₦airaland Forum

Akinwunmi Adesina, Minister of Agriculture,says operators of flour mills in the country are planning to kill the ongoing agriculture transformation agenda of the Federal Government.

Adesina strongly holds that the flour millers are misinforming Nigerians that using 40 percent cassava flour in bread is unhealthy. According to him, the statements credited to some flour millers that cassava consumption is not good for those with diabetes is untrue, scientifically baseless and is a deliberate attempt to disconnect Nigerians from a viable and patriotic programme. The minister said the millers are so doing to protect their abnormal profits.

It would be recalled that only recently, President Goodluck Jonathan alleged that some big stakeholders in the agriculture sector were working against the country’s transformation agenda.

Also, the House of Representatives was said to have rejected a bill on the mandatory inclusion of 40 percent cassava flour in bread.

Adesina said there was no such bill from the executive, “and therefore, no decision can be taken by the National Assembly on an executive bill that does not exist. This was a figment of imagination”, he said .

Adesina argued, “Cassava, for which Nigeria is the largest producer in the world, is being used to produce high quality cassava flour to replace some of the wheat. The flour mills and their surrogates are doing all they can to misinform Nigerians so as to protect their super profits, which they siphon out of Nigeria . They are fighting to make Nigerian farmers poor and wretched, while making farmers of wheat exporting countries happy.”

The President of the Nutrition Society of Nigeria, Ignatius Onimawo, a professor, commenting on the issue, said: “Adding cassava flour will not increase the glycemic index of bread. It will not aggravate diabetes. In fact, it may lower it. The glycemic index of wheat flour is higher than that of cassava. It is only whole wheat bread (that is, wheat flour with bran intact) that has lower glycemic index.”

The glycemic index (GI) is a numerical system of measuring how much of a rise in circulating blood, sugar, a carbohydrate triggers–the higher the number, the greater the blood sugar response. So a low GI food will cause a small rise, while a high GI food will trigger a dramatic spike. A list of carbohydrates with their glycemic values is shown below. A GI of 70 or more is high, a GI of 56 to 69 inclusive is medium, and a GI of 55 or less is low.

Citing nutrition authorities, Adesina compared the glycemic index of cassava with those of other foods: “In their insightful study titled ‘Glycemic indices of selected Nigerian flour meal products in male type 2 diabetic subjects’, Fasanmade, A.A., Anyakudo, M.C. (2007), published in Diabetologia Croastica 36: 2, 2007, the authors compared cassava flour with yam flour, maize flour and wheat flour among diabetic patients. The glycemic indices are : Yam flour: 49.81; Cassava flour: 59.34; Maize flour: 54.83; Wheat flour: 70.10. This shows clearly that cassava flour has much lower glycemic index than wheat flour. Yam flour has the lowest glycemic index. Wheat flour, which is what we are being told to consume, has high glycemic index. So, which one is good for you: cassava flour or wheat flour? It is clear, it is cassava flour.”

He went on to compare the glycemic indices for some of the exotic foods that are being promoted for Nigerians. “Let us start with the French bread, popularly called ‘banquette’. The glycemic index for French bread is 95, which puts it in the very high range for diabetes. White wheat flour has glycemic index of 71, which is in the high range for diabetes. Take the foods eaten by the British, the popular English Muffins. They have glycemic index of 77, in the high range for diabetes. Now take whole wheat flour bread, it has glycemic index of 71, again on the high side. You all eat corn flakes every day, right? The glycemic index of corn flakes is 82, which is very high. Only 100 percent whole wheat bread (that is the one in which the husk and the bran are intact) has a glycemic index of 51, which is close to that of cassava in Nigeria at 59.”

Ignatius Onimawo argued the statement giving percentages of those that are diabetics as between 20 and 30 percent is misleading. According to him, “the percentage of Nigerians suffering from diabetes is on the increase but I doubt if it is up to 20 percent. No national survey has been conducted to determine the actual prevalence”.

