₦airaland Forum

A flagship event which explores the world of home interiors, garden and lifestyle in a fresh and exciting way. The focus is on innovation, design, concepts and the next trends. We bridge the gap between innovators, inventors, creatives and the consumer. Lagos becomes the hub of ideas & innovation. This is an avenue to celebrate our innovation, celebrate our unique heritage, and celebrate our great city, Lagos.


Be part of the most innovative consumer home show and take advantage of an invaluable opportunity to showcase your unique products and services. Calling on individuals, corporate organizations, inventors and innovators, designers and product manufacturers, planners and landscapers, service professionals.

For Exhibition & Sponsorship enquiries:

Contact us: contact@stagexpo.com
@LagosHomeShow

A flagship event which explores the world of home interiors, garden and lifestyle in a fresh and exciting way. The focus is on innovation, design, concepts and the next trends. We bridge the gap between innovators, inventors, creatives and the consumer. Lagos becomes the hub of ideas & innovation. This is an avenue to celebrate our innovation, celebrate our unique heritage, and celebrate our great city, Lagos.


Be part of the most innovative consumer home show and take advantage of an invaluable opportunity to showcase your unique products and services. Calling on individuals, corporate organizations, inventors and innovators, designers and product manufacturers, planners and landscapers, service professionals.

For Exhibition & Sponsorship enquiries:

Contact us: contact@stagexpo.com
@LagosHomeShow

Please Help us and complete this 1min survey.

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Please Help us and complete this 1min survey.

We are a start up design company and your input will be really useful.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/T925FH8

Thank you!!!

Please Help us and complete this 1min survey.

We are a start up design company and your input will be really useful.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/T925FH8

Thank you!!!

Please Help us and complete this 1min survey.

We are a start up design company and your input will be really useful.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/T925FH8

Thank you!!!

Please Help us and complete this 1min survey.

We are a start up design company and your input will be really useful.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/T925FH8

Thank you!!!

Please Help us and complete this 1min survey.

We are a start up design company and your input will be really useful.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/T925FH8

Thank you!!!

Please Help us and complete this 1min survey.

We are a start up design company and your input will be really useful.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/T925FH8

Thank you!!!

Hey Guys,

Please help take this survey for a start up business. It only takes 2 minutes.

Thank you.


http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/T925FH8

Hey Guys,

Please help take this survey for a start up business. It only takes 2 minutes.

Thank you.


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http://antslittlethoughts..com



The thought alone sends shivers, The Nigerian Militant Islamic group is confirmation that illiteracy breeds radicalism. Boko Haram seeks the imposition of Sharia Law throughout the 36 states in Nigeria. Their outlook on Education is nothing short of ridiculous; Western and Non-Islamic Education is supposedly a sin and should be outlawed.

The group are at the moment like malignant tumours yet to become cancerous on the entire body; Nigeria. But do we have to wait till that happens? Only a few days ago the group killed 4 individuals and injured 6 in Bauchi. Jos neighbours Bauchi, and the fear is that Boko Haram could move into Jos; which is already a troubled and religiously divided state.

The government does nothing, they had received warning of a potential attack in Bauchi and no measure was taken to prevent it. I am sure nobody wants to see a repeat of the Bosnian tragedy take place in Nigeria. The worst thing about the Boko Haram group is that some of its members come from Chad, what has happened to our borders? Fundamentalists from neighbouring countries come and go freely.

Buachi’s & Jos’s problem will one day become Nigeria’s problem.

www.antslittlethoughts..com

http://antslittlethoughts..com/

If its not Zoning this, its North or South this, its military or Civilian that, The forthcoming elections and the controversy surrounding it , is single handedly selling most newspapers in Nigeria. Day after day, it’s one thing after the other and it’s frankly getting very tedious. Grown men fighting amongst themselves on whose turn it is to sit on that nice chair with the Nigerian coat of arms. People will always grumble and hiss at whoever becomes president. Obama is a perfect example, thoses who were battling to get him elected are the same ones currently plotting his political demise.

