@spaceworld

did you really say that GSM is a failed project? Only for the rich? Well, if you can admit that the 21 million GSM users are all rich, then it means the Obasanjo regime has done more than any president in the history of the world. To make 21million rich people from almost nothing.

Whether OBJ made 21 million naija people rich, or same number have GSM cell phones, the point is that was a great idea, and a plus for his legacy.

. . . and in all this, I suppose people are forgetting the level of decay that was Nigeria in
1999, right? That OBJ must have been a super human, he was expected to fix education,
roads, security, corruption, power, etc. all in one mad country called Nigeria.

I just got back from there and once again I am amazed at the level of chaos that is Nigeria.
Its very convenient to blame all the woes of Nigeria on Obasanjo, why the rest of us goes
about our business pissing in public, driving our cars in any which direction, jumping queues,
almost running over the traffic wardens (the fews ones present), etc.

Yes, he had several shortcomings (who doesn't ?), yet he is still thee best leader that Nigeria
has yet to produce. As someone said earlier, it takes COURAGE, LOYALTY, and PATRIOTISM
to take the bullet meant for someone else. Obasanjo could have easily decided to leave the
VAT and fuel price issues for a new and shaky administration to address, rather he chose
to incur further wrath from the public by going forward with it.

Say what you may about him, but he is one leader that truly believes in Nigeria as an entity.
Nigeria's history will be most kind to him, just give it some time. I am particularly grateful to him
for using strong-arm tactics to prevent the best thieves alive that Nigeria has produced till date
- IBB, and Atiku from spending their way into Aso Rock.

And let's not forget that he resolved the Bakassi issue without violence.

For those of you who do not know, wherever their is international border discrepances, the world court is USED to give the disputed land to the smaller country so that the larger country will aggress.

Well, not us. Make them carry go. A lot of Nigerians still have beef about letting Bakassi go, but if yall knew how many weapons factories were reopened all around the world in preparation for sale into a Nigeria-Cameroun war, you would understand why we had to let go.

Abeg naija na big boy. We don pass all those level of "African war-torn Countries"

[i][/i]OBASANJO HAS FOUGHT THE GOOD FIGHT AND HE HAS TRIUMPHED.IT TAKES A BULLDOG TO TAME A RECKLESS STATE LIKE NIGERIA.

THE GREATEST OF OBASANJO'S LEGACY WAS THE "STABILITY OF NIGERIA".

@ my man naijaking

I am not saying we should shut genuine ppl out of the political space, am saying a BIG thank you for EBORA OWU for shutting out KNOWN THIEVES like Atiku & IBB. We dont need ppl like them at all! So I insist that some set of Nigerians are less qualified to lead us - THE GREEDY THIEVES AND THE 'GENEROUS', 'NICE' GUYS WHO WILL SET US BACK BY 30 YEARS!

@ Iyke-D, Denex, Tunrex.dj
Need I add anything to your posts. You're on point, analytical.

I am always surprised to hear supposedly educated ppl arguing from myopic lenses. Saying GSM is a failed project, that Soludo should get the credit for banking reforms, blah, blah, blah! Gosh! Even some of our LEARNED lawyers argue blindly just because they hate OBJ's guts. They refuse to acknowledge his achievements, instead, they come up with weird arguments to discredit those laudable achievements. I expected them to praise him when he did well and upbraid him when he faltered. Morons!

If not any other thing, OBJ would be remembered whenever GSM is mentioned.
Let's cultivate the culture of remembering where we came from.

denex:

@spaceworld

did you really say that GSM is a failed project? Only for the rich? Well, if you can admit that the 21 million GSM users are all rich, then it means the Obasanjo regime has done more than any president in the history of the world. To make 21million rich people from almost nothing.

