Quote from: goggs on Yesterday at 08:24:10 PM
Ha ha see kettle calling the pot black. You guys have not even taken time to read the judgment that sent Bode George to the land of Micheal Scoffield. Bode George was not convicted for stealing. He was convicted for contract splitting, disobeying a lawful order amongst others. In as much as i would have wanted more years for the man, we need to understand issues well before speaking our minds. You might wrongly influence others.

Only if Farida Waziri had asked the court to convict him for stealing, the judge would have so stated and he (Bode) would have been most likely be asked to refund the loot or had his assets confiscated. We in naija sometimes dey too emotive

My friend, a paper reported that they "inflated contracts".

(4th paragragh please)

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2009/10/27/n84bn-npa-contracts-scam-bode-george-5-others-jailed-28-years/

It would be reasonable to assume inflation of contracts would be for personal gain, wouldn't it?

Dis Guy:

thank you till date i'm still searching for this agreement

Apparently ASUU were on strike because the govt didnt implement the 2007 agreement and no single newspaper
explained what the agreement was or what the strike was about apart from increase wages

sometimes you watch NTA the night before hoping to get detailed information about contracts announced but all you get is exactly what the minister of information reads out after FEC meeting

VANGUARD

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2009/10/29/deregulation-protesters-paralyse-abuja/

[size=14pt]Deregulation: Protesters paralyse Abuja[/size]
Victor Ahiuma-Young & James Uwem,

ABUJA—ACTIVITIES in  Abuja were today brought to a stand-still as thousands of workers and other Nigerians marched through its major streets to protest government’s planned deregulation of the downstream sector of the petroleum industry.

It was organised under the umbrella of Labour and Civil Society Coalition (LASCO), and led by officials of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) and civil society allies.

The workers, who were also demanding a review of the minimum wage and full implementation of the Justice Uwais Electoral Reform Committee report, marched to the National Assembly, where they discovered that the leadership left the complex minutes earlier.

The protest which commenced at 9 a.m. from the Berger Junction took the protesters through Herbert Macaulay Road and other major streets in Abuja, terminating at the complex.

The protest caused traffic gridlock in all the adjoining streets, while commuters trekked to their destinations.

During the march, NLC’s President, Mr. Abdulwaheed Omar; TUC’s President-General, Mr. Peter Esele; Co-Chairman, LASCO, Dr. Dipo Fashina, and President, West African Bar Association,  Mr. Femi Falana, among others, intermittently addressed the protesters,emphasising their three major demands.

At the complex, Omar warned that Nigerian workers and masses would not support deregulation and are for the full implementation of the ERC report.

Esele asked Nigerians to resist any attempt to impose more hardship of them through deregulation, stressing that Nigerians should also fight to ensure that their votes count.

While Fashina noted that deregulation is for the poor, Falana said deregulation is not only illegal, constitutionally, but anti-people and must be resisted.

Omar later presenting a letter to the Senate Committee Chairman on Labour, Senator Wilson Ake, for President Umaru Yar’Adua, through the Senate President.

vwvw:

@sagamite
u call this CNN style; standard reporting. balderdash, BBC is king of world news any day.

vwvw:

By the way, worldwide mainstream newspapers and tabloid sales have dipped because most INTERNATIONAL consumers are fed-up with your defined WORLD CLASS JOURNALISM and hitch-hiked to online media like huffington post, etc.

vwvw:

you're outside this country and expect to know the entire details of the TSS. my friend you don't expect to find the details in the online version of a local daily!! the information my brother is everywhere and we for NAIJA don't need movies to educate us. and finally PUNK, the freedom of information bill is what you should be concerned about; it would go a long way in curing your jaundiced paucity of day to day happenings in your country

Dis Guy:

thank you till date i'm still searching for this agreement

Apparently ASUU were on strike because the govt didnt implement the 2007 agreement and no single newspaper
explained what the agreement was or what the strike was about apart from increase wages

sometimes you watch NTA the night before hoping to get detailed information about contracts announced but all you get is exactly what the minister of information reads out after FEC meeting

vwvw:

several of the industries practitioners were not trained in NUJ or mass communication departments, likewise thousands of yoruba and english graduates that work in banks.

