Amid the raging Covid-19 pandemic across the world and the debilitating tertiary teachers strike in Nigeria, this study’s objective seeks to examine the prevailing un-lived experiences of Nigerian tertiary students in e-learning. The study argues that Covid-19 has widened the digital divide between Nigerian universities and other universities in other parts of the world on the one hand and between public and private tertiary institutions in Nigeria on the other. This e-learning deficit is worsened by university teachers’ strikes, constituting a twin inhibition into which higher education is consigned in Nigeria. The study identifies poor funding of education as a major constraint to virtual learning and instruction faced by public tertiary students especially in the era of the pandemic. Data collection for the study will be carried out through oral interviews basically focus group discussion (FGD) from a sample population of 50 university students (male and female) in three universities across the southeast region of Nigeria, newspaper reports, and participant-observer methods of research analysis.

This study examines personal names as semiotic signs in language. Specifically, it investigates the naming patterns of two cultures; Igbo and Itsekiri. It aims to show how people’s worldviews are reflected and sustained through names. The study focuses on latent connotative and ideological meanings of names in the two cultures under investigation. In doing this, the Saussurean and Peircian concepts are harmonised for ease of analysis. The data is drawn from both cultures and consists of 77 names; 38 from Igbo culture and 39 from Itsekiri culture. The research adopts, first, a syntagm-paradigmatic approach, in which it seeks to establish the pattern of names and their classifications. Secondly, it presents a pragmatic analysis of the names, mainly, at two orders of signification: denotative and connotative levels of meaning. In some cases, the third order of signification is portrayed, that is, the ideological level of meaning which is a product of the first and second orders. The study reveals, among others, that Igbo and Itsekiri semiospheres govern and ascribe significance to name signs in these cultures. Additionally, it portrays the ambiguity that characterises names.

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