₦airaland Forum

VirginFinder: You are a pathetic human being!

So anyone who dare to say the truth is a Boko supporter?

Haven't we citizens been fooled enough?

I wish the Nigerian army all the best. But I won't fall for lies. I won't deceive myself!

I want to see evidence. I want to see our troops patrolling the streets of Bama, Gworza and other Boko Haram controlled towns freely.

I want to see them hold world press conferences there.

I want to see GEJ visit the recaptured towns in no time!

I want to see the Chibok girls hale and hearty.

Until then, people like you will only appear as paid posters doing their jobs.

What was the whole essence of declaring a state of emergency in the first instance if not to have the insurgents crushed once and for all?

Where has all the trillions allocated to the war gone?

Nonsense!!!

You are paid by boko haram, so I understand your outrage.

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spyx64: cheap internet plans and Tecno phone have giving childish fools like you a voice......may your wishes befall you, your family and your
entire land. Ameeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen

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spyx64: cheap internet plans and Tecno phone have giving childish fools like you a voice......may your wishes befall you, your family and your
entire land. Ameeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen quote author=atlwireles]There will be thousands dying across Northeastern Nigeria in the next couple of weeks. The only good news is most will be boko haram or north easterners supporting boko haram. It never had to come to this. The armed forces are now determined to make Odi look like a child's play. God bless the Nigerian army and my condolences to the Northerners that will be killed like rats in the next weeks. Remember you brought this unto yourselves.

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olapluto: Childish comment. Everyone is now a boko haram supporter. You probably have never been to NE before.

You are not hard to spot out. Army children school Maiduguri, probably before you were born. back then it was actually called Northeast and not Borno state.

obayaya: I feel so too!!! But unlike Odi, BH and North East had 2 years to to resolve this. Odi wasn't given up to a month.

I hope they remember this.

I agree, the army has tried and above all the political leadership in the country has tried to avoid an all out war. Instead boko haram and their media supporters thought they had the upper hand. Let's have a taste of unhinged Nigerian army assault. In words of Adekunle, shoot and kill every moving thing. Let me see, who the cowards truly are.

authority2006: If you don't have sensible thing to say, just they read they go. Your posts reek of tribalism rather than nationalism. Kid, grow up.

Sorry, Mr, you have been a strong supporter of boko haram on several threads on this forum., why are you pissed now? The Nigerian army is now ready to bomb and burn down every town in the Northeast where boko haram finds support, this, should make you happy not angry.

College graduate Omatayo Adeniyi stands in a humid tropical forest of southwest Nigeria and explains why he chose cocoa farming over a white collar job in the city.

“There is money in the ground. The future is bright. I hope to make one tonne of cocoa by next year,” he says from his farm in Ondo State.

Such optimism has for decades been rare among Nigeria’s cocoa farmers: Many abandoned their fields and moved to cities in search of alternative work after commodity prices collapsed in the mid-1980s and the country’s booming oil industry siphoned investment away from agriculture.

But years of focus on oil revenues has left Nigeria with a lack of industrial diversity and made it over-dependent on energy, which uses a lot of costly equipment but employs few people. So while the economy has been growing at an average of 7 percent for the past five years, it has failed to create jobs for many of Nigeria’s 170 million people.

High unemployment and poverty levels have prompted the government to look again at cocoa with the aim of getting more people to grow a product for which prices have been rising.

Adeniyi’s trees have been supplied by the government, which is also distributing plant pods and disease resistant seeds at subsidised rates, alongside cheap fertilisers, agricultural chemicals and training to improve practices.

Agriculture Minister Akinwumi Adesina aims to boost production to 1 million tonnes a year by 2018 – on a par with current number two global producer Ghana and approaching top grower Ivory Coast’s projected 1.8 million tonnes for this year.

Nigeria says it’s already on track to produce 500,000 tonnes of cocoa next year, double what it grew in 2012, and though analysts say that target may be optimistic, it is clear that no other cocoa growing country is boosting production as fast.