Tribalism is the root of most of the election hullabaloo and its an issue that refuses to go away; and most probably will never go away. There is a solution to Nigeria’s political woes; an ethnically ambiguous president. It’s simple, ’X’ will be (from the mother) quarter Northern, quarter Southern and (from the father), quarter Western, quarter Eastern. Even with that they’ll say ‘X’ represents his fathers tribe, negating the mothers. Then you’re back to square one again.

You see you can never satisfy people, when ethnicity is THE issue. But you can satisfy enough people when ABILITY is the issue.

www.antslittlethoughts..com

Federal Government's efforts to boost power generation and enhance electricity supply to Nigerians will soon get a lift, as it is set to sign another Gas Supply Purchase Agreement, GPSA, with Addax Petroleum Development Corporation, Vanguard has gathered. Ministry of Petroleum sources revealed that the GSPA would soon be signed with Addax for the supply of 100million standard cubic feet of gas per day for the firing of one the power plants under the National Integrated Power Plant, NIPP.

The gas is meant to fast track the completion and powering of the LOT3 Project Adanga-Calabar Gas Transmission Pipeline and now to be made available by 2011 contrary to the earlier scheduled June 2012. The GPSA will be the second of such agreements to be signed by government with power producers, the first being with Pan Ocean Oil and Gas Ltd, which was signed in May.

EPC contractor Confirming the Addax deal, the Engineering Procurement Contractor, EPC, Kaztec Engineering Ltd, an indigenous oil service firm said the move will fast track the completion of the 24-inch 107km Gas Transmission Pipeline and Metering Station valued at over $158m being built for the Adanga Power Plant awarded to Marubeni Engineering (W.A) Ltd.


Speaking on the GPSA, the Executive Director, Kaztec, Mr Adebanji Babarinde, commended President Goodluck Jonathan and the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke, for the success recorded with the initiative, saying that "it has successfully sorted out the issue of gas pricing and gas supply to enhance generation and distribution of electricity in the country."

Conducting journalists on a tour of the metering station now over 83 percent completed in Calabar, Cross River State, Kaztec's Project Manager, Mr Joseph Egona, said, "To this end, we shall commence Offshore Pipeline Construction works by end of September 2010 in order to make the best use of the dry season window from October 2010 to February 2011 as earlier planned by us in our schedule." He further disclosed, "KAZTEC has also been awarded a contract by Addax for the TB-1921 Installation works which include the Adanga Gas Platform where the offshore pipeline would hook up."

Egona also said that, KAZTEC has acquired a Pipe Lay/Construction Barge for the offshore installation to boost technical capacity; in line with its bid to become the company of choice in EPC services in the country.

"The Pipe Lay Barge would be utilized for the construction of the offshore pipeline segment. Efforts would now be geared towards fast tracking the installation of the sensitive works related to the delivery of the gas for the LOT3 project," he said.

Furthermore, he said the project also involves the construction of a 45km offshore pipeline.

Earlier, Mr Babarinde had listed the challenges facing the timely completion of the power plant to include "payment of compensation to host communities and getting payments for the work done; getting the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Ministry of Finance to issue Letters of Credit for the execution of the projects as at when due, as well as the adverse inflation often resulting to variations and avoidable and unnecessary delays over approval for these variations."

Also speaking on the challenges of the Gas pipeline, Mr Egona said the 510-mega watt, MW, power plant required about 140MMSCF/d of gas and the company is currently negotiating with an indigenous gas firm for the supply of the balance of 40MMSCF/d.

He noted that the gas pipeline has the capacity of 200MMSCF/d to accommodate future expansion. The civil engineer for the gas pipeline project, Mr Akenzua Agarose, noted that the original scope of work was expanded because 70 percent of the land is swampy while only 30 percent is normal land, as such Kaztec had to invest millions of naira in piling the site to the required level in preparation for the installation of the Metering Station.

