₦airaland Forum

EzeUche22:
You know your picture has been described.

Let us go from the Left to the Right.

The first person is a Libyan, next is a Nubian, the light person is from Mesopotamian [/b]and the final one is an [b]Egyptian [/b]and he is brown.

But [b]RACE [/b]is a [b]social construct. There is no differences in the human mind. We are all blessed with the same abilities.

Same abilities to do what exactly?

Beaf:
The problem with the bolded is that it is chasing wind; its like a puppy chasing its own tail, going round in circles, but never quite catching the tail. Nigeria's problem is structural, until we address that head on, we will keep running in place. We practice a unitary government, but choose to decieve ourselves that we are practicing federalism. Unitary govts are ownly suited to small countries (which 9ja is very far from being).

[b]Every month, governor troop to Abuja to beg for their states monthly upkeep, making them accountable to Abuja, rather than their people. To make matters worse, they get into power by the rigging arrangement from Abuja, so their people might live or die, its never going to affect a governors prospects in any way. For them, life always goes on and they will never give a damn. The legislature on the other hand, is by far the highest paid in the World, Dimeji Bankole gets a billion Naira in allowances, salary and other pecks; they are the highest paid as a form of bribery, all they need do is keep bad laws flowing and never block the corruption conduit to the pockets of the big cheeses.

Our politics naturally only interests the more criminally minded in society, it is like flies and rotten meat. . . Corruption is merely a side effect of Nigeria's flawed structure, indeed the structure was built by our ex-general political hegemons for the sole purpose of continuing to reap corrupt lucre long after they left office.[/b] IBB is fighting a desperate do or die battle, because he see's the danger of that pipe being closed in the near future.

The only thing that can save Nigeria is true federalism from which equity, representation and justice will flow. No functioning democracy has anything resembling the faulty shambles we call a federation. If you build on a shaky foundation, the house is bound to collapse. . . Nigeria's foundation is very shaky.

Any person that does not understand the above especially the bolded is living in a fools paradise about nigeria.

Beaf:
Are you sane? Whats the meaning of this rubbish?

Why you dey bother yourself with that one?

Who does not know that the country has really serious structural issues with this zoning,no zoning,federal character,night meetings,caucus meetings and all worthnot while the country itself burns?

I just the dey watch nigeria,

Foolish country ruled and followed by dullards no matter their 'educational level'.

philip0906:
so d inavailability of pix discredits d topic?nairalanders and pix sef.

I posted the one on innoson because there were pics of the cars and even pics of inside the factory.

However on this one nothing verifiable.There website has no pics of a live car.

The goatee looks like the one on aloy emeka

@post

Saw the news earlier but did not post it because of no real pics of the buses.

Chxta:
Still on the theme of forgetting our past heroes, today is EXACTLY twenty one years since Sam Okwaraji died on national duty. What monuments do we have for him?

Use google to search fpr 'Sam okwaraji stadium Orlu' and 'Okwaraji Statue in Lagos'

davidif:
Wow! you are holding on to straws son. Blame beckham for real madrid failing to win a trophy, that's a good one. By the way, why are we talking about Beckham, i was talking about Finidi George. Finidi's free kick is not on the same level as the guys you mentioned talkless of Beckham.
ha ha haha, chai! the things you hear on nairaland sha. When was the dutch league ever as good or even better than the english league ehn? If the dutch league was better than the english league then why did the english league have 3 slots at the champions league while the dutch only had 2? why didn't the dutch have 3 like the english or 4 like the Italians, Spaniards and Germans? Also, if the Dutch league was sooooooo good why was there a mass exodus of players from Ajax to other better and bigger leagues? why didn't they just stay at home like everybody else? Why did Dennis Bergkamp even come to Arsenal in 1994, why didn't he just go back home?

davidif:
Wow! you are holding on to straws son. Blame beckham for real madrid failing to win a trophy, that's a good one. By the way, why are we talking about Beckham, i was talking about Finidi George. Finidi's free kick is not on the same level as the guys you mentioned talkless of Beckham.
ha ha haha, chai! the things you hear on nairaland sha. When was the dutch league ever as good or even better than the english league ehn? If the dutch league was better than the english league then why did the english league have 3 slots at the champions league while the dutch only had 2? why didn't the dutch have 3 like the english or 4 like the Italians, Spaniards and Germans? Also, if the Dutch league was sooooooo good why was there a mass exodus of players from Ajax to other better and bigger leagues? why didn't they just stay at home like everybody else? Why did Dennis Bergkamp even come to Arsenal in 1994, why didn't he just go back home?

