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Background: Poor medication adherence is a major barrier to HIV control among youth living with HIV (Y-PLWH). The PEERNaija application (app) is an adapted smartphone app grounded in social cognitive and contigency management theories and designed to harness peer-based social incentives and conditional financial incentives to promote medication adherence. The app delivers a multifaceted medication adherence intervention including (1) peer-based social incentives, (2) financial incentives, (3) virtual peer social support, and (4) early clinic-based outreach for non-adherent Y-PLWH. A pilot trial of the app will be conducted in Nigeria, Africa's most populous country with the 4th largest HIV epidemic, and home to 10% of the world's four million Y-PLWH. Methods: In this randomized controlled trial, we will compare implementation outcomes (feasibility, acceptability, appropriateness measured via validated scales, enrollment and application installation rates, feedback surveys and focus group discussions with participants, and back-end application data), and preliminary efficacy (in improving medication adherence and viral suppression) of the PEERNaija app at 6 months. Participants in Arm 1 (PEERNaija) will receive daily medication reminders, peer-based social incentives, and virtual peer social support. Participants in Arm 2 (PEERNaija +) will additionally receive a conditional financial incentive based on their adherence performance. Eligibility for Y-PLWH includes (1) being aged 14–29 years, (2) being on ART, (3) owning a smartphone, (4) being willing to download an app, and (5) being able to read simple text in English. Discussion: This study will serve as the basis for a larger intervention trial evaluating the PEERNaija app (and the integration of mHealth, incentive, and peer-support-based strategies) to improve HIV outcomes in a critically important region of the world for Y-PLWH. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov. NCT04930198. First submitted date: May 25, 2021. Study start: August 1, 2021, https://clinicaltrials.gov/. Protocol version: January 21, 2022. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natural disaster is an occurrence that when it happens usually disrupt ongoing human activities. Education process is such an activity that is time-bound and a disruption do have impact on the actors. This paper seeks to explore various ways mobile devices can be employed in teaching and learning in a disaster-prone region of Nigeria to allow for uninterrupted educational process. Secondary data were collected and collated from relevant literatures from notable electronic databases. A rating analysis was carried out on various mobile learning platforms. The result showed that Moodle LMS is the most ideal to adopt because of its overbearing strength. Furthermore, it was discovered that countries who had adopted the use of mobile technologies in their teaching and learning had good outcome because natural disasters does not halt learning process. The paper recommended that it is apt for Nigeria schools to exploit this positive use of mobile devicesand save our education from academic disruption occasioned by natural disasters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an effort to close the financial gap between the banked and unbanked Nigerian population, mobile money services have been introduced. The alternative banking provides access to financial services for individuals who do not own bank accounts, thereby promoting a cashless society in the country. It provides a platform for small savings for low earners, especially the rural populace, and also facilitates the transfer and receipt of money and payments for goods and services in a more convenient manner. However, many studies have revealed low user acceptance for this alternative banking service in Nigeria. The aim of this study, therefore, was to investigate the determining factors for the acceptance of mobile money services in Nigeria using the self-service technology acceptance model. An online questionnaire was shared among online users of smart phones across the country using survey methodology, from which three hundred and eighty-nine responses were analyzed for the study. The result revealed that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use have significant influence on user acceptance of mobile money services in Nigeria, while need for interaction and perceived risk of mobile money acceptance were found to have insignificant influence on the acceptance of alternative banking services. The study will guide policymakers regarding mobile money service implementation strategies. The study emphasizes the recommendation that mobile network operators and financial institutions increase their efforts to make mobile money platforms more user-friendly and valuable. It further suggests future research consider more determinants like ethnicity, literacy, trust, security, and others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reported lecturers' experience in the synchronous and asynchronous Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) at Al-Qalam University Katsina (AUK), Nigeria during the Corona Virus (COVID-19) lockdown. In the asynchronous mode, recorded lectures and other learning materials were sent to students. In the synchronous mode, the lecturers met with the students, virtually, and explained the grey areas from the materials that were sent. After the ERT, an online questionnaire was designed to gather lecturers' responses about their experiences. The findings have shown that most of the lecturers used mobile phone data for the ERT. Thus, designers of Learning Management Systems (LMS) should pay attention to user experience of mobile platforms. Lecturers who could afford more than 10 Gigabytes of data in a month conducted more synchronous sessions than those who could not. Interestingly, lecturers who indicated that they could not have considered remote teaching, willingly, conducted more synchronous sessions than those who indicated that they could have considered remote teaching. Overall, lecturers mostly rated their experiences very good and took the switch to ERT as a wake-up call despite poor internet service quality. The paper concluded that, desperate situation and persuasion may hasten the adoption e-learning technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study examines the impact of financial innovation on the Nigerian economy using both quarterly and monthly series ranging from 2010 to 2020. Most of the previous studies did not disaggregate the financial innovative channels in Nigeria using a value-based approach and also fail to capture the full data information as they annualized both the quarterly financial innovation data and quarterly GDP time series. The study adopted the autoregressive distributed lag model (ARDL) and the polynomial distributed lag mixed data sampling (PDL MIDAS) model as it is effective when combining low frequency and high-frequency data. The outcome of the ARDL showed that mobile payment platform in Nigeria had a positive significant effect both in the long run and short run while internet web transactions and POS transactions have a negative insignificant effect on the Nigerian economy in the short run and long run. The PDL MIDAS equation result, also confirms mobile payment transactions is positively related to Nigeria's economic growth while POS transactions were negatively related to the Nigerian economy. The results of the study suggest that financial innovation in the Nigerian financial system has a crucial role to play in the nation's economy which validates the finance-growth theory. The study, therefore, recommends that there is need to strengthen policies towards improving the performance of the financial innovative channels in Nigeria and improve the financial security of existing payment platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Crowdsourcing, a participatory approach to solicit ideas from a large group of diverse individuals, provides an opportunity to nurture youth participation in HIV self-testing service design. The objective of this study was to describe the responses to a crowdsourcing contest aimed at soliciting ideas on how to promote HIV self-testing (HIVST) among young people in Nigeria. Methods: The "4 Youth by Youth" HIV Self-Testing Crowdsourcing contest was an online and off-line contest that asked Nigerian youth (10–24 years old) for ideas in response to the following: How might we promote HIVST among young people in Nigeria? All data were collected and analyzed between October 2018, and June 2019. Ideas and perceptions generated from the crowdsourcing contest were qualitatively analyzed using thematic content analysis. Specifically, four reviewers analyzed whether the ideas generated were desirable (appealing to young people), feasible (easy to implement) and impactful (will significantly influence HIVST uptake among young people). Results: A total of 903 entries were received in response to the contest prompt. Participants submitted entries in various forms: online form (39.7%), offline Dropbox (44.6%), email (6.1%) and WhatsApp (9.7%). Of the total entries, 85% (n = 769/903) entries were eligible and were scored as having either high, moderate or low level of feasibility, impact and desirability, on a 3-point Likert scale. A significant portion of the entries were given a score of 3 for feasibility (4.9%), desirability (7.1%), impact (3.0%) or a total overall score of 7 or more (8.2%). The three main themes that emerged from the entries include:1) Peer-to-peer distribution and leveraging on existing infrastructures 2) Youth-Oriented Branding of the HIVST Kit 3) Mobile platforms and social media technology. Conclusion: The "4 Youth by Youth" Self-Testing contest engaged a broad audience of young people to generate ideas and perspectives on how to promote HIVST. This process informed the development of youth innovated implementation strategies to increase uptake of HIVST among adolescents and youth at risk for HIV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]