The Guardian newspaper UK reports:

In the 12 years since Nigeria's corrupt dictator General Sani Abacha died in office, investigators have struggled to find out what happened to the estimated £2.2bn he siphoned out of his country's coffers during his brutal five-year rule.

Though at least $700m (£470m) has been returned to Nigeria, only a handful of people have ever been put on trial for their role in the brazen kleptocracy.

But in a historic move, a court in Jersey has sentenced one of Abacha's business associates to six years in the island's only jail, after he deposited in a St Helier bank account tens of millions of pounds from a deal to provide overpriced trucks to the Nigerian army.

Jersey's Royal Court heard how Raj Bhojwani – a 53-year-old multimillionaire businessman who set up a charity in Lagos providing free glasses to all shortsighted school children – deposited US$184m (£122m) in a Bank of India account on the island after checking Jersey's bank secrecy laws.

The money came from selling military vehicles to the Nigerian government at up to five times their actual price between 1996 and 1997 and then using the profit to pay bribes to top Nigerian officials, including Abacha and allegedly Colonel Mohammed Buba Marwa, Nigeria's current high commissioner to South Africa and a man touted as a future Nigerian president.

These two men were said to have received $100m (£66m), while Bhojwani's cut of the deal, according to the prosecution, was US$43.9m (£29.4m).

Bhojwani's deception came to light back in 2000, when the Financial Times printed an investigation into Abacha's looted billions – in particular money which was squirrelled away in two Swiss bank accounts registered in the names Kaiser and Seuze.

Keyser Soze was the name of a shadowy mafia leader in the film The Usual Suspects and these movie-influenced accounts were owned by Mohamed Abacha, the dictator's son and heir.

The day after the report was printed, Bhojwani withdrew the US$43.9m (£29.4m) out of his Jersey accounts for 11 days in an attempt to avoid detection.

After a long investigation, Bhojwani was arrested in 2007 and released on bail with a US$50m (£33.4m) surety.

Bhojwani himself never denied agreeing to overprice the trucks, but in a letter to the court maintained that his profit from the deal was actually around $25m (£16.6m), which grew to $43.9m (£29.4m) as a result of the way he invested it. While acknowledging that what he did was wrong, he said it was impossible to do business in Nigeria during Abacha's reign without paying enormous bribes.

But at the sentencing hearing last week, prosecution advocate Matthew Jowitt said that Bhojwani knew how much ordinary Nigerians suffered as a result of Abacha's repressive regime and yet he was happy to profit from their misery.

"The frauds committed in Nigeria, the criminal proceeds of which were received, possessed and handled by the Defendant in Jersey, were not frauds against fellow businessmen, or a limited class of investors," said Jowitt.

"They were frauds against a nation, and against its people. A people who, it is a matter for judicial note, rank amongst the most impoverished in the world."

He added: "This was money, both his own $40 million share, and the $100 million for Abacha and Marwa, which the people of Nigeria could not afford to lose.

"It was money which could and should have been spent for the good of the Nigerian people, in improving their lives. Instead it was siphoned off for the private benefit of these men."

The Royal Court in St Helier found Bhojwani earlier this year of three counts of money laundering. He has never been tried for any crime in Nigeria.

In a statement to the Guardian, Bhojwani's lawyer Paul Sugden suggested the case against his client was unfair.

He said: "Mr Bhojwani has not been charged with and has not anywhere been tried for offences of corruption or bribery.

"He alone amongst those against whom the Crown's case alleges wrongdoing in Nigeria has faced prosecution, a proposition which even the Swiss lawyer acting for Nigeria in its efforts to recover monies said to have been 'looted' by the Abacha regime suggests might be thought off as 'unfair'."


www.antslittlethoughts..com

Women in Nigeria have been advised to position themselves for an active role in the build up to the 2011 General Elections. A Former Minister of State for Women Affairs in Nigeria, Chief (Mrs.) Funke Adedoyin who made the appeal in Abeokuta at the 2010 Week of the Nigeria Association of Women Journalist (NAWOJ), stressed those Women in the Country should refrain from playing role of a second fiddle especially in Politics.

