₦airaland Forum

Do we think Europe should be helping us develop our own footballers to the detriment of their own players?

One of the reasons their league is so popular and successful is the variety of talented players from all over but they have the right to decide to limit the numbers whenever they feel like it.

We should also think of creating the atmosphere for the development of our best talents.

i dont know about Cornwall but I dont think Leicester is very friendly. Peaceful maybe but friendly, it is not really.

Kobojunkie:
This is assuming that most parts of the world have more trouble than we already have within our borders and I say that is so not the case. We happen to be laden with some of the most ridiculous issues, compared to the rest of the developing world considering what we have and all. AFRICOM has been in Uganda for years now and you barely here a pip out of that place except when it comes to the always present internal issues of poor government and militant issues, which are in no way related to AFRICOM.

We dont have the kind of violence triggered by Americans in most other places. If we should laden ourselves with such, we dont have the resources or the mentality to deal with it. Nigeria is not Uganda and does not have the same socialogical and cultural make up as Uganda. The presence of American soldiers living in Nigeria can only further destroy the Nation's cultural and social fabric.

Kobojunkie:
The Chinese and Indians are already in the country on commercial assigments. They not only import most of the goods we consume in that country now, which for the most part remains of low quality compared to what we have here in America but they have planted hundreds of stations out there and handle many of our own governments work and contracts. Bringing in AFRICOM may force some sort of improvement on the part of the quality of labour and goods sold in that country and at the end of the day, open some sort of door for Nigerian businesses to better compete, instead of sticking to the semi-monopolistic situation we have today(with china leading the pack).
The move to patronize goods from other countries is inevitable consequence of globalization and not AFRICOM's fault. I say we use it to our own advantage before things get out of hand.

The fact that the chinese and Indians are already in does not mean that Nigeria should become a gbogbo-ero country where anything goes. As it is, we are struggling with the effect of westernised Nigerians and their influence as a result of the hard cirrency they bring on their short trips, on the moral fabric of the country. We will never be able to sustain the onslaught that will result when we allow American soldiers to get into our society with their social and cultural beliefs that are so alien to the Nigerian culture.

Yes

tboy1:
Which part of UK did you go?

I was born here. I have been to a few parts of the country as well

Kobojunkie:
I have no idea how you came up with the reasons you give above. Basically, from your post, one can easily sum it up by stating that it means Nigerians are idiots and so AFRICOM should not be encouraged. The first reason you give I believe is more an insult to Nigerians than it is a reason for why this may cause harm. I say that cause I do not understand how anyone can come up with that for a reason why AFRICOM should be in Nigeria. As for the second, Nigeria is already flooded with brands from America and the rest of the western world. Over 95% of goods we currently consume is part from the western world and mostly from the asian world. To preclude that AFRICOM coming to Nigerian now will bring extension of American brands is, in my opinion, utterly ridiculous.

It is not an insult for people to feel inferior to others who seem more successful financially. It's a human sociological reaction. Nigerians will become 2nd class to Americans in Nigeria if American soldiers should come and make their base in Nigeria. We have managed so far to keep our country intact without American presence.

Besides, American presence is a catalyst for trouble in most parts of the world; why are we inviting that trouble?

On the second point, Nigeria is already littered with foreign goods: no doubt about that. Do we want to continue to perpetuate that or to try and re-orientate Nigerians to patronise Nigerian?

Kobojunkie:
The same people who loot and kill their own at home turn into meek animals the minute they step outside of the borders and become law abiding citizens. Even village people act civilized when they get outside of our shores. But as soon as you bring in more Nigerians into the mix, we tend to relapse into our old nature. Ever notice how most of the Nigerians abroad who commit crime live in areas where there exists a high population of Nigerians?? From South Africa, to Benin; from the UK to Amsterdam; from USA to Canada, that seems to be the case. You hear a nigerian is involved in crime, look around and you will find so many other Nigerians within the same area or community.

I am sure you can also see from what you are writing that the problem is with the PEOPLE OF NIGERIA as a whole and not just the leadership.

