₦airaland Forum

lastpage: Good move to start from somewhere. Before long, we should be manufacturing, as the knowledge "transfers".

But wait, should we not have started assembling say for one year at least, before banning the Tokunboh cars?
Talk of putting the cart, before the Horse!

Before we all get carried away, l am wondering where the "electricity" to run the power plant is?

Even in houses where people live, electricity rationing and load shedding (4hrs ON, 20Hrs OFF!) is still the order of the day.

I just wish we can tackle this "Demon and Spirit" (respects to FFK ) of power failures/shortage so that laudable projects like these can really be sustained and improved upon.
Assembly plant wont be shutting down and starting when power goes. like our mortuaries o!

"To whom much is given, much is certainly expected"!

My fingers are crossed in prayer.

Lastpage!

jmaine: Exactly, but when Companies close shop and move out it becomes GEJ faults abi . . . .

Bunch of self deceiving jokers . . . .

Notwithstanding the insecurity in the northern part of
Nigeria and crude oil theft, which has negatively affected
the nation's revenue base, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has rated the nation’s economy as still strong.

The IMF’s positive rating came only a day after the
Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of
Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, restated that Nigeria was not broke.

The minister’s defence was amid criticisms and claims that the country was broke.

The IMF, therefore, projected a real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth of 7.4 per cent for Nigeria in 2014, which is higher than its 6.2 per cent projection for the economy last year.

The Bretton Woods institution disclosed this in its World
Economic Outlook (WEO) launched yesterday in
Washington DC as part of the pre-meetings events of the
2013 IMF/World Bank annual meetings.

The IMF explained that higher oil prices at the international market showed strong economic prospects for Nigeria despite the aforementioned challenges the country was facing.

"In Nigeria, still high oil prices underpinned strong growth,notwithstanding temporary downdrafts from security problems in the north and oil theft," it said.

Also, the IMF noted that growth in sub-Saharan Africa was robust between 2012 and 2013 and was expected to
accelerate somewhat in 2014, reflecting strong domestic
demand in most of the region.

It added: “Nevertheless, spillover from sluggish external
demand, reversal of capital flows, and declines in
commodity prices are contributing to somewhat weaker
growth prospects in many countries relative to the April
2013 WEO. Policies should aim to rebuild room for policy
manoeuvring where it has been eroded, and more broadly to mobilise revenue to address social and investment needs.”

In order to achieve sustainable and inclusive growth in the medium term, the IMF urged policy makers in African
countries to deepen structural reforms and give priority to
infrastructure investment and social spending.

“Activity in sub-Saharan Africa remained strong in the
beginning of 2013, although marginally down from 2012,
supported in most countries by domestic demand. Growth was particularly strong in low-income and fragile states, with the notable exceptions of Mali and Guinea-Bissau, which were affected by internal civil conflicts.

“Angola benefited from a recovery in oil production. In
Ethiopia, declining coffee prices and supply bottlenecks
slowed growth slightly from a very high level. However,
South Africa’s growth slowed further, in large part due to
tense industrial relations, anaemic private investment, and weaker consumption growth, the latter affected by slowing disposable income growth and weakening consumer confidence.

“With a few exceptions, inflation remained broadly stable in the region. Recent global financial market volatility has
affected several economies in the region, although most
low-income countries experienced little impact given their
limited links with global financial markets. Among frontier
markets, Nigeria’s currency weakened against the U.S.
dollar at the peak of the volatility, although financial
conditions have since stabilised,” it further explained.

The last may not have been heard concerning the survival or otherwise of the leader of the outlawed Islamic sect, Boko Haram, Abubkar Shekau, as a security analysis
conducted by the Department of the State Security (DSS),yesterday revealed that the recent video appearance of the sect’s leader was unreal.

The security analysis of the video sighted by THISDAY,
noted that the amateur replica cloned everything wrongly
but was not categorical on the death of the terrorist as it
waited on time to determine.

This, however, came same day the Minister of Special
Duties, Alhaji Kabiru Turaki, said it was not part of his duty or mandate as minister and chairman of the Presidential Committee on Dialogue and Peaceful Resolution of the Conflicts in Northern Nigeria to locate Shekau’s whereabout.

