₦airaland Forum

I don't know what you mean by propaganda, is it that these pictures were photoshopped? We can at-least see them, we know there is still a lot to do in Lagos but this is really commendable. You may not like who Fashola is or the party he belongs to but you can't take his works away from him.

This is the new samsung advert on the new iPhone 6plus. Well played samsung!

America will know.

craziebone: mtchewwwwww

I understand. Nothing to say.

chulla12: Welll, call those articles eurocentric all you want, BUT there is an element of truth there.

I bet you would say the same assuming Nigeria/GEJ sent a probe to mars.

You can't compare Nigeria to India on that level, and NO, i won't say the same for Nigeria. India has developed their space program to a far higher level and it is business there, they have lunch more than 70 satellites and about 35 of those for foreign countries (many of them for developed countries). At the present, there is about $200 billions worth of business in space industry and every right thinking county want to have a share of it. What India is saying is that, they can do it well at a lesser price. Same can't be said of our space program here in Nigeria.

craziebone: cynicism go kill Nigerians oo! If you don't know about something, why don't you just ask? At least, that won't kill you! FYI, we have the BEST and the MOST active space programme in the whole of Africa. By next year, we will be sending a man to space.

You are joking right? Which space? I guess it is the space between your house and your next neighbour. None of Nigeria's satellite in the earth orbit was built and lunched from Nigeria. All na my friend help me. You are here talking about putting a man in space, I like your optimism but it doesn't help.

Just saw these on twitter by Will Ross @willintune, a BBC Nigeria Correspondent. These are the snapshots.

Rawani: You can trust the white supremacist western media to downplay and take a muted stance on this great accomplishment from the Indians. Their skin colour is not bright enough for them to to be taken serious.

Yes, you are right. MSM with their pull them down syndrome with comments like these:

Others like economist-activist Jean Dreze have said the mission "seems to be part of the Indian elite's delusional quest for superpower status".

or

What if the 16,000 scientists and engineers now working on space development were deployed instead to fix rotten sanitation? And why should donors bother to help tackle poverty where governments have enough spare resources to think about space? For some countries, at least, decent answers exist to such questions - See more at: http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/11/economist-explains-0#sthash.VCvriNyB.dpuf

or

From a distance, India's extra-terrestrial ambitions might seem like a waste of money. The country still has immense numbers of poor people: two-fifths of its children remain stunted from malnutrition and half the population lack proper toilets. - See more at: http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/11/economist-explains-0#sthash.VCvriNyB.dpuf


The truth is you can hardly read any MSM news or report without statements like these ending it.

Our space program here is just for embezzling and siphoning money. We sure have a long way to go. God help us.

India has successfully put a satellite into orbit around Mars on its first attempt.

The Mangalyaan robotic probe arrived in orbit early on Wednesday following a 10-month journey from Earth.
A 24-minute engine burn slowed the probe down enough to allow it to be captured by Mars' gravity.
PM Narendra Modi congratulated the scientists and said India had achieved the "near impossible by successfully reaching Mars".
It's the first country in the world to succeed in its first attempt to enter the Mars orbit, said S. Satish, a space expert based in Bangalore, India.
"It's a great technical achievement for the country," he said.

To date, only the U.S., Europe and the Soviets have successfully sent spacecraft to Mars. China's joint mission with Russia in 2011, which contained the Chinese Mars satellite, Yinhuo-1 stalled and eventually fell back to Earth. Japan's 1998 attempt with the spacecraft Nozomi was also unsuccessful due to fuel problems.

ISRO spent significantly less than NASA on its Mars mission. Some space observers noted that India's Mars orbiter cost less than the $100 million budget for the space thriller "Gravity."
"It shows how optimal is the design, that way we're able to cut cost and we're not compromising quality," Satish said.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-28268186
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/09/23/world/asia/mars-india-orbiter/index.html?hpt=ias_c1

But you are not the president.

With only government-controlled communication from northeastern Nigeria, there is a dearth of information about what territory Boko Haram actually controls.However, Anglican and Roman Catholic bishops in Nigeria often are better informed about reality on the ground than anybody else because their networks of local parishes staffed by priests cover most of the country.Hence the recent statement by the Roman Catholic archbishop of Maiduguri about Boko Haram deserves attention. The archbishop, Oliver Dashe Doeme, was born in 1960 and was made bishop of Maiduguri in 2009.

He lists twenty-five towns in Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa as under Boko Haram control (see image above).With respect to Bama, possibly the second largest city in Borno, he acknowledges that the government and Boko Haram both claim control, but observes that the exodus of people from the city indicates that the Islamists have the upper hand.

