Humans should come down from their destructive arrogance stool to take the best cognizance of the fact that nature is a sculptural work of God. Their failure to realise this fact has been responsible for their formulation of the secular environmental theories which include; anthropocentrism, zoocentrism, biocentrism, ecocentrism, and the hybrid eco-feminism. Romanced with these theories the Holy Scriptures are also implicated by reading them in the light of one of these theories and considered anthropocentric. As a matter of fact, (...) the best of these secular theories should never be taken to be representing theocentric view of the environment. (shrink)

This paper attempts to establish the epistemological import and limits of informed consent in clinical research. It points out that informed consent is a necessary requirement in clinical research because it ensures adequate participation of care receivers in issues relating to their health. Besides ensuring that care receivers have knowledge of whatever medical intervention they are consenting to, informed consent, as an ideal, provides assurance that care receivers and others are neither coerced nor deceived. While the question of the value (...) of informed consent in health care delivery is not so much controverted, in contest is the question of whether or not complete and wholly specifically informed consent can indeed be realized in medical intervention. Two orientations are identified in this debate. One insists that an individual will be able to make an informed decision and make reasonable choices amongst alternatives when fully informed. The other orientation sees as an epistemic illusion, achieving full informed consent, and rather opts for informed request. This paper examines this debate by clarifying the notion of informed consent, its components and its nexus with knowledge. The position of the paper is that informed consent is not only an ethical ideal in clinical research and health care; it is also an epistemic virtue that must be continuously strived towards. This paper establishes that health care receivers can only have an epistemic claim of their medical situation if all requirements of informed consent in health care delivery such as provision of adequate information, the risk and benefits of treatment, avoidance of vague/ambiguous statements, voluntariness, etc. are met. (shrink)

Nigeria agriculture, food security and dietary intake have not been exempted from the disruptions in countless sectors around the world due to the outbreak of COVID-19. The country first experienced the outbreak on February 27, 2020, and the experience since then has shown negative effects not only on the socioeconomic conditions but also on agriculture, food security and dietary intake. Long term in-depth analysis of the effects of this pandemic on food security and dietary intake using quantitative data is still (...) very difficult due to paucity of data and the great level of the improbability of the trajectory of the spread of the Virus. This study is a rapid assessment of the short and long-term potential effects of the disease. It relied on a review of situation reports especially by the Nigeria Centre of Disease Control and other reports around the world on COVID-19, personal observations, and public opinion via mobile telephone survey of Lagos and Oyo States, Nigeria. Findings show that food demand and supply shocks caused by COVID-19 outbreak affect agriculture, food and dietary intake negatively through COVID-19 policies. It leads to a reduction in household income coupled with hike in food prices. Owing to the Nigeria’s crude farming practice, there was a scarcity of hired labour required for production process during 2020 farming season. This implies a high likelihood of low output and further surge in food prices in the future. Food access was also compromised with the accumulation of unsold fresh produce by the smallholder farmers and the low salary earners during movement restrictions and of loss income as a result of international border closure. Food and dietary intake is affected as people are shifting diets to more affordable and low quality foods, while food stability is not guaranteed due to market insecurity, prompting an extraordinary level of indecision. The study concludes that the shock of COVID-19 is not only a demand management problem but a multidimensional crisis requiring monetary, fiscal, and health policy responses with global collaboration and cooperation. (shrink)