₦airaland Forum

Spoiled meat isn't good for you, does a lot more harm than good. Hopefully it works out well for those who ate the whale meat and they do not sicken.

Heh, sort of amusing that a militant organization has its own facebook group. I wonder if the OPC has a facebook page. Or maybe the FARC militants of Colombia are on FBook too, lol.

In any case good luck to him, may we see Nigeria separated soon.

Fair enough. I must admit, part of the reason I used the word was for sensationalism. Nobody wants to be compared to an almajiri. If shame will be the emotion that sparks people to fix Nigeria and their individual states, so be it. After all, the end results are what matter to me.

Look, let me not use the word almajiri then, since you find that so offensive. Let me just say beggar, ok? I hope that is less offensive?

BTW, your excuse of underfunded is not a good one. There is a homeless man who lives in my neighbor's garage. My neighbor is kind enough to let him sleep there. He begs from money during the day, sleeps there at night. Is he underfunded too?

If you cannot pay your own bills and instead rely on begging to provide for yourself, the situation is quite a bit worse than "underfunded."

Real states have enough revenue to fund themselves. None of the states I've lived in in the US beg for money from the federal government. They could even stand alone as separate nations, if necessary, just to show you how much economic activity they have going on. We are only fooling ourselves if we think this is a matter of "underfunded."

Ileke-IdI:
God punish you. And I'm not even joking.

It is the truth. If your homeland's primary source of income is a beggar bowl, eating money stolen from the Delta, what does that make your state? BTW, I'm not from the Delta or Lagos myself, so this implicated me and my own people too.

As I said, we need to roll up our sleeves and get to work, rather than reaping where we did not sow.

Beaf:
Thanks for enlarging my small head!

I agree with you that it shouldn't be a sudden thing, in fact I think 4 to 5 years might be too short. Also, rather than continuing with the governors monthly Abuja begging bowl trips throughout the transition period, each state would be given a 1 year period to identify revenue sources, write feasibility studies and business plans to submit to the FG. The Fg will in turn broker a finance deal with oil money that has been set aside for the transition project. The FG will also negotiate soft repayment plans with the ND states, either as cash payments or shares etc.

With the above, everyone will get a fair deal and enough time and money to grow. ND states would also be repaid for financing the plan.

You've made the point eloquently. As things stand right now, we are all almajiris (aside from Lagos and the ND states.) What are our governors and state governments but beggars?

Each state needs to come up with a plan to make itself self-sufficient. Lagos and the ND states will likely be fine; but the same cannot be said of all the others. State leadership needs to roll up its sleeves and find ways to MAKE MONEY for the state and its people, not promise pie in the sky projects that they'll spend the money they've almajiried away from the federal gov't.

Too much talk about SPENDING, not enough talk about EARNING.

Beaf:
We have state govts employing such high numbers of redundant staff, because they get free money. It is disgusting; like the rest of the country, even ND states produce fck all outside oil. Free money encourages waste and corruption.
The only way to solve Nigerias problems from corruption to development, is by instituting true federalsim. Let every state look within for ways to generate local wealth, or starve. If we do this, you'll be stunned at Nigeria's breakneck development speed and the quick death of corruption.

My brother! Look at this man of impeccable wisdom! I love it. As they say, "necessity is the mother of invention!"

Still, I think it should be done over a 4 or 5 year period of time rather than immediately. Yes the spigot of free money needs to stop, but if stopped too quickly, suffering shall occur. Nevertheless, you are 100% correct.

EzeUche: See, for example by looking at that 1978 plot, you can already start asking questions. Why is the population density high in only three regions in the country? Notice that everywhere else aside from those three regions, it below 100 per square KM. Now, what about those three spots makes them high in population density? Why in particular is that large region surrounding Kano so dense? If you can then compare to a plot of internally generated revenue and start detecting any strange discrepancies, then you can figure out which parts of the data are inconsistent and thus possibly untrustworthy.

I wanted numbers, figures, not just statements. I've heard all the statements that different Nigerian groups make, but would prefer hard facts rather than hearsay. Population survey said the population is X. IGR for the state is Y. Population in primary school is Z. Things like that are more interesting.

EDIT: Ahah, that sort of graph is useful. If I had a table of IGR #s for each state or even LGA, I could make a similar plot for LGAs. Then one for the figures from the most recent census, etc.

Is the SE very populated? What is the population of those 5 states, approximately? (probably hard to get exact numbers, since the federal gov't likely falsifies population #s) Also, what are the internally generated revenue numbers for each state?

Data like this is best put in tables and plots. Would be more meaningful if visualized, compared to population figures, internally generated revenue, number of LGAs, etc. A bit meaningless w/o other pieces of information.

Timehin:
As i respond to this thread now my area in surulere has been without electricity for d past 2weeks. I know there other areas with power outage 4 months so how can any nation attain development in a situation like ours . FOR THIS NATION TO DEVELOP CORRUPT SECTORS LIKE PHCN MUST BE PRIVATISED!

I wonder how they expect us to want to return to Nigeria with no power. How on earth am I supposed to start a successful business w/o electricity? Imagine, you are teleconferencing with an international client and the power goes out! Think about how unprofessional that is going to look.

Or you teleconference and then have to turn on a noisy generator, your client asks you what that noisy sound is in the background. Even inverters have a limited lifespan.

afam4eva:
So are you suggesting that England is better than france?

Hard to say, if one was clearly better than the other, then one would have dominated the other throughout history. Must be that they have overall been fairly well matched.

But personally if I had to choose one to identify with, I'd pick England. I know their culture and history better than that of France (Canterbury Tales, Arthurian legends, Victorian Literature, Robin Hood, colonization of America, etc). Hard for me to pick France, since I don't know as much about them and their culture.

