₦airaland Forum

Komu1048:
It's a known fact that Dangote use his influence in govt to kill competitors. In 2006 when he jus introduced his Dangote noddles he tried to kill indomie then. He was the chairman of MAN and claimed Indomie are toxic it took indomie three years to regain there position. Today BUA group are still in court with Dangote.

This is why I insist that we stick to FACTS and not beer-parlor rumors...

The Indomie noodle scare, pursuant to which NAFDAC (then led the highly-respected Dora Akunyili) recalled batches of Indomie for CONFIRMED to have contained Carbofuran (a toxic carbamate pesticide), occurred in 2004 - that is, FOUR YEARS BEFORE Dangote went into the noodle business in 2008!

Btw, Aliko Dangote was NEVER the “chairman of MAN”. The closest connection between the Dangote Group and the presidency of MAN is when Ahmed Mansur, an executive director of the Dangote Group (and former Director-General of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group) was elected president of MAN this past September 2018 - that is, FOURTEEN YEARS AFTER the Indomie recall incident of 2004!

Just for the record, of course Aliko Dangote was once president of the council of the Nigeria Stock Exchange (an advisory board of the NSE who management is headed by a CEO - currently Mr. Oscar Onyeama, a former COO of an American exchange), but again he assumed that position in August 2009 - more than FIVE YEARS AFTER the Indomie scare of 2004!

So, once again, I plead with you to stick to FACTS! They make these discussions so much more useful. Cheers.
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Larryomooba:
Bros they're number of tins u don't knw about dangote
The dude would not employ ppl of that state to significant positions he would rather bring the white and bring ppl from kano. They knw y dey do dat.

Dangote Group employs COMPETENT people, regardless of state or national origin (and NONE of Dangote’s Naija CEOs is from Kano)...
That’s why unlike many Nigerian businesses, he builds factories, farms, and businesses all over Nigeria - not just in his hometown or state.

Meanwhile, there are MORE NIGERIANS at management positions at Dangote Group than all foreign managers COMBINED!

Komu1048:
Development kor, developers ni. Go to obajana and see what the residents are facing.

The residents of Obajana are now “facing” tarred roads, proper houses, a community clinic and school - and JOBS!

Martin0:
you have only written to me what you have only been told or informed about by written piece ...

You know nothing about Liberia! and who da hell informed you of all these

Gypsey

Nope! Written to you about what I personally KNOW from having spent time in Liberia...
How did Samuel Doe come to power? Again, those ignorant of HISTORICAL CONTEXT fail to grasp the slow-boiling genesis of these matters.

jaxxy:
I understand ur point of view bt I don’t live in the past. We need to move on and think about the present and future. We haven’t dealt with our shortcomings bt yet we cry night and day over smtn centuries ago as our problem. I don’t think that would help us move forward. South Africa had a worse situation than us bt they have moved on and pushed ahead.

What exactly are we waiting for?

I never compare east with sw pls I only mentioned them cos they seem to be bothered more about the west contraption than anything else that’s logical. Each region has actually failed themselves not because of the western world bt out thinking to each other.

Have you been to South Africa?

Apartheid has only been eliminated in the law books and in the state houses. Economically and in many black people’s lives, except for a handful of politically-connected rent-seekers, apartheid has INTENSIFIED. There’s a reason that black South Africans keep repeatedly attacking other Africans who contributed and sacrificed for South African liberation (and I am not referring to the segment of Nigerian criminals whose existence we must acknowledge), and why Johannesburg is one of the most violent and dangerous cities on the continent.

Meanwhile (and seemingly for the umpteenth time), we simply cannot ignore how we got here and “move on”. Like you, I do not “live in the past” either but the consequence of British colonial rule is sadly NOT in the past but something that we witness and experience PRESENTLY! We cannot just move “forward” with a castle built in the sand because when the tide comes (as it invariably does), it will wash us all away.

Martin0:
locating an defining what

Locating and defining our common purpose (if any)...
Because so long as we do not consider this British-created contraption as OUR OWN COUNTRY, we cannot fix it.