But the expert analysis of the video of the sect’s leader in
previous appearances showed that Shekau usually starts with the recitation of a full verse of the Quran, which sometimes could last up to five minutes, a sequence the stand-in Shekau did not observe.

According to a senior official of the agency, who spoke on
conditions of anonymity, the amateur cloned replica of
Shekau was wrong on several grounds including the fact
that his former appearances in videos was patterned after
a certain modus operandi.

It was also observed in the analysis, that unlike on
previous occasions when Shekau spoke, he was never
interrupted by any background praising quite unlike what
happened in the latest video.

The video, which was sent in for analysis by experts
showed that the movement of “Shekau’s lips” did not
synchronise with the words as pronounced, apparently
betraying a recorded message inefficiently manipulated to sustain a non-existent continuum in leadership, now in
disarray.

The experts had stated that the cloned attempt to mimick
Shekau voice during the opening stanza soon gave in, as
the impostor reverted to his real voice, while the intonation was different as Shekau was not known to drawl while talking.

Other inconsistencies discovered by the experts were that:
“This ‘Shekau’ even said a dead woman -Margaret
Thatcher, and Oladipo Diya, rejoiced over his (Shekau's)
death.

A DSS source who spoke to THISDAY said, "How does these add up to strengthen his case? One is dead and the other had left government long before the advent of Boko
Haram. The video was just to create unnecessary panic in the public.

“The fact is that Abubakar Shekau, was truly shot, critically injured and evacuated by his lieutenants to a conventional hospital outside Nigeria. It is only time that will tell if he survived but we know now that the video is as fake as it gets.”

solomon111: Yet someone like ba7man will be asking for GEJ's policies responsible for the growth of foreign investment in Nigeria.

Kingspin: After several years of abandonment. the railway system is back on track. I was happy to hear the sound and picture of a train that arrived PortHarcourt today. Is real, Mr president is working ooh.

The Federal Government has slashed business registration fees in Nigeria by 50 per cent to encourage investors to invest in the country.

The Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Olusegun Aganga, said this in a statement issued on Tuesday in Abuja by Yemi Kolapo, his Special Assistant on communications.

It explained that the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) had reduced the fees for equity registration by 50 per cent for equities of N500 million or lower.

According to the statement, the commission also reduced the fees by 25 per cent for equity registrations from N500 million and above.

The statement explained that the rationale behind the reduction of business registration fees was to increase investment inflow into the country.

It said that the initiative was in line with the ministry’s investment climate reform programme aimed at strategically repositioning Nigeria as preferred destination for both local and foreign investments.

“Following the directive from the President, the Corporate Affairs Commission has since October 1, 2013, slashed fees for business registration by 50 per cent.

“Under the new regulations, capital registration fees for Companies (under Part A) have been reduced across board, while capital registrations below one million naira will retain a flat fee of N10,000.

“All registrations between one million naira and N500 million are reduced by 50 per cent and all registrations above N500 million are reduced by 25 per cent,” it stated.

According to the statement, the review of the registration fees will enable Nigerian companies to save more than N2 billion per annum, which can be used to sustain their businesses, hire more staff and expand operations.

It added that the new regulation had been deliberately set up to ensure the bulk of these savings would go to smaller businesses to strengthen them.

ba7man: Picture if it was G.E.J that the Military handed power to in 1999..........I believe the Military would have slapped him after a year and snatched the Presidency right back from him.

ayodeji752: u forgot to write free and fair election

agbameta: The crooked and corrupt jokers sold 972mw capacity Ughelli Power firm at $300million

The crooked and corrupt jokers are now borrowing $1.5 billion to build a common 700mw power plant which is destined to be sold to their cronies pennies..


Only in Nigeria....

Sloan: Th BIG question is what and where will the money realized from the sale of these assets go? The retardeenic GEJ government is far too corrupt and my guess is he will loot most of these money and certainly has shares or major shareholding in these privatized companies.

