₦airaland Forum

Akhenaten:
Wait for a second people, do not get upset with the author of this piece. I know him personally and he is a good guy who cares about the Ndi Igbo just like me.

He brought up some very good points and I thought I should share. "One Nigeria" is a pipe dream. He is a realist just like me. I might be a Pan-African, but I definitely want what is best for my people.

i think you should know what threads ought to be in culture section rather than political section.

jason123:
I know what you mean but the reason that seems so is because the former capital was in Lagos (SW) and the new capital is in Abuja (north). With the combination of these factors, it seems that people (including igbos) only invest in those regions.

i hope you know that before abuja started becoming important from 1990 portharcourt has already being existing and waxing strong yedt the same apathy.

it seems someone is looking for attention

Monkeyleg and wesley80 both of you are from delta north so please quit assuming other ethnicites for yourselves.

Andre Uweh:
Eziokwu ka i kwuru.
Mana onwere some people who do not know how to write in Igbo.

i daala ya

Ibime

Sullivan won the pdp primaries.

PhysicsMHD:
Are Urhobos and Ijaws Yoruba?

What's this about them not functioning well if they stand on their own?

Edo and Delta have a higher GDP per capita than every other state that came out of the Western region.

are you sure about that?

Oladiran:
On sunday, somewhere aroud Rukuba Road a young boy was killed by the so-called christian youths! Why? The boy looks an hausa boy and his face was not familiar in the area, when asked to declare his identity he said he his from Plateau (as his father is from plateau) but his mother is from Maiduguri and the Maiduguri connection actually ended his life! On saturday my landlady(she is from plateau, married to a Nassarawan)went to Dilimi market when all hell broke loose, she ran into the old JUTH for safety while there a man jumped the fence to escape being lynched after having been shot and stabbed! the narrated to them that in the mayhem a bullet strucked his child(they were in his car together) on the head while he was trying to rescue his child a mob was approaching and he had to run for his life while they stabbed and shot at him and eventually burnt his car with his child!
yesterday at about 10:30pm there was a report(you can call it a rumour)that some people will be attacking a village in Riyom LGA, now I cannot really sleep for fear of being attacked.

Bros try relocating to southwest now.

[quote author=ndu_chucks link=topic=583162.msg7512326#msg7512326 date=1294790910]Why do you people enjoy spreading blatant lies and deceiving yourselves? Please provide us with evidence that Igbos were attacked and their shops and churches were ever burnt at anytime between 1960 and 1964.[/quote]why limit it to 1960 to 1964?

what of the 1953 kano riot?

http://books.google.com.ng/books?id=3FHvvW1TclIC&pg=PA49&lpg=PA49&dq=1953+kano+riot+igbos&source=bl&ots=RhK4vYQZ3M&sig=VUQxLrJIVl_Z3XqY2oeeHdy1apk&hl=en&ei=2fMsTZvjNMKnhAepg_z0CA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=1953%20kano%20riot%20igbos&f=false

it is matter of growing tough skin.nothing new.after all i at times is being mocked by my state of origin friends (imo state) that my people (obowu) are carriers of goat at the back.

fingard02k:
I dont know why this is still happening in igboland.Why do we discriminate our fellow igbo brother and sisters?,What have they done that other igbo tribes have not committed before?.Im talking about ebonyi people (abakeleke or nwa aba in an offenceive way).I had been wittnessing this day in day out,calling them all sorts of name,anything bad,is nwa aba,fight,robbery,any mistake from okada man is nwa aba.this have now made most of them (ebonyi people) to denie,ashamed of their state of origin,some will even fight you if you tell or call them nwa aba,abakiliki.many of their girl are regarded as nothing even if she is beautiful or not.they are seen as animal especial here in awka and anambra in general and other parts of igboland (im anambrarian).their is this thing that people says about that made me to bring it up here,'if abakiliki man and snake enter his/her house that he/she chase away abakiliki and leave the snake' its a popular saying.I have been adviceing people to stop it but its just like pouring water in a basket.Please help make them to understand we are one.

mbaise people are also referred to in such a way so nothing new.

fingard02k:
@abagworo
is because you dont live here (anambra).Both ezza,ikwo,izzi,abakiliki etc are all being discriminated.Once they (people) know that you are from ebonyi,you will be regarded as nothing,animal.Even hausa people mock them by calling them nwa aba[b].Those people have suffered alot from both anambrarians,enugu,imo,abia that resides in anambra[/b]

hehe have anambrarians stopped reffering to guys from imo state as being poor and only pursuing academics(ndi oke akwukwo)

Akhenaten:
I do agree that Ebonyi people are often mocked. Many Igbos considered the Igbo clans from Ebonyi as backwards in a way. However, I do not think it is outright discrimination in the sense that they are preventing Igbos from Ebonyi state from achieving anything.

