Planning and conducting federally funded scientific research in Nigeria

During the past two decades Nigeria has invested heavily in scientific research, by developing country standards. Yet these investments at best have had only marginal impacts on the activities of the production and service sectors even though there are many priority development activities which could benefit from inputs from Nigerian researchers. At the national level efforts to direct or even co-ordinate the planning and budgeting of research have been seriously hampered by frequent changes in organizational responsibilities and by repeated budget cuts. Historically, the activities of the federal research institutes have been poorly tuned to the interests and capabilities of the potential users of their research products. Neither these institutes nor the universities with research activities are in a position to develop products or processes which can compete with imported technologies that are saturating the economy. However, the research institutes, and to a lesser extent the universities, should make greater contributions in applying science to improved use of the nation's natural resource endowments, although significant changes in research management at the project level are needed if this objective is to be realized. The Government should provide incentives to the multinational companies operating in Nigeria to develop joint programmes with the research institutes and universities as one mechanism for diffusing the administrative and technical capabilities of the companies. Meanwhile, selected public sector enterprises should be encouraged to expand technological innovation efforts which could be directly applied to their production activities.     

Distribution of morphine in body fluids and tissues in fatal overdose

Two cases of fatal overdose with morphine are presented. Large amounts of the drug were involved in both cases, one by oral ingestion, the other by intravenous injection. Morphine concentrations in various body fluids and tissues are compared to those in the literature.     

Sensitivity enhancement of ninhydrin-treated latent fingerprints by enzymes and metal salts

Lyophilized Sigma Type III trypsin has been applied to latent prints two weeks to two months old. This trypsin preparation eliminates the background problems that had been encountered with old prints in a previous study. Zinc chloride treatment of latent prints previously exposed to ninhydrin enhances their detectability upon laser examination. However, it has been reported that the zinc chloride reaction occasionally fails to occur. Accordingly, we have investigated the optimization of this reaction. We find that high humidity and elevated temperature, particularly the former, are needed. Cadmium nitrate, although it produces weaker fluorescence than zinc chloride, may at times be useful. Reaction conditions are much the same as those for zinc chloride.