Promhize: Thank God you did not badmouth this one. Maybe because its in Lagos

doublewisdom: Yes nah. That hole on his teeth is actually a missing tooth slapped out during the gbege.The thing dey pain the man reach tomorrow.

PapaBrowne: Now Channels news should go back there and do a report. They started this and they should go back there to finish it and take glory for their effort. That particluar Journalist especially.

Nice one by the president.

At the sidelines of the United Nations General
Assembly in New York, President Goodluck
Jonathan, who addressed the assembly and also met
President Barrack Obama during a recent visit to the
US, spoke in an interview with Arise Television.
Anayo Okolie transcribed the interview…

You met US President Barrack Obama a few days ago, what was it all about?

Obama is the President of the United State of America, the biggest economy in the world. And of course, America is a key country in terms of controlling affairs of the globe.

Although Nigeria is not as big, but at the African level, we
are playing a key role; first, as the second largest economy,which has the potential to even grow bigger than that. And of course, in terms of population, about 20 percent of the African population resides in Nigeria.We are key in terms of peace and security issues in Africa.
We are involved in all the peace-keeping operations where there is trouble within the West African sub-region and beyond.

Also, that these two countries need to work together to
bring peace to Africa and of course to the rest of the globe.Nigeria is the biggest trading partner to America from the African continent.

Therefore, these two countries must interface to ensure
that these trade links continue. In summary, we discussed issues bordering on security, and of course Nigeria has its challenges of Boko Haram, West Africa, North Africa,Central Africa and we just heard about Kenya, East Africa.America is interested in making sure that the world live at peace, and of course we need the assistance of America. So we discussed a number of security and economic issues.

And you know when Obama came to Africa, he launched
two programmes: the Power Africa Initiative, which some
countries including Nigeria have keyed in to benefit from
the $7 billion America thinks they could use in the issue of power. And also of the Young Leaders programme in Africa.And of course when you talk of young leaders, Nigeria with a population of 167 million people, 65 per cent of these people are below the age of 35.We have the highest concentration of very young people.And as a government, we also have some projects that are targeted at the youths like the YOUWIN programme, the NANGO programme, the Graduate Internships Programme.So these also key into that and we are looking at how the young African leadership programme also benefits from the products we already have. We agreed to give him write-ups on what we are doing and see how it could be interfaced.

According to a report, you greeted him with the following statement: “For you to fix the world you must fix Africa; for you to fix Africa you must fix Nigeria.” Why do you believe that fixing Nigeria is the key to fixing the entire continent?

Yes, it’s key because we are telling you that 20 percent of
Africans live in Nigeria. 20 percent is a big number. We
always say that, look, if you have crisis in Nigeria there’s no African country that can accommodate the refugees.
Nigeria can accommodate three countries put together.

Three countries? Cuts in…

Yes in Africa, no African country can take 25 percent of
Nigerians; you’ll run the country out. So, what we are
saying is that because of the economy and size of Nigeria,
if you stabilise Nigeria, the rest of Africa is stabilised.
Start from ECOWAS, we belong to one economic bloc – the Economic Community of West African States. We are 16 countries and Nigeria controls about 60 percent of that
economy.

In terms of the number of people, Nigeria is about 65
percent, our contribution towards ECOWAS is about that.
Then, when you talk about the rest of Africa, Nigeria is
second to South Africa in terms of the economy. But in
terms of population, South Africa is just one-third of
Nigeria.

So if Nigeria is that important, why hasn’t the president visited yet? Did you ask him to come visit?

I just invited him now to visit Nigeria next year. But when he decided to tour Africa, it was not at the instance of Nigeria. So I cannot decide where Obama should go. He must have used his own parameters to judge.
And of course, sometimes people feel that Nigeria is a
country that is doing very well but at the same time, South Africa, in terms of the economy, is ahead of Nigeria now and Obama visited South Africa. But I don’t want to
discuss why Obama did not visit Nigeria. We’ve invited him to come to Nigeria next year.
Did he say yes? Cuts in...

Normally when you invite a president they will not say yes or no, but they allow the diplomatic department to sort it out. In some cases he could say yes.