Igbos are known to talk about other clans so you should not lose sleep over that. People in my region like to make fun of Mbaise people. It is just harmless stereotypes.

You find this in many countries. People from New York dislike people from Boston. People from the West Coast used to dislike people from the East Coast. And so on and so on. This is not new.

No need to blow it out of proportion. Just grow a tougher skin.

i think in england the scousers are being regarded as the 'scourge of england'.

fstranger1:
OK!

High five, we beat them silly!

I am glad we won, thanks for your help!

Eku_Bear is a tough cookie, but as you can tell, we defeated him.

i can understand why he thinks the way he does as concerning this issue having left the country when he was 4 years old.

fstranger1:
What do you mean?

what i meant that if he was going to tell me that he can as well tell you that.what we are discussing is broad based view on this issue as it affects the way we do things here and not ethnicity,tribe or whatever as it is irrelevant to issues being discussed here.

[quote author=eku_bear link=topic=582709.msg7505018#msg7505018 date=1294702450]Speak for yourself, your own tribe, and your own people. Don't speak for mine.[/quote]sorry bros but tribe or my people has nothing to do with this.it is the simple truth.try to think above tribe.it is eating you up.you can also tell that fstranger.

[quote author=eku_bear link=topic=582709.msg7505000#msg7505000 date=1294702082]Dude, I don't have any ego. If we are inferior to the whites right now, so be it. Let's learn everything they know, master it, and beat them at their own game. I have no morals, principles or ethics in this affair. All I want is as much education (and the subsequent benefits of said education, namely power) as soon as possible.

Everything else is irrelevant to me. I'm not a pan African, Africanist, Black Panther, or any of that type of sh1t.[/quote]Sorry bros but we are not beating anybody at their own game because it is simply not going to happen.  

[quote author=eku_bear link=topic=582709.msg7504976#msg7504976 date=1294701580]No. Immersion is the best way to do this stuff. If we want to be good at English, we'll have to spend all of the school hours working on it. Any half measures, "eat our cake and have it" is likely going to lead to disaster.

Let's not be egotistical about this stuff. There are are some things that work. Let's do them rather than trying to reinvent the wheel. English language is something which people in China and Korea spend lots of money trying to learn when they get older. I have no desire to throw away this little advantage we have. If anything, I want the advantage to grow.[/quote]i think they learn it for diplomatic reasons or when they want to go abroad for any other reasons and not for the day to day activities in their own country as it is not needed.

tensor777:
Yes there are such cases but they are not the norm. Maybe the guy has a facility for picking up languages. That is a gift.
However on a more regular level the more you speak, read, and write English the more competent you become. Practically this would involve pleasurable activities like reading novels and watching high quality classic English films.

you might be right here but also know that there lots of grammatical errors the so called english speakers make.the fact that someone makes lots of sentences in english or what  looks like it and is fast in speaking it that way does not translate to the person is using the correct tenses or grammar.a lot of my my old folks in the village who are grounded in the native tongue but just got standard six speak far better grammar than some these guys because like fstranger said they were taught by owners of the language.

a common eg is this  'i[b] used[/b] to do that or go there'.meanwhile they are refering to an event that is till happening or occuring. i see this kids making this mistake in their spoken english and because they speak in fast way you might not notice it.of course write that in an exam to relate to an on going event and you will score 0.

fstranger1:
That is where you are getting it wrong. people talk about the older generation having better education than the current crop of students, mostly because people like Awo, Soyinka and people of that generation spoke better English and are able to express themselves better, But Wole Soyinka and his ilks were taught by the White people who own the language itself.  Look, there is something about learning in your own language that makes things a lil easier to understand. May be you dont know, English language is taught in Nigeria in a very rigid way and as such you do not get the whole spectrum of usage and concord that are very difficult to teach, but very easy to pick up.

Talking about aligning with the west, we can eat our cake and have it at the same time. Teach pupils in their native language and make English class mandatory up to secondary school level and anybody willing or nursing the ambition of  to going to the west may then major in English language at the post secondary school level.