Right here on NL, you have folks saying “I am Yoruba before Nigerian” and some Ibos campaigning for Biafra, and you think national resolution (whatever it is) wouldn’t involve going back to Ground Zero! Corruption is the SYMPTOM, not the cancer. And it’s the latter that kills.

Martin0:
Oga,,you know say when person they vex on the failed system of the country,e go begin dey blam their colonial people

sometimes I dey wonder why guineas, and even non colonized Liberian nor they blame their and it's government for what's happening to them,yet Nigeria is better than them and currently these countries are not way better than Nigeria but them they liv well well,

Again, someone displaying a palpable ignorance of the consequences of history...

The history of Liberia (which was all but a US colony in name) that bequeathed over a century of Americo-Liberian supremacy and dominance over political and national affairs finally exploded into a ORGY OF GENOCIDAL VIOLENCE in the late 1980s/1990s that nearly consumed the entire West African sub-region. Sadly, the tortured mindset that history belongs in the past and has no nexus nor consequences with the present or future is why this country does not study its history - and keeps substantively repeating (or threatening to repeat) same.

Meanwhile, as I have previously stated, it is NOT mutually-exclusive to criticize both our post-independence rulers as well as British colonialism. It is NOT the Hobson’s Choice of either one or the other - not least because both are inextricably-linked and in fact different points along the same continuum. Nonetheless, perhaps because some of us don’t bear the same subservience or inferiority complex that others apparently do, I have no qualms at all in telling an arrogantly ignorant Brit to take his condescending lecture and shove it up right up his sitter.

gypsey:
Okay, Carry on blaming the brits, Let's see how that would fix Nigerias problems

It may surprise folks in a country that devalues history...
But the first step of “fixing” anything is first locating/defining the problem.

So long as Nigerians do not believe this is THEIR country...
They will never work together to fix it. Corruption is a SYMPTOM of a bigger problem.
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jaxxy:
So he after independence he was the one who that did it constitution for u? The military are they not fellow Nigerians like u and I? Or are they from Arabia? Everybody has a fault in all of this including the ignorant and nonchalant common Nigerian man doesn’t want to participate or fight for what is his right in the most civil way possible.

Stop blaming people who left u since 1960 for ur woes. Even eastern region still fight themselves and have not done better in their zones due to both federal and state government incompetence.

Corruption is not a region or zone.

Do you actually understand what an analogy is?
Surprised you were not asking if he was the one that impregnated the fabled daughter as well?

I have already (and many times) acknowledged our own shortcomings, but simply do not want to hear from someone who sits at the corpus of the problem, not least because his drivel betrays an arrogant ignorance of history and it’s consequences. Whatever has happened in this British-created contraption are effectively “badges and incidents” (and some would contend merely a symptom) of British colonial rule.

Meanwhile, why do seem to delusionally believe that we in the Southwest are any better than our siblings in the East? Forgotten about the recurring dumb Ife-Modakeke “indigene vs settler” dichotomy fratricide? Or so many other such silly disputes? At least, the Ibos took the 20 pounds they reportedly were each given after the war (before my time, so I may be wrong) and built veritable fortunes for themselves.

semyman:
They are envious of her for escaping from the baby mama, slay queen and oloshos' fold and syndrome.

It’s really not my headache because I really don’t know these people...

But have to ask you why some Nigerians think marriage cures all. We are talking about an almost 60-year old marrying a teenager and people seem to think that it shouldn’t be a topic of discourse. What exactly is wrong with taking and posting pictures on social media as a so-called “slay mama” that supposedly makes it worse than marrying your grandfather’s age-mate? Even for the derided so-called “baby mamas” it probably is better if the baby father (eg, Davido) is young enough and present in the child’s to see them grow up into adulthood than an old man whose chances of even having a healthy baby (sperm degenerates with age) and subsequently seeing the baby blossom into adulthood (and I wish no one any harm or ill-will, but frankly that just brutal honesty) is greatly diminished?

GOOD LUCK TO THEM, but seriously some of you Nigerians please really need to wean yourselves off this tortured mindset that any marriage is the overarching accomplishment of womanhood. There’s so much more to life (but perhaps the blushing bride is too young to realize that).
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Dayam! The second tweet was sheer savagery...

phonemakemoney:
Modelling pays well in Canada and she is a citizen she will always have something doing and unlike developing countries like Nigeria you can always volunteer for daily jobs that require little or no skills that pays per hour.

