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Leadership in the church is the noble art of cooperatively planning and uniting to achieve the goals God has set for humankind in the life, teachings, death, resurrection and the coming back of Jesus, the Christ. This indeed is Christian leadership. However, at the heart of the success of the efforts for the development of Pentecostalism in Nigeria is effective Christian leadership. Leadership is not the private preserve of a few charismatic men or women; rather it is a process ordinary people use when they are bringing forth the best from themselves and others. Leadership is so powerful and important that it gives direction, pace and energy to people and empowers them. The main thrust of this paper is to examine the issue of Christian leadership and its implications on the development of Pentecostalism in Nigeria. It argues that the major threat to the development of Pentecostalism in Nigeria is traceable to poor Christian leadership manifesting in corruption and weak value base. This paper adopted a participant observation method for its research. It concluded that, until good Christian leadership is guaranteed, the development of Pentecostalism in Nigeria will continue to experience slow growth and development will continue to be a mirage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Religion and Culture permeates the life of every human being as well as every society throughout the world. Every religion and culture has norms, values and acceptable standards reflected in its doctrines and ways of life. By inculcating in adherents and members of the society these norms and values, religion and culture are expected to act as agents for sustainable development in Nigeria. In-spite of this, Nigeria is facing problems of underdevelopment that are evidenced in the educational sector, social, political and economic deterioration. This paper therefore seeks to discover the reason for the lack of development and look at the various roles religion and culture can play in the sustainable development of Nigeria. The paper adopted phenomenological approach and discovered that, vices like corruption and materialism contributes largely to this underdevelopment and that religion and culture can play cardinal roles in growth of our society for sustainable development. The paper recommends that Religious leaders, Traditional rulers, Custodians of morality and Government at all levels should not isolate religion and culture to the background since the two could be found in every strata of the society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Culture is the very bedrock of a society, and in its entire dimension, is a fundamental component of national development. It is known generally as the total way of life of a people. The paper examines the role of cultural security in development in Nigeria. Using only secondary sources, it is emphasized here that cultural security plays an important role in development, cutting across the economic, political, social, environmental spheres. It brings about social cohesion, unity, peace and stability, progress and growth. It reduces poverty, provides employment opportunities and generates income inter alia. While the paper identified certain factors that militate against cultural security such as globalisation, conflict and violence, breakdown in cultural norms and values, lack of cultural intelligence, it reiterates the need to place culture at the core of governance. It also calls for a deliberate and conscious efforts of government at all levels to plan and implement policies and programmes that are culture-centred and culture-sensitive in order to promote cultural security and in turn engender national development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sought to x-ray the role of culture in Upper Basic Education Social Studies curriculum development in Nigerian schools. The objectives of the research were; to explain the concepts of culture, Social Studies, Curriculum and Curriculum development; the objectives of Social Studies; the components of culture; cultural determinants of social studies curriculum content in Nigerian schools as well as to examine the factors influencing social studies curriculum development which include the learner, the teacher, the society (culture), philosophy of education and psychology of learning. However, the paper revealed that curriculum is the planned skills, attitudes, values and knowledge offered by the learner with an explicit goal of changing his behavior in order to become a functional and active member of the society. It also indicated that a well-coordinated and planned curriculum must be a true reflection of the society's culture where it is expected to function. The paper further revealed that the process of planning and developing a Social Studies curriculum is a strenuous journey for any society and requires a whole-system approach before it can be completed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the nature of Nigerian Pidgin and its roles in the nation. Pidgin English currently performs many important functions in the country via; unification of the people, improved literacy for the average Nigerian, enhanced communication among people with different native tongues / educational levels, and increased linguistic opportunity for all to participate in socio - political and economic programmes. This is not unconnected to its current status as the only parlance which is mutually intelligible by members of almost all the various speech communities across the nation. The study which is descriptive in nature ex-rays divers experts' views on the acceptability and functionality of pidgin and its contribution to development within the different sectors of the country. The work equally recommends that the Nigerian Pidgin be standardized and regarded as a major Nigerian language owing to its contributions to the nation's advancement so far. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People perform and live religion in multiple and specific contexts, with different sides to their experiences, especially in multi-faith societies. Given the reality of religious contestations in Nigeria, too often, contradictory or complicated religious narratives are given that are connected to the societal dysfunctional realities which in turn radicalise the thinking and approaches of many people towards different religious positions, which empowers many to toe the path of religious chauvinism, thereby resulting in avoidable 'fields of blood'. But on the other hand, positive religious contestations have also produced meaningful development in some sense. This work adopted the historical and comparative research methodologies in order to interrogate the lived experiences of people with respect to religious contestations in Nigeria, and their effects both on an individual and the Nigerian State at large. The study revealed that many religious contestations in Nigeria are often engineered by socio-political and economic realities of the country, while others (religious leaders in most cases) leverage on the quest for dominance which is often tied to resource control. This paper, therefore, proposed that, though contestation is important in the development of any society, such should be done with respect to human dignity, rule of law, and recognition of religious values that promote peaceful co-existence and sanctity of life. The conclusion of this work is that, religious contestation that produces unwholesome rivalry, mutual mistrust, suspicion and distrust, and doctrinal crises is injurious to humanity and anti-development which should not be encouraged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]