Look around you, from the Chinese to the Russians to the Japanese and even the  Arabs, most thriving countries use their native language as the medium of communication and instruction.  It is generally believed that the practice of imposing a foreign language on a learner is a violation of the structure of thinking. Bearing in mind that language influences the thought process of the learner, this understanding of his environment and thus the learning of science and other disciplines, deliberate efforts should be made to enable students learn science and arts  in their mother tongue as much as possible. The idea of forcing students to think in the foreign language as advocated  is unproductive. It does not help students to be creative but reduces them to "robot" who merely memorize the notes given to them by their teachers and reproduce same when required without demonstrating appreciable degree of understanding of the scientific and technological information and process under consideration. If students merely memorize facts, principles and generalizations only to be regurgitated during examination, they will not be in a position to use the knowledge acquired since it has not been internalized.
The lack of internalization of scientific knowledge, process and skills by Nigerian students seems to have been largely responsible for our inability to do well in external examinations like WAEC and NECO, and may also have contributed to our inability to make any significant scientific invention. The situation is unacceptable and needs urgent redress.

In 1971 a pilot project was started in selected centers in the SW using Yoruba language as the medium of instruction. Evaluation exercises at the end yielded the finding that students instructed in their mother tongue were more proficient in school subjects, including English, than students instructed strictly in English language.There is ample evidence, both local and international, especially in Norway that has proven time and again, that when a child is properly grounded in the mother tongue, he stands a better chance of understanding another or foreign language. The Ife Six Year Primary Project clearly bears this out.

BRB!

At the first bolded i have always believed in that for sometime even though it sounds radicalistic.

At second bolded that is the Fafunwa led project right?I wonder where the ife six are now.i would really like to know how they feel about that project.

tensor777:
You do need to look at the bigger picture before coming up with these kinds of radical suggestions. The main issue in comprehension is that these students do not spend time actually speaking English outside the classroom. There is also a lack of a literary  or reading culture that inhibits students from reading for fun which is a sure fire way to pick up competence in a language.
Better to focus on those cultural aspects rather than wasting resources translating books and educating teachers in the sundry indigenous languages.

I hope you know that there lots of people that supposedly speak english everyday here and also speak english at home by there parents that speak english to them but still end up with P7 in english while some of those guys wey dey mama their native language end up having A3.

The person that had the highest mark in my secondary school class then in english (A1) was one of those guys that spoke more of his native language than english while a few of those guys wey dey blow english even when dem no need am get P7.(my cousin is a classic case).


[quote author=eku_bear link=topic=582709.msg7504572#msg7504572 date=1294696314]If anything, I want more English and more alignment with the West. Like, if I were in charge of education in Ekiti I'd scrap WAEC and replace it with the equivalent US standardized exams. Start preparing kids from a young age to do well on them, so that they [b]can more easily go abroad for schooling. [/b]Weakening our progress in English in any way or form is almost suicidal, at this point.

Long story short though, I don't want this to be a lockstep sort of thing! Not trying to be tribalistic or something, but if somebody wants to abandon English and do things in his own language, that is his own business. Don't force me and my state, people to do the same. Let everybody decide for themselves what they want to do regarding education.[/quote]why the emphasis on abroad?

fstranger1:

Also the other thing is that should we switch to our indigenous language instead of using English language?


It doesnt seem as if we are making any head way with English language as the chosen medium of instruction.

I have a feeling that things would become more intuitive to students if they are taught and examined in their native language.

it might prove difficult to do that of course because of many languages and ethnicities.

however is quite funny that in nigeria you learn more about europians than about ourselves and our histories at least in the early stagies of our education.

eg leafs that are regarded as medicinal in our immediate enviroment are not taught about to us so we can learn more about how they work and why they work but we seem to know about chloroquine when we are in primary school.

Sometimes i wonder whether the education curriculae in present in nigeria is meant for the nigerian enviroment or a 'psuedo colonial or europian 'setting.

Akhenaten:
It is very hard I must say. It takes away from very intelligent debates, when you have people trying to create trouble. If you do not confront those who continue to spread lies, people will take their words as the truth. Just look at the Republicans in the United States and how they control the message better than the Democrats. The American people start to believe the lies that peddled by Republicans and the nation suffers. I will take your advice and ignore some of these people.

Do not worry.You will get used to it.

Akhenaten when you stay in nairaland long enough you will learn to ignore some people.

