₦airaland Forum

EzeUche0:
Great job not falling into my trap. Hopefully, you brethren will heed your words. However, I seriously doubt that, because the Yoruba titans on the Politics section will not allow my post go unanswered. lol

A lot of the stuff I post here is just for fun and amusement, but I think most of us know when playtime is over and it is time to talk seriously.

^--- Guys, please refrain from being baited into responding to this guy, I don't want this thread to degenerate into something it shouldn't be about. I'd rather understand some of these dynamics within Yorubaland that I didn't understand before.

One other thing, going forward, we definitely need to reduce the power of these traditional leaders. They should by symbolic figureheads, and not have any real power. Democracy is the way going forward. The Queen of England and various other Monarchs in Europe have rightfully receded to the background. Our Yoruba Kings also need to learn that it is time for them to take a step back.

They can smile and make general fuzzy statements like this, take pictures for television/newspaper/etc. But they should not be political powerbrokers.

This Abacha event is pretty frightening to me. There is no reason that in this day and age an unelected ruler should have that much power.

Hrm. Still, let us remember that division in Yorubaland has pretty much preceded all of our defeats. We have other enemies in this land and cannot afford to succumb to infighting. Next few years will be critical in our history; we have to keep our eyes on the prize.

Environer:
Unfortunately, the guy does not give  a damn about you and you will probably kowtow to him were you to come face to face with him. You live in the US with him, so take the case up with the authorities there; that is the place he committed an offense, if any; or shut the bleep up. That is what a real man should do. You talk about Nigeria's image as though there is anything left of her image minus Emeagwali. No be fraud most of you guys dey do for jandi?

LOL!

So what do you suggest I do? Fly to Emeagwali's house and confront him? Call my senator? While all of that sounds interesting, how about he just stop 419ing? Pretty simply solution, no?

Indeed, most of us Nigerians in America are fraudsters. How did you know?! Especially the Yoruba ones, lol. Or virtual slaves to the white man. We dey suffer in yankee, oh!  Me, I mow lawns for a living, and pick fruit in the California countryside in the summers for $1/hour and 1 bowl of garri.

Environer:
Bottomline is that Emeagwali also studied under  fellowships to obtain his degrees. Not sure which now. NSF graduate fellowship is not the most competitive scholarship. There are a couple of others like NIH, EPA, USAID etc. Even you may well be a fraud. This is cyber world. Tell us you real name and lets search you out. Do not come here running your mouth as though you are a saint.

Look, it is very simple. Emeagwali is a fraud. He is widely considered a Nigerian fraud. So either we as Nigerians need to reject him, or demonstrate in some way that he isn't actually Nigerian, so it doesn't reflect poorly on us. It appears that you will not let us reject the man. So how about this, we pretend from now on that he isn't a fraud, and instead a Biafran scientist rather than a Nigerian one?

As I said earlier, I don't mind legitimate people carrying the name Nigeria on their back. I want the Nigerian name to look good, not look like trash. But if you constantly associate the name of your country with frauds and 419ers, then what will people think about your country?

Regarding me personally, wtf? I'm not the one running my mouth claiming things I don't have. Hell, I've made no personal claims in this thread. Lol, stop changing the subject and trying to make this about anyone other than Emeagwali.

Suggest some books that discuss the history more accurately. And fill in the details on how he is dividing Osun state. Not everyone is aware as you are; my ears are open and I am willing to learn.

Environer:
Isnt that just a graduate fellowship? You may want to know that Emeagwali also got free scholarship to study for his Bachelor and 2 MS degrees. A graduate fellowship in the US is nothing because you actually work for it as a graduate assistant, unlike in Europe where it is free money. What is important is winning an award off of your MS or PhD work and not just getting a stipended student assistantship to study.

It is very easy to get an ordinary graduate teaching assistantship, where you are required to work.

The NSF though is a competitive scholarship; once you win it, you don't have to work for 3 years. 3 years of being paid, no labor required. It is far more competitive to get it than most other fellowships. Certainly more competitive than the Gordon Bell.

Environer:
There is definitely a taint of tribalism in all these. All those baying for Emeagwali's head are Yoruba. Why is that so?

If they are willing to call him, Phillip Emeagwali, 419er from Enugu or wherever he is from, I could care less. But unfortunately, whenever they present him, they present him as a Nigerian.
You can click that link I gave you and read many names of Igbo students who received fellowships. For them, I am happy for those guys to be called Nigerian.

But a fraud like Emeagwali? Hell no. Petition that they present him in the media from now on as Professor Phillip Emeagwali, from Enugu State. Do that and I'll leave him alone. I don't want to implicitly be associated with fraud.

hercules07: Even if you do not respect the man himself, at least show some respect for the office and what it represents. Ibadan or any other place might be more powerful, but Ife was the birthplace of our people. Show some respect.

