Suchergebnisse

Nigeria has an ambitious foreign policy but an ambiguous, unscripted, not well defined and inconsistent national interest. Aside the fact that this is not good for a country that pursues an ambitious external agenda and incongruent with its stature in global politics; it also makes the concept and reality of national interest susceptible to personalized interpretations, manipulations and distortions by the different political regimes. In other words, national interest becomes different strokes for different folks, depending on how each perceives and wishes it. Like every other sovereign country of the world, Nigeria"s national interests have been largely determined and defined by the various leaderships that have over the years ruled the country. This paper builds its argument on the premise that a country"s national interest is pivotal to its foreign policy and national development. Using the National Interest Theory (NRT) for a historical-descriptive discourse, the underlying issues found include the fact that in the case of Nigeria, as vital as the concept is both to the existence of a nation and as a source for the analysis of foreign policy behaviour of states, national interest has been subject to exploitation. Successive leadership of the country has hidden under the cover of national interest to perpetuate their individual interests. The probability for carrying out such acts is very high because Nigeria"s national interest lacks proper codification and documentation. This paper thus makes a case for the codification and documentation of Nigeria"s national interest. It does not suggest what the "interests" should be, but argues for intelligible national interest for direction, focus and attention to topmost priorities in the country"s external relations.

BACKGROUND: Breast cancer incidence is fast increasing, posing a significant threat to the health of women of all races globally. In Nigeria, breast cancer causes the most cancer-related deaths among women each year as a result of inadequate awareness. AIM: This study is aimed at examining the moderating role of demographic characteristics in facilitating breast cancer awareness among women, and how it relates to their behavioural disposition to the disease. METHODS: The study adopted the descriptive (survey) and cross-sectional research designs to elicit information from women of adult age selected across five Local Government Areas in Ogun state. The data, collected through questionnaire were analysed through the use of a variance-based SEM Partial Least Square (PLS). RESULTS: The result shows that demographic characteristics (age and education) has a significant positive effect and jointly explain 74.9% of the variance in the breast cancer awareness and behavioural disposition among women in the study area. The findings revealed that a significant number of women with breast cancer had not acquired useful knowledge that could potentially be used to diagnose, prevent, and manage the disease. Unfortunately, the practice of Breast Self-Examination is grossly low among Nigerian women, as a consequence, only 20-30% of the women in study areas, including professionals, are aware of the benefits of BSE and only a smaller percentage practice BSE. CONCLUSION: There is, therefore, a need to educate women on the benefits of this simple life-saving procedure through the consistent use of media platforms.