₦airaland Forum

Down with shell!

dayokanu:
So the monthly salary of a Professor of Medicine was $143. Tell me how that kind of person wont run away even if its to do lesser jobs

That is a fine salary to earn in the 1920s or something, but not in the 1990s, lol. No wonder he left.

jaygetta:
I have a really strong feeling that Jakumo is the hitherto infant son of one of the drug dealers put to death by Buhari's regime, hence the blind hatred!

Wouldn't be surprising if he were a relative/family friend of one of them.

Nigeria doesn't make sense to me sometimes. Why is the federal government the one in charge of education, or releasing education monies? Should this not be handled by the individual states? And the way they say it, "release" make it sounds like a one-time thing, not a regular thing. How is one supposed to do research with irregular funding?

Looking really good in these last two pictures.

Omenani:
Why would that be unfortunate? America is a land of immigrants. People find new homes. Demographics change. Do you see Italian-Americans, Polish-Americans, German-Americans returning to the country of their ancestors? The answer is no. They recognize their unique history, but they are comfortable living in America. I am comfortable living in America, and I know many Nigerians some born in the U.S. and some born in Nigeria.

It isn't unfortunate for those who move; America is easily the best country on earth. I love it here.

But it sucks for those who are left behind. And for Yoruba/Igbo/etc culture that is weakened by seeing the best leave it.

Like, the very people most capable of improving Nigeria are the ones who end up leaving. So in that respect, to me is a bit sad. This is part of the reason I'm pretty keen on returning to Nigeria (or at least the SW part thereof.)

Any update?

Omenani:
Many Nigerians have not returned home after they left. I have an uncle who has been in the U.S. for 28 years and he hasn't been back to Nigeria.

Yep. Lots of Nigerians in the US who have been there for a long time and are never coming back, unfortunately.

strangerf:
I wouldnt say it is beyond the capabilities of doctors in Nigeria. For starters, it is difficult to diagnose even here in the states, you have the same symptoms as BPH and the surrogate marker (PSA) used to monitor the cancer Vs. BPH is highly, highly unreliable.

So I think, the problem is mostly funding and the attitude of your typical African. We dont take care of health/not in tune with our body like the rest of the world

I see, thanks.

chyz:
The irony

There is no irony. I agree that the census figures in this country are false. And if correct ones are produced, then revenue needs to be adjusted accordingly in the country. But I think you see how these are two distinct issues, yes? If for (B) to happen, (A) must happen first, then it seems to me that one needs to focus on bringing about (A) before tackling (B).

Dapo, you are funny with the "document" thing. try any search engine be it google or yahoo,even msn.your choice.you cannot tell me you can find it.Pretty lame. Let's see you show the documents saying why they(FG) have not build the sea ports or done see it deemed fit.All of the detail will be really appreciated.

So is the issue that the FG has not built a seaport or that they are preventing you from building one yourself? These are two separate things. I googled for the second and couldn't find any information. If anyone has a reference or concrete information (i.e., names, dates, places), then please provide it.

Im still trying to figure out where i said the Yoruba were being favored.

Might not be you specifically who has said it, but several in this thread have made it out to be that way, if only by insinuation.

Dude has only been in office 6 months, nobody can say he embezzled funds and starved the healthcare system and thus he is to blame for his illness.

I agree with Aloy, I hope he has a speedy recovery.

@fstranger: Is some sort of cancer hospital beyond the capabilities of doctors in Nigeria? Like, it is too specialized? Or is funding the reason we don't have these things there?

chyz:
The SE geo-political zone is not fairly allocated revenue.

What is your basis for saying this? The falsified population figures, which we all know are incorrect? If so, I won't disagree what that. But then the issue seems to be getting correct population figures, not "unfair revenue allocation." Under the officially accepted numbers, the revenue is fair, is it not?

