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This study investigated the magnitude of media coverage of environmental hazards in the mining communities in Ebonyi State, Nigeria. Motivated by the poor agricultural yields and increased prevalence of health challenges in the mining communities, it was established that the media is indispensable in the fight for a healthy environment in the State. However, the failure of the mass media in the State to embark on any form of environmental communication in order to monitor environmental issues made the fight almost impossible. Thus, the study set out to determine how committed and professional the media were in the fight. A sample size of 25 media practitioners, two radio stations and four newspapers all domiciled in the State were assessed using multi-staged random sampling technique. The study employed quantitative and qualitative research designs with questionnaire, interview and content analysis as instruments for data collection. Findings revealed that the mass media in the State were not involved in the fight for a healthy environment; none of them had environmental column/desk to monitor environmental hazards arising from mining activities in the State. The research concluded that the mass media should scrutinize the affairs of the State environmental actors in order for them to hold the mining companies accountable and protect the interests of the mining communities in the State.

This paper investigates patterns of rape in Ebonyi state, South-East Nigeria. This was a retrospective study in which data on rape over a twenty year period (January 1999 to December 2018) were obtained from the records of the Criminal Investigation Department, Nigerian Police Force, State Headquarters, Abakaliki and the Ebonyi State Ministry of Justice, Abakaliki. The data was analysed with the Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 20 software (SPSS Inc, Chicago, IL, USA). The Chi square test and Students’ t-test test were used to analyze the categorical and continuous variables respectively. A multinomial Logistics Regression (MLR) and Pearson correlation Coefficient were used to determine the influence of the socio-demographic characteristics of the victims and perpetrators on rape of the victims. A P-value of less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. This study showed an association between recreational drug use by the perpetrators and rape of the victims. There was a nexus among types of perpetrators, site of committed crime and social habits of the perpetrators with rape of the victims. Victims in urban residential areas were more likely to be raped based on the types of the perpetrators, site of the crime committed and social habits of the perpetrators than the victims in rural areas. Victims who were