₦airaland Forum

mens dept:
Including the name changes. We still call ourselves those from the Nigga (Niger) Area that one pencil Oyibo woman who prob never even made it to Calabar or Illorin coined nearly 100 years ago. Shame.

i know right? we should have changed this bloody name too because it was given to us from a bloody european journalist of all people but we never got our act together to determine our own destinies in time. now all that doesn't matter. we need to work out how to free ourselves from this bondage and it starts with us. being critical of our problems and it transcends all ethnic groups in nigeria. we all need to take a good look at ourselves and work out why we haven't progressed as much as we should, unite and work out solutions. stop the stupid bickering!

EzeUche_:
The colonialist dream was to keep Nigeria one, without any concern for the people who lived within the region.

One day Africans will learn that the map of Africa needs to be redrawn instead of keeping this relic of a colonial legacy.

and we are playing into their hands do you not see that?? redrawing the map is not the bloody problem. if that was going to happen it would have by now. we just haven't been bothered to do much since they left.

it may have been a good idea a while back but we didn't do it then so forget about that now.

now we need to mmove on. 150 million people in a country is a great advantage in terms of man power. the cultural diversity could be a great asset to the country. but no, we jut moan and fight and bitch and stay stagnant

super!

well i have to say, you are all a colonialists dream. keep on fighting amongst yourselves children.

werepeLeri:
lol.

You cant know better than the millions who vote for GEJ. If you think they are wrong, go to court or wait for the next four years. Dont force your opinion on the millions who voted for him. I bet you will say they are not Nigerians?

Abeg. This na medicine after death. Your master Buhari is sharing sword to fight., go get one.

i am not supporting buhari. i am not one anybody's side. why is it so hard for you to realise that i am making the point that we have a severe shortage of viable leaders in this country and people blidly supporting goodluck, buhari or whoever are a detriment to the country?

look at the facts and their track record and judge these people on what they have done!! don't think you're being smart by supporting any old leader like one would support a football team and insult people who support someone else on nairaland. this is helping nobody in the country and is such a moronic way of behaving. but i guess nigerians are happy with their lot. maybe all this pettiness distracts from the awful realities of the country

i saw that link too. smh. well fools will always feel some happy in being able to be smart-asses behind a computer - well, until our wonderful president switches the electricity off!

get rid of this stupid zoning system. that is all

werepeLeri:
lol.

This thread is so empty and meaningless. Poster. Why not buy a ticket and go to Bayelsa and make your research instead of asking people in here.

LOL. Bitter folks will use this to vent their post election trauma, trauma because all their positions and calculations about Buhari winning and GEJ loosing came to nothing.

Poster. You are taking panadol after your headache is healed already.

what is the matter with you? why don't you want more for yourself and your country? i asked this question with an open mind and the thread has spoken. apparently goodluck hasn't achieved much. why aren't you annoyed with that fact rather than being petty and childish? making unwitty comments about panadol doesn't help anybody.

well i guess this means that he hasn't got a proven track record. thanks for all your answers

yes joecrack. in fact we need more young nigerian people learning about what great men like Lula can do for their country and people. What pride can do for a country. That combined with a knowledge of political economy, we have a recipe for a leader. A leader by the real definition of the word

@t9ksy - so you're saying that he was just the best of a bad bunch? how sad

buhari needs to disappear anyway.

@eko - right well that' just great. let's look after the corrupt and give them cushy posts because they've done us dodgy favours in the past. and nigeria - let's look forward to another wasted 4 years. thanks for your answer

if anyone has any sources i would still be grateful. why do we settle for such a ridiculous system. where are the journalists scrutinising these so-called politicians. where are nigerian political journalists

oh yeah he was just squeaky clean

http://thenigerianarchive./2010/12/09/wikileak-dead-presidents-dodgy-dealings-and-his-very-own-mr-fix-it/

yes but he won the vast majority in states other than bayelsa too. even in yoruba states. all i want are some sources to why people voted for him

hopefully Mr Lula is coaching Goodluck on how to be socially conscious like he was in Brazil during his time

i mean people turned out to vote for him right? on what basis?

lol i knew someone would say that. i know but hopefully we will be able to scrutinize potential leaders better in the future. now can someone please provide me with some sources?

can anyone post any links containing facts about goodluck's achievements while he was deputy/governor of Bayelsa state?

thank you

the muslim religion has been twisted by a few who have their own agendas. muslims, especially in nigeria, should be able to live peacefully alongside christians. i have a post about this on my blog www.thenigerianarchive.

Emperoh:
I am really not impressed with the way you have chosen to address this issue in as much as i buy so much into your idea. Insulting people who do not see things your way doesn't present you as a person with an intention to 'enlighten'. The way they have argued and the way you have argued equally haven't shown equally any particular depth to the issue but merely someone taking a different view to an issue and then being unnecessarily angry to with other people's views.

You see, much as i strongly detest the imperialism and bias being unabashedly portrayed by the west, i still blame most African and Arab leaders for giving the west an instrument to fight them. You could well see issues of sit-tight, dictatorship and high-handedness and you are asking yourself if they are really fighting for their people?

My dear, it is just a cocktail of selfish interests masquerading as public interests just to get a personal hold on a country's natural resources for themselves and their cronies. If they were so much as fighting for the people, i ask, why not groom a person of equal or like mind and get him or her to take over when his tenure is done.

