₦airaland Forum

tkb417:
some blantant red herrings that has got no economic basis
i'm 100% sure the bankers that are engaged in "socially useless activities" are regulated.

it can only make sense if the regulatory authorities will read your post and gird thier loins in order to stem these activities u have enumerated
But if nothing can be done by these people, then these activities are rather "economically viable activities as against what you called them

No capitalist goes to the market thinking of being responsible to the society.
if capitalism is heinous as you have described, try socialism

Yes they are - so also are casinos!

The huge bonuses being paid to bankers currently and in the recent past is simply a HUGE CON and outright fraud in some cases! The world has always had bankers (and bonuses) and banking is an age old profession but, the massive multi-million bonus packages of today are a more recent invention by smart, intelligent, highly educated, politically savvy, overtly greedy and unconscionable bankers with the active passivity of governments and other custodians of public and private funds.

This has been achieved through the creation of highly complex, 'innovative' financial and investment products and services, outright misinformation, misjudgement (deliberate), incompetence (also deliberate), market hype, artificial markets and sublime insider dealing activities. Most of these activities have been described recently as 'socially useless activities' by Lord Turner of the FSA in the UK (wonder where his voice was prior).

Banks and bankers are crucial to the economy but, the more recent trend towards more and more involvement in 'socially useless activities' at great potential loss to others and great potential gain to themselves poses grave financial danger for the banks and the economy at large.

Majority of the more recent activities of banks and bankers are 'Zero-sum games' -  these create no value/wealth but designed to redistribute wealth from one party to another party without any increase in the overall original wealth/investment - of course the main beneficiaries being the banks and bankers!

The CBN did not PHYSICALLY PRINT any new notes. This money was already in the system with the banks in form of their indebtedness to the CBN through the expanded discount window.

What the CBN did was to turn this to a long term loan to be paid back over a long period of time. Basically an adjustment on the CBN's and the bank's balance sheets. This is similar to your bank turning a #1m overdraft (repayable on demand) to a 10 year loan. Technically it is still called 'Printing Money' or the more modern and preferred jargon 'quantitative easing'.

Dede1:
@ kkk_ng

Please do not pay any mind to that misguided drone. The dude is a demented cock sucker. Even when it was fed to him that his/her assertion amounted to market women talks and lacking intellectual deductions, he still has the audacity to follow up ignorantly.

Even the jackass never bordered to check the fact about statement pointing to a trend that suggests statistics of almost first in anything academic, inventive genius and academic achievements usually trace their ways to south-eastern zone of Nigeria.

Are you unable to stand on your own without having to look for sentimental support. First in 'anything academic' does not translate to critical mass. Saying the Westeners have more graduates does not mean they are more intelligent or otherwise than the other regions, this was down to the earlier heavy investment that was made in education by the earlier govt. of the western region, the same way the Northerners have more soldiers in the military and will continue to do so for a long time to come.

Stop frothing and take a deep breath - health warning.

Dede1:
I say an arrant nonsense to this baseless assertion. Is there any reason for someone with an average organized social order to let go an unsubstantiated statement in a public domain? In UK, USA and Canada, majority of intellectual gatherings that I have attended with mainly Nigerians as invitees have proportionately placed Ndigbo on the above average.

I am not here to argue on the behalf of Ndigbo but the group’s academic records speak loudly. For the sake of this discourse, let us assume for a moment that south-western zone of Nigeria trumps south-eastern zone on academics, I request that we approach very wisely the question posed by Mr. Walter Mandel, the USA presidential candidate of Democratic Party, “where is the beef”?

Statistics after statistics, data after data, in most cases first in every thing, the flow of inventive genius and pure academic achievements have managed to trace their ways to south-eastern zone of Nigeria or Ndigbo in general.

Baseless in your opinion does not change the reality on ground. I am not here to argue for or promote any particular region, but the above assertion I have made is the status quo like it or not! When it comes to trade/commerce one would readily give it to the easterners likewise politicking to the northerners, westerners value educational accomplishment above anything else and would go to any lenght to achieve this even if it means studing in Ghana, SA or wherever - same way the easterners are prepared to ply their trade in any corner of the globe.

What is nonsensical is your inability to be objective.

The data provided by JAMB is probably correct - there is currently more admission from the SE and SS region than the SW in Nigeria.

But looking at a bigger picture this does not mean that there are more SEers or SSers going to University than SW. The SWers have taken the quest for higher education to a different level. There are 10s of thousands of Nigerian undergraduates studing abroad, especially in Europe, and majority of them (just go to any Uni in the UK for example) are of SW origin. The average SW family, given the opportunity, will not spare any expense to send thier kids abroad to get quality education (in some cases even selling landed property or vehicles), this has been happening now for going on 2 decades hence the seemingly lower number of admissions from the SW region within Nigeria.