Pays what “well”?

Bros, rest assured that if you are not a supermodel or a regular runway model (or at least what we call a ‘working model’, the sort of “character” or “stock” models that regularly does catalogues), you will be most likely waiting tables or holding some other ‘day’ job (eg, receptionist, temporary or night staff, etc.) that will give you the flexibility to go to auditions. More importantly, that career likely ends as a regular paying gig late-20s/early-30s. After that, the lucky (and smart) ones start trying out for pharmaceutical reps, flight attendants, etc.

jaxxy:
Many people will still not understand what the white man said and will start attacking themselves instead of agreeing on a common front to minimize corruption(if not eradicate it) and then very importantly get the job done.

2 major key points. Both Apc and Pdp have smtn to learn bt rather they are attacking each other and claiming right.

We don’t want him to say it...

It’s no different than the military lecturing us after saddling us with a centralized “federation” of 36 mostly-unviable states and a Constitution that no one is totally happy with. You don’t fornicate with a dude’s daughter and be the same one lamenting her teenage pregnancy.

HeyCorleone:
I got so many things mixed up. Thanks for calling my attention.

Lagos indeed became a colony of the crown in 1861. But the full Nigerian areas didn't become a colony until 1887.

That aside, I don't think you're being fair on the colonial folks. They exploited us, but worked. Growth is gradual. We took our independence too early. If we had allowed them for 20 more years, they would have laid a proper foundation to prevent all these rubbish happening today.

Still, to continue to blame Britain for our today's mishaps is ill judgement.

Bros, if one bears a deformed (or specially-abled) child...
It is bad form going around pointing at the kid and mocking him/her.

I already conceded that we have underachieved...
But it is galling for the entity right at the corpus of many of our core issues to gloat about it.

It’s substantively no different than the Nigerian military pontificating about civilians/politicians being unable to properly run Nigeria after saddling us with a deformed over-centralized “federation” (by name only) and a Constitution that’s incredibly inappropriate-for-cause.
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cescky:
This applies to you
Keep being sentimental
Facts are facts...

And any one who follows politics knows role obj played in dangotes wealth..keep digging written and made up statements that exist and didn't exist..

While some of these coys may have existed..import waivers etc were given to dangote..maybe your a foreigner or you think in nigeria once gov't give you license you have arrived...paper is one thing what happens at the ports and on ground is another..in obj era competing against dangote is competing against govt..am sure you can reason enough to know how thats a david and goliath fight, david will never win.

Few years ago, a fellow hausa man and one igbo man threatened to expose how dangote was defrauding Nigeria..as na niaja we de no questions were asked..what do you have to say about that?

Wasnt it dangote that a paper carried tried to poison otedola?..but your blind to sentiments and cant see all thjs..

Fyi i worked with a company at the ports, leave all this dug up useless paper and open your eyes to whats on ground

“Facts are facts”?

Abegi, which “facts” would that be because while I have laid down factual details with names and dates, all you are proffering is beer parlor-type rumors of how Dangote allegedly “tried to poison Otedola” as if you prepared the poison for him - and more specifically, what exactly does that have to do with your allegation that Dangote is given at least a 4-year monopoly in every sector that he is involved in?

What exactly has “import waiver” to do with WAPCO and Ashaka being CONTINUOUSLY in business in Nigeria since 1961 and 1962, when Dangote was 4- and 5-years old? For your allegation of a 4-year monopoly to hold any veracity, Dangote would have been granted said monopoly while he was in the womb (or Blue Circle and LaFarge must have been shutdown by the government, which did not happen).

ALL Nigerian cement companies (including Dangote, BUA Group, Ibeto and the foreign companies Blue Circle, LaFarge and Holcim/FMN) received “import waivers” as part of Obasanjo administration’s Backward Integration Policy allowing them to import products for a LIMITED period while they built/upgraded local manufacturing units (same policy since applied to local automobile, rice, sugar and dairy production).