Output from Africa’s top four growers – Ivory Coast, Ghana, Indonesia and Nigeria – which makes up over 70 percent of global production, is projected to rise in 2013/14 after staying flat for two years, according to Africa’s Ecobank.

“Nigeria has been underperforming for many years because of a lack of investment and the discovery of oil. But in the last two years, there’s been genuine commitment … to develop agriculture,” said Edward George, Ecobank head of research.

BIGGER, BETTER, MORE

Nigeria currently grows cocoa on less than a quarter of the 3 million hectares of land suitable to produce the beans, and the government is encouraging farmers to expand to the uncultivated savannah grassland.

With the materials the state provides, crops are flourishing. Adeniyi received his high-yield disease-resistant seeds from government two years ago and planted 800 seedlings of which 700 survived – much more than usual. The new trees flower within 18-24 months instead of 3-5 years.

“The materials will increase output more than three times from what farmers had before,” said Leila Dongo, director at Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria.

However infrastructure still poses a problem – bad roads hamper the transport of beans to market – and many producers are at the mercy of the weather because of their rudimental operations.

In a leafy plantation where rows of cocoa trees sit three inches apart to let in air and sunshine, farmer Rafiu Saliu demonstrates the problem. Picking up a pod from a just-harvested heap he shows how most of it has gone black with fungal disease.

Farmers like Saliu rely on the whims of weather for growing and drying their crops. This year Saliu faced a dilemma: leave pods on trees until the rains pass, and risk them over ripening, or harvest them and risk mould levels exceeding the maximum 5 percent allowed on the market.

“If not for the rains we should be harvesting. All the pods are ripe,” said 65-year-old Saliu, as more dark clouds spread over his four hectare farm.

To tackle this vulnerability, the government is training farmers to set up warehousing and storage, including creating shared drying spaces covered with plastic sheets that let sun in but keep rain out.
FROM TREES TO FACTORIES

When Nigeria’s government turned its back on the cocoa industry, it also scrapped the cocoa marketing board, a farmers’ cooperative that regulated farming practices, guaranteed prices to farmers, and provided subsidies through the cocoa board.

Farmers now bear the price risk themselves but have seen cocoa prices swing from a low of less than $1,000 per tonne in 1986 to a peak of $3,500 per tonne in 2011. This month cocoa is trading around $3,252 per tonne.

In Nigeria this year farmgate prices – the amount Saliu and Adeniyi will make on their beans before they go to the wider market – are around 450,000 naira ($2,779) per tonne – up 50 percent on last year. But that could fall quickly if as predicted a bumper West African crop depresses global prices.

So in an attempt to avoid a cycle of boom and bust, Nigeria is encouraging local processing and manufacturing enterprises.

Samuel Oyebade, head of the government’s cocoa reform plan in its main growing region Ondo State, told Reuters talks were afoot with U.S. chocolate manufacturer SPAGnVOLA to set up a chocolate factory in which the state would invest around 5 billion naira ($31 million) to build, while SPAGnVOLA would manage the production for export and some local consumption.

Nigeria’s beans have been deemed by the global market unsuitable for chocolate because of their high moisture content and so tend to be used more in cake, butter and soaps.

But with expert input from a U.S. chocolate expert their beans could yet make it to premium buyers, for premium prices.

“The industry says cocoa beans from Africa are inferior to those from South America and the Caribbean … (but) it’s how you treat that beans that renders the flavour … every single tree has the potential for producing fine flavour,”


http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/05/us-nigeria-cocoa-

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olapluto: Our brand of patriotism in Nigeria is what will kill us all. Most times, we paint a rosy picture until doom gets to our door. We seem to have depreciated a lot in values that we now cling on to any tiny piece of good news.
I dont need any siriusblack to tell me about the frontline. This is not a problem that started yesterday. We go to this point because people were not telling the truth. While BH were making serious acquisitions, the signs were there for the army.
The smart ones made noise complaining about their weapons and corruption. Now that morale is low, we are still to believe that morale is high What will make morale high? Have the soldiers been paid, have they been given better weapons, are they being given more bullets? if not, how can morale be high?
The only high morale is that of Shekau who seems to be so bold to say he will lead the charge on Maiduguri!

