₦airaland Forum

I know, I read the article too. Its ridiculous. Unfortunately I also read somewhere that a contract to build a pipeline from the Niger Delta to Abuja has just been awarded to a South Korean (I think it was) company. Insane isnt it?

Way to go chxta. Good to know that there are Nigerians out there with great minds. Rats! Now I'm going to have to pay attention to everything you post!

grrrr

chxta, tianshie, I am glad you guys agree with the perspectives I floated above. I guess all we can do now is hope for visionary leaders.

tianshie, I guess you are asking about the meaning of my screen name? If so, literally it means "one who dances as he walks." It refers to a type of Yoruba masquerading tradition which was popular up until the 1980s. Egungun alarinjo or apidan, or agbegijo as they are variously known, are itinerant entertainers who go from village to village performing magic tricks and acrobatic feats etc etc.

This is the logic:
Does Nigeria like fellow Islamic Countries behead people for sins against the Prophet .HELL YES
Did Nigeria like other Islamic Countries go up in flames,burning of churches and killing of Christans because of Danish Cartoons. HELL YES
Does Nigeria stone people to death for Adultery.HELL YES
Did Nigerians Celebrate after the 9/11 attacks. HELL YES
Does Nigeria have Islamic Law as its Criminal Justice System. HELL YES

mrmayor, I don't think most people will argue with you about the points you raised. But trying to tie all that into the green and white colors of the flag is still not logical, it is sensational!

You are substituting one argument for another, and that is what I am saying is not logical. To argue that Nigeria is an Islamic nation is one thing, but to suggest that this Islamization is represented by the colors of our flag is quite another. History and logic strongly suggest that the latter case cannot be made. Thanks.

The purpose of this thread is quite simply is Nigeria an Islamic Nation,the answer legally yes.If have of the country have Sharia law the  Islamic Code as the Legal Criminal Code.http://www.flags.net/ISCO.htm

Does the Nigerian National Colours give an indication of its Identity,the answer again is yes http://islam.about.com/library/weekly/aa060401b.htm

The purpose of this thread is not to determine whether Nigeria is an Islamic nation or not. It is to question whether the green white green colors of the Nigerian flag symbolize Islam. The answer is NO.

The flag was designed in 1959 by a christian, Michael Akinkunmi. Inspired by the lush vegetation he saw as he looked down the window of an aeroplane taking him to England for universty education, Akinkunmi chose to use green as part of the design he submitted for a competition which drew nearly 3000 applicants. White stands for peace, Akinkunmi's hope and prayer for the burgeoning nation which was already ethnically polarized even at independence.

To somehow attempt a connection between Akinkunmi, a christian's, 1959 design with Babangida's 1986 subscription to the OIC, or even Murtala's 1970's introduction of Sharia into the draft constitution is not logical and smirks of misinformation. Indeed, it would take a very wild conspiracy plot to connect the isolated events of 1959 to those which happend 17 years later in 1986.

This is logic:

Do many Islamic countries have green and white in their flags? Yes
Do all Islamic countries have green and white in their flags? No
Do many non-Islamic countries have green and white in their flags? Yes
Is Nigeria a member of the OIC? Yes
Do the green and white colors in the Nigerian flag represent this OIC membership? No

Please let us not get overly sensational about an issue which really doesnt make any sense.

All na strategy!

A few bullet points:
Based on the lastest BBC article on the subject: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5114980.stm

Plain Facts:

*African-Chinese trade has burgeoned since 2000 and was worth $40bn in 2005 - 35% more than the year before.

*African exports to China are rising by more than 50% a year, as its commodity-rich nations have helped satisfy China's demand for oil and raw materials.

*Beijing has a pro-active record on aid and debt relief, having given more than $5.5bn in assistance and cancelled the debt of 31 countries.

*In the past fifteen years, China's foreign investment in Africa has risen to $850m, while since 1995 China's share of total African exports has risen from just 1% to nearly 10%.

*China now accounts for 65% of total Sudanese exports and 35% of Angolan products sold abroad.

*Beijing is to supply anti-malaria drugs and build new schools in Tanzania, finance a cross-country railway in Angola and help Uganda develop its tourist industry.

*Cheap Chinese imports are a blessing for many African countries while the gradual opening-up of the Chinese economy is providing opportunities for African companies, particularly those from South Africa.

Brewer SAB Miller has invested $400m in China, while paper company Sappi, Absa bank and mining firms Anglo-American and Kumba Resources also have interests there.