Akinwunmi Adesina explained Nigerians eat ‘Eba’, ‘fufu’, ‘amala’ - all made from cassava and no health problems have ever been reported from the consumption of these foods. “Our local foods are much healthier than imported over-processed foods that cause cancer and aggravate diabetes, such as white wheat flour. What does this all mean? It means that cassava is better than wheat flour, French bread, English Muffins and cornflakes. Indeed, yam has the lowest of all, with glycemic index of 49, which is lower than even 100 percent whole wheat bread.”

It would be recalled that the private sector is already successfully substituting cassava flour for wheat flour in bread and confectioneries. UTC Plc and Food Concepts, two of the largest bakers in the country are commercialising healthy cassava-based bread and confectioneries. In particular, UTC has been the leader, and has gone ahead to train more bakers who are ready to adopt this new technology. This, the minister said, is true patriotism.

sergio: Facebook was grossly over-priced from d onset. Remember that its not just about getting share holder for ur ompany, u must also make enuf profit from wateva means so u can pay them dividends.

Now, as far as I know, facebook's only source of revenue is advertising, companies like GM and GE have already pulled their ads off facebook, which means that his liability has increased with dwindling income line.

Facebook share will drop further, maybe to a reasonable low of $9, that's wat makes sense for a social network

The Price will drop a little more but not below $9. Thats never going to happen. You have to understand whats driving the valuation and the company. Advertizing is just one source of their revenue generation, plus they make money from gamers and e-commerce.

I think a lot of people are discounting the role of cash at hand and what impact this will have on the perceived value of facebook. Also, the role of market capitalization its percived value. Based on market cap, you can acquire a company and pay for it in stock. Also, based on your market cap, you can borrow at a cheaper price. With financial and market credibility, facebook can acquire any company of their choice and prop up their share value again. Some of these perceived valuation will never allow the company's share price to drop below $9. I don't see the company dropping below $20.00 as well.

tochimas: @ls people should stop these senseless rumour,At what time did the plane leave Abuja and what time did it crash,Did you really think a plane in distress will be allowed to hover for One hour abi two hours as you are alleging ? After the pilot has radioed in for help. It would have been promptly cleared for landing. Said authoritative source.I never belived the rumour for once.

Can they furnish to us what time the plane left Abuja

Thats not going to happen. If these companies have interest in facebook or it was possible for them to acquire it, they would have made the move a long time ago when it was cheaper and not when its so expensive now.

Lets say for argument sake that Apple is interested, how would they integrate facebook with their company? It doesn't fit into their business model. Making the move will be considered a suicide mission.

Google cannot touch Apple because Microsoft already own significant shares in facebook already. Microsoft and Google are competing in the same market, therefore microsoft will not allow it because it might give their competition higher competitive advantage.

This can never happen because the owner will not sell. You have to understand the fundamental principle of the Owner/CEO and the direction it wants to take the company.

Why are people working 24/7 to taint the credibility of this man? This same information has been circulated time and time with no conviction. Don't you guys think its about time to stop?

Nothing in this world happen by accident, so follow your mind. Meeting the guy, falling in love with the guy and the guy reciprocating the love was not an accident. Whats going to happen between you two tomorrow is not going to be an accident as well.

So, live your life the way you see it...fight for the guy if thats what you want. If its destined for you guys to be together, it will be.

However, be prepared to deal fully with whatever happen afterwards positive or negative).

Although i am cheering for Tsonga and Del Potro

But, i think Nadal is going home with the trophy

Facebook, banks sued over pre-IPO analyst calls

(Reuters) - Facebook Inc and banks including Morgan Stanley were sued by the social networking leader's shareholders, who claimed the defendants hid Facebook's weakened growth forecasts ahead of its $16 billion initial public offering.

The defendants, who also include Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg, were accused of concealing from investors during the IPO marketing process "a severe and pronounced reduction" in revenue growth forecasts, resulting from increased use of its app or website through mobile devices. Facebook went public last week.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on Wednesday, according to a law firm for the plaintiffs. A day earlier, a similar lawsuit by a different investor was filed in a California state court, according to a law firm involved in that case.

