₦airaland Forum

Obiagu1:
There was anger in the East and they want Igbos removed from the Yorubas, then there was demand for a region by other minorities in the West, so what is the most likely scenario? They were all grouped together instead.

I think anger in the East at best contributed 1 or 2% to the outcome, not anything significant. You on the other hand think it was significant. Perhaps we should agree to disagree, then.

Nigerians are the most funny people on earth. Imagine being linked to financial crimes spanning FIVE countries, and some people here having the audacity to blame it on politics!

As if one is likely to escape justice from all 5 countries! Not everywhere in the world can you get off scot free from a crime by blaming politics. It is only in Nigeria that this is the case.

So let's simmer down and see what the investigation turns up, rather than just blaming GEJ or politics.

I'm not sure any anger in the East would be enough to rewrite boundaries, is all I am saying. It would be one thing if the Midwest region were partitioned and a portion of it given to the Eastern region.

But to spin it as "Eastern anger=>formation of Midwestern region" seems very implausible.

Obiagu1:
Why didn't Eastern minorities enjoy such luck? You have to answer that.

Who knows, political vagaries of the time? Perhaps the Western region was controlled at the time by someone out of favor with the national gov't, I don't know. In any case, just because event X happened in one region doesn't mean the same must have to happen in another. As you imply, perhaps there is an element of luck involved.

Obiagu1:
No, they had support from Igbos in the East, it was not just the Delta Igbos. It was made possible because the minorities too want their own region.

Of what relevance is the support of the Igbos in the East? What about the Bini,  Ijaw, Urhobo, and Itsekiri in the former Western region? Obviously the latter groups are going to have a larger impact than Igbos in the East.

Why are we blaming politics now? If you are involved in a multi-country fraud scheme, then don't be surprised if one or more of the gov'ts involved goes after you.

It is absolutely moronic to blame this on GEJ or politics.

Obiagu1:
Why was similar region not created from the East despite the demand for it from Eastern minorities? It's about influence, the Hausa/Fulani, Igbo and Yoruba had enomous influence then.

But is isn't the Igbo influence which caused the midwest region to come about. What were they, 20% or so of the population of that region? How will that 20% cause a region to come about if the remaining 80% are against it?

My point is that the creation of the midwest region likely happened because it was the popular will of the populace of that region, not the Igbo minority and the Eastern region.

gadogado:
@dapobear

you're seriously trying to divide and conquer. North and Middle Belt.

You need to be a bit more realistic. This middle belt identity/agitation is not a new phenomenon, it appears to be at least around since the 50s. I think that unless there is a strong figure in the North to suppress it, it will continue to grow naturally and organically.

^-- How on earth could Igbo agitation have been the primary cause of the creation of the Midwest region? Think about how unrealistic that sounds.

Wow. Hope he turns out to be clean. . .

Blazay:
Okay let me make this easy for everyone.

The headline should have read:

[size=16pt]ATIKU KILLS 2 OF HIS SUPPORTERS FOR ELECTION CAMPAIGN RITUALS!!! [/size]

Guilty without charge. Please, jail him for life and death.

Abagworo:
Our early politicians are guilty of starting the ethnic politics that has made Nigeria complex.The ethnic groups in Nigeria were artificial creations.I am not denying there earlier existence but they never identified themselves as one and only noticed that they spoke similar language.If things were left this way,there would not have been mega-ethnic groups like Igbo and Yoruba.

Same thing happened to the Germanic tribes and Italian city states. I think it is somewhat inevitable.

Abagworo:
If Nigeria was well governed ,ethnicity would not have been an issue.

Ethnicity I think makes Nigeria harder to govern. Too many interests to balance. It is hard for me to think of a country quite as complicated ethnically as Nigeria. A bit unique in this respect, I think?

Wow, what a tough situation. I wouldn't know what to do either.

Neither of them. Tinubu would of course love the mantle, but he is more the security man at the gate, not the head of the household. The head of the household is currently unoccupied, as no one is yet worthy to fill Awo's place. . .

Didn't watch the video, but it is pretty easy to fake a lot of things. Take for example this guy being cut in half by a chainsaw:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s30b3VDjVuQ

The Tribe of Sexy Women, hopefully.

Regarding the Western Region, it appears that is was established in the 1930s by the British. Perhaps for them they thought the River Niger would be a more convenient border for administration than ethnicity.

I've also wondered why Kwara and western Kogi for example were not incorporated into the Western region, if ethnicity was supposed to be the main determininant of each boundary. But I imagine that for similar reasons of convenience, inertia, etc, it just didn't happen.

Onlytruth:
My argument is that in terms of political power in Nigeria, there is no middlebelt. There is the north. With the exception of Murtala Muhammed, Sani Abacha and Tafawa Balewa, the rest of Nigeria's leaders from the north are middle belters.
The so called middlebelt would not have tasted power if not for the support of the so called core north. Murtala Muhammed led the counter coup of July 1966 and chose Gowon to lead Nigeria, and he did so for 9 years. Ibrahim Babangida - a so called middlebelter took part in Muhammeds' coup that toppled Gowon in 1975. If you follow the history of northern dominance in Nigeria, you would see that the core and middlenorth worked as ONE to dominate and rule Nigeria for 38 years. That is all I am saying.

This isn't true at all, though. The middle belt has had a distinct identity for a long time, and their relative power was strengthened as a result of the killing of the Saradauna and the civil war. Just because they've allied with the core North as a junior partner doesn't  make them the same as the core North. For example, as I'm reading in this book The Nigerian Civil War state creation was supported by the middle belt, opposed by the core North, but eventually occurred in part due to pressure from the middle belt.