By the way, the leadership is a reflection of the people themselves. WE are the problem with Nigeria and we need to look at ourselves properly first. If we are not destroying the infrastrucures, they'll be there for our own use. If we are not supporting rogues, we wont have rogues governing us. If we drive with care and obey traffic laws, there wont be so much chaos on the roads. If we do not glorify corrupt leaders and scammers, we wont be a corrupt Nation full of scammers and fraudsters

It appears this has more harm than benefits to Nigeria.
It is likely to make Nigerians develop feelings of inferiority towards these people who will have more firepower and more economic power(financially) than our own military. What will then happen is that we will have our soldiers and nationals further disillusioned by their inability to match what these oppressors will bring to bear upon the economy.

It's also another opportunity for America to extend it brand further in Nigeria (especially knowing that Nigerians love anything foreign more than they love their own)

Go to the UK and see people who abuse you for NOTHING. Sometimes they dont just abuse you, they also physically attack you.

omoovie:
My point, what's the big deal that I shouldn't hear word about some 2 gay guys in the Rockies and why d f did this win an award when there were far better films that year? It has no merits to me except to gay people who aren't the majority viewing base. I don't have any good analogies to present my point but I hope you understand what I mean by this. As I've expressed from the get-go, we (as in Nigerians in particular and maybe Africans in general) have bigger fish to fry than the fact that a bunch of gay people all the way in California, USA can now marry.

Exactly, we have enough on our plate to deal with. Let the perverse homosexuality stay where it is in America where they have enough resources to deal with whatever problems it may present to them in the near or far future.

dj climax,

I can only thank God for people like you.

Black South Africans, and Africans in general, tend to allow themselves to be used by westerners to destroy themselves which only paves room for further exploitation by westerners

he he he

4 Him:
EVer noticed that Nigerians actually understand how to use street lights, obey traffic laws, maintain neat surroundings abroad?

Is this not really an idication that we treat ourselves and our own with disdain? when we get home, we want to be unruly but when we are abroad, we are willing to obey rules.

mekile:
I say, take your Nigerian con men out of South Africa, we don't need your drug dealing types.
I say cut off ALL of Nigerias internet access so don't have your shitty emails flying around the world about left over fortunes and grannies who owe you money.
You try con people then talk crap about bless god. You are all idiots.

Mekile,

while i understand your frustrations, the tone of your outburst is totally daft.

How will you feel if I was to say kill ALL South Africans because all they do is to kill human beings for mobile phones etc.

It's just wrong

nuzo:
More reason why the lunatic al-quada will make the god damned country a prime target.

Exactly

What exactly does Nigeria stand to gain from this?

I pray that those who always believe that anything allowed in Europe and America (no matter how perverse and detrimental it might be) should be imported to Nigeria never get the chance to legitimise sodomy in Nigeria

why you come dey yab me now?

Spermdrops:
No Nigerian was killed in the "attack" in South Africa.

So what is all the noise for now? See how stupid Nigerians are?

They just start getting worked up for no reason without even verifying what the facts are.

What a bunch of busy bodies!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7422887.stm


South Africa is to set up seven refugee camps around the country for foreign migrant workers who have fled a recent wave of anti-immigrant violence.

The holding camps will take up to 70,000 people from the increasingly unsanitary conditions at temporary shelters put up around state buildings.

The government decision comes despite strong advice from respected international aid agencies.

They say South Africa does not have the expertise necessary to run the camps.

Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF), the medical charity, says conditions for people seeking refuge in the existing shelters are worsening.

Meanwhile, Nigeria says it will press for compensation from the South African government for its citizens who were victims of the violence.

Nigerian Foreign Minister Ojo Maduekwe told AFP news agency that no Nigerian was killed in the attacks, but many have lost their properties and others have had their shops looted.

Little experience

Aid agencies say the true number of displaced people is at least 80,000.

With the cabinet expected to announce its plans later on Wednesday, aid agencies fear the government has little experience of running what are likely to become semi-permanent refugee camps, says the BBC's Africa editor, Martin Plaut.

Establishing such camps could come back to haunt the country for many years to come, our Africa editor adds.

MSF said it was finding cases of diarrhoea and chest infections in overcrowded shelters near Johannesburg.

The International Red Cross's Francoise Le Goff told the BBC it was vital the workers left these temporary shelters.

"We have problems with sanitation; it's cold; people are getting sick, so their security is barely there," she said.

"People need to leave this place and have an area where they can settle a little better and where they can reorganise a better life."

Deplorable conditions

Fifty-six people have been killed and more than 650 injured in the attacks, according to officials.