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When some of you make comments here one is left in total disbelief. When Civil defense officers are not owed monies, how will members of the Nigerian army see any delay in their salaries ? You people need to lay off the propaganda about weapons, bullets and the other rubbish. I know some of you are boko supporters here, just keep your support to a minimum level.

The day before the final submission of names, former President Olusegun Obasanjo told El-Rufai that he was ready to support Buhari if he could drop me and replace me with Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as his running mate. El-Rufai ran to me, that this was what Obasanjo said.

Too many stories in Nigeria. GEJ till 2019

Funny thread with almost zero political value. The party one supports is a personal choice, no need creating a thread to broadcast your position. The comments you make, here on the forum will tell fellow NL, where you stand. Also, people don't change, you are what you were 10 years ago, 5 years ago and 30 mins ago.

There will be thousands dying across Northeastern Nigeria in the next couple of weeks. The only good news is most will be boko haram or north easterners supporting boko haram. It never had to come to this. The armed forces are now determined to make Odi look like a child's play. God bless the Nigerian army and my condolences to the Northerners that will be killed like rats in the next weeks. Remember you brought this unto yourselves.

Let the mouth piece of boko haram continue their propaganda in the social and print media. They will sadly find out, they are going to be the major losers after Boko haram helps them end their beloved one Nigeria. Some of them actually think they are damaging Goodluck, what an insanity.

Keep talking rubbish about the army, you people will soon be defending your backyards from your boko haram brothers and friends.

The Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku, has charged the media to be mindful of its reportage, especially in conflict and terrorism situations, stating that the activities of the terrorists have refused to take the exit door because the media offer them free space and coverage.
The Minister gave the charge in Abuja, at the Responsibility to Report, R2R Executive Seminar, organized by the German embassy to address the issue on the Ppower of the media when reporting terror acts entitled: Managing the Media in a Crisis.
Maku who cautioned against the consequences the media actions, stated that anti-democrats exploit the media to manipulate them into reporting what they want them to report.
“Terrorism is still very much around because the media was constantly granting free space for the extremists to sell their ideologies. This is why the media must know and begin to change that attitude and look towards the interest of the country.
“I think the media should be mindful of the way they report news especially during terrorism, because anti-democrats exploit the media, thereby manipulating them into reporting what they want them to report,” he said.
He noted that the government’s responsibility is to engage the media in a manner they can have access to the truth, but insisted that the media have the higher responsibility in managing the information they receive, and reporting it in a way and manner it won’t arouse public anger and fuel crisis.

- See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/09/media-promoting-terrorism-nigeria-maku/#sthash.zLaJcKmg.dpuf

Moving in the right direction.

Davis is alleged to have submitted a bill of $15M to the Nigerian government/army. He claimed the money are fees owed him. HE RECEIVED THE WHO ARE YOU TREATMENT.

UnknownT: They joined Nigeria officially in 1961, the hills were discovered by an nysc member in 1986. Isn't that contradictory? How can they join Nigeria without Nigeria knowing who was joining her until the people that joined her were discovered in 1986?

I remember that NTA news broadcast, that was the talk in school for days. They look the same way as 1986

duni04: Accepting that there is a problem and identifying the problem are key steps in solving a problem. Denial won't help you.

The state with a 65% passing average, should be identifying problems? While the ones with 20% passing average condemn them. Where is the beef here?

