Shouldn't you start things off by saying what you liked from the documentary?

Anyway, for me, I love how Brazil wants to do things themselves. Car manufacturing, aerospace, oil exploration, biosciences, agriculture. . . there is almost nothing that they do not produce. Unlike Nigeria, which imports everything

igbobuigbo:

Doing science, especially in places such as Nigeria, is not for the financially lily-livered. The only science/engineering that requires relatively less investment is IT and computing stuff.
It is even worse with Life sciences because you cannot predict precisely how your bacteria, plants or human cells will behave under different conditions. Physical sciences such as Chemistry, Physics and Engineering are more predictable since their reactions are quite fixed: non-living things.

Not even just high variance (as your lilly-livered comment suggests), I imagine that it is going to be highly unprofitable. In the US, the federal government gives tons of grants. There is lots of existing infrastructure to support your endeavors. In Nigeria, nothing. You'll have to build it all from scratch. This raises your costs of business a lot. I doubt bioscience research is going to be profitable even if you invest enormous amounts of money. Simply no enabling environment.

Even chemistry and engineering to me seem suspect. Hard to do any real engineering without electricity. You could do some CAD stuff and then send your final designs to China to be manufactured. But not likely you could build advanced things in Nigeria at competitive prices.

igbobuigbo:

There are many undiscovered stuff in pristine Africa. It is difficult to tell you straight off because virtually everything has to be obtained from the scratch:
Land, lab/office building, equipment (PCR machines, DNA sequencer, centrifuges, water sterilizing units, spectrophotometer, gel electrophoresis apparatus for DNA and protein separation, weighing scales, pipettors, reagents and consumables-especially enzymes and other cold-temperature chemicals, but also pippetors, tubes, etc-, giant refrigerators, electricity generators since no NEPA light, etc, etc, etc). You need one scientist, one one research associate, 2-3 research assistants and technicians. Remember that molecular biology is directly linked to field demonstrations because you have to test your lab cocktails in the field. So field technicians come lab technicians So several tens of millions for a start.

In that case, doubtful that is going to be something that can be that successful in Nigeria (at least for now.) I think I could start a pretty decent, internationally competitive software company (based on my niche) with under $5 million in capital based in Nigeria. But biology R& is a lot more risky, hit-and-miss. Less easy to justify the startup costs in a place like Nigeria.
Medicine though, it is easy to justify the costs since you can charge lots of money for your services. And your revenue is likely to be more stable and predictable than pure R&.
And of course, finance doesn't need me to defend it, it is pretty clear why something like that is useful in a capital-starved land like Nigeria.

igbobuigbo:

In Europe and the USA, there are small-scale, family-owned breweries. So these guys are merely following Oyibo pattern

An acquaintance of mine home-brewed beer himself. It actually doesn't require that much equipment or money. And it was delicious!

Beaf:

Ha! I think that wine would have been worse than otapiapia! Drink and fall!

Only one way to know for sure  On a serious note though, I'm not sure how hard/easy winemaking is. I'm told that home-brewed beer is almost impossible to mess up, but maybe wine is harder to do correctly.

I'm hoping that my neck of the woods achieves fiscal independence from oil well before it runs out.

@igbobuigbo: How much money does it cost to set up a good bio lab? Say you wanted to set up a good research lab, try to come up with patentable work?

Both fixed costs and variable costs. Ballpark estimates about both, # of staffmembers needed, etc are fine.

I don't think I'd do that even to an armed robber threatening my life. I'd try to kill him cleanly. But to douse someone in gasoline and set them on fire? That is just tremendously cruel and brutal. I wouldn't do that to a cat or dog, talk less another human being. Kill cleanly, don't be sadistic, in my opinion.

Or maybe the gruesome killing is meant to discourage armed robbers from coming there. . .

Hrm. Thinking about it further, I'm starting to think that the fields more likely to be immediately useful to Nigeria are things like medicine and finance. PhDs in math/physics/engineering aren't as practical for a country that doesn't really develop anything.