My guy argue with brain!

Ajax in the early and mid 90s was a much solid and respected club than any other english club in that era.That you know.I never said the dutch league was then was a better league than english league but Ajax of then was a superior team than any english team then.Ajax's performances in the champions league then was fantastic.Yes english clubs then were shoit judging from their perfomances in europe btw 1992 to 1998.If you have proof of an english team doing well at that time in europe let me know.

Dennis bergkamp went to arsenal in 1995 not 1994 so stop giving false info here.1994/1995 he was at inter milan.

As for dutch players not lasting long in their dutch league or Ajax are you aware of bosman ruling?Are you aware that before it came in 1996 their was restrictions on foreign players(including even fellow eu nations) on domestic leagues around europe?Are you aware that if not for this ruling clubs like inter,arsenal can never field an all out 'foreign players'in their league matches and europe competitions? Do you know what the EPL would have been like scottish league if the bosman man ruling did not come into effect?Restrictions varied from nation to nation but it was not usually more than 4 foreigners playing at a time.In EPL it would have been Man U plus maybe Liverpool league.

The reason why dutch players were moving was because of more freedom to move and money.

honeric01:
That means you are up for anything that comes your way as a Nigerian?

On the contrary any reforms or talk that will not involve real federalism(not the nonsense we are doing) or confederation,a discusion by the diffenrent components that make up the country on how they want to be governed is just running around in circles or beating around the bush.

honeric01:
This kind of mindset is dangerous.

Thank you my brother.

Sorry bros but i hold the belief that the country is structurally flawed and the system we are operating on encourages corruption.that is why i hardly contrbute to political debates these days.

honeric01:
This is just to prove that being Igbo does not mean he or she wants good for his fellow igbo.

What we as Nigerians need now is someone who's going to provide us with the basic amenities, just give us good roads, good health care, water, electricity and a proper housing structure, every other thing can be added later.

With the present structure nigerian is operating ii employ you to continue in your dreamland.

You are very fond of opening childlish and nonsensical igbo threads.Focus on internet and computing as that is what you are good at.

ezeagu:
None of these pictures were taken any time after 1913, and they may have been take as early as 1890, or even earlier.

Hmmm ok.That was what i wanted to see.

Andre Uweh:
Who knows how many twins that would have been wasted before such an understanding could be justified through traditional ideology. Putting a stoppage to killing of twins is one of the finest things the Whiteman did in Igboland.

Though i hate to say this i think the coming of the whiteman brought about the emergence of towns and cities in igboland.

Nobody is having this experience?

Though i am a great critic of nigerian football any person that says Finidi was not a world class winger in his time is just trying to be funny.

Someone that played for Ajax when ajax was probably the top team in europe and beating the likes of Ac Milan and Real Madrid black and blue in Champions not world class

Again the premiership at this period was shoit and nothing to write home about.

I want to know if other people using this mtn 3g are experiencing the same thing as i am.In recent times the internet service of my mtn 3g keeps tripping off when i am using it especially in the evenings.

I want to know what the problem is?

[quote author=tosinaded@ link=topic=493856.msg6542854#msg6542854 date=1281382966]jst listened . . disagree[/quote]guy you no get ear listen well

to be honest the first time i heard tongolo my mind immediately went to that song because there are some serious similarites.

eldee:
Hmmn . . . I don't get how people will be talking about Nigerian beats and forget Don Jazzy's Mo Gbona Felifeli and[b] Tongolo[/b].
It's almost illegal to do sumn like that . . . Even Wyclef will sue you.

