The subject of women and peacebuilding is arguably an area of research, which prior to the 21^st century remained undeveloped and unexplored in the field of conflict and peace and in the practice of peacebuilding. This development signaled a new attentiveness on the importance of women’s roles as indispensable stakeholders in peacebuilding processes. However, pre-contemporary consciousness, women did leverage standard decision-making prowess that served diverse political, socio-economic, and security goals. Through a review of relevant literature and purposive unstructured interviews in Liberia, this paper examines the changing landscape of women’s peacebuilding roles using examples from cross-cultural African experiences. The paper asserts that before the internationalization of women’s role in the affairs of peacebuilding, women were already subconsciously or consciously involved in such decision-making processes, especially under the aegis of women organizations. Likewise, it contends that patriarchy and marginalization of women was quite in existence and these challenges which are unquestionably in continuity in the contemporary impede women’s peacebuilding efforts. From these, this paper contributes to the evolving literature on women and peacebuilding discourses.

There is a growing concern over the dominant nature of Western models of teacher education in African universities. Investigation reveals that teacher education curriculum models in such universities are either a wholesale importation or partial duplication of some of the dominant models of teacher preparation especially the Teachers College, Columbia and University of Wisconsin, Madison models. Accordingly, teacher education curricula in African universities are ostensibly alien or arguably non-African in contents and learning experiences. Consequently, there is a long-felt need for an African indigenous and local teacher education curriculum model that is capable of producing African-based teachers for schools in Africa and its Diaspora.  This paper, which has Indigenous Knowledge as its theoretical basis, is an attempt to formulate conceptual and design principles for an African-based teacher education curriculum model. The paper employs a multiplicity of methods comprising curriculum criticism, the historical method, the analytic method, and creative synthesis. The significance of such a study lies in its potential to contribute to the promotion or projection of the African identity through preparation of ideologically independent teachers who will ultimately implement school curricula in African settings. The tiny contribution of the paper to scholarship includes its formulation of both conceptual and design principles that may be translated to learning experiences and contents for teacher education curricula in African universities.

Discourses on governance and development failures in Nigeria are often woven around leadership issues. Yet, a crucial ingredient in the making of good leadership is also good followership, a concept that has not enjoyed robust representation in the literature of politico-development failures in Nigeria. By acting as the determinants of political ascendancy and/or succession, bulwark against tyranny and insisting on efficiency and accountability, good followership shapes the conducts of leaders and by effect, serves as harbinger of good governance. In essence, therefore, good leadership, and, by implication, good governance, seldom emerges in the absences of good followership. The Nigerian society is characterized by leadership impunity, recklessness and insensitivity to the plight of the people, which stems from inability of citizens to have a say in the emergence and conduct of leaders. The point then is that there is a presence of poor followership in Nigeria.  For Nigeria to attain good governance therefore; citizens must become good followers. The paper emphasizes the desire of Nigerians be good followers, and highlights how they are hamstrung by religious sentiments, ethnicity, cultural beliefs, elite manipulation, poverty and illiteracy. The paper submits that a fundamental process in the emancipation of the Nigerian state from bad leadership depends on the desire of the citizens to overcome these barriers. Explanations of these barriers as well as suggestions on how to overcome them form the major thrust of this paper.

Calabar, Nigeria, looms large in any recounting of the history of western education in Nigeria.  Western education here predates the coming of the missionaries.  The quality of the pre-missionary schools was, however, considered incapable of producing the kind of manpower that the Efik needed in braving the challenges of the British abolition of the slave trade.  In their search for a better quality in education, the Efik invited missionaries in 1842. Thenceforth, the brunt of providing education in Calabar rested on the Christian missions. Despite the impressive progress achieved by missionary educators, the colonialists considered their education inadequate in meeting the needs of a modern state.  The colonial government labeled as “hedge schools” those schools which fell below laid-down conditions, denied them grants and subventions, and considered them unqualified to train manpower. The proprietors of ‘hedge schools’ and their beneficiaries criticized government’s action on the conviction that “any education is better than none”.  Government’s punitive closure of the schools compelled their owners to upgrade their facilities to stay afloat.  This paper maintains that most institutions of learning thriving in Nigeria are replicas of the ‘hedge schools’ in their lack of the infrastructure for teaching and learning despite their regulatory agencies’ continuing approval and accreditation of them.  The paper concludes by calling on government to emulate its colonial counterpart by providing adequate infrastructure in schools for the preparation of the needed manpower for the nation since “the quality of a people derives from the quality of their education.”

The significance of education to human resources development cannot be overemphasised considering that dynamic workforce is an important element of economic growth and national development. In the absence of qualitative education, human and physical resources are likely to remain largely undeveloped and useless. The paper examines the connection between education and human resources development in Nigeria and its implication for national development. Using a qualitative method, the paper presented the argument that the poor quality of education has been responsible for the low human resources development in Nigeria. The study traces the factors responsible to include inadequate funding, inconsistent policy framework, long years of military regime and authoritarianism, poor infrastructural development and brain drain among others. Consequently, the paper suggests that there is an urgent need for improvement in the quality of education to ensure functional, innovative, skill acquisition and entrepreneurial capacity central to human resources development for national development in Nigeria.