*However, the reality is that China's influence in Africa looks set to grow further and some feel it is now seen as a role model by African nations.

"In the past China was poor, but now it is developing fast," says Zhang Xiang, vice president of the China Society of African Studies. "The African countries are increasingly willing to co-operate with China because they want to find out how China developed so fast."


Western Scepticism:

*Sceptics fear that Beijing's interest in Africa is driven by self-interest and that it is prepared to ignore political, environmental and humanitarian considerations in its search for new markets.

My response: Since when did Western interests become characterized by altruism? Yes, the West has paid 
attention to Africa's political, environmental and humanitarian conditions, but only insomuch as it has been to their benefit. Repeatedly, the biggest crises in Africa have been ignored by the West: Angola, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Somalia, Ruanda and currently Sudan is being given shortshrift. Whereas, Western oil companies continue to degrade the environement, fueling ethnic crises in places like Nigeria's Niger delta. What moral grounds do the West have in presenting themselves as better than China when it comes to humanitarian issues and economic equity?

*China's growing presence in Africa has attracted suspicion from those who believe that it is now pursuing economic gains in the same way that it sought ideological influence thirty years ago.

My response: And so what? America and Europe continue to absorb the best brains from around the world leaving a disastrous void in the "third-world" countries that these brains come from. Instead of insisting on the development of enabling economic environments in the home countries of these "immigrants," America and Europe would rather those countries remain the way they are so that they can continue to reap the best from all over the world. Hence, while they appear to make token gestures towards development in the form of meager AID and half-hearted PEACE KEEPING, they silently continue to absorb the minds and manpower who are able to consolidate the same token gestures. The result is a self defeating paradigm.

What the West calls China's quest for "ideological influence" is only Euro-America experiencing a taste of their own medicine. Not so palatable huh? Africa should also tow the same lines as the Chinese. Hypothetically, if Africa, through Chinese investments or whatever, is able to make its own economies attractive enough to encourage our great minds scattered all over the globe to return home and contiribute to further development, there will be a reverse of the brain drain, with Europe and America being on the loosing end. A double whammy right there! But this is a big IF. Will our leaders be smart enough to seize this great opportunity that lies ahead of us?

*Critics say there is a direct correlation between China's relentless economic growth, particularly its huge consumption of energy, and its deeper involvement with Africa.

My response: I believe America is the greatest consumer of energy in the world today. Someone getting a little uncomfortable from a little "Eastern" competition?

* The OECD argues that some countries could be harmed by their reliance on oil exports since this may prevent diversification into more labour intensive sectors like manufacturing and agro-business.

My response: True, but the West is not doing anything to encourage diversification of the economic sectors in Africa either. In fact, their obnoxious agricultural subsidies and import tarrifs make it virtually impossible for these African economies to diversify.  A full year after Gleneagles, they are still "talking" about the actualization of the promises made. The responsibility of diversification is that of the African governments and not of the West or East.

"We are tired of world leaders heaping praise on Make Poverty History while simultaneously stabbing us in the back by breaking their promises," said Peter Hardstaff, head of policy at the World Development Movement.

"We have seen numerous panels and monitoring bodies in the past. None of them have made the G8 any more likely to keep their promises," (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5115806.stm)

Did I hear someone say talk is cheap?


Feel free to add your perspective to the issues discussed above. Cheers!

Well guys, heres more fodder for the ongoing debate. A recent BBC piece on Angola: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/5080626.stm

I am not about to jump into this separationist debate, I detest it. I just wanted to say that if you guys are going to tear out one another's guts at least do it with some dignity. There are no tribes in Nigeria! (the exceptions might be a few remote groups here and there). Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa are not tribes, they are ethnic groups! What we do in Nigeria when we hate one another is not tribalism but ethnocentricism. The term tribe is very restricting and pejorative. In the popular imagination, it is reserved for those who wear grass skirts, dancing bear chested with dangling breasts and flashing chiseled teeth. They are supposed to have limited mobility and adaptability, and are less than 10 thousand in number, maybe even 5 thousand sef, etc. etc. I believe one of the reasons the old national anthem was changed was because of the line "Though tribe and tongue may differ, in brotherhood we stand!"