You people supporting boko haram on social media are the same ones prepared to die for one Nigeria . Keep spreading propaganda about the Nigerian army. You are the same ones that will suffer.Let me dust up my National anthem



Ko Ko Ko Ọgbare
Urhobo eh, Orere r'Ivie sa-a
Ko Ko Ko Ọgbare
Urhobo eh, Orere r'Ivie sa-a

Ko Ko Ko Ọgbare

Urhobo eh, Orere r'Ivie sa-a
Obo r'Urhobo je vwe na
Aso'fa je vwe otio ye-eh
Ẹdẹfa me cha'kpọ
Urhobo me wha rhe

Urhobo eh, Orere r'Ivie sa-a
Anoma-a a

By Femi Aribisala
The APC complainant-in-chief, Lai Muhammad, is suddenly now in love with INEC.
In my article on the recent election in Osun State, provocatively titled “How APC Lost the Osun Election;” I was lavish in praising the INEC. I said: “Attahiru Jega is by far Nigeria’s best public-servant. He is yet again, the real winner of the Osun election; and he is doing a fantastic job transforming the electoral-process in Nigeria for the better and even the best. I want to take this opportunity to congratulate Jega and his entire INEC team for the excellent job they have been doing.”

[b]However, in one fell swoop, INEC has contradicted this assessment by becoming yet another instrument in the hands of the #Bring Back Our [/b]Northern Domination brigade. These conspirators have tried several gambits in their determination to wrest power from Goodluck Jonathan and the South-South. They have used threats, blackmail, defections, Boko Haram insurgency, and even the Chibok kidnapping; all to no avail. Now, it would appear that they have also succeeded in conscripting INEC to their plans to shift power back to the North by hook or crook.

INEC clean-up
INEC has recently taken two self-contradictory actions, one after the other. Unless the latter is immediately reversed, it will go a long way to compromise the integrity of the forthcoming 2015 elections. In the first place, INEC decided to clean up the voters register, a task for which it has received widespread public commendation. So doing, it discovered millions of ghost-voters. In the determination to lay the foundation for inflating their poll numbers in elections, our political parties have been careful to orchestrate multiple voter registrations.
INEC’s clean-up exercise testified to the #Bring Back Our Northern Domination brigade. It confirmed the Northern supremacy over the South in the business of cooking up voting population figures in order to promote Northern supremacy in elections in Nigeria. INEC discovered far more ghost-voters in the North than it did in the South. One of the biggest culprits here is Zamfara State, which had ostensibly 2,045,131 registered voters. However, during the clean-up exercise, it was discovered that 1,130,245 of these were ghost-voters. That means a whopping 44% of the names in the Zamfara voters register were fictitious
After screening the register, INEC was able to reduce the national voting population considerably. In 2011, we were told that there are some 70 million registered voters in Nigeria. Now that figure has shrunk to less than 60 million.
INEC schemes


Having cleaned up the register by drastically reducing it, INEC then decided to contradict itself. It created some 30,000 additional polling-units in the country, when the clean-up exercise suggests there is actually no basis to create more polling-units at all. Indeed, the more logical conclusion should be that we need less, and not more, polling-units.
But then INEC actions became even more bizarre. It decided to award far more additional polling-units to the North than to the South; in spite of the fact that it discovered more ghost registrations in the North than in the South.
It would appear that when some people in INEC woke up to the fact that their clean-up exercise had led to a greater decrease in the Northern voter population than in the South, they decided to make amends by the creation of additional polling-units; on the excuse of the need to decongest the existing ones. It just so happened that they then discovered conveniently that the “congestion” was far more prevalent in the arid and desert North than in the coastal savannah and rainforest South.
The decongestion of polling-units may indeed be desirable in light of the experience during the 2011 elections, but INEC’s solution becomes highly suspect because of its regional bias. INEC created 29,129 additional polling-units. 20,715 of these are in the North (including the Federal Capital Territory); while only 8,414 are in the South. The regional breakdown is as follows: North-West 7906; North-East 5291; North-Central 6318; South-West 4160; South-South 3087; South-East 1167; and FCT 1200.