Otoh, expertise in medicine and finance are useful everywhere, even in Nigeria. Finance especially will lead to enough capital to develop other areas. Econ and finance are certainly viewed as less prestigious than these other areas, but being able to build a good banking system (for example) is likely to be of more practical benefit to Nigeria than most other things.

Thoughts? Am I totally off base?

Becomrich?:

you will no , that obasnjo has no power in Yoruba, the people power shall over come the PDP.

look at that video, this is how Yorubas kill thier enermy.
  And all PDP member better watch that video.

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1223588087565

That is the most evil video I've seen in my life, if that is politically related. What the hell did they do to die like that?? Over politics? Zap that, it isn't that serious for people to die over.

Are you sure that is politics? It is probably armed robbers or something, no?

PhysicsQED:

Jakumo, given his verbosity and his knowledge of obscure details of aeronautics and weaponry, probably belongs to some exclusive, elite brotherhood of decadent, elitist, champagne sipping, caviar devouring, big game hunters/socialites/daredevil helicopter journalists, probably with a funny name like The Distinguished Bastards of Nigeria. It's extremely likely that one of the members of this self-indulgent journalist cabal made the mistake of crossing Gen. Buhari or writing something unfavorable about his illegally imposed government and paid the ultimate price. Consequently, Jakumo has sworn an oath of vengeance, which due to his inability to realize, makes him vent his frustration and hatred on public fora at the slightest mention of Buhari's name.


There is no other conclusion any discerning mind can reach. The Master has spoken.

One of the few times I've actually lol'd at something I've read here

Beaf:

The unit head of the agency, Mr Innocent Ahemen, said the suspected ethanol and prepared wine were destroyed

A waste of wine 

guys, you should be able to tell by now that @fstranger is joking

If Buhari stole money, how come he has has such difficulty winning elections? Surely 2.8 billion is enough to make himself a formidable candidate.

Wish this sort of thing would stop happening. . . these fraudsters are making it harder for Nigerians 

PhysicsMHD:

Oh. Well that makes sense. But money is always going to be the real issue, more than structure.

Structure is very important. The decentralized, competitive, free-market nature of the American education system imo is part of what makes it so successful. Schools serve the needs of the populace here. They aren't just appendages of the government that will exist regardless of the quality of job they are doing.

Excellence here is also rewarded. The best schools in America KNOW they are the best and charge more money as a result. Harvard costs more money than University of Maryland. In Nigeria, there is less of a differential in prices between the best schools in Nigeria and the worst ones. This suggests inefficiency in allocating resources, I think.

I'm not saying the American education system is perfect, but I think it does a better job of utilizing resources than the Nigerian one.

A very tough question. Not quite sure how to answer it.

PhysicsMHD:

@ DapoBear, you don't seriously believe universities in Nigeria could be privately funded, do you?

I'd advocate a decentralized, privately run, publicly funded (well, primarily public funds, some private), like the American graduate system is.

Oh, and by "private", I should really say "non-federal." I don't mind individual states owning schools, so long as they give them a measure of independence and insulate them from political change, etc.

Yeah, Dabiri is amazing. Summa cum laude from Princeton in MechE, Hertz Finalist, Rhodes Finalist, Marshall Finalist,  PhD in 4 years from CalTech, MacArthur Genius Grant, made tenure in only 4 years!

I hope he still considers himself Yoruba (rather than just generic African American). . . that is an asset that I don't want my people to lose  

yeswecan:

You are waiting for a decent environment to stroll in at ease but the country you are today took people's guts and blood to create that decent environment. Who is Nigeria if not you and me . .  when you say Nigeria is not ready it directly means we are not set  and whose fault is that . .  the govt?

Don't you think its a lazy argument to blame the govt or wait for the environment to be fixed before you take action? who are you waiting for by the way?

Well, the universities imo should be privately run, not begging at the teats of the FG for funding. The FG gives them money arbitrarily and not consistently. It is hard to do good research if you cannot pay salaries, have people striking all the time, are getting inconsistent funding, etc. Research and academics requires longterm planning. Ideally you secure your funding stream for 4 or 5 years at a time so you can have peace of mind to do good work.