Never said there was anything wrong with Lagos being the primary port.That is besides the point,it is not a problem. YOU in the west are not doing anything different from what THEY are doing so don't make it seem as the YOU and the west are being any more industrious as THEY in the SS/SE are doing. We both know and this is no secret, even numerous Ghanaians(outsiders) have come on here to confirm it, that nigeria discriminates based on ethnicity.Getting the "ok" to complete or begin a task in nigeria is not like doing so in the U.S,  Im sure you know that. Which is the reason more that the 2011 presidential election is signified "The begining of the end of nigeria".

You still have not documented any SE states by the sea applying to open up a seaport and being denied. When did this happen? Under which administration? Which state? What was the proposed site?

Even earlier in this thread, people were complaining about the federal government somehow suppressing your existing (riverside) ports. I think I've demonstrated pretty clearly why this is not the case (though if someone can show goods are taxed higher in the East than in the West, I'll agree that that is discrimination.)

But let us assume for the sake of argument that you are correct, that the Nigerian government discriminates against the SE and favors the Yoruba and the SW. If so, then you have nothing to lose by removing your support of the PDP or any centralist governments. After all, it appears that your support has bought you nothing, right? While our staunch opposition to Abuja and the federal government somehow has led to us being favored! 

strangerf:
He is a glory seeking mofo, with zero interest in helping the masses. He is in for the money, and the power.

Probably true. But at this moment, the interests of the Yoruba people and his own overlap. Look, a rabid dog is dangerous, right? But if this rabid dog is terrorizing your enemies, then it temporarily serves a valuable purpose. You don't shoot the dog before it takes out your enemies. If the dog turns on you, then yes, you put it down.

If it comes down to it, Tinubu I think is a guy who can be relatively easily thwarted if he goes against the interests of the Yoruba people. Look, he wants the respect and admiration of the Yoruba even more than just money or power, I think.
A guy like Obasanjo is far more dangerous. OBJ doesn't give a damn whether Yoruba people like him or not. He will run roughshod over the interests of his own people to satisfy his ambitions. Tinubu has limits, I think.

Anyway, you don't have to like Tinubu, but you should be able to admit that he at the very least a powerful weapon against our enemies.

You claim that the SS and SE states are not fairly being allocated revenue. I can agree with this being true of the oil-producing states, but don't agree that this is true for non-oil states.

chyz:
My bad, meant Rivers not PH parse( all though its not out of the question). The same goes for Akwa Ibom.

You should ask the British then why they chose Lagos as their primary port. I still don't think this is some sort of discrimination thing.

Again, if Rivers or Awka Ibom want a seaport, they should apply for one and use their own money (or that of investors they find) to build it. Just like we in the West are doing.

EDIT: clarity

chyz:
Will do. I never said it was the SE or SS state that said they would do that. Frankly they are not fairly allocated revenue by the FG.

Basis for this being true for non-oil producing states?

However, There were rich individuals who volunteered but weren't allowed.

Reference?

I guess you didn't catch the article. It said clearly "Ogun State" you should even search nairaland for it.

Yeah, I got confused because I saw Ondo was also developing one. A bit weird that both are developing separate ports. I'm a bit confused.

The more ports the merrier right? Did you just say the more ports the less profitable?

Numerous small, inland ports which can only be reached by river and which are not suitable for large ships will not be able to compete, yes. If they want to build such ports, fine, it is a free country. I just don't it is the best use of their resources.

All of what you just listed above can be attributed to the revenue lagos has accumulated due to the lack of a sea port in the areas i stated earlier. Also, lagos has already gotten that jump start by having a sea port. I would be no difference if PH was granted that a long time ago. It would have those kinds of inversters as well.So there is nothing spectacular about whats happening to lagos and what is done by its people.

Naw, PH is again on the river rather than the sea.

Meh, Nigeria is not some nice place where you can win without bending the rules. You have to be a bit ruthless to succeed in this country. It isn't like he plundered Lagos. He awarded himself a contract based upon the amount of IGR the state generates. That he grew the revenue base a lot means he also increased his profit a lot, too.