Y is this all u pick from the many things space world pointed out about OBJ's failures? U must agree with the rest then, I know i do

look with or with out obj naija would still have gotten GSM by now his only legacy in my opinion is that he was, is, and by the grace of God the last of UGLY presidents naija has produced responsible of human rights abuse @ odi, responsible for niger delta crisis full scale born again corrupt owu chief who deserves nothing more than being executed publically bullshit!!!!!!!!!!!

tonte:

look with or with out obj naija would still have gotten GSM by now

I quite agree

Bakassi:

If you lived in the area, if your fathers', grand fathers', and your great-grand fathers bones are buried some where in the area, and you wake up one day to find that you're now a Cameroonian, or forced to leave you probably might not rate OBJ very highly in this area.

Personally, I think Bakassi was not handled very well by OBJ's administration: starting from going to World court, presenting naija's case, and the aftermath.

Then again, some people might say that hindsight is the best, but experts could have told us that we(naija) and not Cameroonians had the most to loose. Did we listen to the experts?

Nobody gives away, looses, or trades a piece of his motherland and expects to be positively commended by history.

@Iyke-D

Sir, I beg to differ that naija people are somehow partly responsible for the decades old periods of mismanagement that has characterised us.

If our rulers blame us for being ungovernable, it will be akin to the teacher blaming the pupil for knowing too little, or the doctor blaming the patient for being too sick(situations I know to be wrong, but exists in naija-though).

Being a ruler is not for everybody, just as being a doctor or a teacher is not for everybody, but the idea of blaming the very group you should be helping is simply repugnant, and must be condemned in the strongest term.

On the average naija people are not worse than Americans. If you were in Florida during hurricane Hugo, or around Louisiana during Katrina you could have seem the bare essence of the animal in most Americans.
The power outage in NY last year also showed that stress could endanger the worst in all of us, not just Nigerians.

Actually, Nigerians have become resiliant, learning how to make do of the worst situations. If you live in the USA, could you imagine going for weeks without power, water, and probably your salary?

The soul of Nigeria is resilient, but not blind.

tonte:

look with or with out obj naija would still have gotten GSM

NO!! Don't forget that analogue mobile phone technology, had arrived since the time of Abacha. What did Abacha do? He hawked the licences to his Lebanese & Arab friends e.g. Chagoury & Chagoury, and ignored the real telecoms companies & experts.

The Chagoury family set up Motophone as their own franchisee, to handle that business. What did they do? Absolutely nothing! They sat on the license and milked the country dry, using foul means. NITEL got the analogue license to run the 090-number series mobile phones. They performed marginally better than the Chagoury's by making it atrociously expensive, so that only the rich could afford it. At that time, a 090-line & handset was sold for over 150, 000 naira. The network was abysmally poor & crazy, and the call rates were even crazier. Even under Abubakar, the issue was not revisited.

http://www.thisdayonline.com/archive/2001/01/17/20010117beh01.html

What am I saying? Previous rulers before OBJ, never created an enabling environment for GSM to take off, much less thrive. OBJ threw it open through public bidding, and compelled the 1st set of foreign telecoms companies to perform, by giving them an unrealistic deadline, December 2001. They almost broke their backs, but they made it. The first major external MTN call was made that year, from the NITEL office on Temple road Ikoyi, by network engineers who assembled the mast, boosters & antenna all through the night. Econet (now Celtel) also went live, the same year. In less than a year, the telecoms comapnies & their entire industry witnessed a change, that previous rulers had refused to allow them, to carry out in previous years.

Today, you and I can walk into any shop, and buy a phone set of our choice or a sim card, at an affordable amount. We can make calls at our own pace, without queuing up for hours on end, in one dingy business centre. Some of us have even dashed out handsets or lines, to our friends & family. Something which wouldn't have been possible, a few years ago. We shouldn't forget those who helped, to make it happen.

As much as I dislike OBJ, I will always give him credit for this one thing he did to make GSM accessible to the Nigerian public.

@angel101

the reason I picked out only the so called GSM for the rich assertion by that individual is that it was the most outrageous.