Consequent upon the Backward Integration Policy, Dangote built the Obajana plant (followed by the Ibeshe plant), BUA Group upgraded/built Obu-Okpella and Sokoto plants, Blue Circle upgraded the Ewekoro and Sagamu WAPCO plants, LaFarge (which later merged globally with Blue Circle) upgraded the Ashaka plant, while Holcim (which also later merged globally into LaFarge) built/upgraded its Odukpani plant.

Ibeto was the ONLY Nigerian cement company still importing finished products as of 2018, after the waivers had expired, causing Dangote and other competitors to cry foul. Ibeto has since signed contracts with Sinoma to build its first manufacturing plants and to rehabilitate Nigercem’s Nkalagu plant after over a decade fighting his own ‘kinsmen’ in Ebonyi State to assume control of the plant post-privatization.

BTW, LaFarge is a publicly-traded company listed on the stock exchange, and so all of this informed is actually publicly-available (including the FACT that it has operated continuously in Nigeria since the 1960s and NEVER stopped production during the Obasanjo administration so that Dangote can enjoy a fabled “monopoly”), but again so long as we continue to elevate sentiments over FACTS we will be stuck in the abyss.
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Congrats to them and good luck...
But I hope the girl has a real job o!

Foodforthought:
Deceptive headline... to attract angry feminists

You saw that too...

gypsey:
See some Nigerians, Insulting, fighting themselves verbally and Giving themselves high BP on here, over a clear and truthfull message from an English guy.

Rather than holding their crooked politicians to Account . they are on here ranting.

Very interesting.

It may well be the “truth” but we sure as hell do not want to hear it from the British who created this mess in the first instance...
Meanwhile, it is NOT mutually tell the Brits to put a sock in it while simultaneously holding our politicians accountable (Fela did it daily)!

HeyCorleone:
I do not understand how the British rules for a century.

Lagos became a colony in 1897. We gained independence in 1960. How is that 100 years?

Besides, Nigeria was a colony of Britain, not a state. They didn't owe us so much. You agree they taught us education. They set up a university. Even before that, Nigerians had to take exams to schools in Europe and America, which was largely facilitated by the British. So how did they not try for us?

They gave us rail system. They introduced us to new values and schemes. I'm quite in a hurry, and busy, so I can't list out the achievements one by one.

But the British did a lot for Nigeria, compared to other colonies. They didn't even rule us for so long. They treated us better than some other colonies. It's impossible to think that Nigeria would have developed past this if we hadn't been colonised.

Nope! Lagos became a British colony in 1861...
And they didn’t “teach us education” but to read and write so that we can keep records/collect taxes for them. Education is a different animal.
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PrecisionFx:
What kind of daft reply is this?

How dies this connect with the fact that at a point during OBJ regime, only Dangote sold cement to the whole Nigeria until Yaradua came to Power, cancelled that monopoly n granted Cement import licence to Ibeto and the rest.

Pls I don't like discussing real issues with people born in year 2000.

So the UK’s Blue Circle/WAPCO and France’s LaFarge/Ashaka (as well as Heidelberg/Scancem’s CCNN) all shuttered their plants and stopped production while maintaining/paying idle expensive expatriate and indigenous staff, so that only Dangote can import cement?! LMBAO!!

What rumor mongers do not understand is that companies like Blue Circle and LaFarge are PUBLICLY-LISTED companies whose shares are listed and traded on stock exchanges, and accordingly if they have to stop operations for any reason, they are REQUIRED to publicly release such information because it would be what is classified by law as “material” information that would affect profits and thus stock value/prices.
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cescky:
See you..even if what you say is true..every single industry hes involved in he was given monopoly for more than four years before the gates were opened to others... every blind,deaf tom dick and harry will be in hhis position today if given such a chance

Feel free to name specifics...
But before you do, see my post just above.