In the final analysis the SW region will still be the region with the highest number of graduates albeit a sizeable proportion with foreign degrees.

No one seems to have noticed the facebook profile pic of the guy with the bentley - that would have answered a lot of questions. Not every rich young Nigerian is fraudster, there are a lot of hard working enterprising ones out there! This guy is one of them.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/WEAR-IT-ALL/27477846443

For those who obviously are not getting the point, this was a press conference btw Saakashivili and Condoleezza Rice yesterday on the Russian invasion of Georgia where they were finding ways to broker an acceptable ceasefire (this was carried live by all major international broadcasters). Corruption or Nigeria were not the issue been discussed here. Even if he chose to deviate from the issues at hand and talk about corruption, he has neighbours in that region with worse corruption records, so why Nigeria?

jumobi1:
i no dey even vex but he could his points could have come across without naming countries, He is not too bright IMO.

Good point Jumobi1. He was bright enough thought not to name countries when he was complaning about the West especially Europe not paying his early warnings any attention.

Saakashivili talking about Georgia:

"This is the country that has the lowest corruption rate in the region according to the World Bank. This is the country which has the highest per capita FDI rate in the region. This is the country - this is the highest growth rate country among all known - all economies in the world. This is the country where - which moved from 140-something place in terms of business environment where we were in par with Nigeria and our neighbor, Russia, to being number 17 ahead of the UK., Germany, Netherlands, and some other leading world economies."

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/08/pres_saakashvili_sec_rice_pres.html

Now, I did have some sympathy for the Georgians, but all that has evaporated with this reckless, daft, undiplomatic utterance from Saakashvili.
Why bring us into this? What part did we have or not have to play in the whole crisis?

The appropriate Nigerian authorities would obviously not have heard or read this (and respond appropriately), or they probably did but found it amusing in their sheer ignorance.

This is an unnecessary, unprovoked slight on Nigeria from a man we have no business with.

@ Arnold1 - Brilliant! Comprehensive in-depth analysis of the the situation in Lagos and Nigeria in general. Our GDP is abysmally low due largely to our single product economy. We spend too much on imports, while we export (manufacture) so little.

Gov. Fashola has done well with the resources at his disposal. From Arnold1's post this is in the region of N15B a month - N180B a year, that is around $1.5B a year for a City of 15 million!

Fashola cannot create jobs for the multitude of unemployed in the state, the civil service can only accommodate so many, but the private sector can. What is within his capacity is to create a conducive and enabling environment that will encourage the private sector to invest in manufacturing, commerce, trade, etc which will lead to job creation, more taxes and subsequently more development - this I believe he is doing.

Nigeria does not owe the North anything. Same goes for the West, East and South. Soludo is a Nigerian and is speaking as a Nigerian for the benefit of Nigeria. The North are not sacred, a dose of straight talk is what we need in Nigeria and the North are getting a recommended dose of that from Soludo. More of that from eminent intelligent Nigerians and we will be on our way to our deserved place in the comity of Nations.

otesy:
I don't know about you, but travelling to Lagos by bus from Benin for me has become a really horrifying experience. The road is in terrible condition. The journey which ought to last for about 4 hours now takes 6hours and if you are terribly unlucky, be ready to spend 9 hours making the trip. It happened to me so I know what I am talking about. the volume of traffic on that road is something else coupled with the number of overloaded tippers and trucks which pass the road, it's no wonder it's in the state i is. I don't think that road was initially constructed to carry the load it currently carries and the shoddy repairs done recently can not and is not standing the test of time. The road is already ridden with craters and gulleys. Someone should do something about this before we have valleys in the centre of our express way. Sometimes I wonder if the transport ministry, ministry of works and Ferma are unaware of th untold hardship suffered by travellers when on that road. They spend our money flying over and as such do not understand the extent to which deterioration has set in. Air your views,

Actually this used to be a 2 hour journey. It is amazing how a Govt. cannot comprehend how 'little' they have to do to make a big difference in peoples lives.

Glo is obviously not in this with a short term grab-and-go strategy. They are in it for the long haul as evident by their consistent and ever growing huge investment in superior infrastructure and systems.

Yes, so more Kudos to Adenuga and his team.

Nigerians do not see a good thing when they see one! They would see it though if it is foreign: Microsoft, Coca cola, Walmart, Benz, BMW, BT, Shell, Deutsche Bank, Honda, Toyota, Vodafone, ABN Amro, Mobil, Chevron, Alcatel, BAE, Nike, Heinz, Kellogg's, Morgan Stanley, HSBC, Barclays, Siemens, Phillips, Sony, Toshiba, , these organisations are NOT perfect, BUT they are feted in their home countries and promoted as the best there is; 

When we learn to do this for our own home-grown brands - Then we can start to move forward.

