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We adopt the FMOLS and Granger causality technique to analyse the effect of energy use and carbon emissions on output growth in selected West African economies, which includes Nigeria, Gambia and Ghana, from 1970 to 2019. Findings confirm that energy use enhances growth in the three selected West African economies. But in terms of significance, energy consumption is significant in Nigeria and Gambia at a 1% level of significance while it is insignificant for the Gambia. CO2 emission positively and significantly propels economic growth for the three selected West African economies. For Nigeria, causality evidence shows no direct influence among the variables. For Ghana, we find a bi-causal association between output growth and carbon emissions and a unidirectional causality from pollution to energy consumption. For Gambia, economic growth causes CO2 emissions. We recommend that the West African government reinforce their stand on a sustainable growth path through energy conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a comparative analysis of Nigeria and Kenya, the largest economies in West and East Africa respectively, on the basis of the time series properties of their economic activities through the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and growth rate series. It further analyses how differing policy and political economy processes contributed to the two countries' economic growth trajectories despite becoming independent republics at almost the same time. We study the two economies using a long‐memory‐fractionally integrated approach. The results show a high degree of persistence in both cases. When non‐linearities are taken into account, evidence of mean reversion is found in the GDP series in the two countries. This is indicative of how the two countries in very distinct African contexts followed broadly different but, in some ways, similar paths toward economic growth since independence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mining of tin and other related activities have been active and thus leading to economic growth in the Jos area of Nigeria for more than a century. However, mining of minerals has been confirmed to enhance the concentrations of heavy metals and natural radioisotopes in the soil, air and water bodies in the environment. In an attempt to evaluate the radiological burdens resulting from tin mining activities at Rayfield-Du area of Jos, specific activities of naturally occurring radioactive nuclei (238U, 232Th and 40K) concentrations were evaluated in soil samples collected from the mine site. The soil samples were classified as normal soil (S), tailings (T) and mineral soils (M) and their corresponding mean activities for 238U, 232Th and 40K were analysed using an HpGe detector-based gamma spectrometric system. The mean activity concentration for 238U, 232Th and 40K were 323.44, 877.63 and 864.99 Bq/kg, 138.84, 469.31 and 578.65 Bq/kg and 168.83, 436.08 and 346.1 Bq/kg, respectively for M, T and S samples. The calculated radiation dose parameters for the soil samples were all higher than the recommended safety limit. For all the collected soil samples, the external hazard risk Hext were 2.21, 2.81 and 4.44 for S, T and M, respectively while the mean calculated radium equivalent was 819, 1057 and 1645 Bq/kg for S, T, and M, respectively. The excess lifetime cancer risk estimated for the mine was more than the world average value. The radio-ecological dose rate estimate for non-human biota in the mine revealed that all non-human species except lichen and bryophyte had absorbed dose rate less than the 10 µGy/h screening dose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]