Cement: Blue Circle/WAPCO (est. 1961); Heidelberg/CCNN (est. 1962)
Fertilizer: Notore/Kellogg (est. 1981); FESPAN Kaduna (est. 1976)
Petrochemicals: Indorama (Singapore) Eleme Petrochemicals (est. 1990)
Sugar: Flour Mills/Golden Sugar (est. 1978)
Tomato Paste: Erisco Foods (est. 2004); Jos Tomato (est. 2014)
Rice: Dangote (2018); Stallion Group (2014)
Refinery: Orient Refinery, Anambra State; 28 private refinery licenses BEFORE Dangote

Until Nigerians elevate FACTS over sentiment, this country is destined to remain mired in the abyss.

PrecisionFx:
Dangote once had 100% monopoly in the cement sector.

Yet again, misstating facts a million times will never change reality...

The UK’s Blue Circle’s WAPCO Ewekoro plant was built/launched in 1961 (the Sagamu plant followed about a decade or so later), while the Northern Regional government partnered with the German giant Heidelberg to incorporated the CCNN Cement in 1962 and its Sokoto plant built sometime thereafter, and they have been in CONTINUOUS operations ever since. Dangote was 4 years old in 1961 and 5 years in 1962.

HeyCorleone:
Now you're beginning to sound mad.

To say the British didn't do quality work in Nigeria is to tell a boldfaced lie. Read a book, ask old folks, research - Nigerians, before 1960, enjoyed a standard of living better than today. Far far far better. This is not to say that the British didn't exploit us, but there's nothing new about exploitation. It didn't start with the British. Even Nigerians, in those days, still exploited other Nigerians.

To say we learnt corruption from the British is to spite the black race as unintelligent beings who don't imbibe morals and good values. Blacks have always exploited each other. That was why they sold themselves as slaves. It's nothing new.

So stop sounding stupid and learn.

And as for the personal insults, that’s just CHILDISH and boorish, and I refuse to dignify it with a substantive response... SMH

HeyCorleone:
Now you're beginning to sound mad.

To say the British didn't do quality work in Nigeria is to tell a boldfaced lie. Read a book, ask old folks, research - Nigerians, before 1960, enjoyed a standard of living better than today. Far far far better. This is not to say that the British didn't exploit us, but there's nothing new about exploitation. It didn't start with the British. Even Nigerians, in those days, still exploited other Nigerians.

To say we learnt corruption from the British is to spite the black race as unintelligent begins who don't imbibe morals and good values. Blacks have always exploited each other. That was why they sold themselves as slaves. It's nothing new.

So stop sounding stupid and learn.

Exactly what “quality work” please?!

Please let’s leave the beer-parlor recollections of old people who grew up under colonialism and were miseducated to equate white with godliness. After all, there are folks (starting with your current President) who thinks that Abacha was a great leader for Nigeria. Rather, let’s look at the facts - after a century of ruling Nigeria, the British did not establish a single university! And before you jump in with old folks’ foggy recollections, yes they did leave a university college or campus, that did not have a single program in engineering or medicine, and all those other disciplines that would be useful for a newly-independent developing nation (in contrast, within 2 years or thereabouts post-independence, Nigerians has established 4 first-rate universities for themselves).

The physical infrastructure was even more atrocious. Rail lines (that those old foggies probably will wax nostalgic about) rarely moved between population centers (except by mere coincidence) but primarily moved between the ports and the hinterland, for two basic reasons: (1) to move raw materials and minerals from the hinterland to the ports for export to the UK, and (2) to move imported UK goods from the ports to the captive Nigerian market (captive because in those days the present-day system of global trade was non-existent). What passed for “education” was merely the ability to read and write (and in those days much premium was placed on cursive handwriting) because the SOLE purpose of ‘educating’ Africans was to maintain control over the population, particularly keeping tax and other records.

Frankly, it would take a veritable dissertation to do justice to the subject matter (which no one obviously has the time for), but it is always disgusting whenever I hear/read any supposedly-educated Nigerian/African extol the purported virtues of colonialism - even including the folks who lived in GRINDING POVERTY in an effectively Apartheid system, complete with “European Quarters” and “European Clubs”! SMH

PS: Btw, perhaps you are confusing me with someone else, because I never said anything about the British teaching us corruption (albeit they are CRUCIAL co-conspirators/enable by omission or commission in lots of corruption perpetuated by the Nigerian political/elite class).