I do not think tongolo's beat is original

I think tongolo's beat is a rip off of 112 feat.ludacris 'hot and wet'.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwWqh9wHkHM

[quote author=paddy_lo link=topic=491527.msg6540449#msg6540449 date=1281358980]50% of the total budget goes to states and Local GOVTS so if u focus on only the FG u are missing the big picture
cause many states are in charge of schools,water,roads and general infrastructure

As for schools,i dont know of any schools the FG still controls,most were given back to the owners
However GOVT still spends a lot on ASUU,UBEC and teachers salaries

For water there are lots of dams being built and others already built
For roads am sure there are many like [b]Abuja -lokoja,Onitsha owerri express and lots of others

And i already told u about the MGDs which is spending over N500billion in 5yrs on poor areas of our country,pls watch the videos

In America nobody asks which roads Obama built,or which schools he built
these things are not the job of the GOVT in the centre

The main job of the GOVT is providing macro-economic stability,defense,rule of law,and make rules that guide entreprenuers to invest and create jobs

That is why i have given u the big picture,if u think that is not important then u can move to zimbabwe were inflation was running at over 12,000% per annum

see how any economic activity can take place in that scenario[/b][/quote]You must be living in lalaland.

ezeagu:
Many people on these boards say things like this without even seeing the whole story of what they are criticising.

The Ozo fez (Okpu agwu) is not new, actually if you were to describe it with a word it would be 'ancient' because it has been worn for at least a 1000 years. The isiagu is a modernisation of something like this: link, or this: link which has been worn for over 1000 years, like the clothing found at the burial site of and unknown Nri nobleman: link.

Most people do not bother to wear these original attires now, which is why most people will talk as if their ancestors never knew cloth making or embroidery.

To be honest, the wears some people have on today can't match the quality of the examples shown above. The practicality of wearing a suit in a climate such as Nigeria's and wearing one of the attires above, or even the more revealing ones cannot be compared.

Bros i am not a fan of suit.i can even count the number of times i have won a suit in my life.

All those pics you posted are of royalties in igboland.What about what the average or ordinary folk wearing then?

ACUT3X:
the people who support him those in the diaspora. No sane Nigerian living in Nigeria would do that. Morever all it takes to stop him is a Nigerian youth high on drugs and armed with this,

Emperor Olu how far now  

[quote author=Aloy_Emeka link=topic=491824.msg6531688#msg6531688 date=1281204945][size=14pt]I heard Michael Okpara finished his tenure in office and died after successful medical practice yet he couldn't afford one house in the township. Were those men from that generation Ghananians or was it the IBB factor that corrupted current Nigerian leaders?[/size][/quote]

asha 80:
To think that Pat Utomi once confessed on a program i was watching that he and some of his colleagues in UNN where making jokes against Okpara's son when they were students that Okpara's son was not living like the son of a premier of a region ie not flambouyant.

It also took some time before we noticed the constant water supply. The day we moved to University residence, one of us, Michael Ogunlana, had immediately gone to the Grand Marché, Lomé’s central market, to buy two plastic jerry cans for water storage. When he came back, the rest of us scolded him for not reminding us of that vital necessity and we all rushed to the market to buy plastic jerry cans and buckets. Well, we spent an entire year in Lomé and hot and cold water never stopped gushing out of the taps. Our Togolese friends on campus laughed heartily when we told them why we had bought those containers!


Such was the gap in basic public service delivery between Togo and Nigeria that we had had to shed the last shred of our illusion of being the giant of Africa by the end of the first month of our one-year sojourn. It was humiliating. The Yoruba would say “a fi itiju karun.” At the end of our programme, we returned to Nigeria as humbled emissaries of the rest of Africa to our compatriots. We returned to a country where folks who had never stepped out of their underdevelopment were too far gone in the socialization that had them speak condescendingly about “those small small African countries” in beer parlour banter, never mind that they could be drinking beer chilled with ice block, the table littered with candles and kerosene lanterns because the beer parlour had not had light in three days.