Northern agenda
[b]In effect, what the North lost by the removal of the fictitious ghost-voters was then re-awarded by the allocation of additional polling-units. For example, Zamfara that was discovered to be the guiltiest state in the inflation of its register with over one million ghost-voters was then awarded 1,000 more polling-units. Given the fact that each polling-unit has a maximum of 500 voters, this means Zamfara was awarded additional 500,000 potential voters as compensation for its loss of ghost-voters. It also means INEC compensated the North with 10, 807,500 potentially new voters; as opposed to 4,206,000 in the South. This is more than enough to swing any election to the Northern advantage.
Since ballot-papers would be provided for these new polling-units, INEC has also surreptitiously increased the scope for ballot-stuffing; and it has made this disproportionately to the Northern advantage. That illicit advantage would be available for Northern use in the 2015 election as well as in future elections in Nigeria; if these additional polling-units are not scrapped with immediate effect.
In the zonal allocation of new polling-units, INEC awarded 7,906 to the North-West alone; the bastion of the anti-Jonathan #Bring Back Our Northern Domination brigade. This is nearly as many as the 8,414 it awarded to the entire South. By some strange logic, INEC gave more additional polling-units to the Federal Capital Territory (1,120) than it gave to the entire South-East (1,167).
Widespread furore
Not surprisingly, there has been widespread outcry over INEC’s new arrangement, and justifiably so. The people of the South-East especially are mortified. How can the Commission justify such blatant short-changing of the South-East vis-à-vis other all geo-political zones in the federation?[/b]


Olisa Metuh, the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, was loud in rejecting the exercise: “The people of South East PDP reject entirely the alleged allocation of polling booths by INEC. We view it as a great disservice to the unity and progress of this country if the entire South will have 8,000 polling booths and the North will have 21,000. We demand that this should be suspended forthwith as it is completely against the spirit of one Nigeria, the unity and progress of our dear country.”
“By these allocations the north-west allocation of 7,906 is equivalent to the whole of southern Nigeria with just 8,412. Similarly, each of the North-East and North-West zones gets more polling units than the whole of South-West along with Lagos, which is the state with the highest number of eligible voters nationwide.”

The Social Democratic Party was also quick to reject INEC’s sleight of hand. Its spokesman, Prince Frank Ukonga, describes INEC shenanigans as designed to manipulate the 2015 General Elections in favour of the North. As a presidential aspirant under the SDP, Ukonga also saw the development as a possible scheme for the North to continue to dominate the South in future elections even after the departure of Goodluck Jonathan.

Afenifere chieftain, Chief Supo Shonibare, also considered INEC actions mischievous. He said: “I am not aware INEC is an authorised body on population census. If it is based on estimate, it is wrong to give a section of the country more polling units at the expense of the other.”

“What has happened, however, is that Nigeria’s INEC, led by Professor Jega, has insinuated itself into a dangerous political game which defies simple logic. After carrying out a cleaning exercise to sanitise the voters register, which has reduced the total number of validly registered voters in the country, the same INEC has gone ahead to allocate its new 30,000 units in such a manner that some states that had already lost so much to ghost registration still ended up getting more polling units.”
APC advantage
One telling element in all this is the silence of the APC. Suddenly, the APC, the traditional cry-baby of the Nigerian politics, is maintaining a deafening silence on this issue. The APC normally complains about everything to do with the electoral system. Every so often, it comes up with broadsides that it has unearthed another ridiculous plan by the PDP, in collusion with INEC, to rig elections and truncate Nigerian democracy.
But now, suddenly, the APC is singing a different tune. Its complainant-in-chief, Lai Muhammad, is suddenly now in love with INEC. He said recent reassurances by Jega offer hope of free and fair elections. This turnaround should be enough to make any right-thinking person suspicious.
It is not difficult to see why APC should be pleased with the new face of INEC. APC is the vanguard of the #Bring Back Our Northern Domination brigade, and it is determined to choose a Northerner as its presidential candidate. INEC new polling-unit shenanigans are clearly to the advantage of the APC and the North.
APC has its projected strength in the North-West, North-East, and South-West. INEC has given 17,357 additional polling booths to these areas. PDP, on the other hand, has its projected strength in the North-Central, South-East and South-South. INEC has given only 10,572 units to these areas.