Glo is currently the only Made-in-Nigeria product we have in Nigeria to export. This is a Start-up company that has changed the face of communications in Nigeria in just 6 yrs - they introduced per second billing, affordable sim cards and much more - MTN were not in the least interested in these! Any other country in the world would celebrate these remarkable achievements by an indigenous player.

No douth Glo would benefit from this, but they deserve it. One is hard pressed to find any other Nigerian player of its kind in any industry internationally.

Kudos is due here and I give it with unreservedly.

The guy did pretty well - He stood his ground (rightly or wrongly) and did not allow the host to intimidate him. He also showed matured restrain, a lot of the questions the show host was asking also needed to be asked about the UK govt., on the contrary I think it was the host that was rude.

Racism does manifest itself in one form or the other across the globe.  This case in question is most definitely a case of racism.  The British authorities would not DARE deport an American, Russian or Japanese national in the same manner as they did this 'gentleman'.  I do not fly the racism flag - but where there is a clear case of racism, irrespective of nationality or colour, then lets call it racism.  If the 'stand up guy' had been a white French, German or Canadian national they surely would not have treated him/her with the same callous disdain.  Imagine a plane load of Americans flying back to the US from London with an American deportee on board protesting the same way - this would never have happenned. 

Stop and Think - The Nigerian Gov./Airline deporting a British national from Lagos in this same degrading fashion in the presence of over a hundred other British nationals, and then asking them all to disembark? IMPOSSIBLE!!

The names and state of origin published do not actually tell us anything. A Nigerian involved in drug trafficking will almost certainly not use his/her real name, age, state of origin etc.

The bottomline - They are Nigerians; therefore a Nigerian problem.

'Cleaning security covers' otherwise known as 'wash-wash' or 'washing' is a well know scam by fraudsters to part fellow criminally minded individuals of money. The currency in question is usually USD but, could also be £s or Naira, the story usually is of the sort that they intercepted a large quantity(millions) of bank notes(e.g from a bullion van), but in the process the notes got stained from the security measures put in place to make the notes un-usable.

They of course know of a chemical that can wash off the security ink, of which they only have a very small quantity - this is where the request for money to buy chemicals comes in. There are other variations of the scam, but crucially the intended 'victim' is aware the bank notes were acquired illegitimately. 

The funny thing though is that the notes used as sample and apparently 'washed' in the presence of the 'victim' (fellow conspirator) are real but have been discoloured with an easily washable dye, which they then proceed to wash with some of the little chemical they could afford. The notes after being 'washed' are then given to the 'victim' to go and spend to prove it is real, which of course it is.

I would go further and call it miscarriage of justice. Agreed, the accused was involved in a fraudulent activity, so too was the complainant (Egyptian General):

"The accused with one Olafemi Ayeni, upon going to the office of the complainant, told him he wanted to buy some chemicals that would be used to clean security covers from the notes in boxes, for which the complainant parted with the sum."

Is cleaning security covers from bank notes now a legitimate business activity??

If the Accused (1st accused) has now being tried and jailed, the Complainant (2nd accused) should also be tried (and jailed) for criminal conspiracy relating to 'cleaning security covers from bank notes', the source of which must be fraudulent/criminal. If the authorities are not willing to charge both parties and justice meted out equitably, the case should not have gone to trial in the first instance or if it did thrown out by the judge.

Being an Egyptian (non-Nigerian) and a General I guess had a lot to do with it.

Dumb-ass-kissing, sell-your-people-out prosecution/judgement.

Eyohimself:
He must sell it for :


0.11*170270 + 0.055*170270 + 170270 = $198 364.55 ( $198 365--to the nearest $)

( Assuming they are making the gains on the cost price).

Eyohimself,

The agent must sell for $199,395(nearest $). 
Only Ann's gain is made on the initial cost price.
To the Agent the current cost price is 170270 + (0.11*170270) = $188,999.70
So, selling price is 188,999.70 + (0.055*188,99.70) = $199,394.68 ($199,395)

He had to go! No great manager can work with an overbearing and intrusive boss/owner (not just in football).  In other successful clubs the owner(s) are usually in the background, more of seen but not heard, footballing decisions are left to the managers.

Sven will be wishing (at least financially) he did not take the Man City job -  he would have been the most likely replacement.

Anyway one team less for Arsenal to worry about this season.

Hopefully he is for real and the government will give him the required backing when the 'games' start!

@texazzpete

Agreed that could be the case in some instances, but certainly not in majority of cases.  

There has been cases where Nigerians resident abroad(with the same skill set and experience) have not been offered expatriate remuneration because they are Nigerians.  I know a particular case where a Nigerian IT professional resident in the UK was called for an interview in Nigeria with a Multinational, a white South African was also called in for the same post.  At the end of the day they were impressed with him and offered him the job, he then insisted on being paid as an expatriate - they refused.  They said even though he was caring a British Passport he had a Nigerian name and therefore would be paid local rate. The white South African was given the Job and was paid expatriate wages.