canuck:

@ Poster

While I share your pain regarding naija journalists and their contraptions called articles, I think you missed it by a mile. You called out 2 shortcomings in the article:

1) Failing to specify what state Adatan-Asero road is located;
2) Failing to say why the road is important

Here's where you went wrong:

1) When a journalist writes his/her name "Olayinka Olukoya" and location "Abeokuta" beneath a headline, the news is generally local unless otherwise stated. So the road is in Abeokuta. (Residents please confirm as I've only been to the city once, and over 15 years ago);

2) Here are two quotes from the article that confirm the significance of the road -  (a) "Bankole said federal roads remained pivotal to business activities of the people." (b) The road's ". . .erosion had been threatening residential buildings."

Am I missing something?

naijatoday:

This is one of the problems with Nigerian Newspapers.

Another thing I have noticed is that a lot of them do copy and paste story. The receive and email and paste it word for word and the crazy thing is when you pick up 5-6 newspapers the next day they all have the same story, word for word with each journalist claiming credit for writing the story . And to make it worse they do not tell the public that the story was a statement (publicity) by the company and the journalistsput their name on the story like they wrote it.

darqly:

@vwvw and omo ibo-
I assume you both are gentlemen of the press? To put it succintly, your colleagues "NO DEY TRY". Little or no effort is put into their articles i.e depth, background and veracity.
The worse part is that the grammar and spelling leaves much to be desired; I actually nitpick through most writeups and articles I come across and I daresay the writers and editors are either lazy, incompetent or BOTH.

Sagamite only picked 3 articles, I can make a whole journal with clippings of journalistic gaffe in just under a week.

The sports columnists are no better: I read the match report of UTD V Liverpool on skysports.com or bbcnews(i forget which) and the following day, in the sport pages of thisday- voila- COPY and PASTE, verbatim. And the crappy reporter had the effrontery to include his name. If i recall, the term for that is plagiarism.

What really irks me is the use of the term "Name Witheld" in almost every article that has to do with the so called powers that be. What then is your sacrosant duty if you cannot present the facts to society without fear or favour?

My friends, your beloved 4th estate of the realm is lying prone, far as Nigeria is concerned.

vwvw:

@Sagamite. Now there are many things that do not ring right in Nigeria and one of them is; though the Niger-Delta is more than 90% responsible for the existence of Nigeria, it thrives and wallows in abject poverty. It is an overstated fact that many things have gone awry in Nigeria. However one thing that holds true; resonating globally is this. AS FOOLISH AS SAGAMITE. The protest in Abuja which you discarded is the worst editorial work I have seen in years and that’s because you rewrote it. You overstep the shambolic boundaries of your bland and mediocre world when you say the analysis should have been the impact of the protest. A fool you are, because the reporter clearly answered the point of analysis when he answered in summary. What was the reason for the rally? That story was a straight or copy story which means it had to be straight to the point; need I educate you that there are several news writing styles and forms and unfortunately QUACK EDITOR; you are lost in an unending pool of ignorance. Well in DIASPORA you dwell; the only problem here is that the only times I have heard that word was during the EXODUS 3500 years ago and the era of the African slavery, albeit this aptly explains your anachronistic primordial leaning. Now you father was wiser than you because he kept the old dailies and clippings for future references such as this and I am sure that if you ask him he’d provide you several dailies which provided the details of the former TSS agreement. Again when I call you a scallywag I am not far off the mark; because in the last two months the ASUU boss has on morning and prime news magazine TV programmes enlightened the public; and informed everyone that cared a hoot it’s demand. But then I am wary because I am reminded in coining a proverb not cast my pearls before a swine.
The paucity of Nigerian information is not new; if you had the benefit of graduating from a Nigerian university you would realize that most formidable clog in the wheel was this; most information available for analysis dated back to the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s.  Idiota;  the national dailies are not the federal ministry of information and statistics. You cannot be in Jerusalem nincompoop, and expect to be a critique of the Nigerian press when by your admission are not more knowledgeable of salient Nigerian issues than a garage tout or street-side chef; your misfortune dumbass
This unfortunately is not fault of the media, but of a moronic conjecture of dim-witted cells which comprise your DNA, SHAGAMITE THE FOOLISH, E la la puta

Nigerian Tribune

http://www.tribune.com.ng/30102009/tue/crime2.html

[size=14pt]Poverty led us into stealing ‘cow’- Suspects[/size]
Dipo Laleye

Two suspected cow thieves have confessed to the police in Minna, Niger State, that they went into stealing because of high poverty level in the country.

