₦airaland Forum

^Eyesight?

I feel sorry for you because your hatred for Nigeria has blinded you from using your common sense.
Resouce control in America isn't really resource control owned by the state.
States such as texas or alaska dont have the authority under the constitution to control oil leases and determine how much oil is to be pumped. Americas constitution like Nigerias in terms of Business and Economy is made to benefit the private sector. TAXES is what benefits the state and or Federal Government.

WHICH IS WHY THE OIL MAKING STATES OF AMERICA, DONT EQUATE TO HAVING HIGH INCOME WORKERS THAT INHABIT THEM.

why are you dumb like seriously why?

^
The Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (AOGCC) is a quasi-judicial agency in the U.S. state of Alaska, within Alaska's Department of Administration.[1] It was originally established in 1955, was subsequently abolished, but was eventually reestablished. This Commission is responsible for overseeing oil and gas drilling and production, reservoir depletion, and certain other operations on private and state-owned lands in Alaska.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Oil_and_Gas_Conservation_Commission

Na lie!
So Yar Adua signs Nigaz with Russia, then begs US marines to take over the ND; how does that make any sense?

By the Grace of God, the govt will be foolish enough sha.

bawomolo:
You think MEND can face a convention army? This would end up as another Sri Lanka.

Maybe not immediately. But neither is the army likely to win, except they want to hold ND people hostage. Also, there are some very powerful foreign interests.

There will be no Sri Lanka.

sjeezy8:
poverty line based on actually money doesn't mean shit to Nigerians

many dont have a dime to spend but simply live off of what they grow.

these findings are based on what the WEST consider poverty amongst themselves.

To a Nigerian farmer who lives off of what he grows he is not in poverty

so yea its possible.

You are 100% correct in that assessment, but you've pointed out something even more worrying than financial poverty. Like that poor farmer, the average Nigerian is also ignorant; a much worse predicament.

babapupa:
Feel free to spin as much as you want, what ever makes you snore louder at night.

Tell me precisely what your elected officials did to save his life.  

I wrote more than that, but as usual, deception and  factual fraud dey bother you,

Damn!
Ignorance confirmed! Keep to the simple things you know about.
Saro Wiwa was killed by Abacha. There were no "elected officials".

debosky:
How is it false?

ND states collect 13% derivation - add to that statutory allocations and local government funds and you get a figure close to 30%.

This link will put an end to your mathmatical dilemma and fix the figure firmly at 13% http://www.dawodu.com/aluko10.htm

@babapupa

So ND people killed Saro Wiwa too? Jesus!

Did you drink your quota of milk as a child?

^Note: the statement you've quoted has been edited.

What makes you think Bayelsa isn't developing

Kobojunkie:
And what has the state done in the meantime? I mean with 30 million a month in revenue, you could do much in the way of providing electricity.

Of course Bayelsa generated its own electricity up till 2006 (correction to my previous statement). Since 2006 till January, residents got free electricity, paid for by the state.

Does a 30 million monthly revenue (in the past few years) absolve the FG from connecting a region that is its breadbasket with a basic thing like electricity, at the very least and after 46 years of independence?

debosky:
Any analysis that fails to recognise the abject FAILURE in a DECADE (10 years) of earning 30% of oil revenues by the STATE GOVERNMENTS with little impact is ridiculous and cannot hold any substance.

That is false. Abi na ignorance?

^Do you know that up till today that state is not connected to the national eletricity power grid? Does that hint at something?

[quote author=Sammy107_d link=topic=323269.msg4543623#msg4543623 date=1252957764]The most ridiculous statement of the century. That's freaking 9 in 10 people!!! That's like everybody! [/quote]Deceive yourself.

The average Nigerian lives like an animal. We are so used to it that we think it is normal.
We have been getting poorer and poorer sinse the 70's.

Deceive yourself.

@babapupa and debosky

I am not defending gov Sylva, you can critisise him till kingdom come. I have not for once said in any argument on this thread that Graceland is not controversial, so go on and criticise it, but lets keep to honest arguments.

I truly pity babapupa for not realising that Saro Wiwa was the most powerful leader in the ND when he was executed by the FG in collussion with big oil. I really pity such ignorance. Nobody was more peaceful or intellectual than Saro Wiwa, there was no greater respecter of life. Nigeria got kicked out of the Common Wealth for that crime.