In the New York case, shareholders said research analysts at several underwriters had lowered their business forecasts for Facebook during the IPO process, but that these changes were "selectively disclosed by defendants to certain preferred investors" rather than to the public generally.

"The value of Facebook common stock has declined substantially and plaintiffs and the class have sustained damages as a result," the complaint said.

Representatives of Facebook and Morgan Stanley did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Facebook shares fell 18.4 percent from their $38 IPO price in the first three days of trading, reducing the value of stock sold in the IPO by more than $2.9 billion.

(Reporting by Dan Levine in San Francisco and Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick and Lisa Von Ahn)

We can all always agree to disagree.

Yes, I will vote for them.

To move the country forward, we have to tackle our fundamental problem which is corruption.
When we tackle corruption, economic and social development will follow.

The best person right now that can tackle corruption head on without sentiment and speculation is Buhari. And the best man that can tackle economic and social development remains Fashola. My opinion is based on antecedents and not based on share luck.

I will vote out corruption, will vote out sectionalism and will vote for progress.

Facebook shares sink 11 percent as reality overtakes hype
By Chuck Mikolajczak and John McCrank

(Reuters) - Facebook shares sank 11 percent in the first day of trading without the full support of the company's underwriters, leaving some investors down almost 25 percent from where they were Friday and driving others to switch back to more established stocks.

Facebook's debut was beset by problems, so much so that Nasdaq said on Monday it was changing its IPO procedures. That may comfort companies considering a listing, but does it little for Facebook, whose lead underwriter, Morgan Stanley, had to step in and defend the $38 offering price on the open market.

Even so, one source said Morgan Stanley's own brokers were at one point "ranting and raving" about glitches that left unclear what trades had actually been executed.

Without a fresh round of defense, Facebook shares ended down $4.20, at $34.03, on the Nasdaq. That was a decline of almost 25 percent from Friday's intra-day high of $45 a share.

"At the moment it's not living up to the hype," said Frank Lesh, a futures analyst and broker at FuturePath Trading LLC in Chicago, adding that some people may have decided to hang back and buy the stock on the decline.

"Look at the valuation on it. It might have said 'buy' to a few people, but boy it was awfully rich," he said.

The drop in Facebook's share price wiped more than $11 billion off of the company's market capitalization -- it became a sufficiently interesting pop culture story that even gossip website TMZ did a brief item Monday morning.

Volume was again massive on Monday, with nearly 168 million shares trading hands, making it by far the most active stock on the U.S. market. Nearly 581 million shares were traded on Friday.

The drop was so steep that circuit breakers kicked in a few minutes after the open to restrict short sales of the stock, according to a notice from Nasdaq.

EMOTIONAL TRADING

"One of the things that we are seeing in Facebook is a lot of emotional trading, in that over the weekend much of the media coverage was negative, and that could be weighing on investors' decisions to get out of the stock," said JJ Kinahan, TD Ameritrade's chief derivatives strategist.

Shares of other one-time Internet darlings fell in lock step with Facebook before rebounding on their own merits, with Yelp and Groupon rising. Zynga and LinkedIn fell, though.

The news was not all bad, though, as the Nasdaq rose 2.46 percent. High-profile tech stocks rose sharply, with Apple up 5.8 percent and Amazon 2 percent higher.

FuturePath's Lesh said some investors took money out of Apple to buy Facebook, and now could be going right back in to Apple given the lackluster performance of Facebook thus far.

By mid-afternoon on Monday, though, there were indications that investors might be coming back in to Facebook. The stock was well off the lows of the morning, and some market players saw an entry point forming.

"We see 38 percent of the ideas on Facebook are short and 62 percent have a more long bias," said Tim Murphy, general manager for the Americas at TIM Group, which transmits and tracks equity trade ideas from 750 brokerage firms for institutional investors globally. "Brokers are saying to their clients there is a good opportunity here."