Alhaji Salihu and Saidu Abu were arrested in Lapai town, Niger State, for alleged stealing a female cow belonging to Alhaji Zakari, also of the town.

According to the police, the suspects have under the cover of darkness sneaked into the compound of Alhaji Zakari and proceeded to where the female cow and other animals were being kept, united one cow. However, as they were about to escape from the town, men of the vigilante group, accosted them and before they could escape, they were apprehended.

The suspects tried to talk their way out of trouble, but the vigilante a stood their grounds and in the morning, they were handed over to the police in Lapai.

Alhaji Zakari, who had gone to Lapai Police Station to report the theft of his animal was shocked to find it tied to a tree. He later confirmed that the cow belonged to him but this did not stop the case from being transferred to Minna, police headquarter for further investigations.

The suspects pleaded with the police for mercy, claiming that they had not been able to feed their families which resulted in their going into stealing.

The police said that Salihu and Saidu wanted to sell the cow at any amount so that they could solve their immediate needs and those of their families, Police spokesman, ASP Oguche Richard, confirmed the story, saying the suspects would be charged to court soon.

In a related development, the police in Minna, have arrested two suspects in connection with the duping of one Alhaji Hamza Sulaiman and Sulaiman Umar of 20,000 US dollar about N1.2million.

The suspects, Tukura Usman and Kasimu Mallam, were said to have deceived their victims that they would assist them to secure oil and gas contract from the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).

The state Police Commissioner, Michael Zuomukor, who confirmed the incident, said that when a search party was carried out on the Paiko residence of the suspects N760,000 was recovered from the house of Usman Tukura while N1.1million was got from that of Mallam Kasimu.

Zuomkor also said that another $7100, believed to be fake was recovered from the residence of Mallam Kasimu.
The police boss said that the suspects would be charged to court for ‘criminal conspiracy, cheating and extortion’.

vwvw:

@ SAGAMITE There are better synonyms than  slowpoke; get a thesaurus SAGAMITE THE FOOL , anyway i'm leaving you, this thread in the lurch of your smelly puke. you're too dumb for a serious debate. a waste of intellect. when you're with living i suggest you donate your brain to the university of ibadan zoo

vwvw:

lool, that's the idea.my unreadable posts are too high for you.olodo

vwvw:

and i am a serious, enterprising journalist and must admit that this is a thankless job. the truth is you'd never know unless you got on the field. IT'S TOUGH. I've covered crime politics and foreign affairs; it's no child's play; have u ever been to darfur?

nex:
NTA staff are better trained and more experienced than these other trial and error journalists all over the place.

The thing is that NTA journalists cover stories their bosses want them to cover and the private practitioners cover stories their bosses want them to cover.

Have you ever heard Silverbird staff carry a story about Ben Murray Bruce sleeping with Stella Obasanjo? Have you heard MBI carry news that Chris Oyakhilome has not accounted for all the money he makes in his Christ Embassy or that his miracles are suspicious?

So what are we saying here? Which journalists are better trained and know what their jobs entail?

The complete destruction of NTA was mainly with Tony Iredia as Director General.

Sagamite:

My Guy, I don't know what they teach them in NUJ or courses in university, but common sense would tell me that clarity should be a foundation for news reporting and quality journalism, not passing the onus of figuring out by requesting assumptions from your millions of audiences when it is sooooooooooooo easy to provide the unambigious information.

Even YOu are still asking residents to confirm your assumptions for you when the journalist can just say "in south east part of the city of Abeokuta". It shouldn't be that hard. Simple, simple things.

In regards to (2), poor journalism has also resulted in him not structuring and giving specific information. Even in the corporate world, if I was to detail a change in a memo, I would have a section stating reasons clearly e.g. The road appears to be priority because of its link between A and B that are commercial hubs in the State hence supporting the focus of federal roadworks on blah blah blah, futhermore, erosions on it have been threaten residential buildings blah blah blah.