Who knows perhaps having more women in politics could be beneficial to the overall development of the country. Especially occupying positions of real power.


www.antslittlethoughts..com

Driving around Lagos one of the first things you can’t help but notice are the people who just lay helpless parading the streets. Only mobile with the assistance of skateboards or carted around in wheel barrows. This is how Nigeria treats its disabled citizens; left to fend for themselves. It is a stain on our conscience.
How can a country not have provisions that will help the most vulnerable of our society? How can we claim Nigeria is civilised when you see people clinging onto cars for the littlest of change. Other countries fund programmes for disabled people; anything from housing to enabling them to find suitable employment. Yet Nigeria has forgotten the concept of social responsibility. It is very upsetting; call me overly sensitive, but these are human beings not animals.


www.antslittlethoughts..com

**Breaking News
TEMBISA, South Africa -- Thousands of fans stampeded outside the stadium gates of a World Cup warmup game Sunday, five days before the start of soccer's showcase event.

Several fans could be seen falling under the crush of people, many wearing Nigeria jerseys. Nigeria was playing North Korea at 10,000-seat Makhulong Stadium in suburban Johannesburg.

The first rush came when the gates opened to allow fans into the stadium. Police soon closed the gates, but when they reopened a second rush occurred, with more people falling and being run over. Shortly after the second rush, the gates closed again and much of the crowd dispersed.

A police officer was bloodied in the crush and removed on a stretcher. Other fans who appeared slightly injured walked away as the mayhem calmed.

The teams were lining up for the national anthems when the second surge happened. They had no idea what was going on outside.


www.antslittlethoughts..com

On his twitter Bill Gates has verified that he will be heading to Nigeria to talk to leaders & partners,

https://twitter.com/BillGates

I just hope he can knock some sense into some of our leaders,

www.antslittlethoughts..com

The Guardian UK newspaper reports:

More oil is spilled from the Nigerian delta's network of terminals, pipes, pumping stations and oil platforms every year than has been lost in the Gulf of Mexico, the site of a major ecological catastrophe caused by oil that has poured from a leak triggered by the explosion that wrecked BP's Deepwater Horizon rig last month.That disaster, which claimed the lives of 11 rig workers, has made headlines round the world. By contrast, little information has emerged about the damage inflicted on the Niger delta. Yet the destruction there provides us with a far more accurate picture of the price we have to pay for drilling oil today.

On 1 May this year a ruptured ExxonMobil pipeline in the state of Akwa Ibom spilled more than a million gallons into the delta over seven days before the leak was stopped. Local people demonstrated against the company but say they were attacked by security guards. Community leaders are now demanding $1bn in compensation for the illness and loss of livelihood they suffered. Few expect they will succeed. In the meantime, thick balls of tar are being washed up along the coast.

Within days of the Ibeno spill, thousands of barrels of oil were spilled when the nearby Shell Trans Niger pipeline was attacked by rebels. A few days after that, a large oil slick was found floating on Lake Adibawa in Bayelsa state and another in Ogoniland. "We are faced with incessant oil spills from rusty pipes, some of which are 40 years old," said Bonny Otavie, a Bayelsa MP.

This point was backed by Williams Mkpa, a community leader in Ibeno: "Oil companies do not value our life; they want us to all die. In the past two years, we have experienced 10 oil spills and fishermen can no longer sustain their families. It is not tolerable."

According to Nigerian federal government figures, there were more than 7,000 spills between 1970 and 2000, and there are 2,000 official major spillages sites, many going back decades, with thousands of smaller ones still waiting to be cleared up. More than 1,000 spill cases have been filed against Shell alone.

