop their current service provider and those willing to stay. The study also examines the effect of socio-economic and demographic factors associated with the identified discriminants. The major factors identified are high call rate, poor service facilities, off-beam advertisement medium, availability of superior service provider and unattractive service plan.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the issue of capacity utilisation (CU) in the Nigerian economy over the last 12 years (1991‐2003) with the view to determining if there has been significant improvement in CU despite changes in government policies initiated to boost the productive capacity level.Design/methodology/approachThe methodology is basically descriptive and analytical. Planned and systematic collection, analysis and interpretation of secondary data are adopted to explain CU situation in Nigeria.FindingsThe paper shows that CU trends in Nigeria from 1993‐2003 ranges between 30 and 60 per cent.Practical implicationsThe government and organised private sector organisations have a monumental role to play for positive changes and sustainable improvement of CU level in Nigeria through boosting aggregate demand, improved employment, low interest rate, improved export drive, cheap fuel and power supply, creation of enabling environment for businesses.Originality/valueThe results of this paper support the finance‐economics view that the relatively low level of CU across the sectors analysed suggests that firms in Nigeria are subject to economic constraints.

Background: Nigeria became the first sub Saharan African country to record a case of COVID-19 after an imported case from Italy was confirmed on February 27, 2020. Moving averages and the Epidemic Evaluation Indices (EEI) are two important but complementary methods useful in monitoring epidemic trends, they can also serve as a useful guide for policy makers and inform the timing of decisions on preventive measures. The objectives of this paper are to graphically depict the trends of new COVID-19 cases nationally and in two key States (Lagos and Kano) and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) using the moving averages and the EEI. In addition, we examined the effects of governments public health interventions on the spread of COVID-19 and appraise the progress made so far in addressing the challenges of COVID-19 in Nigeria. Methods: We used data on new cases of COVID-19 from public sources released by the Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC) from the 27th February 2020, when the first case was recorded, to 11th May, 2020, one week after the lockdowns in Lagos and the FCT were lifted. We computed moving averages of various orders, the log transformations of the moving averages and then the EEIs of new COVID-19 cases for Nigeria as a whole, and then for two of the most affected states i.e. Lagos and Kano, as well as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). Then, we plotted graphs to depict these indices and show the epidemic trends for COVID-19 in each scenario. Results: Nationally, the number of new cases of COVID-19 showed an initial gradual rise from the first reported case on the 27th February 2020. However, by the second week in April, these numbers began to show a relatively sharper increase and this trend has continued till date. Similar trends were observed in Lagos state and the FCT. The rate of growth of the logarithm-transformed moving average in the period leading to, and including the lockdowns reduced by a factor of 0.65. This suggests that the policies put in place by the government including the lockdown measures in Lagos and the FCT may have had a positive effect on the development of new cases of COVID-19 in Nigeria. Nationally and in Lagos, the EEIs of the COVID-19 cases started off on very high notes, however, the effects of the lockdown gradually became evident by the end of April and early May 2020, as the EEIs headed closer to 1.0. In all case scenarios, the EEIs are still above 1.0. Conclusions and recommendations: The number of new cases of COVID-19 has been on a steady rise since the first reported case. In Nigeria especially across the two states and the FCT, public health interventions including the lockdown measures appear to have played a role in reducing the rate of increase of new infections. The EEIs are still above 1.0, suggesting that despite the progress that appears to have been made, the epidemic is still evolving and Nigeria has not yet reached her peak for COVID-19 cases. We recommend that aggressive public health interventions and restrictions against mass gatherings should be sustained.

Studies on probability distribution functions and their properties are needful as they are very important in modeling random phenomena. However, research has shown that some real life data can be modeled more adequately by distributions obtained as combination of two random variables with known probability distributions. This paper introduces the Gamma-Rayleigh distribution (GRD) as a new member of the Gamma-X family of generalized distributions. The Transformed-Transformer method is used to combine the Gamma and Rayleigh distributions. Various properties of the resulting twoparameter Gamma-Rayleigh distribution, including moments, moment generating function, survival function and hazard function are derived. Results of simulation study reveals that the distribution is unimodal, skewed and normal-type for some values of the shape parameter. The distribution is also found to relate with the Gamma, Rayleigh and Generalized-Gamma distributions. The method of maximum likelihood has been used to estimate the shape and scale parameters of the distribution. To illustrate its adequacy in modelling real life data the distribution is fitted to two survival data sets. The results show that the distribution produced fits that are competitive and compared better, in some cases, to the Gamma, Rayleigh, Weibull and Lognormal distributions.

Many existing distributions in literatures does not have the modeling fits capacity to adequately describe the real-life phenomena. The Exponential Pareto (EP) distribution has further gained some generalizations among several authors using different generator techniques with an aim to obtain a new distribution with greater flexibility. This article proposes Gompertz Exponential Pareto (GEP) distribution using the Gompertz generator. Findings from the study revealed some lifetime distributions as special cases and mathematical properties of the distribution investigated including the mean, variance, coefficient of variation, quantile, moment, moment generating function and, order statistics. The distribution can be positively or negatively skewed. It is unimodal with failure rates whose shapes could be reversed J bathtub, constant, decreasing and, increasing and the parameters were estimated using maximum likelihood estimation approach. Applications to two real-life datasets revealed the ability of GEP distribution to provide more flexibilities and better fit to the dataset compared to some previously proposed distributions for the data. The results also revealed that GEP had the superior performance over other generalizations of EP distribution existing in literatures and the performance has further strengthened the usefulness of the Gompertz-generator technique.