this is what triggered the last violence i think

Yoruba community cautions journalists on reports on violence
Monday, 10 January 2011 00:00 From Isa Abdulsalami Isa, Jos News - National
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THE Yoruba Community in Plateau State has advised some state councils of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) to stop unprofessional conducts and refrain from unguarded statements capable of causing disaffection or disunity among the masses, the media and the government.
Apparently reacting to the recent call by the Sokoto chapter of NUJ following the recent bombings and crises in Jos, that a state of emergency be imposed on Plateau State, the community urged journalists and their unions to discard sentiments and always conduct in-depth investigations before rushing to the press so as not to ignite another round of violence in the state.
A statement from the spokesman of the community and Head of Media and Planning for 19 Northern states, Mr. John Tunde Oladapo, issued on behalf of the Plateau State President of Yoruba Community, Chief Toye Ogunshuyi and the Oba of Yoruba in Jos, Chief Solomon Olugbodi, said journalists, as members of the fourth estate of the realm, are supposed to be impartial and should uphold the ethics of their noble profession devoid of any external influences or sectional interest.
Meanwhile, the community has also called on the Federal Government to launch a manhunt for those behind recent bombings in parts of Plateau, Borno and Bayelsa states as well as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) so that it does not escalate to other states in the federation.
“If the perpetrators are not quickly fished out and their hideout detected, it is capable of derailing the general elections fixed for April this year.
The community however commended the pro-active roles of President Goodluck Jonathan, the governors of Plateau, Borno, Bayelsa as well as Minister of FCT and all the security agencies in the country for responding quickly to checkmate the unfortunate incidents.
The statement regrettably noted that some Yoruba living in Anguwan Rukuba and Gada Biu in Plateau State along with other ethnic groups lost their lives during the bombings but appealed to the bereaved families, especially Yoruba youths, not to retaliate or take law into their hands.
It said while sympathising with the good people of the state irrespective of political, religious, ethnic and geographical differences, it frowned at the reckless statements and urged everyone to pray for the peace of the state and the nation in the forthcoming general elections.
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http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=35022:yoruba-community-cautions-journalists-on-reports-on-violence-&catid=1:national&Itemid=559

Ola edo:
A friend from back in jos just informed me today that a bus of filled of mostly igbo xtians were killed and muslims also attacked some of their shops. He said then the Igbos went out and started killing every Hausa they saw.and things are getting worse.

i hope this is not false alarm guy.not doubting you but you have to be sure.

T9ksy:
Quote from: Ola edo on Today at 01:46:58 AM
I wonder where the itsekiri will end up in the scheme of things?


The itsekiri can end up wherever they desire or even go it alone but one thing is undisputable and that is, the yorubas do not want to form a nation with the igbos. . . . . . . . . . and vice versa. The only difference being that the yorubas do not see the need to denigrate others just so they can justify their wish for their own Oduduwa nation.

I guess we are too polished to exhibit such "bush" mentality.

actually a lot of yorubas i have met denigrate the northerners and evidence are abound in internet fora if you search.

you guys make me laugh.look there can never be a seperation in nigeria that would be peaceful.there has to be an upheaval or downright breakdown of order in the country for it to happen.also the upheaval has to be greater or carry more weight than the events leading to the civil war or the abiola saga.

if any of you is waiting for a referndum or peaceful separation haha like dbanj will say you are on a long thing.

this is the bad side of igbo pragmatism.

webgenius:
Wiston Churchill was also Scottish.I guess it's a game of numbers: England 40-45 million, Scotland 10-15 million, Wales 5 million, don't know about Northern Ireland

are you sure?

i thought it was around 6million for scotland and around 60 million for england.

Eziachi:
Wow an Efik man!

My commanding officer in the Biafra army (Mr Henshaw) was EFIK. The most caring and loyal person I have ever met apart from my Mrs (LOL).
He was an ordinary primary school teacher before the war broke out, but during the war, you can never guess that he wasn't a professional soldier beforehand. A very brave soldier indeed.
I still remember him putting his life in line to save me on many occasions due to my age and youthful exuberance. The most vivid being at end of official hostilities, to make sure that I was safe, him deciding to walk with us for two days and nights from Obudu to Aba, most of the time walking right in the middles of dangerous thick forests for safety, because some overzealous Nigerian soldiers were executing Biafra soldiers (including my immediate senior brother) returning home on the roads for fun.  And from Aba, with two other guys from my Command Unit walked another four days to our respective towns in the present day Imo state and one of those guys walked with is presently a well known German trained Orthopaedic surgeon based in Ikenegbu Layout Estate in Owerri .
I managed to get back in contact with Mr Henshaw after the war, when my parents went and paid him “A Thank You” homage at his home, in the suburb of Calabar for looking after me in the midst of many deaths and chaos. He went back to teaching and later though taught for many years at University of Calabar.  However successfully kept a good contact with him and his family till his death in 1997.  I attended his funeral along with my entire household. I love Efik people, if you gain their trust and confidence, nine out of ten, they will not let you down.

Dr Es-mo-n-?

[quote author=eku_bear link=topic=582533.msg7497501#msg7497501 date=1294611587]Wow.
[/quote]that statement by yakubu gowon sounded like someone steeped in inferiority complex or 'uncle tomisim'.

afam republic of ireland became independent from uk or great britain in 1922.