Onlytruth:
I have always maintained that there is nothing like "Middlebelt" in terms of real Nigerian politics. There is a christian north though, and they are concentrated more to these "middlebelt" areas. However, they share a bond with other Northerners through HAUSA language. You cannot find anything like that in southern Nigeria. 

To me, the most convenient lie has been to blame a so called "core north" for all the crimes Northern Nigeria has committed against the rest of Nigeria. Having jointly enjoyed the political power over the years (in fact these middlebelters have ruled Nigeria more than the Hausa sef! ), they must therefore take a proportional blame for Nigeria's failures through the years.

Middlebelt is a convenient lie to escape blame and mask history.

Not sure that the common sentiment of the the middle belt man should be make to coincide with that of elites. Atiku sef is a Fulani from Adamawa, but from what I read the predominant ethnic group there is the predominantly Christian Bachama, who have a Yoruba female senator. As a result, I'm not sure it is fair to lump them in with the North, especially for such a weak reason as speaking Hausa as their 2nd or 3rd language. Any crookedness of Atiku clearly doesn't reflect on the people of Adamawa.

Birom in Plateau for example obviously do not see themselves as "North."

You are probably right, the Kanuri man isn't really that close to the Hausa-Fulani oligarchs. But they are probably closer interest-wise than any of the other groups, I suspect.

My guess also is that the population of the Igbo states is massively under-counted. It would explain a lot about Nigeria if this were true.

So I wonder, is the 150 million figure they bandy about as the total population of Nigeria accurate, but they are just shifting around population #s? Or is Nigeria much less populated than commonly believed?

Really hard to know the truth without accurate figures, unfortunately.

A book I purchased and have been reading (The Nigerian Civil War) has a demographic map on it. The middle belt is quite huge. The core north is pretty small. I would say at this point that the core North is only Kebbi, Sokoto, Zamfara, Katsina, Northern Kaduna, Kano, Jigawa, Yobe and Borno.

Everything else is middle belt. Even Adamawa that I thought was Fulani is actually Bachama instead.

EDIT: So I guess if you take the demographic figures listed publicly at face value and say give half of the population of the Kaduna to the core North, you get the following population estimate for the core North:


octave:2> 3.2+3.7+3.2+5.7+1/2*6+9.4+4.4+2.3+4.1
ans =  39

So roughly 39 million.

Of course, it is very likely that the number for some of these states are massively inflated. It seems implausible that Kano is 3 times more densely populated than Ondo state, for example. So to be quite honest, the population of the core North might be as little as 20 million.

No need to pressure Mimiko to join the ACN directly, we don't all need to be under the same tent, so long as we share the same vision. Fine for him to stay in Labour Party.

I'd much rather support GEJ than Buhari. Buhari is not our friend at all, absolutely no reason to ally with Fulani feudalists.

Interesting analysis, though.

babaowo:
no one is saint,but ASHIWAJU BOLA HAMMED,he is our AWOLOWO right now,kudos to tinubu

WTF? No way. Don't ever compare the two again. Tinubu is a crook and a thug. But in a place like Nigeria, you often need crooks and thugs to get the job done. Still, we should not forget that Tinubu himself is crooked, and should not be foolish enough to compare him to Awo.

Good article on 234Next:

http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/News/5619886-184/nigerians_need_electricity_now__.csp

Anyone have a quick reference for the number of barrels of oil produced by each state (and offshore too)? My google-fu fails me; all I can come up with is that Nigeria produces 2 million barrels/day, but cannot find how this is further broken up.

I guess my overall point is that if the economy were good, the security situation would likely be tolerable. Pretty easy to turned to army robbery if there are no jobs in your country. But with a good economy, less will be inclined to take up this unsavory career.

A-40:
K.G is over-rated G!!
He led a team with Desagana Diop and Devin Harris to two games shy of a title! Something K.G never did on his own team! Unless you want us to believe he is the best player at the Celtics

He choked?? Name one player in the history of Sports who hasn't ? Kobe has, K.G too Allen, Paul Pierce the list is endless man try again!

K.G's offense is not as reliable as Dirk not even close! His defense is over-rated. Ball don't lie! Dirk's rebounding over his career is 8.5 in the regular season and 10.9 in the playoffs respectively. He averages a block and a steal per game
K.G is 10.8 and 11.2 with more or less the same number of steals and blocks!

No mention of assists? Prime KG was a 25/13/5 assist/1.5 block sort of guy, with ELITE defense.

Also, Dirk got locked up by Stephen frikkin Jackson in the 2007 playoffs, man. What type of big man gets shut down by a SG/SF?

^-- Just in terms of priorities, I put economic strength first. If there are jobs and there is money, somehow violence and banditry seems to diminish.

koruji:
Mark my words, the region that achieves strong economic strength is the one that will lead Nigeria at the end of the day. Any region that realizes this needs to start working right away - if the national government follows suit, even better, but if not then such a region must not wait or allow itself to be hoodwinked into fake "national" politics.

100% agree. Honestly, whichever region guarantees solid power supply probably wins. There is too much business both nationally and internationally that would be open to us if we only had solid power supply. If say Ekiti or Ondo had guaranteed power supply, me personally I could move there and setup a firm based on my own area of expertise and compete for international projects, while taking advantage of the lower cost of living. When Honda/Toyota/etc want to build a new manufacturing plant, the SW would be able to submit a very competitive bid and possibly grab some of those factories away from the US and other countries (again, low labor costs + constant power supply = huge win.)

Things like that would be VERY possible, if only we had power! It is my strong hope that if/when the ACN captures the Southwest, the immediate task on their agenda will be to independently generate power for our region of the country. Do that and the region will boom economically.

I'm using "hate" in the colloquial, hip-hop sense (e.g., "hater"), not literal hatred, heh.