Ethnic groups are larger, more adaptible, are highly mobile and have a fluid sense of identity, i.e. you can become part of an ethnic group through various social means e.g. marriage or chosen geographic location. Tribes do not have that fuild sense of identity. You can only be born into a tribe. When you leave a tribal settlement, e.g when you leave your village in Nigeria to live in the US or Europe you may no longer be consider a part of that tribe. Ethnic identity remains with you no matter where you go in the world.

Perhaps one of the reasons we are still bickering amongs ourselves is that we see ourselves as tribes

Love to all. Peace.

@Zebudaya

Hehehe, you really got me laughing at myself there.

No be my fault my broda, na condition make crayfish back bend. You'd be surprised the things you will get used to eating when you have to live here in the US for a long time. When you don look up and down for correct iyan with egusi soup and goat meat no find am, you go dey begin chop rice without soup sef!

My cousin was at Iraq with the medical arm of the US military

Certainly, there is need for a great deal of caution here. But nothing is really without its risks. Either way, someone is hounding another person. So its left to us to go into the business arena prepared. But avoiding the arena altogether is no option at all!

I think thats a little wild

@ funloving

Grazie.

I really hope we are able to seize the game this time.

LOL, I thought so.

While I am aware that in Naija anything is possible, to be honest, I think Nigeria has moved beyond the era of coups. Every nation grows as its history unfolds, and I think that era of military dictatorship is now in our past. However, if a coup happens, it will almost definitely mark the demise of the nation. People are so pent up with frustration now that a massive outcry which may very well lead to the break up of the country will happen [exactly what you want to hear right ].

Even the northern military leaders, as obsene as they are, do not want the country to break up---for obvious reasons---so they are not likely to carry out a coup in this new civilian dispensation.

Well, funloving, of course all this anticipation for positive change is based on the sole premise that a new era or good and accountable leadership will begin in Africa. I think Ghana is already well on the track, and South Africa is also making great strides. To be honest, if we succeed in keeping out any of the ex-military leaders in the on-coming Nigerian presidential elections, I think Nigeria will have begun a new journey as well.

While you are right about the need for accountability in business I suggest that we do not give the Europeans and Americans too much credit for restraining our bad leaders. Quite the contrary, they have actually played very active roles in the corruption of our leaders, and any change of heart we might be witnessing from the West today is really ostensible.

I think the pressures put on Western governments by human rights watchers and activists, Nigerians/Africans playing a big role here, is what is finally making them to begin to tone down their open complicity in the corrupting of African leaders. Whatever the case, the West definitely deserves much less credit than you seem to have given them in your last post.

Gimme a gun a gas chamber and see what happens to criminals.
I am not a Nazi or Hitler fan but these criminals are wicked,no be small !

By all means, I would gladly have you exterminate all those bastards, but I'll be frank with you, you might have to purchase your weapons from the Chinese

LOL, Afeni. The part I like the most about your new thread is how you go "My Fellow Nigerians,"

Which is it:

1. A secessionists change of heart?
2. A pun on the popular military greeting that opens the announcement of a succesful coup or national address?
3. Wishful thinking on my part?

I hope it is only noise. I am not interested in trading with countries that will flood our market with cheap goods. What Nigeria needs to do is get markets open in developed countries. The goods in developed countries are just too expensive for the average Nigerian consumer to purchase, but our goods will be nice and cheap for them. That is the kind of situation that creates a nice large trade surplus.

I want Africans to rise up for themselves and become independent so that they can also go and conquer other nations economically

I wholeheartedly agree. Well, lets be fair, I think what is going on [at least what the African governments are saying] is that the deals being brokered now with the Chinese border more on infrastructural development and not the importation of finished goods [if I recall well, Nigeria has banned most of those imported products, especially fabric form Asia]. We all agree that we need to start producing, but without constant electricity, water, good roads etc, our industries cannot develop. Hence, bring in the Chinese who are ready to build these infrastructures in exchange for mineral resources e.g oil, chrome etc. which they are desperate for anyway. If this is truly the case we will be able to develop our own industries as well as control those industries. We wont have to import their cheap goods because we will be producing ours. The problem we have had with the Euro-Americans is that, they refuse to help us develop infrastructure because they know it will make us self dependent. They would rather continue to plunder our resources so that they can reward us with pittances in the form of AID etc etc. This is the cycle I think needs to be broken, and the Chinese-African alliances springing up may very well be the beginning of that economic revamping.

But that will only be possible if we first of all gather all these criminals called African Leaders together, shoot them and then begin to re-orient ourselves as a people that we can do it, with or without help.Preferrably without help

I concur. Who will bell the cat?

