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Southeast Nigeria witnessed the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing public health crises. The crises manifest as the conflicts between citizens, policy-makers and leaders over public health policies, creating the circumstance for innovative research. This study examines the public response to the public health and social measures (PHSMs) implemented by the federal government of Nigeria in curtailing the spread of COVID-19, during the height of the pandemic. The focus is to unravel the underlying factors of the public response to the PHSMs, as well as their implications to the overall public health policies and institutions in the region. Guided by the ethnomethodology model, the authors applied qualitative methodology to the research. In-depth interview (IDI) and focused group discussion (FGD) were adopted to gather data from leaders of religious institutions, public and private health institutions, local market institutions, and state security institutions in the 5 states of Southeast Nigeria. The collected data were parsed through thematic analysis and interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA). The results reveal a range of problems, such as shallow knowledge and misinformation at the local level, gap in public health knowledge and policy, crises of mistrust and misinterpretation of public health objective, citizens-policy-leadership crises, as well as the abuse of PHSMs. These problems were put in perspectives to portray the lessons and the public health policy implications of citizens-policy-leadership crises.

With heavy debt burden on developing economies accompanied by their low credit worthiness rating, developing economies often resort to taxes for financing development projects. Raising tax rates and expanding tax bases have become frequent government activities in developing economies. Without dynamic deficit financing policy which takes into cognizance the conflicting arithmetic and economic effect of Laffer curve analysis, financing budget deficit through taxation has remained largely unsuccessful. Perhaps, what was required is to constitute latent factors operating along Laffer curve into major theoretical construct of a deficit financing policy. Therefore, study focused on identifying latent factors influencing the inter-relationship among budget deficit finance, taxes, human capital and macroeconomic indicators. Study spanned across 1970-2015. Data were sourced from Central Bank of Nigeria, National Bureau of Statistics and World Development Indicators. Data were analyzed using exploratory factor analysis. Results indicate that: (1) Tax contributed significantly to budget deficit financing (2)Tax spending and disposable personal income were latent factors influencing the effectiveness of deficit financing (3) Tax spending activated government revenue to contribute significantly to budget deficit reduction (4) Disposable personal income boosted GDP to cause reduction in budget deficit . It was concluded that, with the taxonomy of highly significant factor correlates of tax spending and disposable personal income, a viable deficit financing policy was devised with component tax, budgetary, pricing, credit and macroeconomic policies. It was recommended, inter alia, that developing economies should activate their current deficit financing policies by adapting them to their tax spend and macroeconomic policies.

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While life expectancy will continue to improve owing to the domestic humanitarian improvement, proxy-policy influence on the sub-Saharan African nations [Nigeria included] by the United Nations and other developed nations, the ageing population will continue to increase making it more or less policy imperative among the nations within this region. Among other things, public health policy occupies the most important position in the web of policy approach to the needs and care for the aged. In the light of the above, the present paper investigated the realities of public health policy outcome [1988 to 2016], as it affects the ageing populations via public health facilities and health packages for the aged. 600 retirees of public institutions from southeast Nigeria were involved in the study, which adopted survey design and modified random sampling techniques. In view of the substantive issues of the study, less than 25% of the respondents go for regular medical checkups and self-health maintenance, more than 80% depended on self-support for medical upkeep; the regression model adopted in the study proved [p< .05], the factors affecting regular health upkeep and satisfaction with services at the public health facilities among the retirees.

Countries in Africa continue to represent practical examples of failed nation-states due to the persistence of all known indicators of underdevelopment.  Ironically, the continent has a proud social history that eulogizes its contribution to global development. However, a careful look at most of the countries (such as Nigeria) that make up the continent reveals an image of adverse human development realities. This negative socio-economic scenario has put the continent at the forefront of foreign aid destinations even though Africa has all it takes to drive a healthy development agenda. The manner with which development policies are far removed from the reach of the masses in terms of their input, needs, and aspirations, shows the nature of the colonial character that surrounds policymaking in a country like Nigeria. It is the submission of this paper, that decolonizing policy-making processes and ensuring that the masses are integrated into the process would go a long way to synthesize the indigenous aspirations, elite groups, and valid experience for sustainable development. Hence, using the colonial policy template diagram and the post-colonial policy template diagram of successive governments, the paper evaluated the structure of policymaking and implementation in Nigeria and the disconnection between policy objectives and realities in the economy. Based on the findings, the paper recommends an indigenous and populist informed policymaking process to reverse the colonization of development policies in Nigeria and to engender a sustainable development policy trajectory.

Urgent need for quick action to put Nigeria and other developing economies back to the path of economic recovery has almost imposed state of emergency on these economies. Most LDCs are faced with acute shortage of development funds due to recessions accompanying incessant crashes in international financial market. Raising existing tax rates to finance budget deficit in LDCs often generates public debate on pros and cons of such policy option. Study considered Nigeria as typical case of LDCs. Study focused on establishing the effectiveness of tax-financing of budget deficit under Laffer curve theory. Study spanned across 1970-2015. Data were analyzed using ADF, CUSUM, heteroskedasticity, multiple regression, Johansen cointegration and ECM. Results indicate that: (1) Custom and exercise duties, petroleum profit tax and value-added tax contributed significantly to the reduction in budget deficit while company income tax had nonsignificant impact(2)Total government revenue constituted major chunk of planned income for budget deficit financing(3) Deficit financing of capital health expenditure yielded high returns while that of recurrent education expenditure and capital education expenditure was accompanied by low returns (4)Growth and employment generation accelerated deficit financing while private investment decelerated it (5) There were long and short-run relationships among budget deficit, taxes, human capital investment and macroeconomic indicators with significant rate of adjustment of short-run disequilibrium. Study concluded that tax-financing of budget deficit was effective under Laffer curve effect. It was recommended, among others, that LDCs should enlarge their tax bases through inclusion, to finance budget deficit.

London, Longman, 1972. Pp. xvi + 422. £4.00. Two important contributions to our knowledge of the local and central administrative history of Nigeria have recently been published in the Ibadan History Series. Both authors have done excellent work; their books have been developed from doctoral theses, and show evidence of 'in-depth' research, besides being well written. All those interested in colonial administration in Africa, especially at the turn of the century, will find these studies most useful. The Warrant Chiefs explains why British attempts to institute and impose a particular system of local administration failed in SouthEastern Nigeria. Dr A. E. Afigbo first examines the nature of the traditional social and political organisations in this part of West Africa and, contrary to the views held by other scholars, maintains that indirect rule started in the area of his study since the introduction of Sir Claude MacDonald's administration. After carefully examining both direct and indirect rule, in an attempt to clear the confusion surrounding these concepts, he conies to the following conclusion: This Crown Colony system was the original concept of Direct Rule-meaning a system of rule using British institutions and implementing British ideas of government. Its opposite was a system under which British institutions and ideas were deliberately excluded; instead an attempt was made to rule through the indigenous institutions of the colonised peoples. This was the original meaning of Indirect Rule [p. 5].