As for those crying over Bakassi, I beg una, let it go. It takes only a tortoise like the one from Otta to see that was the war trap. It worked in India-Pakistan, it worked in Israel-Lebanon, it worked in Ethiopia-Eritrea, it may work in China-Taiwan. We dodge am. It will not happen in Nigeria-Cameroun. In fact not only will we give Cameroun the land, we will take the opportunity to make them our boy.

Abeg make una leave that thing. International politics is not for the straight thinking. It's for the overall analyst.

@denex

I'm trying to understand your point on Bakassi. Was it good, bad, or neutral to OBJ legacy?

No Indian or Pakistani leader would have been re-elected if they gave up claim to Kashmir, you know that!

We are not advocating war with our bros. in the Cameroun.

They were claiming a peice of the pennisula, and ended up with both pennisula and surrounding lands, because we did not approach the issue with our best hands. Certainly, we could have done better.

@naijaking1

any Indian prime Minister who gives Kashmir away to smaller Pakistan and end tensions would not be reelected, but would ensure future peace between India and Pakistan, and will earn a smile from the peaceful spirit of Mahatma Ghandi.

@denex

Certainly, any Indian Prime minister who gives up the Kashmir claim would earn adoration from Pakistan and achieve a

temporary cessation of hostilities, but I'm not sure that the peaceful soul of Ghandi would have appreciated that legacy.

Let's not forget that the man of peace himself preached against the carving out of Pakistan from India mostly according to religious lines.

Pertaining to naija and Cameroun, most of the area under question used to be under naija (I think), but my point

remains that we did not employ the best historical , geo-political, and legal hands in our Wolrd court fight with Cameroun.

Whether the current situation will bring a lasting peace is also a question for the future.

@Naijaking1

I stand corrected that we are a most difficult and unruly people. Like I said, breaking
whatever laws or rules that are out there is a way of life for Nigerians, simply put, we
have no regard for rules or regulations.

I am glad you mentioned hurricane Katrina, except you are equating life in Nigeria for
both the rich and poor as being a hurricane Katrina daily. People piss anywhere, people
drive in any space and in any which direction, people don't wait in line for anything - there
is just no order. I believe those that coined the word chaos actually had Nigeria in mind.
I love Nigeria dearly and will visit there each chance I get, but thats my take nevertheless.

I[b]f our rulers blame us for being ungovernable, it will be akin to the teacher blaming the pupil for knowing too little, or the doctor blaming the patient for being too sick(situations I know to be wrong, but exists in naija-though).[/b]

In some inner-city schools in America, some of the students are simply un-teachable, its a fact!
The kids are more concerned with gang banging and drugs, will you blame the teacher for that situation?

[quote][/quote]
Being a ruler is not for everybody, just as being a doctor or a teacher is not for everybody, but the idea of blaming the very group you should be helping is simply repugnant, and must be condemned in the strongest term.

On the average naija people are not worse than Americans. If you were in Florida during hurricane Hugo, or around Louisiana during Katrina you could have seem the bare essence of the animal in most Americans.

Americans by large obey laws, they follow directions, they wait in line, etc. I am not saying they are
a better people, but a leader's work is made easier if he has such people to lead. In Nigeria, the
government is chaotic, the people are chaotic, and in some miraculous way, people were expecting
Obasanjo to have conducted himself as if he was presiding over Americans

@naijaking1

Whether we had the 5 best lawyers worldwide, we would have lost the case. It was beyond our control. The people who wanted to benefit from Nigeria-Cameroun war had already decided. ICJ was just reading delivering their message.

Britain that carved out Nigeria said Bakassi wasn't part of it, Germany that carved out Cameroun said that Bakassi was part of it. Britain and France that took over Cameroun from Germany after world war 2 said Bakassi is part of it. Cameroun itself has documents endorsed by the Nigerian Government that after the Biafran War, it would concede the Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroun and forfeit all claims to it.