And we would try to tell them that the people they were talking about in those “small small African countries” were beyond power and water failure. And they would dismiss us in that Nigerian spirit of never tolerating the idea of our being second to any country in Africa: “Ol’boy leave matter jare. Una own too much sef. Small time una go say Lomé na London.” That is what makes Nigeria tick. Even the burukutu or paraga drinker in Lagos feels superior to the cabernet sauvignon drinker in Nairobi. Years later, as predestination would make me crisscross close to thirty African countries as a cultural scholar, I developed a private development index by trying to determine in my own unscientific way which of the following even the poorest citizens of any African country I was visiting could take for granted: (1) electricity, (2) pipe-borne water, (3) health services, (4) roads, (5) security


Needless to say, in all my travels in Africa, the self-styled giant of Africa still presents the only situation where citizens, rich and poor, cannot take at least one of the five items above for granted. Our report card is a flat zero in all five. [b]This colossal failure perhaps explains why our habit of underdevelopment has even begun to spin a subculture that is so peculiarly Nigerian: the nostalgia for disorder. I have an upper class Nigerian friend who has visited me once in the US and once in Canada. He is going to kill me when he reads this. He is one of those Nigerians who can afford frequent trips to Euro-America. I have never known him to spend more than two weeks outside of Nigeria. He is always itching to return home. The last time he visited me in Ottawa, I asked him why he was always in such a rush to go back to Nigeria.



His answer is how I first came by my tentative theory of nostalgia for disorder as an aspect of our habit of underdevelopment. Pius, he answered calmly over beer and peppersoup, when we wake up tomorrow, we can be sure that there will be light and water. We can be sure that the traffic lights will be working. If you have appointments, you can be sure that folks will be there on time. That is too much order and predictability for me. I’d die of boredom living in a place like this. I can never imagine life without the permanent drama of Nigeria’s unpredictability. Your brain has to be on duty 24/7 in Nigeria. You go to sleep calculating the following day like a game of chess or even Russian roulette and the dynamics may have changed by the time you wake up. That’s life. Nigeria is where the action is.[/b]



Since the habit of underdevelopment requires an endless rush of adrenaline into the system as you negotiate the quotidian in Nigeria, it may very well be life as my friend had stated enthusiastically but it also freezes Nigeria in time. Look at it this way: twenty-one years after twenty Nigerian undergraduates were humbled by their experience of infrastructure and public service delivery in Togo, it still took two Federal ministers, the Speaker of the Federal House of Representathieves, a state governor, and his commissioners to go and commission a third-rate flyover bridge in Ogun state recently. And those comical characters put up a national show of shame to boot.



Because they are all corrupt members of the rulership who travel wastefully all the time to developed countries – the corrupt governor is said to be in China as I write, the Speaker trained in Britain – why would they all waste the Nigerian tax payer’s time by going to commission an ordinary flyover bridge in the 21st century despite all they see during their foreign trips that should convince them that the said bridge is a tragic sign of our backwardness? The answer is simple: it’s the habit of underdevelopment. It’s in the blood.

I believe it was Tunde Ajibade, our class rep, who first noticed the alarming oddity of constant, uninterrupted electricity: “E gbo na, o ma dabi pe won ti muna lo lati jeta?” And the rest of us mocked him and commented on his endless capacity to come up with outlandish stories: “Tunde you don come again o. How dem no go dey take light? Where you see dat one before?” Some of us offered: “maybe dem dey take light for night when we dey sleep”. Citizens of the giant of Africa were encountering development for the first time in their lives and their cognitive capacities just couldn’t handle it – they were prisoners of the habit of underdevelopment.



By the end of the first week, we had to gba kamu and accept the fact that constant electricity was taken for granted in Togo. This affected our socialization into development. The authorities of the Université du Bénin (now Université de Lomé) had moved us into students’ hostels on campus (I would find out years later that student accommodation in France was not too superior to the facilities in Lomé). We were beginning to make Togolese friends – exploring the whole range of undergraduate life with them in spaces of intellection and socialization on and off campus. That meant we had vocabularies of underdevelopment for which we had to find equivalents in French to carry the weight of our Nigerian world.