I do remember one thing an Italian government official said when the issue of banning Chinese textiles in Italy came up. He said, "we complain that the Chinese are taking over the industry but it is not the Chinese who are at fault. It is we Italians who are at fault for not producing." I think we can take a cue from that.

@Kazey

Why shouldn't they subsidize it for their own people?

lol, you're just bent on making this difficult for me abi? Ok, why shouldn't the Chinese reap us off too? Or are you saying you prefer to be ripped off by the whites rather than the Asians?

Seriously though, what should we do, how can a struggling Africa surmount all these economic problems? Me, I think there will always be risks in business, Chinese or Euro-American, its a matter of choosing the frog which has eggs (you be Yoruba man abi? translate that adage) so which of the two "frogs" should we go for?

@ Madira: Very nice post. What you said about the textile industry has had so much salience to the Nigerian economy.

A salient example(though outside the US) was the recent outright rejection of Chinese garments by the EU as the quota had been exceeded.
It is important that local trade is not undermined by the flooding of the clothes market by an uncontrolled influx of cheap goods because at the end of the day Nigerians would be the ones to loose out.

Nigeria has already witnessed the regretable effects of unchecked textile imports from Asia and elsewhere. We once had a thriving textile industry boasting several factories, which of course provided jobs to thousands of Nigerians, but all these have been run to the ground by unbridled Asian imports of fabrics such as ankara (wax/print) etc. Before you know it, they will even be producing adire and, heaven forbid, but they might end up spoiling the thriving indigenous adire/kampala industry in places like Abeokuta and Oyo. Sad thing is that the underlying constant with all these Chinese goods is their inferior quality. Unfortunately the poor masses will probably patronize the cheaper but inferior goods to the authentic, more expensive ones. Only the rich and elite few will go for the high quality products no matter how expensive.

N.B. Did you know that you can buy Agege bread in New York? Yes, Agege (spelt Agegge or something) made by the Asians. They are even duplicating our bread o! E gba mi!

Guess its like being between a rock and a hard place. The Asians might be vicious business men, but the Euro-Americans are just plain fraudsters! I mean, for example, how can African farmers gain access to the global economy if our European and American "trading partners" continue to put up insurmountable road blocks, e.g. subsidization of American/European farmers such that African farmers cannot cope with their prices?

With the Asians at least it seems to be "money for hand, back for ground"

@ Seeker, nawa o, the kin' research wey you dey do to come up with all this info dey serious o! Anyhow, some good info there putting a different spin on credibility of the "ex"-colonial, Harold Smith. So what are we to believe now?

Abi o brother I ask you the same question because, na yoruba and british who are so freaky freaky about manners and proper use of wordings and name spellings etc

Kazey. LOL, you are too funny. I guess you do have a point there.

So would you rather do business with the Europeans/Americans than the Asians?

Kazey, we certainly need to be careful. But I can't help thinking that suggesting that the Chinese will just stumble on raw materials and smuggle them out of the country under our very noses is ermmm, well, maybe a little farfetched

I mean, even the workers who will be doing the manual labor will be Africans so they'd have to be incredibly stealthy to sneak that one past us.

However, I know what you mean about the Asian viscousness in the Field of business. If the Chinese are anything like the Lebanese and Indians, then we really need to keep our noses in their faces!

I guess what I am wondering is, do u think that the Chinese principle of business outside politics is a better or worse option to the European and American style where political involvement is a prerequisite to business? I mean, they won't even let us have access to the global markets, but in the case of the Chinese it  appears, at least, that we are the ones dictating costs and a fair chunk of the terms of trade.

BTW are you British or Nigerian 

True word Kazey! And while I think of myself as Nigerian first, I am ethnically Yoruba   Anywho, what you said resonates with events that happened in Lagos some months ago when local traders at Mushin protested the presence of Chinese traders who were actually beginning to open kiosks in the local markets selling cheap goods which made "market" bad for local traders selling authentic but obviously more expensive goods.

On a semi larger scale, there are now at least two China towns in Lagos, but reactions by Nigerians have been mixed. While some see the extra competition as healthy, others think the Chinese are just flooding the market with cheap goods.

On the larger scale though, what do u think about such massive scale deals as selling the Chinese oil in exchange for massive infrastructural programs like the building of railroads and power stations etc? Zimbabwe is getting a couple new power plants in exchange for the chrome which they are selling to the Chinese? Do you think we could pull it off with smart leaders?