I have kept harping on one thing throughout; keep gov Sylva's issues to him and stop insinuating that ND people's plight is due to him; the wider Niger Delta issue is recognised the World over as a shameful humanitarian crisis perpetrated on the inhabitants of the ND by their own FG. Only daft people blame the ND for its problems; hear a powerful US voice:

All this serves to confirm the assessment of U.S. military officers, who increasingly have come to believe that the principal obstacle to a resolution of Nigeria's continuing crisis is the Nigerian government itself and that the Nigerian elite is bent on committing suicide by continuing its efforts to hold on to power by military force.

Daniel Volman is the Director of the African Security Research Project in Washington, DC. He is the author of numerous articles and reports and has been studying U.S. security policy toward Africa and African security issues for more than 30 years.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200909140002.html

This is the full article.
Nigeria: Govt Gears Up for Another Offensive in the Delta
Daniel Volman
13 September 2009
Washington — There is mounting evidence that the government of Nigerian President Umaru Musa Yar'adua is set to launch a full-scale offensive in the Niger Delta when a ceasefire declared by rebels ends on Sep. 15.
And this time, Nigerian military forces will be using special warships, helicopter gunships and troop transports, and unmanned drone intelligence planes and ships sold to Nigeria by Israeli, Malaysian, Singaporean, Dutch and Russian companies.
Israeli and Russian instructors have been providing specialised training to Nigerian Navy and Air Force sailors and pilots in how to operate the ships and helicopters over the past few months, and some of these instructors may help operate them during the offensive.
On Jul. 15, President Yar'adua declared a 60-day amnesty for members of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), the armed group that has been conducting an insurgency campaign in the Delta for the past five years. The amnesty offer is set to expire at midnight on Oct. 4.
The insurgents say that they are fighting to protect the rights of the people who live in the Delta and to get them a fair share of Nigeria's massive revenues from the sale of oil produced in the region.
Nigeria is Africa's largest oil producer and currently exports some 1.7 million barrels of oil per day. The United States imports 44 percent of Nigeria's oil production, making the country the U.S.'s fifth largest foreign source of oil.
The Energy Information Administration of the U.S. Department of Energy estimates that if the insurgency ended, Nigeria's effective oil production capacity could quickly be raised to around 2.7 million barrels per day.
When Pres. Yar'adua announced the amnesty, government officials said that they expected between 8,000 and 10,000 insurgents to accept its terms. But only a few hundred of the estimated 12,000-15,000 rebels have handed in their weapons.
Most members of MEND say that the government's amnesty was not made in good faith and that they have no confidence that that the government will honour its promises to improve the lives of the Delta's impoverished residents or to fix the massive environmental damage caused by decades of unregulated oil production.
One reason that MEND does not trust Pres. Yar'adua is that the Nigerian government has recently been buying hundreds of millions of dollars worth of sophisticated weaponry and military hardware in preparation for a new offensive in the Niger Delta.
These include deals worth 25 million dollars for two 24.8-metre Shaldag MK-2 patrol boats from the Israeli firm, Israel Shipyards - one has already been delivered and the other is on its way - and another deal involves air and sea drones from Aeronautica Ventures, another Israeli company.
Shaldag MK-20 patrol boats are generally armed with artillery guns and machine guns. Eighty Nigerian sailors are presently being trained in counterinsurgency operations at the northern Israeli port of Haifa.
Nigeria recently bought a surveillance system for the Delta that uses Aerostar unmanned drones and Seastar vessels produced by Israel's Aeronautics Defense Systems/Aeronautics Ventures. Nigeria acquired 20 troop-carrying catamarans from the Dutch firm, TP Marine, to transport soldiers up the creeks and small rivers of the Delta region.
The Nigerian Navy also recently took delivery of two 38-metre Manta-class patrol boats built by the Nautica Nova Shipbuilding yard in Malaysia. These ships were officially commissioned on Apr. 12. Four additional 17-metre Manta-class patrol boats have also been delivered to Nigeria from Singapore Technologies Marine.
The Nigerian Navy also recently procured 35 new machine gun-equipped fast patrol boats in a deal that was paid for by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, reportedly on the instructions of Pres. Yar'adua. . The Nigerian Air Force has also received at least 15 Mi-24, Mi-34, and Mi-35 helicopter gunship and troop transport helicopters from Russia. Some of these were reportedly delivered just before Pres. Dimitri Medvedev's visit to the country in June. These helicopters are armed with Gatling guns, machine guns, bombs, rocket launchers, and rockets, and can also carry up to eight soldiers at the same time.
Russian instructors are currently in Nigeria training Nigerian pilots how to operate these helicopters. The training is reportedly not going very well, raising speculation that the Nigerian government may ask the Russian instructors to operate the helicopter gunships during the impending military offensive.
These helicopter gunships were used extensively by the Soviet Union during its invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and have been used more recently for counterinsurgency operations by the governments of Sierra Leone, Guinea, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and Chad.
It is clear that the Nigerian government is getting ready to mount a massive military offensive in the Niger Delta, either when the MEND ceasefire ends on Sep. 15 or when its own amnesty programme ends on Oct. 4. [b]However, despite all the firepower and sophisticated weaponry that it has acquired in recent months, there is no reason to believe that this offensive will be any more successful in bringing the insurgency to an end than any of its previous military operations.
Moreover, by demonstrating that the Yar'adua government is committed to a military solution to the political, economic and environmental crisis in the Niger Delta, the offensive is very likely to lead to an explosion of violence not just in the Delta, but also throughout the country.
Tensions in other parts of the country have been mounting in recent months, most notably in the predominantly Muslim states in the north.
The repression of violence by an Islamic extremist group in the north, which was marked by indiscriminate attacks that killed many innocent people and by the extrajudicial murder of the group's leader in police custody, alienated many moderate Muslims who previously constituted the government's base of support.
They are sure to be further alienated by the growing involvement of Israelis in supporting the government's offensive against the people of the southern part of Nigeria, even if the victims of this offensive are predominantly Christian.
All this serves to confirm the assessment of U.S. military officers, who increasingly have come to believe that the principal obstacle to a resolution of Nigeria's continuing crisis is the Nigerian government itself and that the Nigerian elite is bent on committing suicide by continuing its efforts to hold on to power by military force.[/b]