Consider the expression for the idea of power interruption in French – panne d’életricité. If you tried to explain the idea of the Nigerian power failure to your new Togolese friend and you said panne d’életricité, what came up in his mind was either a bulb suddenly snapping out of life and you replaced it or the extremely unusual situation of a mechanical fault in some central power station and you would have been warned weeks ahead of the scheduled maintenance shut down. That’s what panne d’életricité covered in the semantic world of the Togolese. So we explained and explained and explained the Nigerian version of things, the frown on the faces of our Togolese friends a testament to their inability to grasp our Nigerian version of underdevelopment.

One other feature of the habit of underdevelopment is that your vocabulary is always superfluous because you need more words to carry the weight of experiences unknown to civilized humanity. For an entire year in Togo, we had a baggage of redundant Nigerian words and expressions: half current, power rationing, lantern, generators, etc. The move from underdevelopment to development also meant that we had to cope with translocations in meaning. Take something as simple as candles. Apart from the spiritual value of candles in aladura churches in Nigeria, they are first and foremost part of the instrumental world of power failure. In Togo, we had to transfer candles to the exclusive context of Catholic church rituals and candlelit dinners. You did not stock up on candles because you expected the electricity company to “take light”.

These were the spectres of alterity that defined Africa in Nigeria’s popular imagination. Nigeria was always going to be the superior mansion with uncountable rooms open to less privileged nationals of other African countries: “those small small countries”, as we say in Nigeria. Those countries were prepared to go wherever Nigeria went. Thumbing their noses at Nigeria (Ghana dares to intimidate Nigerian businesses today) would come later after we missed the train to the 21st century. For instance, when we withdrew from the Commonwealth games to protest Margaret Thatcher’s love nwantintin with Apartheid, the rest of the continent lined up respectfully behind Nigeria.



Given this background, it was easy to imagine our triumphalist arrival in Lomé in 1989. Our swag gave the impression of a bunch of Nigerian undergraduates who felt that they were doing Togo a favour by going to that small country. That’s how Nigeria had socialised us to relate to the rest of Africa. There was a national mirror that constantly asked you to look not at your own reflection but at the rest of Africa genuflecting at your feet. Gnassingbé Eyadéma’s Togo was going to show us the real mirror for the first time in our lives.



The trouble with underdevelopment is that it is always packaged in the hardware language of the social sciences, UN expats, NGOs, and actors in the Mercy Industrial Complex who reach out to hearts and pockets in the West via OXFAM, Bono, Madonna, Jeffrey Sachs, George Clooney, Angelina Jolie, and Save the Children in order to deliver mosquito nets, dig wells, or supply UNICEF-assisted wooden slates to children going to school under trees, their distended bellies and fly-infested running noses always capable of winning the next Pulitzer Prize for Photography. No one pays attention to the software reality of underdevelopment as habit, culture, and psychology.

If old habits die hard, underdevelopment as habit does not even have death in its dictionary. It sticks to your skin like the beard of a Taliban Mullah and becomes an insidious practice of everyday life irrespective of your location. As psychology, underdevelopment farms a mental universe of perpetual self-actuation and puts a wedge between you and the sentient reality around you. Thus, it took almost three to four days after our arrival in Lomé before we realised for the first time that whatever their version of NEPA was hadn’t “taken light” since we arrived. So conditioned were we by the habit of underdevelopment that we just settled in the villa d’accueil (university guest house) in downtown Lomé and lived the reality of Nigeria’s constant power failures in our heads, totally oblivious to the reality on the ground.

Adesanmi http://www.saharareporters.com/column/habit-underdevelopment
Columnist: Pius Adesanmi
We were young. I was eighteen and my nineteen course mates were mostly in their mid-twenties. We were in 300 Level. We were lucky. We were going to Togo as the last set of French undergraduates in Nigeria to travel to that country for the year abroad programme. None of us had ever ventured beyond the shores of Nigeria.