NASDAQ CHANGES

Still there was a long list of questions -- ranging from whether the underwriters priced the shares too high to how well prepared the Nasdaq was to handle the biggest Internet IPO ever -- and few easy answers.

"It was just a poorly done deal and it just so happens to be the biggest deal ever for Nasdaq and they pooched it; that's the bottom line here," said Joe Saluzzi, co-manager of trading at Themis Trading in Chatham, New Jersey.

Nasdaq said Monday morning the changes it was making would prevent a repeat of what happened Friday, when glitches prevented some traders from knowing for hours whether their trades had been completed.

The exchange also said it would implement procedures to accommodate orders that were not properly executed last week, which could ultimately lead to compensation for some investors.

"It doesn't instill confidence for clients. Talk about trying to convince them it isn't a casino," one Midwestern financial adviser told Reuters on Monday.

Separately, a source said Morgan Stanley's brokerage arm still had a "large number" of share orders from Friday that were not confirmed, which it was working to resolve.

A Facebook spokeswoman declined to comment on the share price issue.

Some financial advisers, who might have been furious last week at getting left out, were counting themselves lucky by Monday that they did not get their clients involved.

"By pure luck I failed to talk it up with a lot of clients because I didn't think I would be able to get much," said one Raymond James adviser, who sought, and received, only 500 shares for one client.

"I basically told people they weren't going to get any, and luckily, it proved to be a bust," the adviser said.

(Additional reporting by Jennifer Saba, David Gaffen, Edward Krudy, Ashley Lau and Rodrigo Campos in New York, Doris Frankel in Chicago and Jennifer Merritt in Orlando, Florida; Writing by Ben Berkowitz in Boston; Editing by Edward Tobin, Maureen Bavdek and Steve Orlofsky)

"A lot can happen when you don’t care who gets the credit”
...Waldo Ralph Emerson

We live in an information ages and era, where individual, groups, companies, countries who own or possesses the information dominate the market. We’ve all been a living witness to how technologies are revolutionizing how we think, live, socialize and more importantly how millionaires/billionaires are made. How the best innovative tech companies continues to elevate bar of excellence; set the standard for others to follow, and how their country of origin and its people can/will benefit immensely from the ripple effect of the existence of the company.

Facebook, Linked In, Twitter, Zynga, are typical manifestation of these expectations. Although the dream that cultivated these products they are marketing started with one person or few people, but the end products that we’re now witnessing requires the effort, brains of more than those few that started the company. Luckily for these companies, they have the luxury of Angel Investors, Equity Investors, Hedge Funds Company and others to help them actualize their dream. Here in Africa, we’re not so fortunate to buy the best brain with the luxury of other investors.

If all these Tech companies can make it to the lime light, I believe our so called Nairaland stand a chance as well. I’m sure everyone will agree with me that one way or the other...part of our lives revolves around Naira land. I am of the opinion that everyone loves a winner, want to be a winner and want to associate with winners. I believe as a Nairalander, it is our collective duty to help make Nairaland a Winner.

This post is about ideas that can help propel Naira-land to the next level.

How should the company be structured or restructured to maximize its potential? What other products should the company introduce to leverage its core competency? What type of alliance/alliances, companies should the company struck deals with to improve visibility and probability of success. There are many more ways we can be creative in unlocking the company’s potential.

Below are some of my ideas;


1.Seun need to surround himself with people (business people) that can help him unlock the potential of the site. You cannot do it alone. I want to believe you’re already entertaining this idea.
2.Currently Naira land is a product design for Nigerians. This is premised on stats of people that visit the site on a regular basis. The focus should be to capture the whole African Market. Acquisition of other comparable companies to help increase your foothold within Africa.
3.Find other ways to strengthen your core competency and competitive advantage.


Let me state here for the record. I don’t know Seun from anywhere, never met him, never met his family, I know nothing about his business model... I’m just a big fan of progressive minds and ideas in respective of where they’re coming from.