My favorite Nigerian writer. I really enjoy Achebe's style.

Lots and lots of Nigerians have more than this. It really isn't a big deal. Go to the national science foundation webpage, and look at the list called "NSF Graduate Fellowship" (https://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/grfp/AwardeeList.do?method=loadAwardeeList). This is a 3 year fellowship that pays you $30K/year in salary and pays for your tuition. Read the list of award winners, you'll find many Nigerian names.

That by itself is far more impressive than a Gordon Bell Prize. . . $90K+Tuition > $1K.

200 million in debt. That is an enormous amount of money. Oni needs to account for his spending. And if any of that money was given out to contractors who did not complete their work, they need to pay it back. Sigh.

Does anyone know what the debt level in Ekiti state was before Oni took office? That would be a very useful piece of information.

auwal87:
See, Arewa Republic is having good neighbours whom we can work together to succeed.

From Kano to a Libyan port its only 2,000 km. By building rail in partnership with Niger Republic and Libyan governments, Arewa Republic can continue to do business even without the Lagos Port. Even now, most of goods imported by people of Arewa are diverted through Cotonou, Benin Republic >>> Maradi, Niger Republic >>> Katsina, Nigeria >>> Kano, Nigeria. So why not Libya >>> Niger >>> Arewa ?

I don't think this is even an issue. Why would Lagos want to lose the northern business and give it away to Libya and Niger? We want the additional revenue.

Environer:
And where did Emeagwali claim to be a prof? Some of you just join the fray without a good grasp of the facts. Please show me where he claims to be a professor in science.

When did I say he did? All I know is that he lets people call him what he is not in interviews without correcting them. Anyway, my purpose was to answer your original question; when did the onus get put on me to dissect what he did and did not claim? You are the one starting the thread, not I.

becomrich4:
DapoBear , where are you getting that from. i went to take some course here in canada, when the professor only worked for IBM. And he does not have a PHD. And it was in the area of engineering.

So this is possible. Say you are a guy with only a bachelors, who has worked for IBM for 20 years. But you did excellent work there that was recognized by your entire field. Then a university might decide to hire you to lecture. But usually, they'll give you a different title. Not ordinary professor, they might call you "Adjunt Professor." Or "Professor of the Practice." This is very different from a tenure-track professor. Usually when people say "Professor", they really mean either a "tenure-track professor" or a professor who has already achieved tenure.

How do you think white people transfer knowledge from the science world to the universities. If you are into accademic all your life. You dont have update of new technology. THe new technology are transfer to people in the accademic field through workers in places life IBM, Microsoft, google etc.

Look I am not boosting, but I know many thing a professor in the field of computer have no clue to . Do you think I can transfer something to him. The problem in nigeria is that people are too proud to learn. So assume because they have a PHD they are superior to others. That is not so. PHD does not make you superior. I am telling I know s many thing in the field of computer science , if you put all the professor of computer science, they all would not find solution to it.

Yeah, PhD doesn't make you superior. In fact, there are lots of mediocre universities in the US you can get a PhD from. Most of those guys aren't very impressive. Unfortunately, Nigerian mentality worships anyone with a PhD, even if it is from a crap school. In the US, that is not the case. If you have a PhD from a crap school competing with a Bachelors student from MIT, I'll probably take the MIT bachelors student, if I'm the one hiring. MIT undergraduates are all universally pretty smart, PhDs from crap schools aren't necessary that good.

If I die with what I know, I do the next generation benefit from it. It because a waste. Even if you look at some of the information I give on nigeria history most professor of history in nigeria, do not know them. That  why they give them professorship even when they do not have a PHD to be able to transfer knowledge.

Write it down on paper. We have Wikipedia now, there is no reason for the knowledge to die.

Environer:
Do you agree that both Achebe and Soyinka do not have MA degrees? Do you agree that it is questionable how they became profs in Nigeria with BA degrees? I know that in the USA, a prof can be defined ranging from the meaning of it as we Nigerians see it, to an instructor or even anyone professing anything. In that case, both Soyinka and Achebe are okay with the title they bear. But here in naija we know what a prof means? Now tell me, did both men first become profs in naija or abroad?

You miss the point. For their specific field of endeavor (literature), paper certificates are less important. I could get a BS in Chemical Engineering, work for 20 years as an engineer for Chevron, and write literature part time, say at night when I get home from work. If the literature I write becomes famous enough, I can then quite possibly be invited to be a professor of literature somewhere.