The archbishop states that Boko Haram has armored tanks, armored personnel carriers, rocket launchers, anti-aircraft guns, anti-tank weapons, sub-machine guns, “new and latest guns AK47,” and “inexhaustible boxes of ammunitions and bullets.”

The archbishop denounces the behavior of the security forces: “In the face of these attacks, they flee and ask civilians to do the same.” He is also highly critical of the Jonathan administration: “The near inaction of the government, the lukewarm attitude and the silence of the government is very disturbing. There is a total disconnection between what our so called leaders in Abuja report in the media and reality on the ground. We wish they have the courage to fly into these areas and see things for themselves.”

While the archbishop acknowledges that Boko Haram has killed many Muslims, he places Boko Haram firmly in the context of efforts to Islamicize northeast Nigeria, and that it has “an international face and connection.”

If the bishops statement is accurate, where do the armored vehicles and other weapons come from? Given their size, it is unlikely that Boko Haram procured them from Libya or some other place outside Nigeria. More likely is that they come from Nigerian armories, presumably stolen or supplied by Boko Haram sympathizers.

http://www.cfr.org/campbell/2014/09/19/boko-haram-control-in-northeast-nigeria/
http://blogs.cfr.org/campbell/2014/09/19/boko-haram-control-in-northeast-nigeria/

This is insane!

BEIJING -- For those complaining about the price of a new iPhone, try buying one in China.

Delayed by governmental red tape, the iPhone 6 is selling for as much as 10 times the U.S. price in a thriving black market that's popped up in a matter of days.

"You want an iPhone 6?" asked smugglers on Monday just outside Apple's flagship store in Beijing's fashionable Taikoo Li mall.

Sidling up to everyone entering or exiting the store, they made their pitch: $1,430 gets you the cheapest base model (seven times the U.S. price of $199 with a carrier contract). The iPhone 6 Plus was even costlier -- at more than $2,400 (versus $299 at U.S. stores).

But that's a steal, argued one smuggler, considering the fact that the smartphones can't be had at any price in China's official stores.

The smuggler, dressed all in black with a boxed iPhone tucked under one arm, said his crew had laid out their elaborate operation weeks in advance of the phone's Sept. 19 debut. Like most of the roughly 15 hawkers who swarmed around all three exits of the Beijing Apple Store, he declined to give his name.

But in an interview between his hard-selling pitches to passersby, he said his group had folks in line days ahead outside Apple Stores in Hong Kong, which is not bound by the same restrictions as China. Within hours, they sneaked their first iPhones across the border. Within the first day or so, they already had scores on the street.


While the current prices may seem ridiculous to some, they've already dropped a few points over the weekend, he lamented. "The first day, I was selling iPhone 6 Plus on the street for almost $3,100. Some paid $3,200 to have it delivered to their door."

All weekend, reports have popped up of overseas Chinese trying to get in on the action, including vacationers in Japan, those with relatives in the United States and Chinese smugglers flying in and out of other locales such as Australia.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/09/22/iphone-6s-being-sold-for-insane-amounts-of-money-in-china/?Post+generic=%3Ftid%3Dsm_twitter_washingtonpost

These people are moving very fast and it is just a matter of time for them to be developed. I hope Nigeria will move this way to develop her technology.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's first mission to Mars will attempt to put a spacecraft in orbit around the red planet next week, in a crucial test of a low-cost project carrying the country's hopes to join the leaders of a global space race.

A successful outcome for the $74-million mission would stiffen Prime Minister Narendra Modi's resolve to build new space launch facilities capable of handling heavier satellites, to make India a stronger player in the space technology market.

Launched last November, the Mars Orbiter Mission, called Mangalyaan, aims to study the planet's surface and mineral composition, and scan its atmosphere for methane, a chemical strongly tied to life on Earth.

If the spacecraft does manage to enter orbit around Mars on Sept. 24, India would become the first country to succeed on its first try. European, U.S. and Russian probes have managed to orbit or land on the planet, but only after several attempts.

"Confidence is high," V. Koteswara Rao, scientific secretary at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), told Reuters. "All the operations done so far are successful and all the parameters measured are normal."

ISRO has already uploaded commands to help the spacecraft automatically enter orbit on the morning of Sept. 24.

Two days before that, scientists will run a four-second test of a main engine that has been idle for about 300 days, and make a small course correction, Rao said.

However, experts say it will be challenging to get the trajectory right and cut the craft's speed from its current rate of 22 km (13.7 miles) per second to allow it to enter orbit. So also would be the task of receiving the faint signals it emits.