Not some generalistic statements like "Bankole said federal roads remained pivotal to business activities of the people".

Good journalists do not make their audience work to understand issues. They dissect, analyse and present it in a manner for easy consumption.

Nigerian Tribune

http://www.tribune.com.ng/02112009/wed/tourism.html

[size=14pt]South Africans condemn western media for painting Nigeria bad: As NTDC boss intensifies responsible tourism promotion[/size]
Wale Olapade

THE hosting of the FIFA U17 World Cup, Nigeria 2009, has positioned the country’s tourism and hospitality industries for developments, with hospitality operators-hoteliers, eatries’ operators, sourvenir sellers and transporters, just to mention a few, recording increase in sales.

The throng of foreign tourists to the country and local tourists to the states and cities where the matches would be played will no doubt boost the sales of hospitality operators. The hotels, eatries, sourvenir sellers and even transporters across the six geopolitical zones of the country in Abuja, Lagos, Kaduna, Kano, Bauchi, Calabar, Enugu and Ijebu Ode, are likely to record more sales, while the tendency of increase in the prices of these essential needs of tourists is on the high side.

Confirming the positive impact of the tournament on the nation’s tourism and hospitality, President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, represented by his deputy, Goodluck Jonathan, at the opening ceremonies of FIFA U17 World Cup, Nigeria 2009, noted that the hosting right had enabled the nation to develop and upgrade its sporting and hotel facilities.

An Ibadan-based sourvenir seller, Mr. ’Laolu Olabode, who has relocated to Abuja, has also deployed about nine sales representatives in Lagos, Kaduna, Calabar and other states where the matches would be played.

In a telephone interview with TTH, Mr. Olabode confirmed that he was making brisk sales as a result of the patronage from football fans who graced the tournament’s venues.

“This is a jolly time for me. The sales I recorded two weeks before the start of the tournament alone surpassed what I have recorded since the beginning of this year.

And now that the event is gradually moving to its peak, proceeds are increasing. I wish Nigeria could religiously invest in Sports Tourism. It will better the lots of the country, boost its image, while the citizens will also benefit tremendously,” he said.

The Director-General, Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC), Otunba Olusegun Runsewe in a telephone chat with TTH disclosed his intention to exploit the rare opportunity offered by the hosting of the tournament to sell Nigerian tourism the more.

However, TTH spoke with Mrs Oreofe Ibikunle, an Abuja-based hotelier who described Nigeria’s hosting of the tournament as an avenue for the president’s image makers to use the event to divert international attention to see positive things about Nigeria.

She was also of the opinion that both the executive and the legislature, sports authorities and NTDC should more than ever collaborate and ensure the development of Sports Tourism in Nigeria, saying that “this will not only positively impact on the nation’s economy and image but were provide empolyment for the teeming jobless graduates roaming the streets of our major cities.”

Another Abuja-based hospitality operator, who pleaded anonymity, ascribed the low turnout at the opening ceremonies and other matches played so far to the shoddy manner in which the soccer fiesta was put together as the majority of Nigerians were left in the dark, as to whether the tournament would commence due to poor sensitisation through the mass media.

“The preparations and attention given to this tournament were discouraging. “Though there are increases in our sales but it’s not as we expected, due to the low turnout of our people. The influx of foreign tourists is even more encouraging than the local ones. The almost empty stadium at the opening ceremonies indicated this,” he said.


Advising the government, he said that tournament of this nature cannot attract international and national sports enthusiasts and tourists without adequate availability of sporting infrastructure, entrepreneurial contributions, transportation, volunteerism, private sponsorship, security.


“The last minute rush to put some infrastructure in place showed how organised and focused the government is.

- Olaoluwa Mimiola

Yeah. . . .he's a freelance journalist. . . . you might see him on thisdayonline every now and then. . . . his Nairaland username is Jarus 

Jarus:


I am far from being a journalist, not even a freelancer. Much as I know I have passion for writing, I have never been tempted go into journalism for the simple reason that  it can not fetch me half of what I earn as an Accountant.