Anyway, nothing I can say or do will make you guys not despise him

chyz:
Dapo they have already said they would put there own money up.you can even find the articles on the internet. The FG said no that they will not allow them.

Can you please back this up with a reference of some sort? I googled and found nothing. So you are saying some SE state submitted an application for a seaport and the Nigerian Ports Authority denied it?

Also, I doubt that about the FG hasn't done anything in the SW,although i do agree with the marginalisation, they just granted Ogun state a seaport lol. something that we in the East have been asking for for ages. As a matter of fact why would ogun even need a port? LOl.

Well, first of all, the deep sea port looks like it will be in Ondo, not Ogun (Ogun is building a FTZ).

Second, the more ports the merrier. Ports can be very profitable if done properly, it isn't a matter of "need." And taking a quick glance at a map of Ondo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nigeria_Ondo_State_map.png), and considering the following quote:

Governor Mimiko who gave this assurance in his office on Monday while playing host to the Chairman and members of the Nigerian Ports Consultative Council (NPCC) who are in the state for a maritime summit submitted that the state was endowed with the longest coastline in the country and West Africa.

then it at least seems plausible to me that this will be a profitable endeavor (though not sure how accurate his claim of "longest coastline" is.)

Third, Ondo, rather than complaining about marginalization is:
[list]
[*] Actuallly putting up money, namely N24 billion just for road development
[*] Partnering with Ogun State, which has a FTZ of its own that is being developed.
[*] Partnering with three major private firms who plan on providing $1 billion in funding (http://www.africanloft.com/africas-first-deep-sea-container-port-proposed-for-nigeria/)
[/list]

BTW, Lagos sef is not standing still and watching. They are planning a $6 billion deep seaport themselves in Lekki (http://en.portnews.ru/news/13362/). Again, the federal government is not the one putting up the money for this, it will be done by private investors.

fstranger1:
Tinubu is being paid a whopping 2 billion naira / month from the state coffers; for what exactly?

Someone else would have eventually come up with a way to internally generate those revenues. Tinubu is bad for Yoruba land

I'd rather have Kofo Bucknor in charge.

The guy is a thief who relies mostly on touts and area boys to exert his influence in the most abominable way possible

http://..com/2009/06/gov-fashola-dpa-and-alpha-beta.html

His company collects taxes on behalf of Lagos, it appears. The 15% fee the article claims seems way too high for this service, if true, probably 5% is a better rate. And it is of course lame to give the contract to yourself, or a company you indirectly control.

But I dunno if this quite qualifies as "stealing."

chyz:
The people essentially are just asking for one sea port in the area, preferably Rivers because its just about in the middle; however, they were refused.Why? Because of ethnicity. Pure dumbness. This is what led to these different areas fighting for ports.

Can you provide some sort of documentation or reference for this? When were they refused this seaport? Under which administration?

BTW, I'm not calling you a liar, I just want to understand the circumstances surrounding the event.

chyz:
The mentality you have is why we Igbo deal with on a day to day bases.That's why people like me will continue to push for our liberation behind close doors. Lagos is not the only state on the sea. It cost money to move products all the way from lagos to the other side of the country. Rivers and Akwa Ibom are on the sea as well as bayelsa so why do they not have a sea port when it is economically going to benefit their states? have you ever asked yourself that question? If the state benefits from it then so will the country.It's basic Macro economics.

Who though is going to spend money to build these things, though? I'm not opposed to Igbo liberation or whatever, even if it is just economic. But shouldn't the people who benefit from something be the ones paying for it? Like, if you want a port that benefits you and your people primarily, shouldn't you be willing to put money up?

I could see if the SW were getting tons and tons of federal projects alone. But we are not. What has the federal gov't done in Lagos, or any of the SW states lately? I think most of us are realizing that the federal government is useless, and anything we want to do, we will have to do ourselves.