401kk: They only way they can monetise their user database is if they sell it(thats the only way I can think of).
How can they diversify or where will they diversify to?
Facebook is already a profitable company, but after the IPO, they need to be more profitable to meet the expectations of investors. If they can't, things might get messy

They have other means of monetizing besides selling database. Currently, they make money from add, content text, and from gamers. They have room to grow to generate revenue. The question still remains, can they unlock those other potential? How are they going to fend off competition, RenRen and others?

They can diversify by buying other technology company. They can buy operating system companies, and build organically to compete head on with MS, Google, Apple. They can buy manufacturing company, and integrate the company with Facebook competitive advantage. They can venture into cloud computing and integrate the company with their core competency. My point is; they have options, they have the people and the money. What else do you need.

violent: Intraday prices will always be driven by both Technicals and fundamentals. As a matter of fact, one can argue that facebook's price is being driven by the latter than the former. Those buying and selling Facebook's shares are not looking at a price history, candle charts or any of those nonsense, cos their's just no history to look at!....The buying and selling that's going on at the moment is based on what people think facebook is worth and will be worth in the future. The company's revenue and balance sheet is publicly listed and can be assessed by anyone who can as much as use Google search!

To your first point, i beg to differ. That statement will be accurate if all the people trading stocks understand both technical and fundamentals, and can apply them accurately. Your point is also neglecting the role of economic and political situation of the country.
As an example; Chevron is currently trading at $98.50, RSI of about (22-25), PE ratio = 7.26
Based on the technical and fundamental argument, the Chevron stock should be trading higher. The reality is that, its been in the red all day. lost about 1.7% of its value today.

401kk: Facebook will soon be gone

Facebook is here to stay, that i can tell you.
What still remains a "code" to be cracked is how they're going to monetize their 901 million people.
Keep in mind, if they don't crack the code. They can always diversify. When you have cash, you can do anything.

My conclusion, FACEBOOK IS HERE TO STAY. The next question is when are they going to be profitable?

Sorry, don't have the figures.

violent: Really?

Price discovery has always been based on laws of supply and demand anyway...people will buy and sell shyt if there's a market for it. The only question a savvy investor will be asking is why the price makes for a good investment....and talking about popularity, since when has that become a factor to consider when buying or selling shares?

Isn't that what is driving the stock right now? Most of these people could care less about the valuation...how many of them know how Facebook currently earn revenue?

The only reason why I think the share price might do well in the short run and long run; will depend on how liquid the shares might be. Few shares will be in circulation, and that might drive "price war" considering how popular the company is.

It will not be based on fundamental at all.

[quote author=ekt_bear]Google actually doesn't make much money from any of its other businesses.

Android doesn't generate a lot of revenue or profit for them.

The OS is free, is it not?

Basically they are an advertising company, just like Fbook.[/quote]Thats not true? The OS may be free to users...but to companies who are using them as a "competitive advantage", they have to pay a royalty fee. Samsung and other smart phone makers run Android OS. The operating system is part of the reason why Samsung still maintains leadership in global smartphone marketshare.

afam4eva: So, are you insinuating that being a marketing company is nothing? Why must they bring something else to the table. What does Toyota bring to the table other than automobiles?

No, thats not what i'm saying. The point i'm making is that, the valuation is too optimistic. $30 Billion may be...
$86 Billion? When a would be comparable company such as YAHOO, has a market capitalization of around $17 Billion.

I would not compare Facebook with google because of those other industries Google competes including operating system such as Android and others.

This hype reminded me of the same speculative prop-up that happened when Groupon had its IPO couple of months ago. First day...the stock traded at about $26, now its trading around $12. This is just about 6 months apart. What happened?

buzugee: 86 billion net worth based on what ? speculations ? what assets do they have ? what products do they make ? . you are drunk on that babylon juice

My guy, you are right. Facebook is purely a marketing company just like Yahoo and Google. What else do they bring to the table to be worth $86 Billion? My argument is strictly from a competitive advantage and core competency point of view.