Hier:
God bless Nigeria, this is a step forward. PrayForBuhari

What has Buhari to do with anything?
A company like ProForce has been building APCs in Nigeria well before 2015.

OBAGADAFFI:
But they still get thing done with their corruption.

What are we doing for ourselves.

We are trying to build something resembling a cohesive nation from the gibberish contraption they saddled us with...

BTW, you criminal Britons did NOT rebuild Korea...
The Koreans led by Gen. Park (who you vilified as a dictator) did so themselves.
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jarkbauer:
Forget the messenger listen to the message

What exactly is the “message”?

That while we may have underachieved (not least because we are still trying to build a nation from the contraption that his British brethren saddled us with for their own administrative and economic convenience), we have still done much better than the British did in a century (i.e., 100 years) of colonial rule. Does the fat-faced jamoke grasp what it takes to dismantle the physical and economic infrastructure that was set up over a period of 100 years to serve his country, together with the coercive forces (police, etc.) oriented towards control and oppression of, rather than service to, the general population. Somebody should stick a pin into where his brain should be and let out some of that empty gas!

BlacSmit:
Aliko gote charm don dey clear from people eye.

If only we all realize that Aliko gote and his scam schemes is one of the many reason we're in such a economic situation...

It not a question of unlawful monopoly. Dangote is a scammer. He takes loan from banks to make import and then converts its into national debt. (Don't argue na long story)

Dangote is far away from being a business man. Yahoo boys are more entrepreneurial than him.

I forgot one more “scam”...

Running an out-grower program for tomato, rice and sugarcane farmers in the communities near the Dangote Group’s farms and agricultural plants, under which the Dangote Group not only supplies local farmers with inputs such improved higher-yielding seedlings but guarantees to buy up to ALL of their produce at an agreed-upon market price, thereby guaranteeing them a readymade market. What a “scam” indeed! LOL

BlacSmit:
Aliko gote charm don dey clear from people eye.

If only we all realize that Aliko gote and his scam schemes is one of the many reason we're in such a economic situation...

It not a question of unlawful monopoly. Dangote is a scammer. He takes loan from banks to make import and then converts its into national debt. (Don't argue na long story)

Dangote is far away from being a business man. Yahoo boys are more entrepreneurial than him.

So his “scam” is to take bank loans, build some of the biggest manufacturing plants/refineries in the world here in Nigeria, employing directly and indirectly TENS OF THOUSANDS OF OUR FELLOW NIGERIANS (both in the construction and operational phases), and for Nigerian subcontractors, thereby sustaining livelihoods for even tens of thousands more of other fellow Nigerians who service such employed Nigerians (such as doctors, dentists, landlords, teachers, food vendors, local bukas, etc.)? Or is the real “scam” training THOUSANDS OF NIGERIANS (not just at the Dangote Academy, but also the many engineering graduates sent abroad to train for the refinery and petrochemical/fertilizer projects), and thereby providing life-long skills to these Nigerians not only for tens of thousands of direct and indirect NIGERIAN JOBS at the Dangote Group but for the remainder of their professional working lives, even long after they may have left the employ of the Dangote Group?

Perhaps the real “scam” is generating tax revenues (both corporate and income taxes from all those thousands of jobs created) for the government to hopefully invest in both much-needed physical and social infrastructure (such as public transportation, public education and healthcare)? Or perhaps it is contributing massively to turning Nigeria from the world’s second-largest importer of cement (reportedly only behind the US) to an exporter of cement, saving Nigeria billions in otherwise wasted foreign currency and even earning forex from exports and the Dangote Cement plants in different African countries. Of course, this same particular brand of “scam” will be replicated when the Dangote Refinery, together with the fertilizer and petrochemicals plants, become operational and thus not only save Nigeria billions of dollars from the current dumb importation of petroleum products, but earn Nigeria millions (possibly billions) from exportation of the plants’ products.

The fact that someone will idolize Yahoo boys who often steal people’s life savings, and routinely engage in crude backward superstitious ritual that often involves the MURDER OF FELLOW NIGERIANS, is a sad succinct commentary on the disturbed mindset of so many Nigerians.