Looking at that map and studying Nigeria's coastline a bit, seems reasonable to guess that the Lekki FTZ will be quite a bit more successful than this Tinapa FTZ. 20 million people in Lagos, 20 million in the other SW states, 3 million nearby in Benin Republic, so easily 40+ million people nearby. Easy access to the Atlantic, so large ships can profitably dock there. And it looks like Fashola has studied the problem very well and is developing the supporting infrastructure (roads, power, etc) so that the project can be successful. He is also doing all of this with minimal federal government support, instead raising money overseas (a bank in Australia and a mutual fund in South Africa are funding the Lekki Toll Road, for example) to achieve his objectives.

chyz:
True. The question should be why are they rushing for a RIVERSIDE port and also could it be because Akwa Ibom and Rivers State does not have a SEASIDE port.

If it were me in charge, I'd suggest these SE states should all collaborate together, pool money and resources together to make one port dominant. Lagos as a port has too many structural and physical advantages to be knocked off easily. But you give yourself absolutely zero chance if you are dividing up resources into 3 or 4 mediocre ports. One elite port stands a much better chance of being competitive with Lagos than 3 or 4 mediocre ports.

Two sides of the same coin. Money = political power. Lagos State is at 70% IGR, so determines its own destiny. Tinubu somehow somehow is a very wealthy man, so also has lots of political power.

chyz:
Incompetent how? Explain.

Well, my strong suspicion is that it is going to cost an enormous amount of money to dredge the Calabar River enough to make it attractive for large ships to come there.

Even looking at from Google Maps:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=google+maps+calabar&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=Calabar,+Nigeria&gl=us&ei=wV8FTbmwCYSClAekiZHECQ&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=image&resnum=1&ved=0CBQQ8gEwAA

Look at how far Calabar is from the sea (compared to Lagos, which is right on the Atlantic.)

Then when you zoom in, you cannot even make out the waterway connecting Calabar to the Atlantic.

It is probably going to cost a lot of money to get the job done. Otherwise it would probably already be complete, and they wouldn't be trying to offload the work onto the Federal Government.

In any case, looks like they put the cart before the horse.

alj harem:
gbam dapobear stop on

why would anyone build a port on a river when there is a seaport

sometime i do not know how jonathan and others think  

I don't mind it, the more ports the merrier. But it annoys me for them to allege some sort of discrimination when instead they are simply incompetent.

Another recent article:

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2010/08/group-holds-forum-on-dredging-of-calabar-port/

Calabar Port is one of the six major seaports in the country, which has unfortunately recorded the lowest patronage of deep ocean-going vessels owing to its shallow draft.  The avoidable situation has thus adversely affected the growth of shipping activities in the port and by implication, the overall economy of the area.

So again, how is this a massive conspiracy? How is the Yoruba man responsible for the Calabar River being shallow and filled with dirt?

Unless someone can demonstrate that the federal government has explicitly banned certain goods from being imported through Calabar, or that import duties are higher there, then I don't see how anyone can allege discrimination.

I don't get this. You want to build a Free Trade Zone, but you build it not on a SEASIDE port (like Lagos), but on a RIVERSIDE port. And not a deep, wide river, but a shallow one. You also don't spend any of your own money to improve the river so that large ships can profitably bring goods there. And somehow all of this is someone else's fault?

Abagworo:
You can't say all textiles,cars,heavy equipments,chemicals and agricultural products must be imported through Lagos and expect the others to thrive.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it doesn't appear that any goods are banned from being imported in Calabar (at least, my quick google search doesn't show any evidence of this.)

Instead it appears that the port needs to be dredged:
[list]
[*] http://allafrica.com/stories/201003050857.html
[*] http://www.dredgingtoday.com/2010/08/30/nigeria-governor-urges-fg-to-expedite-calabar-port-dredging/
[*] http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/Home/5464788-146/story.csp
[*] http://www.vanoord.com/gb-en/our_activities/project_selector/calabar_access_channel/index.php
[/list]

It seems to me that Cross River should have also spent money ensuring that the river is dredged. Relying on the federal gov't to complete this important task to make your business successful seems like poor planning.