Last month Shell admitted to spilling 14,000 tonnes of oil in 2009. The majority, said the company, was lost through two incidents – one in which the company claims that thieves damaged a wellhead at its Odidi field and another where militants bombed the Trans Escravos pipeline.


www.antslittlethoughts..com

*UPDATE

The WFP, which plans to assist 3.6 million people in the coming months, has described the humanitarian situation in the four affected countries (Chad, Niger, Mali & Northern Cameroon) as "critical", and says the hunger season is expected to last at least until the next harvest in September.

If you can recall Obasanjo once said that any Nigerian that was not prepared to die for his country did not deserve to be a citizen of Nigeria.

Is Nigeria really worth dying for in its current state?

Take the poll at www.antslittlethoughts..com

NIGERIA is now ranked 70 in the world for malicious attacks and cybercrime according to Symantec’s latest internet security threat report (volume XV) highlighted from January 1, 2009 to Dececember 31, 2009.
Mr. Gordon Love, Regional Director for Africa at Symantec said attacks have evolved from simple scams to highly sophisticated espionage campaigns targeting some of the world’s largest corporations and government entities.

He said Nigeria ranked number 43 in EMEA (Europe and Middle East Africa) and 70 in the world in 2009 for malicious activity. In comparison to the previous year, South Africa climbed seven places from 50 to 43 globally.
Also, given the potential for monetary gain from compromised corporate intellectual property (IP), cyber criminals have turned their attention towards enterprises.
The report found that attackers are leveraging the abundance of personal information openly available on social networking sites to synthesise socially engineered attacks on key individuals within targeted companies.

www.antslittlethoughts..com

The punch newspaper states:

A special team has been constituted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to investigate properties and assets whose owners cannot explain how they acquired them.
The commission’s Chairman, Mrs. Farida Waziri, who made this known in Abuja on Tuesday, also flayed multinational companies for encouraging and deepening corruption in Nigeria in their bids to win huge contracts.

The commission’s boss said, “While we expect the passage of our asset forfeiture bill by the National Assembly, we have decided to make use of Section 7 of the EFCC Establishment Act to go for the assets of the corrupt.

“As a result, I have just constituted a team that will, henceforth, go out to identify properties which means of acquisition cannot be explained by their owners. We promise they will forfeit them to government.”

www.antslittlethoughts..com

United States President Barack Obama may visit Nigeria soon.

A statement by the US State Department on Sunday, said that ahead of the expected visit, whose date was not given,  the US Deputy Secretary of State, Mr. Jacob ‘Jack‘ Lew, would meet with President Goodluck Jonathan and the leadership of the National Assembly this week.
Although the statement did not state the exact reason for Lew’s visit, sources in the department said he would be expected to, among other things, discuss the impending visit of Obama, Empowered Newswire reports.
Lew, who will also be in Mali and France, was expected to arrive in Abuja on Monday (yesterday).
The statement reads, ”Deputy Secretary Lew travels to Nigeria, Mali and Paris through May 28. In Nigeria, Deputy Secretary Lew is meeting with the newly inaugurated President and senior members of parliament.

Source: Africannewslive & Punch newspaper

www.antslittlethoughts..com

Aliko Dangote, a billionaire Nigerian industrialist, is in talks to buy the 16% stake being sold by Lady Nina Bracewell-Smith, the club’s fourth-largest shareholder. Dangote is understood to have registered his interest in buying the holding with Blackstone, the American finance house that has been given the job of finding a buyer for the shares.

Bracewell-Smith’s stake is currently worth £96m, but she is seeking up to £160m for the shares. Her holding is key to the future ownership of the north London club.

www.antslittlethoughts..com

strangleyo:
It would be nice to invade their country and dig up and sell their uranium, buy them food in return for their independence, and build a giant wall between us and them.

I pity them sha,

As long as they dont give me un-necessary hypertension, getting through the group stages is all I even ask for.

I beg oh be super eagles not super chickens,