Why Nigeria may not break up .

Much has been said about Nigeria breaking up. It’s good that such issues come up, at least, to evoke discourse. But, can Nigeria break up? Yes she can. Will she break up? No, she may not.

Nigeria is a conspiracy. Though a negative attribute, yet it works for its sustenance. The multi-ethnic make-up of the country has hardly identified common binds except the officially professed ones. The consequence is a web of underlying suspicion of the actual intent of each group. When a group makes bold to cross the invisible redline, the rest gang up against it. This makes it difficult to roll through no matter the justification backing the risk-taker. Watching the major ethnic groups, they’ve at various times offended one another. That makes each lie in wait for an auspicious time to revenge. Each of them knows it and is therefore cautious. That’s how they’ve found themselves in a situation of ‘leave: not yet; stay: not quite’.

Beneath the major ethnic groups is an avalanche of minorities who don’t trust one another and yet collectively distrust the majority groups. The emergence of Jonathan as president has given them place; because they can’t stand effectively, they join others, cooperate when they must and stir up when they can. The majority groups are therefore compelled to take it slow to truly understand their direction. Fear and suspicion therefore seem to be the uncanny strings holding Nigeria. Again, Nigeria is a regular visitor to the precipice. Precipice dwellers know her but because of her cunning ways, they let her go each time she comes to stay. Probably because they don’t want her deception and would prefer she remains in existence and deceive herself instead. That’s why she’s been escaping.

The entry of the military into governance checked merit out and might in. If you can muscle your way through, you’re right. They muscled their way through to power and with it built a web of loyalties working for them throughout the land. They became owners of wealth with their civilian cronies. Their overarching business interests reach beyond ethnicity and religion. Nigeria going means they going – and they don’t want to. They’re the ones you often hear say, ‘I’ll defend Nigeria with the last pint of my blood.’ It isn’t about Nigeria, rather her streaming surpluses to them. Even if some ethnic groups want to put up resistance, the money-power of this bourgeois group would buy up loyalty enough to break the resistance from within. That’s where corruption plays a positive role. Within the ethnic groups, people’s voices say yes, their appetite for lucre says no, and before you say ‘haaam’, they’ve ‘crossed over’.

There’s also the centre-periphery syndrome. If you’re hounded in the state and are well connected in the centre, you could call in the centre to defeat your end. Invariably, if the interest of the centre is to keep Nigeria together and that of the state/ethnic group is to separate, one from within mustering the central power can defeat his people and claim to be fighting for the unity of Nigeria, though it’s tacitly about him. I don’t think the Intelligence Report on the possible break-up of Nigeria took cognizance of these internal dynamics. Add these to the fact that almighty oil is still flowing and its sister liquefied gas is surging. Just when you think the people should experience a little pain to start acting better, a bonanza flows from nowhere to cover all their sins. So, who’s going?

The farthest Nigeria can go is find a much better working structure that would enable its peoples coil more inwards but still spread tentacles to sip where possible. Even that restructuring will be greeted with suspicion, unless perhaps there’s a trans-ethnic coalition of powerful minds vast in the jives of the centre and jingles in the periphery. If by stroke of luck she gets a leader that can steer her strong and right, the yearnings for separation may cease; and if by same a better leader succeeds him, separation may be postponed. But that’s just a conjecture.

The only foreseeable situation that can bring about a break-up is when a region goes to the extreme to the detriment of others. That may cause the offended to pull together to redefine things exclusively to their favour. This would see two or more regions coming together to draw the line of difference and head their separate directions. At that point, you’d hear the scream of the bourgeois. Did you hear some powerful northern voices call Boko-Haram ‘animals’? Aha, that’s when they’ve gone far enough to threaten underlying interests.

In all, the foreign script on Nigeria’s break-up can’t stand unless we say yes to it

http://www.businessdayonline.com/NG/index.php/analysis/commentary/37875-why-nigeria-may-not-break-up