Since the same INEC will be responsible for determining the precise location of these additional polling-units, there is no guarantee that the bulk of them will also not be placed in areas likely to favour one party to the detriment of the other.
Unsatisfactory justifications

INEC has not been able to give a satisfactory explanation for its actions. The Commission said it decided to create additional 30,000 polling-units across the country in order to decongest existing polling centres. This brings the total number of polling-units in the country from 119,973 to 150,000. This is ridiculous. By having 150,000 new polling units, we now have 75 million potential voters but only 60 million actual voters.

INEC must not only be above board, it must be seen to be above board. In life, perceptions are often more important than reality. By its actions, INEC has made itself complicit in the plot to marginalize the South. This poses grave dangers to the integrity of the coming elections. There is only one option left for INEC. The 30,000 additional polling-units must be scrapped. Otherwise, the 2015 elections will be compromised even before they begin.


- See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/09/inecs-new-membership-bring-back-northern-domination/#sthash.psaGEW3Y.dpuf

However, in one fell swoop, INEC has contradicted this assessment by becoming yet another instrument in the hands of the #Bring Back Our Northern Domination brigade. These conspirators have tried several gambits in their determination to wrest power from Goodluck Jonathan and the South-South. They have used threats, blackmail, defections, Boko Haram insurgency, and even the Chibok kidnapping; all to no avail. Now, it would appear that they have also succeeded in conscripting INEC to their plans to shift power back to the North by hook or crook. - See more at:

INEC clean-up
INEC has recently taken two self-contradictory actions, one after the other. Unless the latter is immediately reversed, it will go a long way to compromise the integrity of the forthcoming 2015 elections. In the first place, INEC decided to clean up the voters register, a task for which it has received widespread public commendation. So doing, it discovered millions of ghost-voters. In the determination to lay the foundation for inflating their poll numbers in elections, our political parties have been careful to orchestrate multiple voter registrations.
INEC’s clean-up exercise testified to the #Bring Back Our Northern Domination brigade. It confirmed the Northern supremacy over the South in the business of cooking up voting population figures in order to promote Northern supremacy in elections in Nigeria. INEC discovered far more ghost-voters in the North than it did in the South. One of the biggest culprits here is Zamfara State, which had ostensibly 2,045,131 registered voters. However, during the clean-up exercise, it was discovered that 1,130,245 of these were ghost-voters. That means a whopping 44% of the names in the Zamfara voters register were fictitious

After screening the register, INEC was able to reduce the national voting population considerably. In 2011, we were told that there are some 70 million registered voters in Nigeria. Now that figure has shrunk to less than 60 million.
INEC schemes
Having cleaned up the register by drastically reducing it, INEC then decided to contradict itself. It created some 30,000 additional polling-units in the country, when the clean-up exercise suggests there is actually no basis to create more polling-units at all. Indeed, the more logical conclusion should be that we need less, and not more, polling-units.
But then INEC actions became even more bizarre. It decided to award far more additional polling-units to the North than to the South; in spite of the fact that it discovered more ghost registrations in the North than in the South.




- See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/09/inecs-new-membership-bring-back-northern-domination/#sthash.psaGEW3Y.dpuf
- See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/09/inecs-new-membership-bring-back-northern-domination/#sthash.psaGEW3Y.dpuf

Some battles are not worth fighting.

Instead of seeking ways to fix the carnivorous public education system in your state, you are looking for ways to bring down Anambra.

Atlas Mara, the African investment vehicle of former Barclays boss Bob Diamond, said it had increased its stake in Union Bank of Nigeria to almost 30 percent for $270 million.