I don't want a perfect environment, just a reasonable one for people to accomplish something. Right now, Nigeria doesn't even have that.

Eh, well, N20 billion isn't bad, I guess. I didn't really believe they'd be able to bring down Cheney. Hopefully they'll do something useful with the money

yeswecan:

They should come home and help build our education system. How many western professors do we have in Nigeria? The good once of Africa has been bought by the west to add to their pile of scholars -

This doesn't make sense until Nigeria gets serious about education. Otherwise their talents and abilities will be wasted. Nigeria right now is going through the motions, but not trying to compete for real, in my opinion.

Akin-Egba:

Sefago alias DapoBear,

Why dont you google him and let us see when he published a peer-reviewed article last. I was in a Nigerian forum sometime ago when someone took him to task on that and he was only talking about socio-political Nigerian issues published in Dawodu.com.

It is what it is, plenty of professors coast after getting tenure. Not going to name names, but even a pretty famous guy at my own school is imo coasting, despite only being 55 or so.

That man is a mediocre. I do not need a PhD. There are about 3 billion or so people in the world, how many of those have PhDs? But if you must have it, then use it well. Bolaji is not doing so.

Eh, Bolaji is your superior. Achieve at his level before you attempt to criticize him. What on earth have you done in your life that compares with him? You have less degrees, a smaller brain, less money, and less respect in the Nigerian(-American) community.
You might not even be good enough to gain admission into Bolaji's ChemE department, talk less of being a tenured prof there or the chair.

^-- Ife is the best

Nah, I dunno if this is true or not, but both of my parents went there so I'm partial to the school.

buzugee:

a beautiful home in a prime location with just 50k a year ? where does he live ? new mexico ? 

He lives near the new stadium of an NFL team I think he bought the property for ~200k or so, it has since appreciated quite a bit.

@Akin-Egba: Very likely you are not good enough to even get a PhD, not to talk of getting tenure at even a school of Howard's level.

@PhysicsQED: Poorly researched political articles? You might disagree with the conclusions, but he is pretty careful with his work.

(And yes, as you might have guessed, while not related to him, I know him and his family pretty well.)

Kunle is a badass. I wish my own research were good enough to get a faculty job at a school of that level, lol.

Dabiri looks to be an absolute stud. PhD in 4 years from CalTech, and hired by the same school as a professor? This rarely, rarely happens, you have to be amazing for your own school to hire you. MacArthur Genius grant, too?

Wasn't aware of this Deji Akinwande guy. UT is a damn good job to get out of grad school.

One of my closest friends is still without papers, has no college degree, yet is making $50k+ a year at an engineering firm as a draftsman/CAD specialist. He recently bought a beautiful home in a prime location.

As much as I like Nigeria, there is simply no way to compare it economically to the US. If you have any sort of talent or ability (law, medicine, engineering, etc) and can get work in the US, in 95% of cases you are better off leaving.

Just too much opportunity here if you have the right credentials (and can pass whatever certification exams are required for your field.)

Though the market for law graduates is absolutely terrible right now (and has been horrific for the past two years.)

buzugee:

it is not what you earn. it is what you save. thought you knew.
in nigeria i can bet my last dollar that had he stayed, he would have built a house, and then he would be using his salary to enjoy the exquisite taste of pepper soup and guiness. instead he is in england getting hit up for council tax, tv license, rent, road tax, light bill, gas bill, congestion charge, internet bill, water rate, phone bill, travel card money, etc etc. i bet you that prof will end up being a daddy london with only $150 savings in his natwest account and a council house in new cross gate to his name while his friends who stayed in naija would have figured out the system and would have several mansions in nigeria. i have friends who are medical doctors in nigeria. apparently there are tonnes of ways you can make money (tax free) as a doctor in naija. these guys make around $500,000 in nigeria doing private practice and catering to the rich and subsidy to the middle class. so what did you say again ?

I have never met a poor Nigerian doctor in America in my life (who has passed his board exams, at least.) All the ones I've met are pretty well off, have nice homes, beautiful wives/girlfriends, drive nice cars, etc.

What sort of juju can she do with boxers?