We explained why we wanted him to come. Nigeria as a
modern state would be 100 years old in 2014, since the
amalgamation of the North and South took place in January 1, 1914. So by next year, what we know as Nigeria will be 100 years old. So, we have a lot of programmes coming up, like historical programmes, cultural, political programmes and so on.

So we believe that he could key in, especially, looking at
his Power Africa Programme initiative. And we have many
programmes about young people, women. We can create a platform that he could use to advance his programmes.
It depends on how we package the programme.

Presidents are very busy people. They won’t just travel for the sake of traveling. But I believe that by the time we communicate details to him, he’ll decide whether he will come or not.

Let’s shift and speak about terrorism. The world is still
mulling about the mob attack in Nairobi. Except that
Nigeria has its own challenges of terrorism, namely Boko
Haram; could something like what happened back in Kenya happen in Nigeria?

We have experienced what I will describe as worst
situations than what happened in Kenya. Not in the exact
format of taking over a mall, but in terms of incidents that
cause deaths.There are some attacks in Nigeria that over 100 people died in the process. You can describe such as being worse than that what happened in Kenya. Truth is that terrorists would want to kill at will.

We are not deterred but still committed and would
continue to fight terror. I always insist that a terror attack
anywhere in the world is a terror attack on all of us. So
whatever happened in Nigeria and Kenya would not deter
us from fighting terror.

What steps will your government take to ensure the safety of Nigerians?

We have taken several steps and will continue to. I used to tell people that the issue of terror is alien to Africa,
especially in Nigeria. We had our own problems like killing,armed robbery but the issue of terror, and suicide bombing was not a part of our country and so for this, we never had the security architecture to deal with it.

But now that we’ve been confronted with the danger, we
are building up our intelligence capacity because the only
way you can capture terrorism is by superior intelligence.

Are you working with international governments to ensure the problem is addressed?

Yes we are. America, France and other countries are
working with us. So both superior intelligence and human
confrontation, we are improving on it every day.

I want to quote President Clinton, he said to win combat terrorism in Nigeria you have to combat poverty. His exact quote was that “You have all these political problems and now violent problems… The truth is that the poverty rate in the North is three times of what it is in Lagos.”What do you make of this assessment? If you combat poverty would terrorism decrease in Nigeria?

The answer is no. I don’t agree with that analysis. You see,certain crimes can be driven by poverty. If somebody who is driven by poverty would have something to take, he’dwant to keep something.But a suicide bomber is not driven by poverty.

The first incidence of suicide bombing that a Nigerian would want to bring down an American aircraft was from one of the richest families in the North. A young man with Masters degree; can you say that was caused by poverty? Was that of 9/11 in America driven by poverty? If you look at the weapon that Boko Haram uses in Nigeria, do you know the cost of one surface-to-air missile? Can a poor man have access to the level of that kind of machine? Who has been feeding those terrorists in the bush?

What one can say is that if you improve on the economy of a place and people are doing well, the likelihood of seeing people to recruit into the fold would be less. The real cause of terror is not driven by poverty.

What we are doing in Nigeria is to face the issue of Boko
Haram from all angles. A military confrontation does not
solve terror attacks. Although we have a key team talking
with the victims, but the key thing is our education. We are intervening and we have plans to build about 200 basic schools – primary and post primary – between now and 2015. At the tertiary education level, by the time I came in 2010 as the president, in the whole South were 17 states,and only three did not have federal universities.
In the 19 states of the North, nine didn’t have federal
universities. I said to start with, every state must have a
federal degree awarding, funded university. We began with small universities and expanded them based on the
funding. First and foremost, we are tackling it at the
educational level.

Now, how do you create jobs?
In the North you have more land for farming. The Nigerian
environment is more diversified; from the ocean through
the rain forest and into the Guinea savannah, and to the
semi desert.Luckily for us, the Guinea savannah that is very good for farming is in all parts of the North. So you can see that more than seven per cent of agricultural intervention,which is one of the key areas that we are doing excellently well is in the North. All the drive through rice farming that we’ve done and produced one million metric tonnes of rice is from the North.When we had a devastating flood in 2012 we never had shortage of grains because of this. More than seven percent of agricultural intervention is done in the North.And that is the area where you can easily create jobs,especially for people who are not very skilled.