Haba my brother, how lawyer wan take win that kain case for you? The only way Nigeria would have gotten Bakassi was by war. Which would have not ended even today.

laudate:

NO!! Don't forget that analogue mobile phone technology, had arrived since the time of Abacha. What did Abacha do? He hawked the licences to his Lebanese & Arab friends e.g. Chagoury & Chagoury, and ignored the real telecoms companies & experts.

The Chagoury family set up Motophone as their own franchisee, to handle that business. What did they do? Absolutely nothing! They sat on the license and milked the country dry, using foul means. NITEL got the analogue license to run the 090-number series mobile phones. They performed marginally better than the Chagoury's by making it atrociously expensive, so that only the rich could afford it. At that time, a 090-line & handset was sold for over 150, 000 naira. The network was abysmally poor & crazy, and the call rates were even crazier. Even under Abubakar, the issue was not revisited.

http://www.thisdayonline.com/archive/2001/01/17/20010117beh01.html

What am I saying? Previous rulers before OBJ, never created an enabling environment for GSM to take off, much less thrive. OBJ threw it open through public bidding, and compelled the 1st set of foreign telecoms companies to perform, by giving them an unrealistic deadline, December 2001. They almost broke their backs, but they made it. The first major external MTN call was made that year, from the NITEL office on Temple road Ikoyi, by network engineers who assembled the mast, boosters & antenna all through the night. Econet (now Celtel) also went live, the same year. In less than a year, the telecoms comapnies & their entire industry witnessed a change, that previous rulers had refused to allow them, to carry out in previous years.

Today, you and I can walk into any shop, and buy a phone set of our choice or a sim card, at an affordable amount. We can make calls at our own pace, without queuing up for hours on end, in one dingy business centre. Some of us have even dashed out handsets or lines, to our friends & family. Something which wouldn't have been possible, a few years ago. We shouldn't forget those who helped, to make it happen.

As much as I dislike OBJ, I will always give him credit for this one thing he did to make GSM accessible to the Nigerian public.

Very well said Laudate.

@laudate

well said jare. A lot of people do not know how badly the GSM project could have gone.

@Oga Iyke-D

Now we're talking.

The problem with naija people and any other group that has been so badly ruled for too long has to do with group psychology as opposed to some intrinsic, genetic, or racial inability to obey and follow orders.

It is a scientific fact that if you raise a group of animals in a lawless environment, those animals or humans (as the case maybe) will always reflect lawlessness in their lives.

On the contrary, if you ring a bell b/4 you feed your dog on the balcony carpet everyday; merely ringing that bell makes your dog to quietly go wait for food on the balcony.

People who wait in lines in naija loose their chances or turns, and have been actaully called mumu, so there is no reward in queing up or waiting for your turn, your turn may never come. Those that officially apply for jobs never get it unless they go through the back door. If an average naija comes to US as an adult it takes about 1 year to decondition him/her from jumping lines, and behaving as if he is still in naija.

Unlike US, naija resturants that sell food and drink are never required to have rest rooms (toilets), the result is that after eating and drinking people are forced to answer the call of nature outside and in the open. I don't think that naija people just like to expose themselves for the fun of it.

These must be viewed in light of regulatory or governmental failure, not just a difficult population. The situation in US inner city schools are not different from naija, and has been called a classic case study in group psychology or group think.

However, the role of the government/teacher, or lack thereof is always overwhelming. So if you find an expert teacher who understands these inner city kids, the result is often dramatic and rewarding. Also, if you find an expert physician, the most persistent and incurable disease becomes a thing of the past.

Nigeria needs an expert in government who may not cure all our age old ills overnight, but at least put us on the path to eventual recovery.

Please let's not blame the victims.

@denex

if we had enough common sense maybe somebody could have thought twice about joining issues with Cameroun at the World Court, knowing the propensity of the western powers to see Africa carved up into smaller and smaller powerless, and hopeless entities.