Our juniors in 200 Level were sulking. The following year, they would head out to the Nigerian French Language Village in Badagry as the pioneer set of that new institution. Those who studied French before our generation wouldn’t consider us lucky. They went to France for the year abroad. As the locust years came upon Nigeria in the early 1980s, the Nigerian government quietly signed agreements with institutions in Togo and Niger Republic. Northern Universities went to Niger. The south went to Togo. Even that proved too expensive with time, hence the decision to cancel the year abroad after my set.

We had swag. Don’t mind me. I am trying to use the dialect of young Nigerians on Facebook. My friend, Ikhide Ikheloa, says we must constantly play catch-up with that generation in our essays. I guess swag means swagger. Our swag devolved from a certain sociology of superiority that defined Nigerian-ness in relation to the rest of Africa. It wasn’t just that geographical size, resources, and population meshed in the imaginary of the rulers and the elite and gave them a conceited image of Nigeria as the giant and big brother of Africa, an image that trickled down from a mediocre rulership to a sheepish followership, it was also about optics, about what you saw in “the practice of everyday life” (apologies to Michel de Certeau) in Nigeria in the 1980s


Africa was ubiquitous in the Nigeria of the 1980s. You did not go to Africa. Africa came to you. The rest of Africa came to your feet as a subaltern in your everyday interactions. Africa came to your feet, literally and metaphorically, in the form of that roving Ghanaian shoe maker (sobata) who sat at your feet and fortified your new shoes by threading the soles or polished your old shoes; Africa came to you in the form of the house boy or house girl from Cotonou; Africa came to you in the form of the family driver from Lomé; Africa came to you in the form of the Bozo maiguard from Niger Republic; Africa came to you in the form of the occasional washman from Mali, Senegal, Gambia or Sierra Leone. You evolved in a national atmospherics of menial jobs performed by nationals of other African countries.




That was not all. There were the students. Undergraduates from South Africa found refuge in Nigerian Universities. They enjoyed the much-vaunted African hospitality because the South African struggle was also ours. Olusegun Obasanjo had even assured them that Nigeria would invade South Africa with African juju and Yoruba ogun abenugongo to drive out Pieter Botha. Most of them were on Nigerian scholarships. We were still two decades away from a future that would have their xenophobic younger brothers and sisters look scornfully at Nigerians in the streets of Johannesburg or Pretoria and call them makwerekwere. There were students from Cameroon all over Nigerian Universities. You got a sense that they came because there weren’t enough Universities in Paul Biya’s fief and that kinda played into your sense of being the big brother

abadaba:
Amongst the three dominant ethnic groups in Nigeria, Ndigbo accepted the British mode of dressing the most. Though there is Igbo consciousness in terms of dressing now, yet no where near that of the other equally large groups.

that is maybe what you should have said instead of saying it affected our olden days way of dressing because quiet frankly there was nothing fantastic about our former way of dressing.

abadaba:
The coming of the whitemen had its own negative effects in Igboland as well. For example, the Ibo mode of dressing was almost lost. British ways of dressing became the norm.
Ibo traditional names gave way for British names as well.

not sure what is negative about the present igbo mode of dressing.before the coming of the white man our type of dressing was loin cloth over the waste and bare chest.i wonder if anyone would want to were that now.

the 'isiagu' cloth and the caps(red,white etc) are improvement or modernisation of the igbo attire.

mikeansy:
I thank God our Governors are standing by at this time. This will give them a stronger bargaining chip in the process.

Its also nice to have a neutral position on zoning while the debate rages.

I don't think it is necessary to present Presidential candidates for the sake of it.

However if someone like Soludo is able to lobby for a VP Position should the next PDP flag bearer come from the North good for him. However I do not think Soludo should run for President. I also hope all other politicians join forces with others to negotiate for strategic positioning instead of producing a Presidential candidate for the sake of it.