The deal marks the third significant acquisition by Atlas Mara, set up last year by Diamond and Africa-based entrepreneur Ashish Thakkar, as it seeks to build the firm into Africa’s leading bank. It raised $300 million last month to add to its acquisition war chest.

Atlas Mara said on Friday it was buying the additional 20.9 percent stake from Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (Amcon). Reuters reported on Thursday Atlas Mara was in talks to buy the UBN stake.

UBN has 340 branches across Nigeria and had about $6.3 billion of assets, $3.1 billion in deposits and $1.3 billion in equity at the end of June. Atlas Mara said it purchased the stake at about book value.

UBN was established as Colonial Bank in 1917, and from 1925 until the 1970s was owned by Barclays, the British bank that Diamond led before being ousted under a cloud two years ago. UBN’s market capitalisation is about $850 million.

“This is a very significant acquisition … we will have a significant stake in a key Nigerian bank and we will also have established strategic market positions in three of Africa’s leading economic communities: the Southern Africa Development Community, the East Africa Community and Economic Community of West African States,” Diamond said in a statement.

Previous deals have given Atlas Mara a platform in several countries including Botswana, Mozambique and Tanzania.

It said in a prospectus published last month it was considering buying a minority stake in a bank in Nigeria, which is sub-Saharan Africa’s largest economy and one of its most attractive and fast-growing markets for banking.

Diamond is one of the world’s best-known bankers after spearheading the growth of Barclays’ investment bank before being forced from his job as CEO in 2012 by UK regulators after the bank was fined for attempted rigging of Libor interest rates.

His plans in Africa could put him in direct competition with Barclays, which has had a presence there since the 1920s and is one of the biggest international banks on the continent.

UBN was known as Barclays Bank CDO (Dominion, Colonial and Overseas) when it was bought by Barclays, and became Barclays Bank of Nigeria in 1969 after Nigeria’s independence, according to the bank’s website.



http://businessdayonline.com/2014/09/atlas-mara-buys-stake-in-union-bank-for-270-million

lilprinze: lol they are bunch of black monkeys

So you are calling a fellow African a black monkey

RoyalPearl: This is a very silly statement. There are not even up to 10 Ghanaians on Nairaland so please don't sum up the whole Ghanaian population as hating Nigeria because of 3/4 e-warriors that engage you folks with stupid fights. The majority of the population at large do not hate Nigerians or have the time and energy to spend thinking about irrelevant crap. We have bigger problems to deal with trust me.

I have always doubted the people that claim to come from Ghana here. Most know almost nothing about Ghana. Your comment is very commendable.

fabiaknow: After a boomed economy comes a recession. A boom is caused by the increase issuance of government bond. Let's pray for them that it shouldn't turn into depression which will occur after two successive years of recession. Their ministry of finance should prepare a deficit budget(borrow from their central bank) and increase tax.

You made a fundamental mistake here, Ghana never had a boom. The govt cooked up so much data and unreasonable heighten the expectations of the average Ghanaian, leading to massive public spending. Reality is now hitting Ghana, all their expectations, based on oil has turned sour. Spending money you never had in the first case has lead to a run away inflation. Ghana can fix this problem, they must start by telling the people the true state of their economy. Apply a home based structural adjustment plan and run as far as they can, from anything the IMF is offering.

I think the former COAS needs to open a consulting firm. How you get Islamic jihadist to self destruct. According to Mr Davis and his supporters, just one man has helped the north east and some parts of north west pound themselves into the 17th century. That is a formula, even the United States will pay good money to understand the usage against ISIS.

Intense competition among Nigeria’s major cement manufacturers is leading to stable and lower prices amid increased capacity by the firms as they position to meet burgeoning demand.

Dangote Cement plc, Nigeria’s leading cement manufacturing company, says it has increased its production capacity by 9 million metric tonnes per annum following the commissioning of two new production lines in Ibese, Ogun State, and one production line in Obajana, Kogi State.