Nigeria could have kept Bakassi if she did what Britain did over the Archepalegos island near Argentina, or Spain over the piece of land near Morrocco, etc.

Britain, and Spain simply said that those land disputes did not belong to the World Court.
Case closed. They keep lands that do not culturally, geographically, and historically belong to them.-till today.

Can you imagine how many times US has thumbed its nose at the UN, World Court, or the World?

My point= we have experts that accurately predicted our loss at the World court and we refused to listen to them.

Why?

@naijaking1

talking about law and order in Nigeria, do you know that I was once arrested by the SSS in a bank in Benin City just for being orderly.

After they cleared me for any wrong doing, they apologised and said it just seemed suspicious the way I entered the bank and instead of pushing people on the line and trying to find someone among the staff whom I knew, I just went to sit down and didn't even bother that people who came after me were being served before me. They said it was unNigerian, and that's why that arrested me.

That was one of the craziest days of my life. Arrested for being nice and orderly.


Well, as for Bakassi, I think it was something that had to be done once and for all. We couldn't keep harbouring enemies in our backyards.

denex:

I just went to sit down and didn't even bother that people who came after me were being served before me. They said it was unNigerian, and that's why that arrested me.

That was one of the craziest days of my life. Arrested for being nice and orderly.

Chei!! How can people be so wicked, biko?! Is it a crime to be orderly in Naija? Why is it taken for granted in some parts of this nation, that one has to behave like a tout?

@NaijaKing1

Nice response, but how do you expect the teacher/leader (Obasanjo) to be any
different from the victims(citizens) most especially when the entire landscape is
the same? How is that possible?

I do agree with you that we need an "expert" leader, where we can source that
from is the $45 billion question. If you pick someone with outside exposure, they
may not get the political backing to go far. My point, is its unfair to have expected
Obasanjo to solve all this ailments we have when the entire citizenry, his cabinet,
the political elites, and his advisers are lawless, disorderly, and chaotic in almost
everything they do.

@denex

my brother I'm sorry for your plight, but was my point exactly.
Instead of rewarding orderly conducts like yours, the naija environment rewards chaos.

Naija people were not born to be disorderly, they just learnt that it works.

Only the institutions, and government can change all that.

Example, if a line is a mile long, you just have to go to the back, or else you will not be served by the bank.

@Iyke-D

An average leader will have the intellectual level as the rest of the people, ie chaos.

But we are debating if our current and past leaders were by any chance above average.

That is, were they able to see above all the chaos, and lead the nation towards the "promised land"

Some naija leaders don't even know that there is a political promise land, not to talk of leading anybody there.

1 of Obj's legacies- the largest investments in power generation the country has seen, to more than double current generation capacity. though the effects haven't been largely felt yet, the improvement in the coming months will all be down to the hard decisions that he took (although belatedly).

http://www.lahmeyer.de/e/units/ge/ps_ge4_e_230340_niger_delta_2006_10.pdf

https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-42352.64.html

@Debo

What was the total power generation output when OBJ ascended office and what was it when he left?

figures for 1999 are sketchy, and very disputable, it is generally thought of to be have been ~2000MW when he came in, rising to ~4000MW in 2004 or thereabouts, and then dropping to 3200MW as of May this year due to pipeline vandalism and other ills that reduced generation,

generation capacity has increased by at least 1200MW though, with another ~2000MW coming on stream before the end of the year, with improved transmission (also included in the NIPP) the bulk of the improvement will occur towards the end of the year.

debosky:

figures for 1999 are sketchy, and very disputable, it is generally thought of to be have been ~2000MW when he came in,

Generally thought by who? The figures are disputed but I seem to remember it was closer to the 3000MW mark.It was shortly after he took office,towards the end of 1999,that output fell to around 2000MW prompting suggestions of sabotage.