But we see constitution amendment and unnecessary media propaganda when the time to step aside comes. African leaders need to learn and become more intelligent. The Western Media is so strong that people latch on to it for information- dependency theory- to get by politically. It is therefore left for them to realise the likely scenarios that will play out and avoid them. They are the ones who will open up themselves to these people in the first instance and neglect their people? You cited the case of Mugabe and am wondering what a leader still has to offer after 31 years!!! Is there no other person in the whole of Zimbabwe who can do much better than he can while maintaining the anti-imperialism stance he has?

It is still African leaders who invite and partner with these westerners. Why do they loot us blind? Why are they even the first to get information not available to local journalists? If we can't rise above pecuniary interests and fight for a common good, the imperialists will keep latching on to bad governance to return to Africa. Our leaders need to be more intelligent than they currently are!!

jaw jaw:
I thought the man said he would never surrender. The time has come and he can't die fighting for what he believes in yet he allowed a war to rage on and consume innocent civilians. Gbagbo is nothing but a typical chicken livered-sit tight african leader who will normally make all the noise when he has the oppurtunity and crumble when the chips are down.

What surprises me most is our attitude to blame Europe and America everytime we have a problem in Africa. We shout western Imperialism when we look for an excuse and can't find one.

Gbagbo has been in power since 2000 (over 10 years) and what has he achieved within this period? Was he not supposed to negotiate peace and unite his country men in the 10 years if he really cared about them?

If he really didnt lose the 2010 election, was his ambition to remain president worth the war and resulting deaths of his people? ECOWAS and AU leaders negotiated several times with him to find a political solution and the man refused blatantly each time and yet we blame western imperialist.

It only takes a blind and selfish man like Gbagbo not to realise that when the world is against you, you can never win. The UN had declare that Ouattara won the elction, the EU and America agreed with them. Even his fellow African leaders had followed suit and yet the man still clung to power like it was his birth right. Thats pure foolishness and high level stupidity. As far as I am concerned the man should not be allowed to go free. He should pay for allowing this war to happen and for the deaths of his fellow Ivoriens who did not deserve to die because of his greed and selfishness.

The only way to fight the so called Western Imperialism is to build your economy to match their own and unite your people. With your people solidly behind you you can then fight the west with your economy and economic fundamentals. If you attempt to go to war with them you will NEVER win. They have the money to fund a war that will last several years and are way ahead technologically especially in war technology. They will come to your land and test their new bombs, fighter jets amd war equipment knowing fully well that they had previously sold older versions to you (they also intend to sell these new war equipments to you later). At the end of the war, when they have damage your country and its infrastructure with their bombs, they will recoup their war expenses from your economy which means you have lost two times over (Iraq and Libya are simple examples).

1025:
gbagbo is no different from other african leaders. in 2007, we saw how a single man selected and imposed two dullards on us and nothing happened.
since jonathan took over govt, many will agree with me that nigeria has lost more lives than the troubled ivory coast.
when a president who swore an oath to protect our lives and properties watch us die in riots, kidnapping and accidents everyday, he can be termed a failure.
bombs and bombings have become a culture in our own nigeria that we call peaceful.
what gbagbo is doing in abidjan is just as good as rejection of oposition and that is exactly what pdp is doing back home. gbagbo has been the president for 12 yrs and pdp have been arround for 12 yrs.
in all, the same group of criminals are still in charge.
we saw how the inec woman in ekiti took to her heels when water pass garri and we all saw how she announce the results under durex. jega is ready to resign now but jonathan is saying, u must do it.
let us pray that it will not go beyond what we have been seeing.

the best answers on this thread.

New post at www.thenigerianarchive.

Feel free to comment!

assange is cheese and a troublemaker but the leaks are an amazing gift for the normal person to view. you can read the latest wikileaks extracts on nigeria at my blog www.thenigerianarchive.

well some will moan and whine about it, just like (i think) seun said, we can never know what africa would have turned out like without colonialism. what i do know, however, is that we cant blame colonialism for the state of africa. africa is in the state it is because of the people and the government. we are the ones who can change our fate - as soon as we stop blaming everyone else and develop some pride and ambition, africa can truly prosper.

yes i know - it's an idealist fantasy that would probably not work but the ruling party is going to carry on regardless. pdp has been in power for 12 years and jonathan looks set to win again. have a look at his site - full of promises and some wise ideas for solutions but we'll see if any substantial change is made in the next 4 years. i think we will all be bitterly disappointed, again

vision, education, pride and compassion. that's what we need in leaders we elect. i would love to see a boycott in the next general election as none of the candidates have these credentials. i see them all as greedy oafs waiting in line to take their slice of the pie without doing anything to help bake it.

er, think a national rail network may make more sense for the immediate future? step by step now,

corruption is part of the problem of course - the scale of nigeria's corruption means that money that could be used to accelerate nigeria's growth is being stolen. it means that nigerians don't get the infrastructure that they deserve - infrastructure that could rival other developed or developing nations. but of course there is corruption in every country that there is people - nigeria is plagued by a whole loads of over anti-developmental issues like tribalism, religious conflict, backwards mind-set amongst a lot of the citizens, religious over-zealousness and a lack of fore-sight and pride. i have posts on some of these issues on my blog www.thenigerianarchive.

pride makes you want to excel. makes you want to show others what you are about. britain had this. japan had this. the usa had this. most african countries, including nigeria don't.

check out my blog and see what you think. commentary, news, polls and wikileaks extracts so you stay in the know - www.thenigerianarchive.

Also read 'WikiLeaks: Foreign investors turn away from sub-saharan Africa' at www.thenigerianarchive.