Pathways of Electoral Clientelism in University Student Elections in Ghana: An Exploratory Study

Recent studies on student politics and governance have shown that electoral clientelism (EC) in university student elections is often facilitated by clientelist relations between student leaders and political parties. However, there is a dearth of empirical research investigating the various forms of electoral clientelism, as manifested through vote-buying practices in campus electoral politics in African universities. This article, therefore, investigates the multifaceted and changing dynamics of vote-buying in student electoral processes in Ghanaian universities. The study adopted a qualitative approach based on semi-structured interviews with 15 student leaders, 4 university staff working with student leadership, and 4 focus group interviews involving students at the University of Ghana and Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. From our finding, we argue that electoral clientelism takes place in five crucial ways in university student elections in Ghana. These include the provision of direct cash payments, exchanging electoral support for student government positions and appointments, provision of food and beverage consumables, award of student-related business contracts, and provision of educational materials and souvenirs.

Reconsidering Ontology’s Relevance

This chapter and the next are methodological, focused on how to justify a moral theory. Many African philosophers believe that ethical claims follow immediately from ‘external’, metaphysical ones about human nature that must be established first. For example, Kwame Nkrumah maintains that an egalitarian ethic follows directly from a prior physicalist ontology, and Kwame Gyekye contends that his ‘moderate communitarian’ morality is derived from a certain conception of the self. Chapter 2 shows how these and similar rationales fail to clear the ‘is/ought gap’, as it is known in Western meta-ethics, and also how strategies one might use to bridge the gap do not work. It concludes that a more suitable way to defend a moral theory is to argue ‘internally’ to morality by appealing to intuitions, i.e., by determining which comparatively more controversial general principle of right action easily entails and best explains less controversial particular moral claims.

Image Under Fire: West German Development Aid and the Ghana Press War, 1960–1966

During the 1960s, development aid helped West Germany project a benign image while it discouraged diplomatic recognition of East Germany. In Ghana, however, this effort clashed with the Pan-Africanist aims of President Kwame Nkrumah. Four periodicals under his control attacked West Germany as neo-colonialist, militarist, racist, latently Nazi and a danger to world peace. West German officials resented this campaign and tried to make it stop, but none of their tactics, not even vague threats to aid, worked for long. The attacks ended with Nkrumah's overthrow in early 1966, but while they lasted, they demonstrated that a small state receiving aid could use the press to invert its asymmetric political relationship with the donor.

Poverty, corruption, and religious opportunism in Africa: A Neo-Pentecostal perspective

In an ideal context, religious tenets are perceived as antithetical to corruption on all fronts. Sadly, Africa takes a frontline in religious activities, yet is bedevilled by corruption aided poverty. Viewing some Neo-Pentecostal practices with the lens of contemporary Marxism hypothesis, and philosophical consciencism of Kwame Nkrumah and Fela Anikulapo, this article examined the role of religion in the spread of poverty in Africa. It further held that while a few religious leaders speak against corruption aided poverty, institutionalised and deliberate strategic plans have not been set up to combat corruption aided poverty. Subsequently, through strategic and implementable recommendations, this article serves as a wake-up call for Africa’s religious institutions to jettison alliance with corrupt political entities and support anti-corruption crusades in Africa.Contribution: Employing the multi-play of Sociology, Economics, Philosophy and Theology, this article contributes to the interdisciplinary and international research of HTS Theological Studies.

College Students’ Interest in Programming

In today’s world, tertiary institutions provide Computer Science and Information Technology courses to students for them to have the opportunity to improve the thinking computational skills they will need to function in today's computation-dependent society. Moreover, pupils who think they can finish programming tasks successfully are likely more to become interested. Additionally, effective approaches to impart computer programming frequently rise pupils' interest in programming. As a result, the study sought to examine college students’ interest in programming. The research design for the study was a survey method. The study’s population comprise of Computer Science and Information Technology students at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. The sample size was 368 where we used a systematic sampling technique to select participants for the study. The study shows that majority of college students have interest in programming. The results revealed that the total number of males who have interest in programming are greater than females and that the total number of males who study programming far outweigh the total number of females. It is recommended that females should be encouraged to study programming at the various institutions that provide programming courses to students.

Reviewer Acknowledgements for International Business Research, Vol. 14, No. 12

International Business Research wishes to acknowledge the following individuals for their assistance with peer review of manuscripts for this issue. Their help and contributions in maintaining the quality of the journal are greatly appreciated. International Business Research is recruiting reviewers for the journal. If you are interested in becoming a reviewer, we welcome you to join us. Please contact us for the application form at: [email protected] Reviewers for Volume 14, Number 12   Ahnaf Ali Alsmady, University of Tabuk, Saudi Arabia Anca Gabriela Turtureanu, “DANUBIUS” University Galati, Romania Anna Maria Calce, University of Cassino and Southern Lazio, Italy Benjamin James Inyang, University of Calabar, Nigeria Bruno Ferreira Frascaroli, Federal University of Paraiba, Brazil Chokri Kooli, International Center for Basic Research applied, Paris, Canada Chuan Huat Ong, SEGi University Kota Damansara, Malaysia Chunyu Zhang, Guangxi Normal University, China Cristian Marian Barbu, “ARTIFEX” University, Romania Francesco Scalera, University of Bari "Aldo Moro", Italy Giuseppe Granata, University Mercatorum of Rome, Italy Gnahe franck E, JIANGXI UNIVERSITY OF FINANCE AND ECONOMICS, COTE D’IVOIRE Hanna Trojanowska, Warsaw University of Technology, Poland Henrique Fátima Boyol Ngan, Institute for Tourism Studies, Macao, Macao Hind Ahmed, Ahfad university for Women, Sudan Ivano De Turi, LUM Jean Monnet University, Italy Janusz Wielki, Opole University of Technology, Poland L. Leo Franklin, Bharathidasn University, India Ladislav Mura, University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius in Trnava, Slovakia Lee Yok Yong, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia Leow Hon Wei, SEGi University, Malaysia MALIK ELHAJ, University of Pittsburgh at Bradford, USA Marcelino José Jorge, Evandro Chagas Clinical Research Institute of Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Brazil Marco Valeri, Niccolò Cusano University, Italy Maria-Madela Abrudan, University of ORADEA, Romania Mohammad S. Knio, City University College of Ajman, UK Mustafa Özer, Anadolu University, FEAS, Turkey Omer Allagabo Omer Mustafa, Sudan Academy for Banking and Financial Sciences, Sudan Pascal Stiefenhofer, University of Exeter, UK Rosemary Boateng Coffie, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and |Technology, Ghana Roxanne Helm Stevens, Azusa Pacific University, USA Sachita Yadav, Arun Jaitley National Institute of Financial Management, India Sara Saggese, University of Naples Federico II, Italy Shrijan Gyanwali, Pokhara University, Nepal Stoyan Neychev, University of National and World Economy, Bulgaria Sumathisri Bhoopalan, SASTRA Deemed to be University, India Wanmo Koo, Western Illinois University, USA Yan Lu, University of Central Florida, USA

