Before 18OO, Ajaokuta which is situated on the NigerRiver South of the Niger Benue confluence area hadalready evolved elaborate organizational structuresbased on clans and lineages. By the 1800's Europeanexplorers and traders became increasingly involved inthe affairs of the Niger region, particularly as itaffected economic activities. Upto the second half ofthe 19th century the Attah's representatives on theNiger controlled trade on his behalf. Theserepresentatives gradually became powerful, wealthy asa result of their involvement in the trade andpolitics of the area and had considerable followers. During the second half of the 19th Century, theAttah was faced with challenges especially on hiseconomic prerogatives on the Niger, particularly, bythe Europeans who by this time had becomeincreasingly involved in the economic activities ofthe region. When the Attah discovered the changingroles of the Europeans and his ambitiousrepresentatives, he further intensified efforts tomaintain his power and wealth enforcing absolutecontrol over trade on the Niger..

Various types of methods have been developed for solving the special second order ODEs which is not explicitly dependent on the first derivative of the solution. The solution to the equation can be obtained by reducing it to an equivalent first order system of twice the dimension and solved using a standard numerical methods. However it is often advantageous to solve them directly. This book focused on the derivation of the block methods for solving the special second order ODEs directly. The early section of the book is devoted to the derivation of the methods using linear operator. Then the derivation of the method is done using Newton-Gregory backward interpolation formula. Numerical results of the methods are compared with the existing methods which shows that they are computationally more efficient. Block methods are suitable for parallel implementation, hence parallel codes of the methods are developed for solving large systems of ODEs. The performance of the methods using sequential and parallel codes are compared which clearly shows that the parallel codes produced better speedup and efficiency.

The central theme of this work is the political leadership and conflicts in Ebiraland, Nigeria during the period 1900-2003. The work examines the dynamics of political leadership in Ebiraland from the precolonail through the colonial upto the postcolonial periods. The rationalization behind this exercise is premised on the prevailing circumstances where the people are either described as lawless or people without leaders. Intrigues and political factions characterised Ebira poltical process with a regretable scenario of tripolar divide of clanish chauvinism, political bigotry and cultural nuisance. Essentially the work examines the dynamics of political leadership and conflicts in Ebiraland from precolonial upto colonial with fundamental issues like the people's socio economic structure, native administrative sysytem poltics of exclusion and inclusion, conflicts and violence and the attendant consequeces on the socio-poltical millieu of the people.

Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt/M., New York, Oxford, Wien.