Negotiating a guarantee for Onitsha watersways, electing a leader that can guarantee things like State Policing and devolution of powers to State and LGA is of more use to the SouthEast than producing the occupant of Aso Rock.

exactly what i have in mind in present circumstances.

http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/Home/5603428-146/story.csp


Group protests Indian company's treatment of workers
by segun balogun


August 6, 2010 01:00PM
  print  email   



Citizens Rights Watch (CRW), a human rights activist organisation, wants strict punitive measures taken against Indian-owned Celplas Industries Nigeria limited.



The organisation held a protest on Thursday in front of the Ikeja Federal High Court, where a lawsuit filed against the company was adjourned till Friday because the presiding Judge, S.J. Adah, did not show up.

"We are here to protest and get justice against the inhumane treatments Nigerian youth are getting in the hands if Indians," said Abraham Ovorare, the director of the organisation for CRW.

They did not just come armed with legal prowess, Gabriel Ojumah, the group's president, who gave the workers a lifeline by deciding to defend them despite their helplessness, they were also there with evidence of their claim - people who have been disabled while working for Celplas.

Yinka Oluwole had his left wrist amputated; Ejike Okonkwo had chemical burn on the face and is partially blind; Ilori Busayo had two fingers chopped off; Nwachukwu Chinedu lost his thumb. Others had equally agonising stories to tell.

As if the injuries suffered by the complainants was not enough, Celplas management sacked them a few days ago when they threatened civil and legal action.


No welfare for workers

"My estimation shows that there are more than 30 cases of deformity in Celplas alone, some of which have died. The people you see here are just from one unit; Celplas has five units," said Mr. Ojumah, who said Celplas turned deaf ears to his previous advances for amicable resolution.

All the aggrieved asserted that Celplas is lacking in provision for workers' welfare, including proper training, provision of protective equipment, and medical treatment.

"All the workers are casual staff and no training is given. You don't even have a permanent work schedule; you just get there and they fix you somewhere," said Mr. Oluwole.

Without any technical qualification, Mr. Oluwole was assigned on August 4, 2007 to work on the Moulding Machine that clipped his left arm.

"I was taken to Moyo Clinic in Mushin. The doctor told me that my arm has been damaged by chemicals and burnt by the machine. It pained me deeply and felt like dying," he said.

"I wrote several letters which they refused to accept. I decided to use courier and they did not respond. After about 18 months, the insurance company (G.N. Bishop Insurance Brokers) came with ₦634,000. I felt devalued. I asked myself whether loosing an arm is valued at ₦634,000." Mr. Oluwole was left alone since then to battle a deteriorating arm at Igbobi Hospital where he has been told his arm will be amputated again.


Alleged labour leaders' conspiracy

[b]Mr. Oluwole alleged being forced to sign the insurance claim "in the presence of the union leaders and Mr. Ola, the contractor. They persuaded me to accept the claim, promising the director, who was away at that time, will pay me additional compensation and even permanent employment." "I must say I am disappointed with the attitude of Labour (Nigerian Labour Congress) on issues of causalisation and maltreatment of Nigerian workers," said Mr. Ojumah "What is the responsibility of a labour union if not to ensure that the rights of workers are protected? They have obviously abdicated their responsibility but I don't know if there is conspiracy or compromise somewhere." He said his organisation has made several representations but "none of them has bothered to contact us. We even held a rally at the Labour House at Yaba but unfortunately because we informed them beforehand, none of them showed up." NEXT called up a phone number whose recipient we were told is the company's general manger. The recipient refused to disclose his name but agreed he is the general manager.

"The case is in court and I can't say much," he said.[/b]

He, however, rebuffed the claim that they use obsolete machines. "Our machines have minimum of 25 years life span and they are just eight years old now." He said the company has functional workmen compensation policy and medical treatment which covered "all staff including those provided by our service providers." He declined further comments.


Back

To think that Pat Utomi once confessed on a program i was watching that he and some of his colleagues in UNN where making jokes against Okpara's son when they were students that Okpara's son was not living like the son of a premier of a region ie not flambouyant.