UniCem, a cement manufacturer located in Cross River State, recently broke ground on an additional 2.5 million metric tonnes per annum line to double production at its plant, while Lafarge Africa has also announced that it plans to increase capacity.

Devakumar Edwin, group managing director, Dangote Cement, who announced the new addition to their production capacity at a press conference in Lagos, also disclosed that contrary to rising costs and commodity price increases in the Nigerian market, the company had brought down the price of its cement by N100.00 per bag.

He explained that the N100 price drop applied to the company’s 42.5 cement grade only, while the 32.5 cement grade, which it would introduce into the building material market in the next few days, would be selling for N200 lower than the 42.5 cement grade.

This means that the price of a 42.5 grade bag of cement which sells at the rate of N1,700.00 off depot price, will now be selling for N1,600.00. This also means, that the 32.5 grade bag of cement which will be selling N200 less will come to N1,400.00.

Nigeria’s cement industry will continue its growth spurt into 2020 as investment in capacity continues, in response to rapid increase in consumption in a stable-to-strong pricing environment, says Renaissance Capital.

The boom in cement consumption is anchored on economic growth in Nigeria that has averaged 7 percent per annum over the past five years, creating demand for housing, offices, roads, bridges and other concrete structures.

“The Nigerian cement market continues to grow strongly, with volumes at the end of FY13 reaching just under 22mn tpa, representing a 9.6 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the past 10 years,” said RenCap’s basic materials analysts, led by Roy Mutooni, in a research note released July 18, 2014.

The cumulative revenues of the four dominant cement makers (Dangote, Lafarge, Ashaka and Cement Company of Northern Nigeria) increased by 9.5 percent in first-quarter 2014 to N142 billion, from N129.71 billion in the earlier period.

The firms are in the sweet spot of demand for the building commodity that shows no sign of abating soon.

The release of updated data of the Nigerian economy by the NBS showed that construction grew by 14.2 percent in 2013 and 9.4 percent in 2012, with real estate growing by 12 percent and 5.6 percent in the same period, underpinning the expansion in the cement sector which comprised 1 percent of GDP in 2013 but grew by 39 percent in 2013 and 14 percent in 2012.

Dangote Cement is adding 6 million metric tonnes per annum of capacity at lines 3 and 4 in Ibese, and another 3 million metric tonnes per annum from an additional line 4 at Obajana, Kogi State.

RenCap expects consumption to reach 43mnt by 2020 (11 percent CAGR) and believe Nigeria’s per-capita consumption rate will reach 213 kg by 2020, following the 17 percent increase from 107 kg in 2011 to 125 kg in 2013.

President Goodluck Jonathan said on Tuesday in Calabar, Cross River State, that the country looked quite strong to produce 39.5 million metric tonnes (MMT) of cement by the end of 2015 and early 2016. The country now has an installed capacity of 39.9 million metric tonnes of cement.

President Jonathan, who was represented by Vice President Namadi Sambo, said this at the Line II groundbreaking ceremony of the United Cement Company of Nigeria (UniCem) cement factory at Mfamosing, Akamkpa Local Government Area, few kilometres north of Calabar, Cross River State.

http://businessdayonline.com/2014/09/competition-among-cement-firms-leads-to-price-drop-increased-capacity

realborn: Defeat?? Am I in a contest with Mr President? Are you averse to a better leadership than what we have now? Or is this the best ever you have ever dreamed of? I am praying for a new charismatic leader with the right brain capacity, knowledge and understanding to do needful at the apposite time and you categories that as noise making and acceptance of defeat?

My reference to 2019 is because that is the maximum the present President can stay if he bends all apparatus of government just to get a re-election. Think outside the box my brother. It is not all about 2015 as everyone is falling over and above for. Wisdom behoves on us to think beyond 2015, 2019, 2023 etc. This is called vision and it is the basis for every emerging great nation today.

I am sure you understand better now. The expression of folly is unnecessary[b].

I only restated your own words.