However, mathematics, engineering and hard science are not like this. I cannot get a BS in Chemical Engineering and then spend the next 20 years dabbling in Mathematics, write brilliant papers and then be offered a professorship somewhere. Well, it is possible, but extremely unlikely, you would have to be some sort of super, super genius to do this. And if you were that smart (and I don't mean smart relative to average human beings, I mean smart relative to the best mathematicians in the world), then you'd just go back to school and get the PhD in 2 years, then apply for tenure-track professorships.

Anyway, this is how it works in the US. I have no clue how it works in Nigeria.

Anyway, long story short, Emeagwali never even got to the point where he could ever be called a professor in the US in hard sciences. You need to write good papers and have them accepted at prdstigous journals, basically. I don't think he he wrote any papers. I googled his name and couldn't find any, anyway. So the way it works is you write a bunch of good papers, apply for a job at a university, interview, and then hopefully get the job offer (for a tenure-track position, as opposed to some sort of non-tenure track lecturer/instructor position.) Emeagwali didn't do any of this.

chuqudy:
Poor hungry Yoruba people.

 

A Biafran, laughing at the hunger of anyone else! Wonders will never cease.

Basically, you are confusing two different titles, people can cal you "Doctor" once you have a PhD. People can call you "Professor" if a university decides to hire you as a Professor. In the hard sciences/engineering a PhD is usually a prerequisite to being hired as a Prof. In fields like literature, law, journalism, they are not. You don't even need to necessarily even have any degree to be a professor of literature; in literature, you are primarily judged on the strength of the works you've written.

Anyway, Emeagwali is in the hard sciences/engineering, where a PhD is required before becoming a Professor, while Soyinka and Achebe are writers, where the PhD is not.

In fact, nobody can call Emeagwali a Professor, since he was never hired as a tenure-tracked professor at any university. At best, he could be called "Doctor." And this is only if he earned a PhD somewhere. I'm not even sure if an honorary doctorate allows you to be called "Doctor", I'm a bit fuzzy about the protocol for honorary degrees.

Yep. It is very simple. She has a man's face. That is all it really is, not discrimination because she is dark. There are plenty of dark women with beautiful looking faces. She is not one of them.

With that said, I much much prefer butterfaces like her to girls with beautiful faces, and no figure. But of course the best is a girl with a figure like hers, but a better looking face.

And truth be told, if a butterface like her has a better personality than a girl with the same body and a pretty face, I'll pick the butterface. Being a butterface is not the end of the world, most guys would still date her.

Jbenue:
1- The proposed Arewa would be a LANDLOCKED Republic.( Chad+ Niger come to mind  )

Doesn't really matter. Chad and Niger suck not only because they are landlocked, but also because they don't get enough rainwater and don't have enough trade/industry/business.

2- Nigeria is only tolerated on the world stage because of Oil even with that look how we are treated, so imagine disedent Nigerians without oil lol. ( Unless they find oil quick in Lake Chad)

This is dumb. How would it hurt an Arewa Republic in practice? Or conversely, how does having oil increase your prestige? You can be a potato farming country and have as much prestige as an oil producing one. All the matter is the DOLLAR value of the thing you export. Billion dollar potato country is better than a 50 million oil country.

3- In Nigeria 55% of the population is under the age of 20. In Arewa its 65%  thats a lot of almajaris lol.

Youth are a valuable asset, if educated. If uneducated, then yes, they'd be a liability.

4- What generally happens to poor Islamic states with high youth population and unemployment- Al Qaida !!!!!!!!

African Islam is not really going to be a fertile ground for radical islam. By and large, African Muslim leaders seem to be against radical Wahhabi Islam. It is a threat to their power, if nothing else; if they lose prestige, then power goes to foreign Arab Wahabis.

5- And Perhaps the most terrifying aspect to this destined Titanic is Northern Politicians i.e. IBB need i say more !!!!

Northern politcians cannot be as successful in an Arewa Republic. There is no oil money to steal. So how would they operate?

I guess the point I am trying to make is, there are a lot of sections of the the country clamouring for disintergration. But rather lets unite and not just be pround Nigerians but be pround Africans, because its only when united that africa can tackle all its problems and in so doing lifting itself out of shame and depression.

Nope, best solution is for Nigeria to break apart. 40+ years of no progress and stagnation means we must try something new.

I was a big fan of Alicia Keys, but then she married an ugly scrub

Classic butterface. Still, with a body than fine, what man would say no?

KimK, any day

lol, english is overrated. They have no problems selling lots of cds and only speaking pidgin. Plus, do you understand rap or reggae? I can barely understand what they say too 

Anyway, great video, big ups to p square

Is Kwara not one of the poorest states in the whole of Nigeria? And which democracy do they enjoy? The man and his family have ruled the entire state for many years now, and have absolutely nothing to show for it. Saraki is a disgrace.