Journal of Environment, Earth Sciences and Ecology

Housing Affordability Amongst Government Employees in Oyo State, Nigeria

Adeleke, Moses Adegbile — Thu, 04 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Housing is well-known basic human need. Among the challenges of housing, is its unaffordable to Nigerian employees. The reason being that their take home does not accommodate meeting their most significant basic needs. This study looked in to the financial capacity of government employees in Oyo State, Nigeria. Two government Ministries and parastatals were choosen employing the purposive sampling. One hundred and ten (120) government employees were selected. Questionnaires that were returned were 98. The most significant information was retrieved through the administered questionnaires, the data was then analysed through description and median score statistics. The findings revealed that on a emblematic basis, Oyo State Government workers could hardly manage to offset rent because most of them particularly the medium and substantial income groups spent less than 30 percent of their yearly income on housing. This study therefore suggested that there should be public-private partnerships that will enhance sustainable housing for the populace.

STOMACH CONTENT ANALYSIS OF Chrysichthys nigrodigitatus (LACEPÈDE, 1803) OF THE LAGOS LAGOON NIGERIA WITH RESPECT TO MICROPHYTO BENTHOS

Jeyol, M’ember Catherine , Umar, Nuvalga Jacob — Sun, 07 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Stomach content analysis provides important insight into fish feeding patterns, accurate description of fish diets and feeding habits and also provides the basic for understanding trophic interactions in aquatic food webs. The aim is to ascertain the type of food consumed by macrobenthic fauna in the marine ecosystem and to identify the sediment composition of the microphyto benthos species that constitute their natural feed component in the Lagos Lagoon. The diet of 200 specimens of Chrysichthys nigrodigitatus were investigated in the Lagos Lagoon, Nigeria from September 2015 to December 2015 by the numerical and occurrence methods using Malian traps set over night. Triplicate sediment samples were collected in September, October, November and December 2015 using a Van Veen grab and the microphyto benthos species were identified microscopically. Results revealed that the highest numbers of empty stomachs were observed in September 2015. Ten categories of food items were identified in C. nigrodigitatus which are; Leaves, fibres, Crab parts, shells, scales, bones, worms, insect parts and micro algae. Blue-green algae and Diatom were the two major groups of microphytobenthos taxa identified in C. nigrodigitatus. The microphytobenthic taxa identified includes Blue-green algae (Anabaena sp., Aphanocapsa sp., Mycrocystis sp.) and Diatoms (Navicula sp., Cyclotella sp., Synedra sp., Nitzschia sp. The result also showed that the stomach content of C. nigrodigitatus has many microphytobenthic taxa both by occurrence and abundance. Their opportunistic omnivore feeding mechanism which is passive feeding mechanism gives the species wider prey abundance. Hence microphytobenthos are important food source for benthic fauna.

HEALTH RISK ASSESSMENT OF CD, CR AND PB LEVELS IN ARTIFICIAL COLOURS, FOODS AND DRINKS CONSUMED IN JALINGO, TARABA STATE

Ugwu, I. C. , Jeyol, M. C — Fri, 05 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Street-vended foods are classified as those foods cooked, prepared and served by vendors in streets and/or other public places and are directly consumed without further preparation. Although street foods offer a great deal of advantages to food security, concerns about their health risk effects on humans are far too great to be ignored. Triplicate samples of four food colours namely Yellow, Orange, Red and White; four cooked foods – jellof rice, Okpa, moi-moi and Spaghetti and local drinks colours Yellow, Orange, White and Caramel were randomly collected from the surroundings of the Jalingo Main Market where food vendors hawked, and was taken to the Central laboratory of the Federal University Wukari for analysis. Cd, Cr and Pb levels was determined using the Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometry to evaluate the concentrations in each of the samples and to predict the potential health risk on the exposed population using the estimated daily intake (EDI), target hazard quotient (THQ) and health index (HI). Results reveal that Pb was above the WHO/FAO (2016) permissible limit in the artificial colours and cooked food only and below in local drinks, except for Colour Caramel in local drinks and Okpa or Moi-moi. Cd and Cr was generally below in cooked food, artificial colours and local drinks. The high levels of Pb reflect the handling, storage, processing, cooking and preparation of the Bambara nut pudding and spaghetti, local drinks yellow, orange and red colours. The EDI was less than one for all samples, THQ was greater one in cooked foods and local drinks but higher for Pb in artificial colours. The HI for Cd, Cr and Pb recorded very high values reflecting synergistic health risk effects of more than one contaminants on the exposed population.