This article analyses 400-level English students’ use of punctuation marks in Ahmadu Bello University Zaria (ABU) and Federal University Gusau (FUG) during the 2023/2024 academic session. The students were given an in-class test to assess their level of knowledge on punctuation. The research questionnaire contained 15 short responses and an essay writing question. The subjects were seated in a class, and each student provided independent responses to validate the data. Fifty students’ scripts were randomly selected from each institution. The test scripts serve as the data for the study. The researchers used a quantitative method to analyse the questions. The study adopts a model proposed by Gass & Selinker (2008), which has six important steps: collecting data, identifying errors, classifying errors, quantifying errors, analysing sources of errors, and remediating errors. The research found that ABU English students’ knowledge of punctuation marks is higher, with ellipsis and dash having 100% correct scores and the semicolon being the least in the ranking scale with 38% correct scores. Federal University Gusau students’ knowledge of the full stop is higher, with 96% correct scores, and the colon is the least with 16%. The study also established that the errors resulting from the misuse of punctuation marks are mostly due to carelessness, which accounts for the misrepresentation of the English students. The article recommends that lecturers handling writing in the universities should ensure that English candidates, being potential teachers, adhere strictly to punctuation rules for more effective communication.

Cameroon is a very diversified linguistic entity with about 284 languages for a population of 15,803,220 inhabitants (Grimes 2002). This situation causes the nation to face quite some challenges with choices of languages utilized as media of instruction at various levels in schools. This article focuses on Early Education whereby, we investigate learning through the medium of the MT and its implication for a better proficiency of the L2 (English Language) by these learners. The endeavor requires the application of various strategies to accomplished the task of learning the L2. It is obvious that at the initial phase, there is bound to be interference of the first language into the second language (L2) with different outcomes. Its hypothesis stipulates that children will learn more when they are instructed in the language they master most and better rather than when they are taught in their L2 or L3. The sample for this study comprises 20 teachers and 460 pupils. In order to collect the relevant data, interviews, language test, participant observation and questionnaires were used. Therefore, the investigation engaged both quantitative and qualitative research methods. The theoretical framework used for this study is Krashen’s theory of Second Language Acquisition. The data was analyzed using both frequency and percentage tables and charts. The findings indicated among other things that the children understood, participated, performed and retained information much better when using mother tongue as medium of instruction than when they are taught solely in English language; that, children are more attentive in class when their mother tongue is used to them than when English is used at the initial phase of their educational exposure. Also, an amazing finding amongst others in this research endeavor is the fact that pilot school pupils who employed mother tongue in early learning as medium of instruction did not only perform better in all school curricular subjects but also in English language subject than their counterparts in the regular school system whose medium of instruction was English language.

Childhood is the base for human growth and development and it shall be prudent if the child has an opportunity to get exposed to the challenges and realities of life along with fantasy, ecstasy and imagination. Children can grasp and learn their environment right from an early age as they are really smart; but the supplement which reaches them in terms of literature in any form should also provide them with glimpses of real life. Hence, it would be really judicious if the fodder they get in terms of literature is infused with social realism so that they understand the realities of life, the kind of society they live in with all kinds of inequities, stigma, discrimination, cruelties, marginalisation, and social exclusion, and so on. Children shall develop the wisdom to distinguish just from unjust and in a way might also build up their responding, assertion and decision-making skills. The Paper primarily discusses how social realism needs to be mainstreamed in children’s literature, firmly believing that it shall help the children towards their own positive development along with the development of the communities and nations they live in.

This paper sets out to prove that characters in Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night assert themselves, and in the process, disintegrate the family and disrupt social cohesion. It is based on the assumption that O’Neill’s characters in this play cannot attain the self without family and societal disintegration. It seems that self-fulfilment and family/social cohesion cannot be achieved simultaneously these characters tend to pay attention to one of these values at a time. Individual frustration precedes instability in the family and societal relationships. The theories adopted as appropriate tools for this paper are Psychoanalytical theory and Deconstruction. This choice is guided by the major preoccupation in the paper. Psychoanalysis helps in analyzing the psychical state of characters in the play before, during, and after the quest. Meanwhile, Deconstruction facilitates the examination of the indeterminacy of the characters’ quest for the self in O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night. One of O’Neill’s major concerns is human relationships, especially marriage, and the challenges that usually characterize these relationships. Characters’ quest to assert themselves while, intentionally or not, ignoring their family and social responsibilities leads to individualism and self-destruction. O’Neill advocates the harmonization of self questing with unity in the family and social cohesion if self-fulfilment will be achieved.

This paper examines the horrors of war on man and the environment and holds that there is no justification for war. The paper maintains that those who encourage war have generally never experienced its disastrousness. From a New Historicist perspective, the paper explores how survivors or victims of war become indifferent and develop attitudes of apathy towards life as they are continually haunted by the fear of the imminent outbreak of another war in which they could die. Consequently, these war victims develop a pessimistic perception of life and contravene its norms. From an ecocritical standpoint, the paper explores how these survivors ruthlessly exploit nature, out of frustration, and deliberately carry out activities that endanger the flora and fauna.

The paper presents findings of a study carried out to examine the effects of public sector governance on service delivery in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs- MoFA, Uganda. The primary objective of the study were to establish how public accountability and transparency mechanisms influence service delivery in Foreign Service. A cross-sectional research design, adopting both qualitative and quantitative approaches of data collection and analysis was used. The findings revealed that public accountability and transparency are positively correlated with service delivery in the Foreign Service. The other finding is that the social and financial accountability systems in MoFA are weak. The paper concludes that there is urgent need to improve effective and sustainable service delivery in the Foreign Service. Accordingly, the paper recommends that MoFA should ensure that every Foreign Service officer is fully accountable for their actions at work; management should be just in all its actions regarding its officers; and MoFA should modernize its communication system. The paper identifies some areas of future investigation.

The Hausa people of Northern Nigeria, along with the other populations inhabiting the Nigerian area, were conquered and subjugated by British colonial forces. Scholars have proposed various reasons to explain why Europeans succeeded in defeating African societies militarily. In the Hausa regions of Northern Nigeria, the people sustained their resistance through non-military means. The intellectual tradition left by the Sokoto Jihadist leaders, particularly the use of poetry to disseminate information among the populace, was utilized. Various methods were employed to collect the necessary instruments for this paper. Manuscripts were obtained from the Waziri Junaidu History and Culture Bureau, Sokoto, as well as extracts from some resistance poems. These poems were composed to attack and dismiss various aspects of European culture as un-Islamic and unacceptable to a Muslim community like the one in Northern Nigeria. The banner of the "jihad of the pen" was raised to condemn anything European as heretical, leading those who subscribed to it toward hellfire in the hereafter. This paper highlights how Hausa poetry was directed toward condemning European cultural values, their romanticized education (Boko), and European cultural domination, which was a key factor in achieving successful political and economic domination.