Self-Medication and Antimicrobial Resistance: A Survey of Students Studying Healthcare Programmes at a Tertiary Institution in Ghana

Objectives: Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the biggest challenges facing mankind. Inappropriate uses of antibiotics including self-medication promote the increase and spread of AMR. Self-medication has not been well-studied among students. This study was undertaken to determine students of healthcare programmes self-medication practices and attitudes in relation to AMR.Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional survey that used a pretested self-administered questionnaire to elicit responses from first-year students of healthcare programmes at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana from January 2018 to August 2019.Results: Two hundred and eighty students were recruited with 264 of them returning the questionnaire, giving a response rate of 94.3%. Majority were female (68.9%) and participants ages ranged from 16 to 34 years with a mean age (SD) of 19.5 (1.88) years. 136 students (56.2%) had previously purchased antibiotics without a prescription and 78.3% expressed satisfaction with the outcome of self-medication. Amoxicillin (78%) was the most frequent antibiotic bought without a prescription. Majority (76.3%) agreed that self-medication can lead to AMR. Majority (77.0%) believed that antibiotic abuse is a problem in Ghana and 94.8% agreed that the introduction of a course in the University on the rational use of antibiotic will help improve student's knowledge and practices.Conclusion: Self-medication is common among participants despite their knowledge that inappropriate use of antibiotic may lead to resistance. Innovative ways including the introduction of new curricula may help to improve knowledge and to curb wrong attitudes and practices related to antibiotic misuse and ultimately to overcome the problem of AMR.

Rhetorical Analysis of the Use of Metaphor in Ghana’s First and Former President, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s Political Speeches

In the late 1970s, linguists such as George Lakoff, Mark Johnson, and Michael Reddy began to realize that metaphor was extremely common and related to thought and action. Indeed, they claimed that “our conceptual system…is fundamentally metaphoric in nature” (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980). Owing to this, metaphor is used in all-out endeavours: socially, economically, politically, etc. From this perspective, this paper analyzes the use of metaphor in a corpus of speeches delivered by a prominent figure in Ghanaian politics. This is none other than one of the pioneers of African emancipation, the former and first president of the Republic of Ghana Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, in his fight for Independence for Ghana and African unity. It portrays the use of metaphor as a powerful tool to convey information, thereby making it more convincing to serve its intended purpose. It also reveals how Dr. Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana’s first president) used rhetoric to achieve his political aims. It unravels the metaphors used in his speech delivered on 10th July 1953, which is collected from samples of his speeches published online. Secondly, this paper adopts the use of MIPVU (which is a systematic and transparent procedure for identifying linguistic metaphors). It achieves inter-coder reliability and does not identify conceptual metaphors. By adopting MIPVU, lexical units of the sentences will be examined and then the contextual meaning of the unit will be established to determine more basic meaning. If the contextual meaning contrasts with the basic meaning but can be understood in comparison with it, then the unit will be marked as a metaphor. When the metaphor was identified, I used critical discourse analysis (CDA) methodology for data analysis. This paper's findings clearly demonstrate that the metaphor is predominant in political discourse and can actually trigger social action.

Ergonomic Design of Classroom Furnitures: Evaluation of Comfortability and Musculoskeletal Disorders

Background: Anthropometric studies are essential in furniture design to ensure comfortability and improved productivity of the users. Methods: Anthropometry of 407 from a population of 5601 students, and classroom furniture at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology were evaluated. Student’s comfortability and reported musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) in using the furniture were assessed with two questionnaires. Participants who volunteered for the study were randomly selected and had no previous history of MSDs. Descriptive statistics of the collected data were analyzed using SPSS software. Results: The participant's aged ranged from 17 to 28 years, and mostly were female (61%). The fitness between student’s anthropometry and classroom furniture included underneath table height for the imported plastic furniture and chair seat depth and width, as well as underneath table height for the locally manufactured wooden furniture. We observed high incidence of MSDs, including upper back (71.40%), lower back (58.30%), neck (51.90%), joint (39.10%), shoulder (32%), knee (25.20%), and wrist (22.60%) pain. The prevalence of MSDs were higher in women than men. The majority of the students were uncomfortable with using the furnitures, and only 6.6% reported comfortable experience. Conclusion: Recommended dimensions for ergonomically designed furniture have been proposed to reduce MSDs in the students. It would improves student’s health, and promote comfortability.