We are approaching it from the background of education because you want to educate the people.I usually said that I came from a rural setting, and if I never went to school I don’t think I would have ever dreamed of
becoming a councillor. But I am the president of the
country now because I went to school.So all these boys who are roaming the streets could be like me if you expose them to education. And I feel that is the first priority and that is where we are starting. Then
because you must create jobs and agriculture just fits in,
because the land is in the North and the environment good for farming. Most of our irrigated projects are in the North.It is there that you have the streams that flow one way. By the time you move down to the South, getting to the ocean, the land is flat. You don’t dam flat rivers but those that have very high graded and those kinds of rivers are all in the North.So all the money we are investing in dam are in the North.We are investing so much in the North and I believe with time this situation will improve significantly.

Election season is right around the corner, so, do you plan on running for re-election?

I always tell Nigerians not to talk of 2015 elections until
2014, because in both the developing and developed
countries, elections are very sensitive. A sitting governor or president, immediately he gets involved in election issue –what we call election fever sets in – he becomes distracted and begins to think about how to win election and forget about his basic responsibility. When you have a four-year tenure, you cannot expect a governor or president who has just served two years out of the four to start wasting his time talking about election.

Let’s assume you would be running; why do you think
you’d be deserving of a second chance?

My commitment is that we must do things differently.
[b]There must be significant changes and we are doing that in agriculture, power, aviation, transport. I’m not saying that we are there yet. If you pass through our airports some years back and you’re a Nigerian, you won’t be happy.Now people are happy.Agriculture used to be a problem, but now we have developed it to a good level. We had a programme ωнεяε Bill Gates and Kofi Annan came, because they see what we are doing and agreed to play the role of advisers.

They wouldn’t have been wasting their time if they didn’t
see the seriousness in what we are doing. There are some
things that are glaring and others that even if you mention they would not appreciate. But for aviation, you can appreciate because if you’ve passed through our airports before and now, go to the same airport, you’ll see the change in infrastructure.The road network if you’ve been driving before you’ll know.The trains have started moving; we are also building new tracks. For agriculture, in 2012 we had a devastating flood.People came to me and asked for waivers to import rice into the country.
The agriculture minister said no because of some of our
programmes where so many people have invested in rice
production.[/b]

Since things are going so well, why do you recently sacked nine of your ministers?

We are moving but we also want to move faster.

Ruling party governors have been opposing you in seeking a second term and you said, that you don’t plan to announce that you’re seeking a second term but people have come out and said no.Can you run without their support if you decide to seek a second term? And what do you make of them coming out in opposition to the very idea of you seeking a second term?

I would not want to discuss second term because that
would be discussing election, and I said that it is too early
to talk about second term or election. I don’t want to be
distracted.I always tell people who are interested in 2015 to wait and don’t distract others who are working. The sitting governors, myself were elected to run for four years. We just finished two years and four months; we just finished half term and you want to waste the remaining time talking about second term.If some governors feel that they’ve done so much and want to use the remaining two years thinking about elections, they and the electorate in their states will discuss that. But for me, my commitment is to serve Nigeria.Whether Goodluck Jonathan serves one term or two terms is immaterial. Within these four years that I had been
elected to serve, I should be given freedom to serve my
people. So I am not too keen about what happens in the
next election; we are not yet there.

You were honoured by the New York Stock Exchange and rang the closing bell. What was that experience like for you?

It is the first time and I thank them for giving me that
experience; it is an honour. This communicates something to the rest of the world that Nigeria is a country that has the opportunity for investments.

It is one of the investment destinations in the world, and
when it comes to Africa, Nigeria is number one in terms of
Foreign Direct Investments.

payless: I am patiently waiting to see where this ends.........

Where is the cargo rail that was widely praised on this forum?

passion007: Femi attributes his success to Prayer, and God's grace.
No specific policies, no reforms, no nothing.
He just knelt down everyday at work, tore the mask of nature and stared at the face of God, for 6 months.

... The Fourth Dimension: Oduah isn't praying enough