Daniel Volman is the Director of the African Security Research Project in Washington, DC. He is the author of numerous articles and reports and has been studying U.S. security policy toward Africa and African security issues for more than 30 years.

madlady:
BEAF SIR

A true politician,muck racker and thrower
Who the hell say we should freely procreate, I am not playing with u,u have forked tongue.
Show me the back of your head, what number is it? 666 or 999 >: hell or jail house 4 u.

Yes ma! It was my girlfriends tongue.

If I have annoyed you, please forgive and forget, the only number at the back of my head is your phone number. Whenever we meet, (hell, jail house, anywhere) we can proceed to freely procreate. In wicked ways, at random times until you see sun and think its moon. . .
I promise that by the time your left ear moves to your navel and your eyes pleasantly fall on the floor, by the time you wake up with an everlasting smile like someone touched by the spirit of Jah; then you too will become a convert to free procreation.

Which levels na?

Sanusi's beans is surely burning big time now.

babapupa:
Please stop the deception, that's not what they're asking them to do. It is not their job to fix oil wells but it is their job to pass and enforce anti pollution laws. They have the power to fine and or lock up offending comps and we all know the reason why they're not doing it, they are simply in the pockets of the oil comps at the expense of delta folks.

lol @ Pass death sentences, e get as e be with your thinking and sense of rationalization sometimes.

How clever! They can't touch the oil wells or flow stations, but they can "enforce" anti-pollution laws. You are the one obvious person on NL that hates ND people (and it shows), so without fail you come up with all sorts of weird and madcap ideas.

Death sentences? "Shell pays out $15.5m over Saro-Wiwa killing" http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/08/nigeria-usa
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/92632

Your other comment above was too ridiculous for me to expend energy on.

^
When did I argue with you about schools, hospitals and such stuff? Why are you being fucking dishonest and ascribing arguments or a slant I never made to me?

I have made my grouse quite plain, and it is simply that some like you were equating that building with the wider Niger Delta issue. Simple!

If you argue that Bayelsa is negligent because they haven't started fixing oil wells or digging around flow stations to sort out pollution, its either you're being mischievious, wicked or are just plain dull. Perhaps you don't even know that the oil companies are powerful enough to pass death sentences with impunity.

Kobojunkie:
But I read the same article and am still disgusted by the waste. What you are doing here is trying to argue something like, "If Fashola does what he says he is going to do, then he will deserve credit. If he doesn't then you will be justified in your criticism. It is far too early for people to cricticize him on the FLOATING HOTEL scheme that he invested $40 million dollars in. As long as he, Fashola, delivers on other promises, then we ought to OVERLOOK the  FLOATING HOTEL scheme. Waste is OK as long as the governor delivers in other areas? "

Is this sort of what you now believe after reading that article?

There doesn't seem to be anything hidden about the building; for the Lagos development it was different, I had concerns about sea encroachment and funding transparency; in this case the governor was 100% open. On this thread, SapeleGuy, Ono and a couple of others have also been forthcoming. So I have no qualms.
Maybe we can debate gov Sylva's decision to complete the building or keep its original purpose or not scale back cost or if it will ever make break even.