"It's like hitting a one-rupee coin about a hundred kilometers away, and that is tough," said Mayank N. Vahia, a scientist in the department of astronomy and astrophysics at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research.

ISRO has prepared a contingency plan. If the main engine fails to restart, eight small fuel-powered thrusters will be used to put the spacecraft into orbit around Mars.

LOW-COST MODEL & CHINA

India launched its space program five decades ago and developed its own rocket technology after Western powers imposed sanctions for a nuclear weapons test in 1974. In 2009, its Chandrayaan satellite found evidence of water on the moon.

Although facing strong competition from neighbour China, India aspires to be a low-cost supplier of space technology and grab a bigger slice of a more than $300-billion industry.

India has so far launched 40 foreign satellites, many of them for advanced nations.

Still, China has an edge, as it can put heavier satellites into orbit with its bigger launchers.

Modi aims to change that. In June, he hailed the Mars mission's low cost, saying it was less than the budget of the Hollywood space movie 'Gravity'.

A successful Mars mission would boost the global standing of India's state-run space agency.

"It increases the prestige and reliability of India as a spacefaring nation whose rockets and payloads are reliable enough for other countries to use," said Vahia.

India's Mangalyaan cost roughly a tenth of NASA's Mars mission Maven that will attempt to enter orbit around the planet three days earlier on Sept. 21.

Despite its recent success, India's space programme has often drawn criticism as Asia's third-largest economy still ranks poorly on basic social indicators of poverty and hunger.

http://news.yahoo.com/indias-mars-mission-enters-last-lap-faces-crucial-062409070.html

Where is the "To" in your title. I guess you mistakenly missed that out.

Rod production? Ajaokuta is more than a rod producing plant. Nigeria is not serious.

khafrahdante: Yes because Nigeria believes in legitimacy incase you dont know.We might be corrupt indoors but outdoors we do what is right

Hmmm, by smuggling $10m in another country abi? So legitimate.

Also left out of the update were Ogun, Ondo, Osun, Oyo, Sokoto, Jigawa, Imo, Gombe, Ekiti and Ebonyi States.
Others whose IGR were omitted for the period under review were Delta, Cross River, Benue, Bauchi and Abia States.

They left out 15 states out of 36. Seems some people are not ready to work.

This excuse is quite lame. ISIS, Boko Haram, etc., are getting arms to terrorise humanity. Is it a country like Nigeria that will find it difficult to get arms to fight terrorists?

There is no point now. The war ended about 40 years ago, it is very difficult to think that the Biafran army can win the war under any circumstance with the situation then. Everything was in the favour of the FG army. We need to move on brother.

RIP to a great hero.

Gallant Officer

This is really nice. Kano is showing the way...

Thank God o. We may soon go extinct if nothing is done.

chimoz: Enugu already have an underground carriage way. Stop beating your chests.

Okay, we have heard. Thank you for your contribution, it is well note. NEXT!

Why are Igbo people on NL this insecure? Always out to rubbish anything from the other side. Come to think of it, Kano is far more developed than any state in the south east and there are more than 2 million Igbo living in Kano. Why the hate?

Where are they running to? You cannot run away from what is in your body! If they like they could run to the end of the world, if they are afflicted Ebola will be waiting for them there. Better stay back and get treated.

The biggest country in Africa that the United Kingdom colonised is Nigeria. The biggest country that the United Kingdom colonised in Asia is India (which then comprised the present Pakistan and Bangladesh).

When the UK came into Nigeria and India, like all other countries they colonised, they brought along their technology, religion (Christianity), and culture: names, dressing, food, and language, among others. Try as hard as the British did, India rejected the British religion, names, dressing, food, and even language, but they did not reject the British technology. Today, 80.5 per cent of Indians are Hindus; 13.4 per cent Muslims; 2.3 per cent Christians; 1.9 per cent Sikhs; 0.8 per cent Buddhists, among others. Hindi is the official language of the government of India, but English is used extensively in business and administration and has the status of a “subsidiary official language.” Interestingly, it is rare to find an Indian with an English name or dressed in suit.

On the other hand, Nigeria embraced, to a large extent, the British religion, British culture – names, dressing, foods, and language – but, ironically, rejected the British technology. The difference between the Nigerian and the Indian experiences is that while India is proud of its heritage, Nigeria takes little pride in its own heritage, a situation that has affected the nationalism of Nigerians and our development as a nation.