EDIT: Also, their refusal to give up their currency for the Euro, and general reluctance and skepticism of the EU as a whole sounds very Yoruba to me. They like their little island are and happy with it.

afam4eva:
I ddon't think we'll be that united because our history will continue to hunt us. But that cannot stop us from having a very good country devoid of problems.

Easiest and safest thing to do is to just have separate countries. Separate country doesn't mean enemies. England and France have been enemies and rivals for a long time, but now are good friends, even have a train you can take to go from to the other across the sea, I am told. Plenty of trade and movement back and forth.

Now, question is, is Yorubaland England or France?  I'm not quite sure which one we'd be. I'm inclined to say England, you guys can be France 

I've always thought oil makes countries weak, rather than strong. You cannot build a nation extracting resources from the ground. It can supplement a country, but cannot be the foundation.

Who knows, I suspect I'd be more selfish if I actually believed that oil money could make Yorubaland strong. But I don't, most oil nations suck.

To the people of the Delta. Sure as hell doesn't belong to me or my people. God didn't put oil in Ekiti state; why is oil money going to my state? He gave us other resources.

Anyway, it isn't as if the Yoruba are entirely w/o oil, we have some blocks in our land, as well as oil offshore. But the lion's share of the oil in this country is found in the Delta, and belongs solely to them.

You fall into a hole like that and you'll die. That is terrible. The natural resources of the land belong to the people of that territory, not the federal gov't. It makes me angry that miners would go there, extract their resources, cause them harm and then claim that they owe them nothing because the resources belong to the federal gov't. Someone needs to bring trouble on the head of these miners. They need to fill the holes they dig and split the revenue from any resources produced 50/50.

Either do that, or get the F out.

auwal87:
To the bold part.

In 1996, an American Coy (Pfizer) conducted tests (trovafloxacin) on 100 children (ALL IN AREWA) five of whom died, with many others suffering life-altering injuries. Again they conducted another tests (ceftriaxone) on another 100 children (ALL IN AREWA) six of whom died, with many others suffering till now.

Since then, people of AREWA were afraid of giving out their children for any test or vaccine that comes from the West, (this is what will happen even if its another country, not Nigeria).

So, in early 2004, Shekarau announced the suspension of the vaccine "UNTIL INVESTIGATIONS ARE MADE" Physicians from all over NIGERIA and Outside NIGERIA conducted tests on samples randomly taken. The final result was that the tested Vaccines were okay. So the Governor ordered the vaccination to continue, and announce that the Vaccine is okay, the Emir himself vaccinated so many children in one Polio day, to show their acceptance. Since then people are accepting the vaccines, and so far, no problem is encountered.

FYI.

You are completely correct:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trovafloxacin

To be honest, sometimes these drug companies do some very shady things. I shouldn't have made it out to be as simple as I did. They often look to cut costs by testing these things in Africa. If you test these experimental drugs in America or the West, then you can be sued if they cause harm. And the oversight is lot larger if you do your testing here.

I apologize for simplifying a complicated issue.

Well, if it stays gov't owned, then there is no chance of us ever having good power supply. The guys who profit from selling gens will continue sabatoging it.

So we really do not have a choice, at this point.

Also, here in the US, electricity production isn't something extremely lucrative to invest in. It is a nice, safe investment that returns steady earnings. Obviously the economy of Nigeria works differently, but I would be highly surprised if it is going to be some massively profitable business longterm. I mean, where is the potential for massive gains? You buy electricity from the power station at $X per KwH and then you sell it to the customer at $Y per KwH. Maybe I'm not being creative enough, but it is hard for me to see this as other than a simple commodity, unless somehow the power station were gov't owned and you could bribe someone to give you electricity for free that you then sell off for $Y?

I dunno, I don't see the potential for massive abuse. You'll make some nice money getting power working again in Nigeria, but it isn't going to be something that will make you an enormous billionaire overnight or something (unlike buying an oil block at below-market prices, where it costs you like 50 cents to pull the barrel of oil from the ground and you sell it for like $50, X and Y in the previous example are probably within a factor of two or three of each other, not a factor of 100 away like in this last example.)

Regarding your comment on recurring revenue stream. . . well, once you build the roads and electricity, people will start their own individual businesses. So you can make your money from taxes, ideally on the (hopefully large) revenue that people generate from using the electricity and roads. For the gov't to expect to be earning large amounts of cash directly from electricity production is a poor strategy.

Hrm, what is the correct analogy here? It is like a farmer who begins a farm by buying some seeds. It would be very foolish of this farmer to immediately eat the seeds he bought. The point of those seeds is to to plant them and grow them into corn/yams/etc that he will then harvest part of. Similarly, the gov't should not expect to make money from power generation, but from instead the fruits of power generation (namely, the businesses that people will start once the power supply gets going.)

alj harem:
thank u

pls try to explain to ijaws and the igbos ooo

It is only arrogance and anger and a bit of racism that will make one feel that the north will completely fall apart without southerners. And don't get me wrong, I've been guilty of this arrogance myself, so I'm pointing fingers also at myself.

I think secession would do you guys good, you'd wake up out of your deep slumber and actually start building a nation. Or at least, this is my belief.

But as I said, the main thing is that you guys have to get rid of these backward customs you have. For example, international agencies tried to eradicate polio in Africa, your leaders banned them from giving you guys vaccination to prevent the disease. Now polio is resurgent in northern nigeria.

You can have a good Muslim society. But you need to copy off of countries like Turkey, not ones like Sudan or Yemen. Turkey had this badass leader named Kemal Ataturk, who forced his people to reject backwards ways and accept modern life. With similar sorts of modern leadership and reform, you could do well.

If you do not find your Ataturk, and stick with your current backwards ways and reject Western education and knowledge, then you'll become like the Niger Republic.