Like, rather than spending $450 million on Tinapa (or however much they spent), why didn't they spend the money on dredging the port so that big ships will be interested in delivering goods there?

If it were me, that is what I would have done. Dredge the port first, get it up and running, then simultaneously build Tinapa and good roads.

“Ninety percent of tomatoes produced get wasted between the farm and the market. We produce cassava than any other nation, but we have no (finished) cassava products. We produce crude oil, but we rely on imported fuel.”

Wow. Is this true? If so, doesn't it present an opportunity?

This I think was the key:

Although the federal government starved the state of funds, Tinubu did not allow it to pose a stumbling block to his agenda for the state. Instead, it was an eye-opener for him and probably made him devise other means of generating funds. To survive, Dele Alake, commissioner for information and strategy under Tinubu, in one of his online write-ups said the administration “had to task its intellectual ingenuity and come up with measures to strengthen the financial base of the state.” Some of those measures were to engage the Alpha Beta Tax Consultancy firm believed to be owned by Tinubu himself, which helped to raise the internally generated revenue profile of the state. Apart from re-organisation of the state’s board of internal revenue to enhance revenue collection capacity through greater autonomy, Tinubu’s administration reformed the tax administration process through the computerisation of the state’s tax assessment records, culminating in the introduction of the electronic tax clearance cards, eTCC. Though taxpayers continue to groan under the pangs of heavy taxation, the exercise, residents admit, has brought development to the state. Many actually believe that the current administration is only consolidating on the achievements of Tinubu, who laid the foundation.

The federal gov't starving Lagos forced Lagos to become fiscally independent. Now Lagos can pursue its own agenda, regardless of what the federal government does or says.

Fiscal independence leads to political independence. I hope the rest of the SW learns from this example and look to grow their own internally generated revenue base.

Not hating on Ojukwu, if I were in his shoes I too would be happy to snag a fine looking woman 30 or 40 years my junior. More power to him 

I'm just wondering what was going on in her mind. . .

Still, he has a certain undeniable charisma and magnetism, even at his old age:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhbJs26SjNw

Maybe she found that attractive? Who can say.

SapeleGuy:
You are obviously not familiar with the ports in Nigeria. I think you would do well to do some research on this issue and perhaps you may have posted differently.

Indeed, I am not. Since you are quite familiar with it, perhaps you can summarize the main differences between the status of the different ports, and thus not only save me time, but many others here reading.

So you expected them to build a 650 kilometre road and the longest bridge in Nigeria before they started the project.  You people criticize any how. East West Road links Delta, Akwa Ibom, Rivers and Bayelsa state. The road is the responsibility of the federal government.

The gov't of Nigeria doesn't do anything right. It is like having an undependable friend. If you have a flight to catch at 5pm and you are relying on your undependable friend to pick up up and drive you to the airport, don't be surprised if you miss your flight.

If you want to get something done in Nigeria, you have to do it yourself. This is true for all states, really.

Calabar port has always been ready for action, you will have to ask the FG & NPA why only Lagos port is favoured.

Now, explain very specifically how Calabar port is being discriminated again.

Err, she is quite gorgeous.

How did a beautiful YOUNG(ish) woman like that end up marrying an OLD man like Ojukwu?

SapeleGuy:
Sochan-why must everything be in Lagos? I take it you must be in support of the continued closure / underutilisation of the ports in Koko, Warri, PH, Sapele, Calabar because they are not near vibrant cities like Lagos.

What does this mean? What goods can one ship to Lagos but not ship to those ports you mention? Which of them are closed, which ones are underutilized, and in what way are they underutilized?

Finally, doesn't it seem that before building Tinapa, you should ensure that things necessary to support it like the Calabar port and East-West road are progressing?

I mean, look at the way Lagos State is managing their Lekki FTZ. They are expanding the road at the same time they are working on the FTZ. It would have been foolish to do the FTZ before expanding the road, no?