The unrest, targeting migrants from Zimbabwe and other African countries, began near Johannesburg earlier this month.

MSF South Africa programme director Muriel Cornelis said conditions for displaced people sheltering in makeshift camps or outdoors were starting to become "deplorable".

"None of the sites provide enough latrines, enough toilets, enough showers, enough access to water," she said.

"You have some portable latrines but they're not being removed or cleaned so therefore at one point people no longer use them and they use the grass."

But Able Bapela, the head of a parliamentary task force, told the BBC's Focus on Africa that victims of violence were receiving "humanitarian sympathy and support".

Earlier, Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula said more than 1,300 arrests had been made and special courts had been set up to deal with the situation.

South African President Thabo Mbeki has denounced the anti-immigrant violence as the worst act of inhumanity South Africa has seen since the end of apartheid.

But the president has been criticised for his handling of the crisis, including a response which some have seen as slow.

Political domination

Academic studies have long shown South Africans to be among the most intolerant people in the world, our Africa editor reports.

SOUTH AFRICA
Total population: 49m
Foreign population: 3-5m
Majority from Zimbabwe, also Mozambique, Nigeria
Unemployment rate: 30%


The feeling that foreigners are harder working and better educated than locals may have bred resentment, he says.

Social inequality and the political domination of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) could also have contributed to the frustrations that fuelled the recent attacks, he adds.

The troubles flared with a wave of attacks on foreigners in the township of Alexandra, within sight of some of Johannesburg's most expensive suburbs.

They have since spread to seven of South Africa's nine provinces.

Many people have fled South Africa to countries including Zambia, Mozambique and Botswana.

The Red Cross said on Tuesday that 27,000 had fled to Mozambique alone.

I have to agree that South Africa is probably the most qualified to host the competition. Apologies to North Africans (I dont know much about the state of things in North Africa).

I never thought SA should be hosting the world cup in the first place because of security reasons. I have actually refused to visit SA in the past because of security fears. I have a few friends there but I am unable to convince myself that it's safe to go there.

4 Him:
You're putting the cart before the horse here bro.

A man who is full will not demand more food. We "expect" politicians to throw money around because:
- we are hungry, unemployed and disillusioned by the electoral process that is of no benefit to us.

Americans don't expect their politicians to throw money about, they don't need it.

Hungry people dont support their oppresors. They revolt against them and throw them out of the palaces and out of power. History is replete with such: OR perhaps Nigerians are not hungry enough yet

Its the "if you can't beat them join them" syndrome. Otherwise honest and forthright Nigerians are tired of folding their arms while rogues loot the nation blind. If my uncle is in office i'd expect him to give me a contract too . . .

You join them and make it worse. That's exactly how we got here and we'll get worse as long as people continue with that attitude

we don't "denounce" them, its because we know that no matter how good their policies are they can never win in the nigerian system.
We all know Falae was a better option to Obasanjo.

They can win if WE, collectively, decide to make them win

we are not supporting them . . . the Nigerian people have no choice but to pretend to support those who will foist themselves on us by force anyway.

If only we were pretending to support them. We actually actively support them. I have seen with my eyes and heard with my ears.

No, we are wide awake . . . the reality staring us in the face is that we are nothing but passive onlookers in the game of "who can steal the most" going on at Abuja.

This is true to the extent that we allow it to be. If we start from somewhere, we'll make progress eventually in sending the right message across that corruption will not go unpunished.

However, the reason we are unable to demand change is because most of us are actually just waiting for our opportunity to loot and be part of the same system. While we have not got that opportunity, we make little noises but as soon as we get there, we loot as well. There are some so-called new generation politicians in parliament and in the executive all also looting.

Until we realise that WE are the problem with the nation, it wont move forward. Why is it that everyone in Nigeria who says good things suddenly becomes a looter after being elected. Believe it or not, everyone of us needs soul searching.

i agree with what everybody said,sometimes nigerians behave like animals on the plane.[b]the instruction is that your phone should be off untill the aircrafts doors are opened.would u believe that as soon as the plane lands even while taxing our fellow nigerian r already on the phone saying 'plane wa ti land oh'.[/b]all the same if only we had naija airways then we can be allowed to be animals on our own national carrier

Do you know that this is done all over the world?