There is no justification for this and we should not try and explain it away.  It will not happen anywhere else, yeah there may be a few instances where you can go abroad and command much higher wages than the locals, but not to the extent it happens in Nigeria. Some of these guys are not even experts, jobless opportunist more like.

And no they would not go out of business if they keep paying expatriate rates and even more - these coys make super abnormal profits in Nigeria!

Its no use complaining here. Your grievance should be directed to the source!  Draft a robust letter of complaint, get it signed by all of us that feel a grievance on this issue(especially on nl) and mail (email - this should not be hard to get) it to the MD/CEO of such organisations, forward same to the headquarters of the coys in question, to the respective government dept./agency that regulates these coys in their home countries and Nigeria, to media houses in that region, house of reps. and senate members, labour unions, NGOs that take a special interest in such matters, and whoever else you can think of, repeat this process as often as necessary till the desired result is achieved, then we are talking.   

Failing that the status quo continues!

Nothing wrong with having a joint account - as long as it is not your main account.

In real terms it should make no difference. $1 naira equivalent today will get you the same amount of goods as $1 naira equivalent in august 2008. The only thing changing here is the unit of currency NOT the value.  Imports and exports should still cost the same in real terms (subject to slight fluctuations while the dust settles).

There would be some initial teething admin/accounting and cost issues, but in the long run there would be positive benefits.  Like for like comparism with other economies will be more transparent, we will no longer have a false sense of accomplishment where we throw figures in billions around which will now become more realistic millions, and millions now become thousands. This should motivate businesses to higher efficiency and productivity because revenue/profits that seem huge in Naira pre-august 2008, will now look paltry when compared with global standards like for like.  We are better able to appreciate our currency and see it as a store of value (which is an important function of money).  
Why should a bag of rice be priced at #6000 or 6000 of the unit of any currency for that manner or a car #6.5million, these sort of figures can play negative games on the psyche of an individual.  Are we in a war zone?

1 pence and 1 cent coins are widely used and accepted in the UK and US, this gives their respective currencies perceived value, the adage every penny counts comes to mind.  Every kobo should also count, this new policy will help make this a possibility.

The PDP were in control of 28 of the 36 States including the presidency at the time of the elections, it is inconceivable that they would not have won the presidential elections (yes, by a lesser margin, but would have won all the same).  The presidential candidate is from a formidable power block in the north with, though lukewarm but, adequate support base in the west. They also had the presidential running mate from the south south -  this would have guaranteed them landslide victory in that region.  In fact, it would have required 'highly advanced and spellbounding rigging' (light years ahead) for any other party to have won!

Yar'dua is still the best option amongst the candidates available, he had his earlier stewardship in Katsina State as a precedent.  Buhari has his good points, but he is a bit extreme, does not understand politics or diplomacy and was in the wrong party.  Atiku - didn't stand a chance in the current dispensation - also credibility issues.

Nepa, Nitel, Ajaokuta, Nigeria Airways,  Same difference!  How can we now expect them to run the refineries efficiently! 
Now, who is to blame?  Govt? NNPC? Staff? Management? Corrupt politicians? Corrupt Businessmen? Or all of the above? Actually I think this is irrelevant. 

Bottomline - Govt. enterprises(Nigeria in particular) are not geared for efficiency and are inherently corrupt.  Why are we always trying to re-invent the wheel?  We have precedence in the western world, govt. and business don't mix.  The desks and chairs will always get paid irrespective of the financial state of the corporation(the govt. will always bail them out).  So what is the motivation for the staff? Why do they have to sit-up? No revenue targets, no profit targets, no accountability. so why should they care?  They will get paid anyway.

The refineries are no different from any of the other failed parastatals.  As at the close of bidding Bluestar were the only solution to the refineries, no other takers.  The only competence, technical know-how a business man needs to have is a proven track record of managing and sustaining a successful and profitable business.  Dangote and Co have this.  Whatever else they lack they can buy-in and them delegate.  If you and I had the required resources we can go out and buy a refinery, put in our expert management team then sit back and monitor. 
I also do not see how a refinery can be a strategic asset.  The govt. can always issue licences to build new refineries to counter any monopolistic tendency from those operating the current refineries if in private hands.

There is too much money at stake here.  According to Dangote we spend $9b a year importing fuel, at a conservative 20% profit margin we are looking at close to $2b($1.8 to be exact) that will not be going to the pockets of the current beneficiaries, without forgeting the corrupt regime and sharp practices within the NNPC itself.  So in total we could be talking close to $3b.  They won't give this up without a small scale war.  Yes, they seem to be working at some point, but even them they were still not at their optimum. 

Optimum capacity utilisation is what  we need to get out of these refineries, and that can only happen with private ownership.