^Add to those lovely quotations, "Strike the hammer while iron is hot".
Bobo can't start learning to toast at 50, with bald head and big bellie (that is a crime).

@madlady
How do you keep society healthy when some are refusing to freely procreate.
Even Solomon in Vicboya's bible had 1000 wives and 1000 concubines. . . And he was holy! I would loff to be holy like Solomon

@pc_guru
Enh hen! See de wicked graph wen you dey draw for de guy. Your graph means that he is in danger of hooking a woman so skilled in the "arts", that most will ascribe the resulting offspring to the full blooded exertions the gardener, rather any inexperienced futile flappings from you know who.

I no talk anytin!

Kobojunkie:
I don't even want to try touching this one, not now! not today!

Apart from the usual "create revenue and jobs" argument, what strong arguments exist on the other side for this? I mean what strong argument is there for this monstrouscity that seems to have more to do with western envy, than it has to do with love of Africa/Nigeria or even the culture?

My initial reaction to this thing was horror, but there was a post by SapeleGuy that has made me take a middle of the road position. Here it is;

SapeleGuy: If you are open minded read on:

http://odili.net/news/source/2009/aug/8/501.html


For our country to move forward we have to have visionary ideas and the courage to implement them. On this thread some of you have displayed hindsight but have no vision or foresight.
Abuja was the mother of all white elephant projects, but supporters in high places made that vision come to life.

Past performance is no guarantee of future performance, If Sylva does what he says he is going to do, then he will deserve credit. If he doesn't then you will be justified in your criticism. It is far too early for the bullets some of you are shooting. Innocent until proven guilty - give the project a chance.

@babapupa

Your argument is ridiculous.

All oil operations are owned 60% by the FG. Can Bayelsa give the FG an ultimatum?

The companies in Lagos aren't owned by the FG. You are quick to label people dumb and clueless, but you're showing little grasp of the situation on the ground.

^
You smell Beaf?

See dis yeye clown! You want the guy to kpeme from frustration before 30. You better tell him the truth about how small clara became iya mukira at less than 26 years old.

luvbooks:
Lmao, !!! This is extremely bad advice but I just had to laugh. How come I havent see u on NL before? U're hilarious.

@ Poster; The best advice was the one given by dada22. He said it all. On a second note, however, how old are you?

Thank you my my dear, that advice is what will one day give my son (before 26 sha). You haven't seen cos, I'm one of those over serious people that spends life in the politics section.

^I have always held that corruption and "tribalism" are symptoms of a sick federal structure.

The real root of all our problems is a chaotic federal structure. Chaos breeds yet more chaos in ever tightening loops.

chic2pimp:
Let's be honest with ourselves, Only a few people want this separation so why should we pander to the will of a few minority? . Anyone who does not want one nigeria is free to move to other african countries or better still move abroad. Its that simple.
GBAM .

If that small minority has been increasing steadily (maybe even exponentially), there is good cause for alarm.

Kobojunkie:
I am sorry!! 20 Billion Naira is a lot of money. You spend that wisely in even the smallest state in Nigeria and you will see significance change in the right direction. To pump all that into an eye sore in the middle of nowhere Nigeria is just too much for the heart of many to bear!! ND issue or none, that amount each month would actually go a long way to, not only cleaning up some of the environmental issues as mentioned already, but also improving the lives of the people who live in these areas. We can continue blaming everyone else for our issues or we accept that we have to also use what we have to our own good in the meantime.

State governments have no business cleaning up pollutioning FG concerns. There is zero merit to that argument.

Has Bayelsa changed? Believe me, it is almost dramatic.
However doesn't say the mansion is a good idea; even the governor himself didn't sound too sure of that; except that he was completing a project that was started by ALAMs (and which the current VP steered clear off). So, time alone will tell.

There are strong arguments on both sides.

THE AMAKA:
gunpoint?

Yes my dear. Real gunpoint.

sjeezy8:
isn't that everyone? its not exclusive to anyones ethnicity

. . .Such abberations can pile up to test loyalty. It shows how little the nation values each citizen. It is yet another example of why we need a National Conference; there is no delineation of responsibilities of citizen to the state or the state to the citizen. "Nigerianness" has no definition, anything goes; citizens being at gunpoint every other day is normal.

Disfunctional.

One interesting titbit. . .
The only place in the World where I have ever been at gunpoint (over and over), is Nigeria. Why?

The Police is your friend