Not that I am condoning doing the wrong things but it's not proper to try and make out that we are unique in law breaking and unruliness

It's a shame these things continue to happen in Nigeria, on a daily basis too.

we are all always quick to blame leaders without looking at our contributions as well. Our attitude and mindsets suggest that we are the ones who actively encourage our leaders to loot. We cannot expect politicians not to loot if we actively expect them to do things that only looters can do.

We expect politicians to throw money around before elections but we dont want them to loot.
We expect our friends and family in politics to award us contracts simply because of our relationship with them and we complain about stagnation of the country.
We denounce any politician with good motives but less money to throw around and we still do not think they'll loot to be able to throw such money around.
We consistently support those who are known or have been tainted by corruption in the past and we complain about corruption.
We are quick to support people who were responsible for underdeveloping us in the past and we expect to be developed.

We are dreamers dreaming without vision and action mission.

Tayo-D:
@Blatant,

Exactly what is your point?

My point? Do you not think Palestinians have reasons to be aggrieved? And these evils against are still being continually perpetrated

More recently;

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7356730.stm

Interesting

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/96913.stm

The question of land - who owns it, and who can build on it - is at the centre of the disagreements which have ensured that peace in the Middle East remains a distant dream. The recent 50th anniversary of the founding of Israel coincided with some of the bloodiest violence the region has seen in years. The Palestinian writer, Edward Said, has been making a film about the homeland he left more than 50 years ago.
One overriding impression is that minute by minute, hour by hour, day after day, we are losing more and more Palestinian land to the Israelis.

There wasn't a road or a bypassing highway, or a small village that we passed in our travel for three weeks that wasn't witness to the daily tragedy of land expropriated, fields bulldozed, trees, plants, and crops uprooted, and houses destroyed.

The Palestinian owners stood by, helpless to do much to stop the onslaught, uncared for by more fortunate Palestinians, unassisted by the Palestinian authority or quasi-national government ruled by Yasser Arafat.

"feeling of sorrowful helplessness"

It is more important not to underestimate the damage that has been done, the violence to our lives that will ensue, the distortions and misery that result.

There is nothing quite like the feeling of sorrowful helplessness that I felt while listening to a young man who has spent 15 years working as an illegal daylabourer in Israel in order to save up money to build a little house for his family, only to discover one day upon returning from work that the house has been reduced to a pile of rubble flattened by an Israeli bulldozer with everything still inside the house.

When you ask why this was done - the land, after all, was his - you are told that there was no warning, only a paper given to him the next day by an Israeli soldier stating that he had built the structure without a licence.

Where in the world, except under Israeli authority, are people required to have a licence (which is always denied them) before they can build on their own property? Israeli Jews can build, but never Palestinians. This is apartheid.

I once stopped on the main road from Jerusalem to Hebron to record on film an Israeli bulldozer, surrounded and protected by soldiers, ploughing through some fertile land just alongside the road.

About 100 meters away stood four Palestinian men, looking both miserable and angry.

It was their land, I was told, which they had worked for generations, now being destroyed on the pretext that it was needed to widen an already wide road built for the settlements.
"Why do they need a road that will be 120 meters wide - why can't they let me go on farming my land?" Asked one of them plaintively.

"How am I going to feed my children?"
I asked the men whether they received any warning that this was going to be done. No, they said, we just heard today and when we got here it was too late.

What about the Authority? I asked, has it helped?

"No of course not," was the answer. "They're never here when we need them."

I went over to the Israeli soldiers who at first refused to talk to me in the presence of cameras and microphones.

But I kept insisting, and was lucky to find one who clearly seemed troubled by the whole business, even though he said he was merely following orders.

"Palestinians powerless to help"

"But don't you see how unjust it is to take land from farmers who have no defence against you?" I said , to which he replied: "It's not their land really. It belongs to the state of Israel."

I recall saying to him that 60 years ago the same arguments were made against Jews in Germany, and now here were Jews using it against their victims, the Palestinians. He moved away, unwilling to respond.


And so it is throughout the territories and Jerusalem, with Palestinians powerless to help each other.

I gave a lecture at the University of Bethlehem in which I spoke about the continuous dispossession that was taking place, and wondered why those 50,000 security people employed by the Authority, plus the thousands more who sit behind desks, pushing paper from one side of their desks to the other, cashing handsome cheques at the end of each month, why they were not out there on the land helping to prevent the expropriations, helping the people whose livelihood was being taken from them before their eyes.