Before the advent of Christianity, the Arabs had brought Islam into Nigeria through the North. Islam also wiped away much of the culture of Northern Nigeria. Today, the North has only Sharia courts but no Customary courts. So from the North to the South of Nigeria, the Western World and the Eastern World have shaped our lives to be like theirs and we have lost much or all of our identity.

Long after the Whites and Arabs left Nigeria, Nigeria has waxed strong in religion to the extent that Nigerians now set up branches of their home-grown churches in Europe, the Americas, Asia and other African countries. Just like the Whites brought the gospel to us, Nigerians now take the gospel back to the Whites. In Islam, we are also very vibrant to the extent that if there is a blasphemous comment against Islam in Denmark or the US, even if there is no violent reaction in Saudi Arabia, the Islamic headquarters of the world, there will be loss of lives and destruction of property in Nigeria. If the United Arab Emirates, a country with 75 per cent Muslims, is erecting the tallest building in the world and encouraging the world to come and invest in its territory by providing a friendly environment, Boko Haram ensures that the economy of the North (and by extension that of Nigeria) is crippled with bombs and bullets unless every Nigerian converts to Boko Haram’s brand of Islam. We are indeed a very religious people.

Meanwhile, as we are building the biggest churches and mosques, the Indians, South Africans, Chinese, Europeans and Americans have taken over our key markets: telecoms, satellite TV, multinationals, banking, oil and gas, automobile, aviation, and hospitality industries among others.

Ironically, despite our exploits in religion, we are a people with little godliness, a people without scruples. It is rare to do business with a Nigerian pastor, deacon, knight, elder, brother, sister, imam, mullah, mallam, alhaji or alhaja without the person laying landmines of bribes and deception on your path. We call it PR, facilitation fee, processing fee, transport money, financial engineering, deal, or whatever. But if it does not change hands, no show. And when it is amassed, we say it is “God’s blessings.” Some people assume that sleaze is a problem of public functionaries, but the private sector seems to be worse than the public sector these days.

One would have assumed that the more churches and mosques that spring up in every nook and cranny of Nigeria, the higher the morals in our society. But it is not so. The situation is that the more religious we get, the baser we become. Our land never knew the type of bloodshed experienced from religious extremists, political desperadoes, ritual killers, armed robbers, kidnappers, internet scammers, university cultists, and lynch mobs. Life has become so cheap and brutish that everyday seems to be a bonanza.

We import petrol even when we have crude oil in abundance. We also import rice and beans that our land can produce in abundance. We even import toothpicks that primary school children can produce with little or no effort. Yet, we drive the best of cars and live in the best of edifices, visit the best places in the world for holidays and use the most expensive electronic and telecoms gadgets. It is now a sign of poverty for a Nigerian to ride a saloon car. Four-wheel drive vehicles are the in thing. Even government officials, who were known to use only Peugeot products as official cars as a sign of modesty, have upgraded to Toyota Prado as official vehicle without any iota of shame, in a country where about 70 per cent live below poverty line. Private jets have become as common as cars. A nation that imports toothpicks and pins flaunts wealth and wallows in ostentation at a time its children are trooping to Ghana, South Africa and the UK for university education and its sick people are running to India for treatment.

India produces automobile and exports it to the world. India’s medical care is second to none, with even Americans and Europeans travelling to the country for medical treatment. India has joined the nuclear powers nations. India has launched a successful mission to the moon. Yet bicycles and tricycles are common sights in India. But in Nigeria, only the wretched of the earth ride bicycles.

I have intentionally chosen to compare Nigeria with India rather than China, South Korea, Brazil, Malaysia, or Singapore, because of the similarities between India and Nigeria. But these countries were not as promising as Nigeria at the time of our independence.

Some would say that our undoing is our size: the 2012 United Nations estimate puts Nigeria’s population at 166,000 million, while India has a population of 1.2 billion. Some would blame it on the multiplicity of ethnic groups: we have 250 ethnic groups, India has more than 2,000. Some would hang it on the diversity in religion: we have two major religions — Christianity and Islam; but India has many. Some would say it is because we are young as an independent nation: we have 52 years of independence; India has 65 years. Apartheid ended in South Africa only in 1994.

I am a Christian, and nothing can change me from Christianity. But I think that our country is daily sinking into religiosity to the detriment of godliness. Our land is sick and needs healing. “If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land” is still a saying that is germane to our current situation. We need more godliness than religion; more work and less of hope; and more action and less of words.

Let everyone tidy up his or her corner first and demand fervently that our leaders tidy their areas of governance. Our nation is degenerating at a fast pace and we need to save it now or it may be too late.

http://www.punchng.com/opinion/nigeria-exports-religion-india-exports-cars/