Why, I asked don't villagers go out to their fields and simply stand in front of the bulldozers, and why don't all our great leaders give support and moral help to the poor people who are losing the battle?

"Something dramatic is stirring"

I feel certain that given Mr Nathanyahu's intransigence and the profound sense of frustration felt by all Palestinians, something dramatic is stirring, about to occur.

Widespread civil disobedience perhaps, more overt disenchantment with Mr Arafat's leadership. Perhaps more violence.

Neither the Israeli experience nor the peace process has really worked. A new change is very much on the horizon.




PLEASE NOTE THAT IT IS FROM 1998

Mpele,

Hope you're still sane.

"About labour input, dearness and complexity рисованной animations (in particular about-диснеевской animations) it is told enough. Even for the professional animator some seconds of a life of the unique characters can demand week of laborious work! It is no wonder, that full-length about-диснеевский a cartoon film is a luxury which is presumed by only large studios with greater collective of artists and decent financing. For creation of the first full-length tape it was required to Uoltu Disney of the order of three years, over 500 artists (one animators was three ten) and one and a half million dollars! By the most modest estimations today it is money equivalents about $40 million, however it is necessary to consider, that Uolt Disney, as a rule, paid to the artists very little, and processing did not pay in general"

you guys should understand Mpele. He is White and (maybe) his standard of living has fallen: NOT that of black people who could not even go to school.

When Mpele says "OUR", he is referring to his own white community.

I spoke to a friend who lives in SA yesterday and he told me that Nigerians are not really the target of these people.

I was also privileged to have a chat with a S. African journalist earlier this week and he told us about the mentality of Black South Africans. What he said was like saying that white people have brainwashed Black S. Africans to see themselves as inferior to white people but superior to other African people.

I dont know how far that is true but the guy was very sad when he told us.

Tayo-D:
@Blatant,

Your response suggests you have succumbed to the Mooslim-Arab propaganda that this is about land. Did you notice this statement in the write-up: "But in 1948, there were no "occupied territories." Nor in 1967 when Egypt, Syria and Jordan joined together in a second war of annihilation against Israel. Look at Gaza today. No Israeli occupation, no settlements, not a single Jew left. The Palestinian response? Unremitting rocket fire killing and maiming Israeli civilians. The declared casus belli of the Palestinian government in Gaza behind these rockets? The very existence of a Jewish state."

I have not succumbed to anything. I am not saying that I know what went on in the 1940s but what I see going on now is acute injustice to the Palestinian people. THEY ARE ALSO HUMAN BEINGS.

As long as Israel continues grabbing land on a weekly/monthly basis, the Palestinians and their unborn generations will always feel aggrieved. How would you feel if some people were to come to your village and disperse your family to places where they have no homes and they become refugees? They will become homeless, jobless and they'll feel there's not much to live for.

If you make people feel there's not much to live for, they wont mind killing and dying.

Tornadoz:
Sickening to read American media's blatant cheer leading of racist Israel's 60th birthday party. Since the creation of the Jewish state, the middle east has known nothing but war.
The only people happy at Israel's 60th birthday are the Jews and Americans. No European, African or Asian president attended Israel's birthday party except America's, does this not tell us something?
For 60yrs the world has been kissing Jewish asses for what Hitler did to them, when is this guilt going to end. I don't subscribe to this notion but most people now think Hitler was right in dealing with the Jews. If Hitler had succeeded we won't have the problem we now have. The Jews are lepers to any society they live in. Even God scattered the Jews knowing these people can be evil.
As decent people we should not be saying happy birthday to this killers rather we should wipe our asses with the Jewish flag.
Anyway I don't hate Jews or Americans but have a rabid hatred for the assholes that rule both countries.

he he he

Europeans have a sympathy for Palestine because they see and hear what the American media will not tell their people. Israel continually takes over Palestinian lands by force and they expect Palestinians to be happy because they dont have the super power support of America.

A few years ago, while Israel was publicly (on mainly American media) saying that it was returning some Palestinian lands, it was taking more land (away from public glare). Thank God for the likes of BBC who give us the other side of the story more often than not.

I also used to support Israel and America 100% till I started seeing and reading other things which are going on in that region and I realise why the Palestinians are the way they are.